If you thought Saturday Night Live’s latest Star Wars audition tape sketch played like an advertisement for Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Jimmy Kimmel took things to a whole new level Monday night when he dedicated his entire late-night show to the new film. After all, now that Disney owns both ABC and Lucasfilm, it was all in the family.
Kimmel delivered his monologue in front of a glittering galaxy of stars, he presented a trailer parody that recast the movie as a romantic comedy, and shared a special Star Wars-themed “Lie Witness News” in which he tricked L.A. pedestrians into mistaking the movie’s mythology for real-life current events. Then, an unhinged Carrie Fisher popped up via hologram from backstage thanks to R2D2.
Later, Han Solo himself, Harrison Ford, made an appearance to help Kimmel talk Chewbacca out of committing suicide in an elaborate bit that ultimately transitioned into yet another parody of Adele’s “Hello.”
Kimmel’s first guest was J.J. Abrams, the director of The Force Awakens. Since the host knew Abrams wouldn’t give away any major spoilers about the film, he decided to grill him about Lost instead.
By the end of the interview, Kimmel had convinced Abrams to reveal one genuinely new piece of information about the film. The first word spoken on screen is… “This.” What does it mean?! Start your conspiracy theorizing now.
Even after sitting down with cast members Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, and Fisher, Kimmel was left with zero answers about what to expect in latest episode of the series. So he decided to close the show by pitting them against a young Star Wars expert in an epic battle of wits.