J.J. Abrams To Direct Star Wars: Episode IX; Premiere Date Pushed To December 2019 (theverge.com)

A week after Jurassic World's Colin Trevorrow was ousted from the Star Wars: Episode IX director's chair, a familiar face has stepped in to replace him: J.J. Abrams, the man responsible for successfully rebooting the new trilogy in 2015 with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. From a report: Disney just pushed back the release of Star Wars: Episode IX from May 2019 to December 2019, Deadline reports. The news comes after an announcement today that J.J. Abrams is taking over from Colin Trevorrow as director of the movie. Episode IX, originally slated to premiere on May 24th, 2019, was supposed to be a return to May release dates for the Star Wars franchise. Back in 2015, The Force Awakens was also originally supposed to be released in the summer, but was moved to a December release after Abrams took over screenwriting duties with Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi) and needed more time.

Comments

Yay... Abrams

[JaredOfEuropa]

"Reboot" is the right word for The Force Awakens. Are there any writers left in Hollywood these days or is it just a bunch of guys rehashing old material? Though to be fair, I was (relatively) pleasantly surprised by Rogue One.

Re:Yay... Abrams

[Anonymous Coward]

Too much grrl power feminism in rogue one. She went from nobody to jedi master in 17 minutes.

Re: Yay... Abrams

[Anonymous Coward]

You must not have watched Star Wars. Luke doesn't duel Vader until two movies in, and he loses. Rey not only duels Darth Teenage Angst, she beats him, in a single movie.

Re: Yay... Abrams

[Anonymous Coward]

Luke does not instaneously become a Jedi master. His development is clear and methodical over the course of years and three full length films. We also are given justification in ANH when Ben discussed Luke's heritage for why Luke might have potent sensitivity to the force. Despite that, he even fails at blocking laser bolts with his blast shield down to show us that he isn't picking it up immediately. He also fails at lifting the X-wing in ESB if you need additional evidence.

We as audience members are not given the same justifications with Rey. Aside from the title being TFA and it doing just that with Rey, we are given little else to help us understand her ability level. The concerns that Rey is a Mary Sue are valid, and covered in more depth by YouTube creators such as banditincorporated.

First time commenter here. I normally just watch from the sidelines but I couldn't let that comment stand on its own.

Re: Yay... Abrams

[gl4ss]

r1 was okay..

jj abrams however now has fucked plot sensibilities by screwing over several plot devices(by just being plain fucking stupid and inept at writing a plotline to fit the action he wants that wouldn't piss over everything) of TWO franchises.

he did it to star trek, he did it to star wars. and for those of not understanding what I'm talking about... force awakens provides a way to use hyperspace in a way that makes plotlines of pretty much all of the previous star wars movies irrelevant - and even force awakens itself!

the star trek reboot is full of gadgets that make the plotlines stupid, the traveltimes make NO SENSE at all and so forth. klingon homeworld is now literally 1 second or 15 minutes away, depending on your chosen mode of transportation. even fucking Q made more sense.

Re:Yay... Abrams

[Anonymous Coward]

> Too much grrl power feminism in rogue one. She went from nobody to jedi master in 17 minutes.

You're thinking of The Force Awakens.

In Rogue One she went from nobody to dead in 130 minutes.

Re:Yay... Abrams

[SvnLyrBrto]

Um... No.

Sure, they made her kinda badass... justifiable, seeing as she was basically raised by a rebel fighter a bit too extreme of a fighter for the rest of the rebellion. But besides wearing a kyber crystal around her neck, there was nothing Jedi-like about Jyn Erso at all. The only one who displayed anything like force powers was the blind guy with the bo-staff. Well, him and Darth Vader, of course.

And strong females are hardly new to Star Wars. Yes, since it was basically "The Hidden Fortress... IN SPAAACE!!!", the narrative of A New Hope required Princess Leia to be in need of rescue. But did you forget that she was already a rebel agent using her senate position and diplomatic status as cover for espionage and started the movie off by:

1) Passing the Death Star plans off to R2-D2 so her mission would still be completed.
2) Gunning down Stormtroopers to create a distraction, and:
3) Telling off Darth Vader himself, before he knew he even had a daughter, and was very much in a larynx-crushing mood.

