Star Wars Episode IX: A filming and production update

What’s going on with Star Wars: Episode IX? Will these changes alter anything about the film at all, or is everything proceeding as planned?

At first, we here at Culturess thought we’d have barely a month before the Star Wars information hype machine fired up for Episode IX right after Solo: A Star Wars Story. However, as Star Wars News Net has discovered, that’s not actually the case. Instead, shooting begins in July.

Granted, this isn’t really a change or reversal. The original announcement from D23 in Japan, which some took to mean June (us included), merely said “this summer.” July happens to be in the summer. It’s still a ridiculously short turnaround time for fans of the movies, since Solo will still launch in May, but it’s a slightly longer ridiculously short turnaround time.

As SWNN also notes in its most current report, the script is now officially finished. That means that, in the process of writing, J.J. Abrams has presumably witnessed the response to The Last Jedi and the subsequent re-emergence of Rian Johnson to talk about basically anything and everything you can possibly have a question about for the movie (and some things some of us didn’t want to know about).

The obvious question is this: What impact did all of this have on the writing? Did he see the Rey apologetics (yours truly included) and decide that perhaps making her a Skywalker does make more sense after all? Or has he decided to stick with Johnson’s decision and try and make something out of that instead?

It’s possible he’s simply decided he’s going to make the movie he was going to make all this time, no matter what the response is, but considering the care that went into The Force Awakens, the fans’ feelings probably matter at least a little to him.

But The Force Awakens is, as many others including Forbes have noted, pretty “safe” in terms of the franchise. After an experimental movie like The Last Jedi, presumably that’s the style he’ll be aiming for no matter what.

Next: J.J. Abrams claps back at Star Wars fans

Star Wars: Episode IX should arrive in December 2019.