After two high-profile Star Wars director departures (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's Han Solo film and Colin Treverrow's untitled Episode IX), Disney is playing it safe and returning a familiar face to the director's chair—J.J. Abrams.
This will be the first time in the Age of Disney that a director who helmed a previous Star Wars film will get the opportunity to do so again. Abrams has said before that he had no plans on returning to the franchise other than being an executive producer, but times have apparently changed. With the departure of Trevorrow last week, Abrams will step in to finish up the trilogy he started.
Unlike the prequels (and we all know how those went), the original Star Wars films were each directed by different people with the best of the trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back, being helmed by Irvin Kirshner. In fact, it's the revolving door of creative energy on these films that were one if its greatest strengths.
Obviously, Abrams has had some time away from Star Wars, and seeing as the franchise is run as a business, Abrams' $2.1 billion box offices numbers with The Force Awakens probably made the decision even easier. But one of the great ideas of Star Wars was that new directors would take us to galaxy far, far, away of their own creation.
Hopefully, Episode IX won't feel like more of the same.
Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.
