Star Wars Episode IX: JJ Abrams calls it a ‘crazy leap of faith’ to return

How much pressure does JJ Abrams feel to deliver on Star Wars: Episode IX? It seems like a lot in a new interview he gave.

2019 is a year in which two modern titans of cinema, Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, will finish out their current chapters. One of those titans has already made oodles of money despite not coming out for three more weeks, thanks to Avengers: Endgame. The other has a much longer wait — and a much older pressure, since its status as a cinematic franchise has lasted over 40 years. JJ Abrams is back for the final (probably) chapter of the Skywalker saga, and, well, he’s feeling the pressure.

Here’s what he had to say to FastCompany, which cut right to the chase and then let him just talk about the process of jumping in. That’s important, but he did talk about the movie, just a little bit.

"[The] difference is I feel like we might’ve done it. Like, I actually feel like this crazy challenge that could have been a wildly uncomfortable contortion of ideas, and a kind of shoving-in of answers and Band-Aids and bridges and things that would have felt messy. […] I feel like we’re in a place where we might have something incredibly special."

Now, to be fair, he absolutely tempers expectations as much as he can given the circumstances. However, what’s important here is that he seems to be aware, in some way, of how things have changed since The Last Jedi. The goal here doesn’t seem to be to fix everything so much as it is to tell a locked-in story; he even says that everyone involved was “almost unbearably disciplined” on the project.

Some might say he had a lot to fix post-The Last Jedi, but out of Attack of the Clones came Revenge of the Sith, so there’s room for it to be done. Abrams notes that this time was more of a team effort thanks to Chris Terrio jumping in.

All the same, that discipline came because Abrams almost didn’t return to the franchise. His wife, Katie McGrath, convinced him to take that “crazy leap of faith”; all the same, he noted the “time constraints” due to the release date and the relatively late date of Colin Trevorrow’s firing. But as far as we know, Episode IX is still on schedule for Dec. 20, despite just finishing principal photography two months ago.

The final conclusion from this interview is that he’s being about as open as he can be when it comes to the process of making this movie, without actually spoiling anything.

Expect him to be slightly more open come this weekend’s Star Wars Celebration Episode IX panel — and expect all the latest from Culturess when that happens.