The Biggest Problem With Star Wars: The Last Jedi Is J.J. Abrams

1. What About Episode IX?

As we've seen, a lot of the biggest problems with The Last Jedi stem from decisions J.J. Abrams did (or didn't) make, from making Snoke such a blank canvas that you could project just about anything on to him, to leaving Rey's parentage as vague as possible, and various other kernels of ideas without much substance to them. It would've been easy for Johnson to take this template and simply mirror The Empire Strikes Back, have Snoke be Palpatine, have Rey be Luke's daughter and so on. Instead, he took those kernels of ideas, those mystery boxes, kept the most interesting ones and turned them into actual character arcs: Rey becomes a hero despite not being from a special family, Kylo Ren becomes so much more than a Darth Vader wannabe, Snoke becomes one of the most stunning twists in recent blockbuster history.

But where this gets really interesting is the fact that, unexpectedly, J.J. Abrams is returning to the saga. It's not a position he ever expected, but after Colin Trevorrow's firing and Lucasfilm's issues with directors, he's back in the hot-seat, and will find himself needing to actually deliver answers himself. He is a good filmmaker, and with Chris Terrio co-writing the script there should be a decent balance there, but the jury is nonetheless out.

The Last Jedi means there are numerous possibilities for Abrams with the trilogy closer, because - with Episode VIII containing elements of both Empire and Return of the Jedi along with lots of its own new ideas - there's a chance to continue to do things differently. Johnson started it, but now Abrams needs to let the past die, stop with the mystery boxes, and give us some proper resolution.

What do you think about The Last Jedi and J.J. Abrams? Share your thoughts down in the comments.