‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ director Rian Johnson doesn’t care if J.J. Abrams retcons for ‘Episode IX’

Apr 08, 2019

Could “Star Wars: Episode IX” rework a lot of what happened in “The Last Jedi? Well, “Last Jedi” director Rian Johnson is perfectly OK with that.

• MTV asked Johnson at CinemaCon 2019 if he would feel bothered if “Episode IX” director J.J. Abrams retconned aspects of the “Last Jedi” story in order to create a different ending for the series. Specifically, MTV asked how he would feel if Abrams retconned the revelation that Rey (Daisy Ridley) had drunkards as parents.

• “Like I said, man, I want to let go of all my expectations. I want to sit back. I want to be entertained. I want to be surprised. I want to be thrilled. I want him to do stuff I wasn’t expecting him to do and just go along for the ride,” he told MTV.

.@rianjohnson is just as excited for J.J. Abram’s #StarWars Episode IX as we are, and he tells us at #CinemaCon he hopes that the directors keep taking the universe to new heights: “I want him to do stuff that I wasn’t expecting him to do” pic.twitter.com/D7Jh5SqgeT

— MTV NEWS (@MTVNEWS) April 5, 2019

• Johnson said that he’s got his eyes on the bigger picture and not just “Episode IX” or “The Last Jedi,” Gizmodo reported.

• “I’m also psyched about the things they are going to explore beyond what we’ve seen already,” Johnson said. “To me, that’s kind of the most exciting stuff, is pushing the limits of seeing stuff we haven’t seen before in ‘Star Wars.’”

Deeper dive: Let’s consider what this would mean for the “Star Wars” series. In “The Force Awakens,” there are a lot of questions about who Rey’s parents are since the film’s director, Abrams, left that open-ended.

• Fans expected to find out the identity of Rey’s parents in “Last Jedi,” but Johnson pulled a twist — her parents were nobodies, according to SlashFilm.

• “They were filthy junk traders,” Kylo says. “Sold you off for drinking money. They’re dead in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert. You come from nothing. You’re nothing.”

• But fans haven’t taken that as a firm answer and have shared new theories about her parents. We’ll have to wait until the end of the year to find out if Abrams makes any changes.

Release date: “Episode IX” drops Dec. 20.