Re: Yay... Abrams

[SvnLyrBrto]

Yeah. But did you look at the how poor Darth Emo's form and technique were? He was a brawler, and not a very good one at that. He had no speed or finesse, and used nothing but power moves... which he telegraphed every time. If it weren't for the fact that his weapon of choice was a goddamned lightsaber, there are bars within walking distance of where I'm sitting right now that he wouldn't be able to enter without getting a serious beating and his ass tossed out into the gutter. (Before you fire off the snark, I'm not claiming to be badass myself. I'd get my ass kicked and tossed into the gutter if I were dumb enough to go to these bars too.).

Re: Yay... Abrams

[Anonymous Coward]

even fucking Q made more sense.

Somehow I seemed to have missed that episode of TNG (thankfully...that's an image of Picard I probably could never get out of my head).

Re: Yay... Abrams

[thegarbz]

But it's cool when Luke does the same thing.

Rei: Goes from no powers to mind control followed by using the force to fling things around before even getting off the planet they were fleeing, proceeds to kill a Kylo Ren who had been perfecting his powers for years under a Sith master.

Luke: Unable to sense bolt blasters for an entire space flight. Soon after being taught by the best Jedi master in the universe and spitting the dummy when unable to lift simple stones. Even after a few weeks of training his skill level is still basic. He then proceeds to get his arse kicked.

Yeah totally the same thing.

Re: Yay... Abrams

[AmiMoJo]

Kylo Ren is no Darth Vader. He aspires to be, but he's a long way from there in the movie. And don't forget that Vader lost to Obi Wan pretty decisively, losing three limbs and nearly dying, when a similar age to Ren. And Ren is already injured when the fight gets started.

I think the bottom line is that when force sensitive individuals start waving light sabres around, a weapon that will hack of a limb with a mere touch, all bets are off.

Re: Yay... Abrams

[AmiMoJo]

While Rey's development is a bit rushed, it was probably a consequence of Mark Hamil getting old more than anything. If he were younger the central character would probably have been Luke fighting a resurgence of the Sith/Empire.

Having said that, what extraordinary abilities does she actually demonstrate during that film? She manages to pilot the Falcon reasonably well, and barely escape a fight with Kylo Ren without really beating him, and of course Ren's abilities are nothing like as developed as Vader's were - even his light sabre is a crude imitation, unable to produce the smooth, controlled beam that well made ones could. The "guard" actually seems to be an exhaust of some sort for the poorly controlled power supply.

Hopefully the next film will explain a lot more about who Rey is and why she has strong force powers. My guess would be that she is related to Luke somehow, or maybe Kylo.

Re:Yay... Abrams

[rtb61]

The problem is Jar Jar Abrams is strictly second set, knows how to do actions scenes but is crap at telling a story and family connections gets him the work. In the end instead of the actions scenes just being bits to tell the story, the actions scenes become the story and the story are just same nothing bits used to try to stitch the action scenes together. Crappy action scenes that do nothing much for the story but they look OK. Jar Jar Abrams the franchise killer.

Re: Yay... Abrams

[GeekWithAKnife]

Luke does not instaneously become a Jedi master. His development is clear and methodical over the course of years and three full length films. We also are given justification in ANH when Ben discussed Luke's heritage for why Luke might have potent sensitivity to the force. Despite that, he even fails at blocking laser bolts with his blast shield down to show us that he isn't picking it up immediately. He also fails at lifting the X-wing in ESB if you need additional evidence. We as audience members are not given the same justifications with Rey. Aside from the title being TFA and it doing just that with Rey, we are given little else to help us understand her ability level. The concerns that Rey is a Mary Sue are valid, and covered in more depth by YouTube creators such as banditincorporated. First time commenter here. I normally just watch from the sidelines but I couldn't let that comment stand on its own.

Dude, you hide your bias well enough but it;s clear that you are being sexist! Just because she's a girl does not mean she cannot go from starship dumpster diver to supremo jedi -The force was "calling out" to her. The bug-eyed lady said so! (And Kylo told supreme leader that she's powerful, more than she knows - although he didn't talk to her about how much she thinks she's powerful so it was a bit ???)

