The final act of Star Wars: The Last Jedi leaves some tantalising threads for the upcoming ninth episode, The Rise Of Skywalker, to pick up. Rey proves that her mentor, Luke Skywalker, will not be the last Jedi and rescues the dying embers of the Resistance. Kylo Ren, faced with another opportunity to abandon the Dark Side and come to the light, leans further into his villainy and becomes Supreme Leader of the First Order. And Luke Skywalker seemingly becomes one with the Force after projecting himself onto the battlefront of Crait. It offers plenty for JJ Abrams, returning as writer-director, and his co-writer, Argo scribe Chris Terrio, to work with in the final chapter – and Terrio revealed to Empire the key questions that fuel the final film in the Skywalker Saga.
“One of them is a simple one: ‘Who is Rey?’,” he says. “Which is a question that people not only wonder about quite literally, but wonder about in the spiritual sense. How can Rey become the spiritual heir to the Jedi? We kept coming back to ‘Who is Rey?’, and how can we give the most satisfying answer to that not only factually – because obviously people are interested in whether there's more to be learned of Rey's story – but more importantly who is she as a character? How will she find the courage and will and inner strength and power to carry on what she's inherited?”
He continues: “The second one is, ‘How strong is the Force?' It sounds a little simple, but actually when you get down to it, that is a sort of Zen Koan that we would really meditate on – not literally in yoga poses or anything, but like we would discuss, ‘What is the Force and how strong is the Force?' Those two things were really important.”
So there you have it – ‘Who is Rey?’ and ‘How strong is the Force?’ are the two driving ideas behind Episode IX. That, and presumably ‘How many Porgs can you fit in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon?’
In the new issue of Empire, on sale Thursday 3 October, we take a world exclusive look inside The Rise Of Skywalker, talking to Terrio, Abrams, and producer Kathleen Kennedy, with two collectible covers. Here’s a sneak peek inside the issue.