Star Wars: The Last Jedi - 9 Episode VII Problems It Must Avoid

In typical JJ Abrams style, The Force Awakens was full of big questions to be answered later: What happened between Luke and Kylo Ren? Who are Rey's parents? Why bother casting Gwendoline Christie for two minutes of screen-time? All will be revealed in two-hour instalments between now and 2019.

The problem is that, without George Lucas running the show, Star Wars is now constantly changing hands, and will see a large number of different story and directorial approaches in years to come. Originally, Star Wars was going to be a one-off deal for JJ Abrams, and his returning for Episode IX and having the opportunity to tie up the Sequel Trilogy's loose ends is a quirk of fate that only came about because of original director Colin Trevorrow being let go.

On top of that, Rian Johnson has revealed that his approach to The Last Jedi was to just take The Force Awakens as read and do his own thing rather than consulting Abrams. Meaning that, by the time Abrams is back in the director's chair, everything he had envisioned when making The Force Awakens could be completely out of the window, and bringing the threads together could be a big struggle.

What The Last Jedi Should Do: Answer the unanswered questions or let sleeping dogs lie, instead of piling on more mysteries for Episode IX to deal with.