Anyways, you think it didn't have justification? That there's not enough development but in reality all the movie is doing is catching up to all the content released in games for so many years. -did you not play KOTOR?? After 40 minutes of game play my character was shooting force lightning twice a battle. That's fucking cool! -now if you wanna see a proper evolution and progression Annakin going from accidental boy pod fixer genius to evil pregnant wife choking sith that's the story arc to match.(!)

You are too concerned with boring parallels that no one cares about. You;re probably just being nostalgic of those old awful films. You want me to see that Empire Strike's Back boringest movie again where the Jedi gets lost, loses his space ship, fails to train well and then loses to that Vader dude? - My emotional life is difficult enough I don't need that "No Luke I am your brother" baggage stuff.

Seriously why do I have to wait three movies for some wannabe jedi to master the force? Cant we just get to the cool part of the story where the force is actually mastered and proceed to kick all the baddies' asses and have like 13 Siths die every minute? Let's get them back for what they did to the younglings in the Jedi temple. Obi Wan brought me to tears when he said Darth Annakin was killing younglings!!!

Look all that stuff is boring. The cool bit was whenre the green dude was fighting that force lightning fellah. We need more of that! Just imagine it now; against an all powerful Jedi master the Siths will become like cannon fodder, basically. At the end, after almost losing to a super trained Kylo Ren, Rey can do the force Hadouken on him against a large rock like that game cinematic thing. The scenes are gonna be so stylistically dense AND we'll get lens flare. Maybe the force will call out to Finn too (trends well with ethnic groups) and then he and Rey can be like a mixed race Jedi power couple that kicks ass. This is gonna be amazing!!!

(I've noticed a lot of people miss it so I must add a May the 4th /sarcasm be with you flag. There.)

Re: Yay... Abrams

[AmiMoJo]

Rei: Goes from no powers to mind control followed by using the force to fling things around before even getting off the planet they were fleeing, proceeds to kill a Kylo Ren who had been perfecting his powers for years under a Sith master.

Your argument would be more convincing if you managed to get basic details about the movie correct.

Rei's mind control powers only emerged after Kylo Ren had demonstrated them to her when trying to interrogate her. At the time she was strapped to an interrogation table waiting to be tortured, implying that the stress pushed her to use force powers. That's consistent with how force powers manifested for other users, e.g. Luke when he needs to make that critical shot, or contact his sister to be rescued after losing to Vader. It's well established that stress and powerful emotions like anger interact with force abilities.

Rei also failed to kill Kylo Ren. The battle ended in something of a stalemate, and Ren started out carrying an injury.

Ren's force powers seem to be relatively weak. He doesn't demonstrate anything like the power that other trained users did, and none of the typical dark side stuff like lightning or force-choking. His light sabre is also pretty poor quality, unable to form a solid steady beam. It's not clear how much training he has had, that hasn't been revealed yet, he seems to lack the discipline that Vader and other Sith had, being prone to emotional outbursts and still struggling with links to his family (which is why killing Han is so important).

Even after a few weeks of training his skill level is still basic. He then proceeds to get his arse kicked.

Right, because he didn't have enough training. After that he trains by himself, with no guidance, for an unspecified period of time but it only seems to be a year at most between ESB and ROTJ. At that point he has got good enough not only to beat Vader but the Emperor as well, at the same time.

Maybe, as every DBZ fan eventually realizes, power levels are bullshit.

Re:Yay... Abrams

[penandpaper]

Abrams directed Force Awakens. But Gareth Edwards directed Rogue One. Edwards normally directed monster movies in the past and in showed in Rogue One.

On a personal note, Rogue One was infinitely better to watch than Force Awakens.

Re: Yay... Abrams

[RavenLrD20k]

"The echo chamber is getting worse every day."

Kinda like Lando's deal with the Empire?

Re: Yay... Abrams

[Rakarra]

Yeah. But did you look at the how poor Darth Emo's form and technique were? He was a brawler, and not a very good one at that.

Also, he had already been shot in the side by Chewbacca, a pretty critical wound. You'd think something like that would weaken a guy. He was still able to pretty easily handle Finn, but his second fight gets him into trouble.

