Star Wars 9 is going to continue down the path set by both Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. That’s the opinion of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker director J.J. Abrams, who recently quelled any fears that the divisive eighth episode of the Star Wars franchise complicated the trilogy’s finale plans.
“The story that we’re telling [in Star Wars 9], the story that we started to conceive when we did Force Awakens was allowed to continue,” Abrams told ET Canada.
Abrams went on to say, on the topic of plans he may have had well in advance, “[The Last Jedi] didn’t really derail anything we were thinking about.”
Star Wars: The Last Jedi, of course, shook up a galaxy far, far away more than perhaps any movie in the Star Wars universe before it. Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker faded away during the closing moments while Supreme Leader Snoke – seemingly set up as the Big Bad in The Force Awakens – was unceremoniously dispatched midway through by Kylo Ren.
After all, a billion-dollar trilogy going in without a plan in advance would really see the Sith hit the fan in a big way. It’s clear that, for Abrams at least, it’s very much business as usual.
