After Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi proved divisive (to say the least), most expect Disney and Lucasfilm to play it safe with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Installing J.J. Abrams as director seemed like an indication that they were hoping for a return to the crowd-pleasing nostalgia trip of The Force Awakens, as did the reveal that Ian McDiarmid’s Emperor Palpatine would be making a comeback. But Abrams is certainly taking on a lot with the movie, which is being billed as bookending the Skywalker saga that began way back in 1977’s A New Hope.
The director recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the film and explained how he sees it fitting into the franchise as a whole, saying:
“This is about bringing this thing to a close in a way that is emotional and meaningful and also satisfying in terms of actually answering [as many] questions as possible. So if years from now, someone’s watching these movies, all nine of them, they’re watching a story that is as cohesive as possible.”
Is that sentiment really possible? After all, it’s a little jarring going from Revenge of the Sith to A New Hope, let alone watching the whole thing as a nonology. Particularly brave and dedicated Stars Wars fans will be able to test the waters first on the day of release, with AMC offering a 27-hour marathon that covers the entire series up to and including the new film. However, at least from the sounds of things, Abrams and writer Chris Terrio have put some serious thought into making this work.
“While there were many things that were planned for and discussed — George Lucas himself said when he created this he saw it as three, three-act plays — that doesn’t mean there isn’t discovery, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that come up that make you realize, ‘Oh, here’s an opportunity.’ “It also doesn’t mean that there’s a list of payoffs that we have to do because of setups. But we also were very much aware this is the end of the trilogy and it needs to satisfy. We went into this thing knowing it has to be an ending. We’re not screwing around.”
Positive stuff, but is this really an ending? Disney will release more movies, and if the Sequel Trilogy is judged to be a success, said movies may feature Rey, Finn, Poe and all the rest. Those characters are now permanently embedded in the long history of the franchise, so it’s arguable that any future film with major Sequel Trilogy characters in it will be a further continuation of the Skywalker saga.
But whatever the case, we’ll have to wait until December 20th to truly know what the new status quo is in a galaxy far, far away, as that’s when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will finally be with us.