I still feel like Rei developed mastery of The Force in a ridiculously short amount of time. Like... 5 minutes after she first learns she can use The Force she's already mind-controlling Daniel Craig.

Not convinced this is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

JJ is famous for settings things up and then spectacularly failing to follow through. I enjoy his work until it all falls apart because he doesn't know how to finish/close a narrative and that does not bode well for a trilogy.

Re:Not convinced this is a good idea

[alvinrod]

I think the real problem with his work is that he's completely willing to sacrifice almost everything in favor of whatever scene in the movie he currently wants to happen even if it ruins other aspects of the movie. For example, in The Force Awakens I was generally okay with the story up until the attack on the Death Star (or whatever it was called, but it's the new Death Star so whatever) begins and it fires its huge burst of energy across the galaxy that is somehow going to hit the target in a small amount of time and the rebel forces are also able to almost immediately travel across the entire galaxy while being on comms in real time.

The rules for space travel in Star Wars are never really well explained, largely because they don't need to be, but those scenes seem to violate our understanding of how travel works from previous installments. Just the fact that you can communicate instantly in real time across those distances (and while traveling no less) pretty much makes the other movies make no sense since once you get the plans for the Death Star in the original movie, just instantly communicate them across the galaxy. Same shit with TPM, just instantly communicate that you're being invaded across the galaxy. But Abrams had written himself into a corner and logic had to die on the altar of the scene he wanted to happen.

I could overlook most of the criticism that were levied towards TFA when it came out as it was a generally well made movie, but that part just made me want to yell at the movie for being so stupid because the universe was no longer internally consistent. Him and Lindelof can fuck off of having anything to do with a script as they care far too much about the moment to the detriment of the whole. It was the same shit with new Star Trek films where who cares about any established rules of the universe, because it's time for this next really cool scene to happen now.

Re:Not convinced this is a good idea

[SvnLyrBrto]

Screw all that.

I'm still a bit annoyed that Nero bothered with the "revenge against Vulcan and Earth" thing at all; instead of flying off to Romulus and having a nice little chat with the Praetor:

"Hi there. I'm Nero. Like my ship? See how impressive it is and how it out-classes anything you, the Klingons, or the Federation have, even though it's really just a mining ship? Well, I'm from the future. More proof? Well, according to the copy of 'Grays Sports Almanac, Romulan Empire Edition' in my ship's computer, the Remans are going to win tonight's grav-ball game, 63-61. Let's chat tomorrow."

"Hi. Good morning. I'm still Nero. Did you enjoy the grab-ball game? Yeah, a real shocker. I bet everyone in the empire thought that Romulus was going to win, right up until the last pentameter. So yeah... Do you believe me about the whole 'being from the future' thing now? Great. Let's do lunch."

"Wow, I haven't had grilled trait that tender in ages. So hey... you know that red giant star over there, just a couple light-years away from Romulus, across the sector border? Yes, that's the one. You know how your neutrino detectors show that fusion has nearly stopped in its core? Well, that star's going to be a problem. It's going to go supernova in exactly 102 years 4 days 3 hours and 42 minutes. Woah! I must have a little bit of Vulcan in me. But anyway, since I'm from the future, I know that. When it explodes, the Vulcans are going to try to keep it from destroying Romulus by using something called red matter. It doesn't make any sense. But they're going to fail. So you should probably see about evacuating the planet. The more than a century of heads-up I just gave you should be more than enough time; especially seeing as I have this giant spaceship here filled with technology from your future."

"Hi. I'm still Nero. So... can anyone recommend a good tattoo-removal place?"

Wars vs. Trek [Re:Yay... Abrams ]

[Tablizer]

or is it just a bunch of guys rehashing old material?

Rehash is fine as long as you do it well. I for one would love to see a try at Star Wars vs. Star Trek. The culture clash of the different viewpoints and problem-solving techniques could make for fun drama. The movie doesn't really have to waste time setting up the culture context because most the audience already knows both groups: it can jump right into the paradigm clashes.

Imagine Spock and Yoda conversing:

Yoda: "Vulcan logic and the logic of The Force, same thing are not."

