At the risk of jinxing himself, J.J. Abrams, the director of Star Wars: Episode IX, says that the film might be “incredibly special”.
There might not be another director with more pressure on him to succeed than J.J. Abrams and the upcoming Star Wars: Episode IX. Not only is the director tasked with ending this new trilogy but he also needs to finish the Skywalker saga in the process.
How is he feeling about the film’s prospects? Well, Abrams sat down with Fast Company for an extensive interview and one of the things he touched on was the difficulty of directing Episode IX but that he thinks he and his team might have just nailed it:
“Our movie was not just following what we had started [with The Force Awakens], it was following what we had started and then had been advanced by someone else [with Star Wars: The Last Jedi]. So there was that, and, finally, it was resolving nine movies. While there are some threads of larger ideas and some big picture things that had been conceived decades ago and a lot of ideas that Lawrence Kasdan and I had when we were doing Episode VII, the lack of absolute inevitability, the lack of a complete structure for this thing, given the way it was being run, was an enormous challenge.
SEE ALSO: J.J. Abrams almost said no to Star Wars: Episode IX
“However, to answer your question—truly, finally—now that I’m back, the difference is I feel like we might’ve done it. Like, I actually feel like this crazy challenge that could have been a wildly uncomfortable contortion of ideas, and a kind of shoving-in of answers and Band-Aids and bridges and things that would have felt messy. Strangely, we were sort of relentless and almost unbearably disciplined about the story and forcing ourselves to question and answer some fundamental things that at the beginning, I absolutely had no clue how we would begin to address.
“I feel like we’ve gotten to a place—without jinxing anything or sounding more confident than I deserve to be—I feel like we’re in a place where we might have something incredibly special. So I feel relief being home, and I feel gratitude that I got to do it. And more than anything, I’m excited about what I think we might have.”
This is certainly great to hear from a Star Wars fans perspective. Fingers crossed that Abrams’ instincts are right and that Episode IX is the movie we all hope it can be.
Star Wars: Episode IX is set for release on December 20th 2019 with 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 Mabeth), Richard E. Grant (Logan), Dominic Monaghan (Lost), and Keri Russell (The Americans).
Originally published April 11, 2019. Updated December 6, 2022.
