We all know by now just how divisive Star Wars: The Last Jedi was, we have discussed it and debated it constantly since its release in December 2017. Even here at LRM we have a clear split between those that loved it and those that despised it. I (as I am sure most of you are aware) fell on the latter side of that divide. I really didn’t care for the movie one bit and it remains to this day the only main saga movie I don’t own on Blu-ray and the Star Wars movie I have seen the fewest times overall.
Lucasfilm, for a while, really hasn’t been talking much about The Last Jedi at all, and rumor remains that Disney has decided to accept the fan criticism of the movie and is looking to make changes to how Star Wars is perceived going forward. The biggest wake up call for Lucasfilm seems to have been the poor box office performance of Solo. However, is The Last Jedi to blame for Solo‘s underperformance? That’s really not clear and if you want to catch various sides of this argument you can check out our LRM debate on the subject in the related section below.
RELATED: Why Did Solo: A Star Wars Story Fail At The Box Office? | LRM Roundtable Discussion
Now to add further fuel to the fire comes, what may seem at first like a throwaway line in a news article from Variety. The article is about JJ Abrams and how he is trying to get a huge studio deal sorted that will make him one of the biggest power players in Hollywood. Whilst the article only briefly mentions Abrams upcoming Star Wars: Episode 9, they do specifically state that Episode 9 is being viewed as a course correction by the powers that be at Disney.
This could be pure speculation, however, it is also Variety, and their sources and connections within the industry are very real. So is the outlet saying they have been told by sources that Star Wars: Episode 9 is a course correction for the franchise? It’s not a fact, but I’d place this rumor very high in terms of probability right now. And that’s coming from perhaps the biggest skeptic at LRM. I am always extremely wary of these kinds of rumors, but this feels like more than that to this writer.
What could this mean? Well, we here internally had a bit of fun with this in our private chat over the weekend, writing outlandish and silly ideas to appease all the fans of the series, and it kind of highlighted to me the frankly silly nature of trying too hard to course correct. For me personally, a complete course correction that looks to fundamentally erase what happened in The Last Jedi would be a very bad idea. In fact, it would for me only prove to make The Last Jedi a worse movie in my mind. Instead, whilst I have no idea personally how to do it, I think JJ Abrams and co need to embrace what Rian Johnson came up with and move on from there.
This isn’t just about the box office takings for Episode 9 any longer, it’s about the long term future of Star Wars as a pinnacle franchise. If this sequel trilogy drops the ball big time, where do they go from here and how much farther will the fans go with them? That all remains to be seen and until we have all sat down and watched Episode 9, we may never know for certain how the fallout from The Last Jedi really affected the movie.
We’ll keep you informed if we hear anything else related to Star Wars: Episode 9 of course. So sound off below about anything you want to say about this story or Star Wars in general.
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SOURCE: Variety
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