According to J.J. Abrams, Star Wars: The Last Jedi in no way stopped any of his plans for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi certainly featured plenty of shocking moments, with director Rian Johnson making a handful of decisions that Episode VII director J.J. Abrams apparently wouldn’t have thought of.
However, Abrams has revealed that The Last Jedi hasn’t stopped any of his overall plans for the saga and that Episode IX can continue on as he envisioned it doing. Speaking to Esquire, Abrams said:
“There were some choices that made things a bit more fun for us, because, for example, Rian didn’t have the whole group collaborative adventure of it together, and that was really fun to get to tell the story of the group, the droids, out on one breakneck, crazy, desperate adventure. You know? The choices that he made for me were as a fan, as a reader of the script, a fan of his, a fan of Star Wars… it was just fun to read someone’s take that was so about surprising the viewer and it was just really entertaining, because it was, it got to surprise me nearly every time. So, I loved it for that.
“As a filmmaker, working on Episode IX, amazingly, nothing that he did in Last Jedi got in the way of things that we had talked about wanting to do down the line, ideas that I had about where things might go, so… it wasn’t like his story somehow derailed the things I wanted to pursue. In fact, strangely, they might have even helped strengthen them because we got to make some choices that sort of take advantage of the fact that Rian hadn’t done the things that we were thinking about doing.”
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Just how Episdoe IX fits in with the saga so far we do not know, but luckily, it isn’t long before we can find out. Fingers crossed The Rise of Skywalker is the ending all three trilogies deserve.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is set for release on December 19th 2019 in the UK and December 20th 2019 in North America. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker sees J.J. Abrams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) directing a cast that includes Star Wars veterans Daisy Ridley (Rey), Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), John Boyega (Finn), Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron), Lupita Nyong’o (Maz Kanata), Domhnall Gleeson (General Hux), Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico), Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca), Billie Lourd (Lieutenant Connix), Greg Grunberg (Snap Wexley), Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian) and Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa) as well as new additions Naomi Ackie (Lady Macbeth), Richard E. Grant (Logan), Dominic Monaghan (Lost), and Keri Russell (The Americans).