How You Can Tell The Magic Of Star Wars Is Gone

The Post-Last Jedi Backpedal

There's a very important reason Mark Hamill has been officially announced as Luke Skywalker for Episode IX, despite the character being dead...

Apologies.

Now, regardless of what you think of The Last Jedi, you have to admire the sheer gumption and risk undertaken by Rian Johnson, Kathleen Kennedy and everyone who signed off on the script at Disney. No one since George Lucas had written AND directed a Star Wars movie, and it could've signalled a new identity for the franchise: One where we learn to expect radical tonal and thematic shifts as Star Wars is given to different creative teams.

Sadly, unlike Rogue One, the result from Johnson just wasn't tight or satisfying enough to work for the majority, and since then, Episode IX's plans look to have been reworked for maximum amounts of fan-service.

We've got Keri Russell likely playing Rey's mother (yup... again), the aforementioned dead Luke Skywalker back on the cast list so people know he plays an important part. Even Billy Dee Williams is getting in shape at age 81 so we can have a Lando cameo.

If you believe the behind the scenes scuttlebutt, it's down to JJ Abrams being annoyed by what he was left with after The Last Jedi. We do know Rian Johnson threw out JJ's original Episode VIII ideas, but either way, Episode IX is in "minimise collateral damage" mode, and that's a problem.