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Episode 9 Will Conclude the Skywalker Saga
At the end of last week, Disney announced that next year’s Star Wars: Episode 9 would be the last in the Skywalker Saga. This isn’t necessarily a surprise. It wouldn’t be a good idea to do a fourth trilogy about this space family. There is something beautiful about the symmetry in there being a trilogy of Star Wars trilogies.
But what did come as a surprise is that the late Carrie Fisher would be reprising her role as General Leia Organa for the conclusion of the Saga. What they will do to bring her back is to use footage from The Force Awakens that was left on the cutting room floor. Now, what this footage could be is totally unknown at this point. It could be anything. But it is very intriguing to see how the filmmakers could make a cohesive story and arc for her using this method. And since the movie won’t even begin filming until this week, there is still a lot of time left for speculation and new details to come out.
Spoilers for The Last Jedi ahead!
Another piece of information that we learned was that Mark Hamill will be returning as Luke Skywalker. The surprise in this comes from the fact that Luke died at the end of Episode 8. An easy explanation for this is that once he died, he went to go hang out with his father (Anakin) and Yoda as a Force ghost. I’d like to see him guide Rey the way Obi-Wan guided him in the original trilogy.
But what excites me most about this is that someone has to be the Skywalker that will be mainly focused on in this final chapter. I’m past believing that Rey is somehow secretly a Skywalker, so I think we will get to see Kylo Ren – or Ben Solo – taken to some really interesting places. The idea is that Rey is the clear hero and Ben is the evil villain. But throughout the first two movies in this trilogy, he has shown a lot of complexity and conflict within himself. All of that can’t be thrown out the window to say that he’s now purely evil. Even Darth Vader, the one who was supposed to be the epitome of evil and the polar opposite of good, still had light left in him. I think this is definitely the case with Ben Solo and I’m excited to see the direction he’s taken in and what the finish line looks like for him. At its core, the Star Wars saga has always been about the Skywalkers and their redemptive capabilities. I really think this final chapter will follow the course with Ben.
There are so many directions this last chapter could go and almost no hints as to where the filmmakers are taking it. That is really exciting. Hopefully it will be able to recapture the magic that Episode 7 did with J.J. Abrams back at the helm.