Seeing how The Force Awakens could be regarded as one long homage/update of the original Star Wars, it certainly wouldn’t come as a shock to see J.J. Abrams pay tribute to the corresponding third installment in the Original Trilogy with next year’s Star Wars: Episode IX.
Indeed, that’s what’s suggested in the latest rumor dropped by Drunk Chicken TV, as the pic’s said to include a scene that strongly echoes Jabba’s palace segment of Return of the Jedi. Of course, the sluggish crime boss himself is a likely no-show, seeing how Princess Leia choked him to death in the 1983 film, but the Hutt bloodline may well live on in the form of Jabba’s son Rotta. This mollusk-like creature was a mere youngling when he was first introduced in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie, but in the decades since, he’s done a little growing up, with sources indicating that he may even be assisting the Resistance in their struggle against the First Order.
Apparently, Finn and Rose are set to meet up with Rotta on an undisclosed planet. At the same time, their friends Rey, Chewbacca, Lando and Maz Kanata will be up in space, riding on Maz’s sail barge – a ship said to resemble Jabba’s vehicle from the Sarlacc pit sequence in Return, but with huge metal wings.
Obviously, none of this information can be confirmed quite yet, but these reports do seem to fit quite well with the supposed leak from a couple of months ago. While this source also suggested a meeting between Finn, Rose and Rotta, they also claimed the involvement of another member of the Star Wars underworld, the shifty codebreaker DJ, whom our heroes reluctantly need for their newest plan.
Honestly, this all seems plausible enough, though it goes without saying that these claims should be taken with a grain of salt. Regardless, we’ll see what interplanetary drama Abrams really has in mind when Star Wars: Episode IX drops on December 20th, 2019.
