The Last Jedi er uden tvivl den mest kontroversielle Star Wars-film til dato, hvor instruktør Rian Johnson tilsyneladende tog stor glæde i at undergrave folks forventninger efter The Force Awakens. Nu er instruktøren bag den film, J.J. Abrams, tilbage i stolen på Rise of Skywalker, og han indrømmer nu at han havde gjort tingene meget anderledes, hvis han også havde instrueret den foregående film.
I et interview med Rolling Stone (via IGN) fortæller Abrams, at en række afgørende narrative beslutninger havde gået anderledes, hvis han havde bestemt.
"When I read his first draft, it made me laugh, because I saw that was [Rian Johnson's] 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."
Dog slår Abrams fast at, The Last Jedi, til trods, så vil Rise of Skywalker ende der hvor han og manuskriptforfatter Lawrence ("Larry") Kasdan havde forestillet sig det.
"I had a real sense with [The Force Awakens co-screenwriter] Larry Kasdan about where things would go, potentially. And I think that, when I read Rian's script, what I felt was that with everything that happens in that movie, and quite a lot does, nothing sort of obviated a sense of inevitability where I thought the story could go."
Vi krydser fingre for at Rise of Skywalker bliver en solid Star Wars-film.