STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER Director J.J. Abrams Reveals Why The Movie Doesn't Answer All Our Questions

It's fair to say that we were left with a fairly long list of unanswered questions after watching Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker but J.J. Abrams has now offered an explanation of sorts about why that is!

By JoshWilding - Dec 24, 2019 10:12 AM EST

Filed Under: Star Wars

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker brings back Emperor Palpatine and, well, never bothers to explain how he survived the events of Return of the Jedi! That's just one of many unanswered questions it leaves us with (you can find more by clicking here) but director J.J. Abrams has offered an explanation about why he chose not to address some lingering queries fans might have.

"We knew going in that we had to make this feel conclusive. It had to come to an end," the filmmaker explained. "And yet, there are certain things that I feel… here’s the way I feel about Star Wars. It’s the reason that I loved the original trilogy so much — and the reason I loved the original trilogy more than the prequel trilogy, for me — which was that the original trilogy posed great questions, and allowed you to infer the answer. It allowed you to do the math on your own."

It's true that in the original Star Wars trilogy, we had no idea how Darth Vader became the way he was or the origins of his master. "The Clone Wars" were also only mentioned in passing and we never found out who, or what, those clones were. These days, though, fans expect answers!

Abrams went on to say that he loves the prequel trilogy but noted that he didn't feel the need for it to fill in quite so many gaps as it did (something he clearly wanted to avoid here). "Now, I’m not someone who needs to know about midi-chlorians. That doesn’t feel like it’s a thing for me."

"That’s not to say, however, in this movie we didn’t adhere to the eight films that preceded us and tell an ending that embraces all of it. I didn’t go against that stuff because I didn’t like it as much. But my point is that there’s something about answers, you need answers, but I don’t think demystifying everything is necessarily the key to a successful story."

Do you guys think this was the right approach to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker?

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114 Comments

1 2 3

DVonShakari - 12/24/2019, 10:32 AM

Sounds like JJ is juggling answers and doing damage control. He's not dripping 'the' ball, he's dropping all the balls.

theFUZZ008 - 12/24/2019, 10:43 AM

@DVonShakari - Absolutely. It's bad storytelling. To have the film twice reference the thing that Finn didn't tell Rey, and then not reveal it at all, is bad storytelling.

L0RDbuckethead - 12/24/2019, 10:52 AM

@theFUZZ008 - "But muh Mystery Box..."

- JJ Abrams, probably

Humperdink - 12/24/2019, 10:56 AM

@theFUZZ008 -

It's very clear that this trilogy never had a roadmap and got a patch update for a finale.

What was Kathleen Kennedy thinking?

DVonShakari - 12/24/2019, 11:01 AM

@theFUZZ008 - yeah I never understood that. It would have made perfect sense for Finn to tell Rey that he loved her but someone made the decision to toss Rose into the mix as a love interest. Maybe they didn't want to see the image of Rey and Finn in love and fighting together and for each other.

nikgrid - 12/24/2019, 11:50 AM

@DVonShakari - "he's dropping all the balls. "

That's because RJ covered them in shit.

nikgrid - 12/24/2019, 11:50 AM

@DVonShakari - "but someone made the decision to toss Rose into the mix as a love interest"

RIAN JOHNSON

Ha1frican - 12/24/2019, 10:41 AM

I mean the original trilogy didn’t answer every question either so I’m not really worried about it, the only really dropped thread for me was that they didn’t pay of what Finn was going to say to Rey it was an odd plot thread that went nowhere

nikgrid - 12/24/2019, 11:51 AM

@Ha1frican - He was going to tell her he is force sensitive. Confirmed by JJ.

DVonShakari - 12/24/2019, 10:42 AM

I also feel as if Kathleen Kennedy is going to moonwalk away from the negative publicity surrounding this movie so that she won't have to take the blame or answer questions.

theFUZZ008 - 12/24/2019, 10:42 AM

Humina, humina, humina......

theprophet - 12/24/2019, 10:46 AM

FIRE KATHLEEN KENNEDY IMMEDIATELY!!

1 2 3

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER Director J.J. Abrams Reveals Why The Movie Doesn't Answer All Our Questions

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