Det har varit mycket snack om Star Wars framtid, där Kathleen Kennedy bland annat har pratat om utmaningen i att skapa en ny Star Wars-mytologi och det har dykt upp rapporter om att en ny Star Wars-film ska presenteras i januari. Inför den stundande premiären av The Rise of Skywalker, som bara är några veckor bort, har regissören J.J. Abrams även reflekterat över sin roll i Star Wars-världen i en intervju med Rolling Stone, där han bland annat avslöjar att han faktiskt förstår fansens kritik till The Force Awakens - en film som ju hämtade väldigt från originaltrilogin:
"I completely get the criticism, and for those who found it too much of an overlap, I say, 'I totally hear you and respect the review.' But the idea was to continue the story and to begin with this young woman who felt like Luke Skywalker was a myth. And to tell a story that was not just history repeating itself, but a story that embraced the movies that we know as the actual history of this galaxy. So that they are still living in a place where there is good versus evil, they're still living in the shadow of what has come before, still grappling with the sins of the father and the people who have preceded them. This was not about a nostalgia play. It felt, to me, like a way of saying, 'Let's go back to a Star Wars that we know, so we can tell another story.'
Han diskuterar även originaltrions roll i den nya filmserien och menar att Luke, Han och Leia fungerade bäst som stöd för en ny generation:
"It certainly could have been their story. But it felt like the way to use them was to be in support of a new story. The great thing about Star Wars fans is they care so much. And even those who are the most cynical or the most negative are still people who, for the most part, embrace what's being done, even just as fodder for debate. All I can say is that the main characters in this trilogy felt naturally connected to those characters that came before."
På samma gång uppskattade han Rian Johnsons val i The Last Jedi, den mest kontroversiella episoden i den nya filmserien, då han förstår att filmen behövde sin egen röst:
"When I read his first draft, it made me laugh, because I saw that was his take and his voice. I got to watch cuts of the movie as he was working on it, as an audience member. And I appreciated the choices he made as a filmmaker that would probably be very different from the choices that I would have made. Just as he would have made different choices if he had made Episode VII."
Han tillade:
"I felt the biggest surprise was how dark Luke was. That was the thing that I thought: 'Oh, that was unexpected.' And that's the thing The Last Jedi undeniably succeeds at, which is constant subversion of expectation. The number of things that happened in that movie that aren't the thing you think is going to happen is pretty fun."
Hur sugen är du på den nya episoden, nu när den är så nära?
