Star Wars: Episode IX - 9 Reasons JJ Abrams Is The Right Choice To Direct

5. The Last Threequel He Directed Was Awesome

Mission Impossible 3 Tom Cruise
Paramount

Not that this will impact how he'll craft Episode IX, but the last time J.J. Abrams stepped into the director's chair for the third entry in a franchise, he made Mission: Impossible 3, one of the best movies in the series.

Sure, Episode IX is technically the ninth Star Wars saga movie, but it's the third part of Rey's story, and the third part of this new trilogy - so it can be considered both a threequel and a... ninequel?

If nothing else, Abrams' MI3 success speaks to his ability to direct a movie featuring characters, subplots and a tone that were all set up by another director in the movie(s) before, which will be the case with Rian Johnson and Episode VIII.

Yes, a lot of recurring ideas and characters were set up by Abrams himself in Episode VII, but since he doesn't have an official writing credit on Episode VIII, he'll have to work with all of the new things Rian Johnson brings to the table.

This means Episode IX will have to use Episode VIII as a baseline, but that's fine - MI3 proved he can pull someone else's pieces together with great results.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!