This is a simple question to ask any Star Wars fan these days: can Star Wars Episode 9 be saved? After Episode 8, Star Wars The Last Jedi had caused a schism in the fanbase. Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker is the final episode in the trilogy, and it needs to hit home.
But how is that even possible, when The Last Jedi did away with all the setups from Episode 7? What is there to do in Episode 9? Essentially, whatever it wants.
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JJ Abrams isn’t repairing The Last Jedi
So JJ isn’t trying to fix the problems of what came before. Smart.
One possible way a writer can write a sequel (of a movie that is so fundamentally broken) is to disregard it as much as possible. Don’t try to fill in plot holes, inconsistencies, or lore breaking moments; the less said the better. Do your own thing. But still, you have to connect something to what came before.
That is dependent purely on the events of the previous plot(s). The Last Jedi has a rather stupid (everyone acts stupid), inconsistent (Finn & Rose escape the First Order’s light speed tracking, cloaking scans are now a thing, shields and their function are called into question, etc.), and banal one (Canto Bight: pointless. A slow speed car chase in space where no one gains any ground? Really.) The characters end up exactly where they started: on the run from the First Order. Aside from having Luke and Snoke dead (but they were never part of the plot), and about 20 people left of the Resistance, they all (seemingly) get away on the Millennium Falcon. (I guess lightspeed tracking just stopped working again.)
Just forget about Episode 8
Thus, an Episode 9 sequel can ultimately forget the plot of the previous movie. Because it had no plot worth sharing.
Sadly, this gives us nothing. There’s no build up. All setups are worthless. There are no two movies worth of promise of a payoff to come. Just random events, all over again, playing with whatever new themes or characters reveals the script can come up with. The concept of a trilogy exists in number only.
But can Star Wars Episode 9 be saved? That doesn’t say that Episode 9 can’t be good by itself; it simply has no support from its’ previous chapters.
JJ Abrams isn’t repairing The Last Jedi, but some things literally are being fixed.
So JJ Abrams goes on record for saying he’s not repairing the events of The Last Jedi. Okay, fine. So then why does he talk about Kylo’s repaired helmet?
We also know that Anakin, or Luke’s original blue lightsaber is back in Rey’s hands. Was that repaired? Or is it simply a new lightsaber, complete with a new kyber crystal that Rey found, with exactly the same looking hilt?
Can Star Wars Episode 9 be saved, if we fix parts of The Last Jedi (in which there are hundreds?) Perhaps. It depends on how you go about fixing them.
Time Travel?
One thing that explains the events of the trailer: time travel. How else do we get all these oldschool (original trilogy) Star Destroyers out of nowhere? How did Rey get Anakin’s lightsaber back? How is Emperor Palpatine laughing at the end? Is nothing truly gone (because of time travel?) We could argue Rey has some sacred Jedi texts on how to build a lightsaber, but we can’t explain away anything else.
Or, an even worse idea? It was all one crazy Force dream meant to trick the audience through misleading marketing. While we’re asking “Can Star Wars Episode 9 be saved?” What we should be asking: “can Star Wars be saved?”
Brie Larson rumoured to star in new Star Wars trilogy?
I’m not an MCU or Marvel fan, so I don’t really watch the Marvel movies, or read the later versions of the Marvel comics. But moving talent and resources over from one of Disney’s successful movie franchises to it’s slightly less successful one seems like a logical, executive decision a company spending millions to make billions would do.
However, Brie Larson probably isn’t the actor to do so. While an actor is only as good as the character in the story they’re portrarying — based on the script — an actor can elevate that character based on their range of expression. Brie really hasn’t proven herself in her Marvel debut as Captain Marvel. The message of the movie: don’t listen to authority, and instead, express your feelings. Which allows Carol or Vers to became an upstoppable flying superhero. Very Mary Sue like; just like Rey. However, this is the opposite of the lesson of Poe Dameron in The Last Jedi: follow your orders blindly from your (female) superiors.
But movies, or stories, can be their own thing
This is not to infer that different movies with different themes showcased are the full extent of an actors’ talent or range. Or, that the next movie in the trilogy (which is decidedly different and can be disconnected from the previous) can’t be about whatever the writer wants, and that it doesn’t need to maintain themes. The character of Carol Danvers simply didn’t resonate well with audiences. Her struggle to be emotional and act indepently in her story is simply contradictory to the events and theme of following orders in The Last Jedi.
Nor should Brie necessarily be cast for something like Episode 9. Although if she were to play a stoic Jedi, or just some crazed emotional Sith who believed in women power, I guess she’s the actor for the job. )Not to say Darth Maul, for example, was some compelling character.) Whether that’s in a stand alone Star Wars movie, or a new trilogy, remains to be seen. It just doesn’t seem like a good fit (as we’ve seen with miscasting of Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu in the prequel trilogy.)
Can Star Wars Episode 9 be saved with a great casting and thus, acting? Not likely. Only if the script works. (It wouldn’t hurt, though.)
Marvel’s Kevin Feige will be brought into the Star Wars franchise
So now we shift to producing.
We saw this with the move of Kevin Feige of MCU fame, to make at least one new Star Wars film. Now this could be about other projects as well, including Indiana Jones and the Children of Blood and Bone franchises he now has access to. It makes perfect sense to bring one money maker form one franchise to start up another successful series of films in another. He’s their golden goose: why risk it on someone else?
So while we have every confidence that Kevin Feige can turn a profit for Disney, that doesn’t necessarily mean the quality of the stories of Disney’s Star Wars will be up to original trilogy standards. With at least one film slated for him to work on, we have to judge that accordingly; it could just be the one, post-Episode 9, that could save Star Wars.
So Can Star Wars Episode 9 be saved with a new producer? Maybe. With Kevin Feige and his new Star Wars movie, at least at the box office. With JJ Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, and Michelle Rejwan in Episode 9? Highly unlikely.
George Lucas feeling betrayed?
From a recent book by Bob Iger, it’s revealed that George Lucas wasn’t happy with the creative direction of the franchise after he sold his creative rights to LucasFilm’s Kathleen Kennedy. He assumed they would take his outlines for another trilogy series that looked at the microscopic world of the Force, and the various organisms therein.
While I’m all for more science fiction in my sci-fi space operas, this could have been a horrible idea (e.g. mitichlorians, a retcon of the force, from Episode 1.) Many could say that they’d rather have seen a more detailed explanation of the physical workings of the force, or Star Wars in general, in comparison to Rian Johnson’s take on Rey and Luke’s continued stories.
Regardess of the level of science. or man vs technology themes in Episode 9, it must bring back consumer confidence in the brand, if any further movies or content are to be considered worthwhile to sensible fans of the series. With the quitting of Catherine Powell from Disney’s Star Wars theme park this year, after her 15 year stint, possibly due to low attendance, some big changes need to start happening.
Can Star Wars Episode 9 be saved?
In a popular tweet, Mark Hamill attacks Ivanka Trump’s family. Politics is always a daily event on social media. But for the bigger names of the franchise to attack children, simply for being fans, and having a certain last name? This is not how one builds consumer confidence.
Can Star Wars Episode 9 be saved? Not when the biggest name associated for it’s fame starts attacking its fans, especially innocent children.