Spock: "Logic is universal until proven otherwise."

Yoda: "Universal assumption, logical it is not. Test entire universe you cannot."

Spock: "I've never seen good logic fail."

Yoda: "Get out more, you need."

Spock: "I think I've met enough Yoda's already, thank you very much."

Re: Ok, 2019

[Tablizer]

Jar Jar Trump

"Meesa besta, beleeba me! I knowa Forca better den Jedi Jedi and tall piles of Vaders. Ignore fakie forcy; bigly loser losers licky fakie forcy, so sadly. #MRGA!"

I sense a disturbance

[PoopJuggler]

As if millions of voices cried out in terror

Jar Jar Abrahams again!?!? Noooooo!!!!!!

[williamyf]

If his first star wars movie (or his second star trek one) is any indication of Jar Jar Abraham's ingenuity, I guess that Star Wars Ep. IX will go something like this:

In Ep VIII, Flinn was captured by some evildoer, so Rey goes to the bad guy's lair and pretends to be taken prisoner in order to free him with her Jedi Might, Cleansing the lair in the process by killing most of the evildoers and even making some of them be eaten by mighty giant lifeform.

Then we move to a new threat from the new order, a new spherical object of doom orbiting a sacred-forest-planet where a station is beaming a shield to protect it. A party composed of Flynn and pilot guy go there to deactivate the shield, and fins some utterly cute merchandiseable lifeform opressed by the new order, which help them deactivate said shield (and blow the unfinished evil spherical object of doom to smithereens), while Kylo Ren takes Rey to Face Snooke, resulting in redemption for Kylo and death for snooke...

If we are goin to recycle: Can I propose a better recycled idea for Ep IX?
Here it is:

While traveling throught the galaxy, the rebels encounter a planet, were they are attacked by a hermaphrodite local, are forced to kill this local using the force, orphaning his/her child named Fallom. They take Fallom with them.

After traveling some more, and arriving to a small planet with a single moon, RtwoDtwO speaks, not with beeps, but with a voice, reveals that his initials are RDO, that he is a telepathic robot created eons ago by Roj Nemennuh Sarton and Han Fastolfe, that he has been guiding the Galaxy behind the scenes, and that, since his positronic brain is failing, he needs to merge his consciousness with Fallom in order to continue guiding the Galaxy like a father figure, as he always has.

I mean, is at the same level of imagination as what Jar Jar Abrahams did in Episode 7!

Must not have watched Rogue One either...

[gosand]

Because I don't recall any girl becoming a Jedi master in Rogue One.

I do have to wonder if in The Force Awakens, Rey had been male instead of female if everyone's panties would be all bunched up about becoming a Jedi so quickly.

I actually didn't mind TFA that much. It was somewhat of a reboot, but it kind of needed that after all the other garbage Star Wars movies. (and by that, I mean everything since Empire Strikes Back)

Favorite Part of the Movie

[DarthVain]

My favorite part of the movie was where two anonymous Storm Troopers are walking down a corridor, and they hear Darth Teenage Angst having a fit in the next room, one signals to the other, and they immediately head in a different direction...

Why I like it:
1) Even with zero dialog it is hilarious
2) Typically in the past Storm Troopers were pretty much put in the movie to die, they are just hero cannon fodder, adds some humanism to them. Probably why they just went with Robots in the prequels.
3) I like to think with the story line of the ex-Trooper hero, that this was also done intentionally as a further device to show that Storm Troopers are individuals and not just clone robots, or brain washed cannon fodder.

That said, when the ex-Trooper goes rogue for his sensibilities about killing people, he does a pretty good job of mass murdering a lot of his comrades in arms on the way out and after...

Also on an somewhat unrelated note, I thought the plot device of the Super Death Star was a bit silly and anime. I mean what can we expect in the next one? A Super Duper Death Star twice as big as the last?

I'll pay a writer 100$ if they can sneak in a line for when the hero's scan the new Super Duper Death Star, when a screen starts flashing increasing numbers beyond 9000, that says something to the effect Ray: "This Cannot Be!. ... It's over 9000!" Luke: "No... no... that's not true!... that's impossible!"