FORCE QUIT
THE PROPHECY IS AN ANCIENT ONE. It was told a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, among the barren, sun-beaten dunes of Tatooine. Or at least the southern desert wastes of Tunisia which were doubling for that distant world, as far from the moneyed glitz of Hollywood as Luke Skywalker’s home planet is from the bright centre of the universe.
As the filmmakers grappled with malfunctioning droids and sand-choked electrical equipment, Mark Hamill spent time between camera set-ups chatting to director George Lucas, whose shy, achingly awkward exterior concealed a sense of ambition that was either breathtaking or laughable. “He said ‘Um, how’d you like to be in Episode IX?’” Hamill later recalled. “This is 1976.”
Forty three years on – the same span, bogglingly, between that first film and the creation of Flash Gordon in 1933 – Hamill has his name on the poster for The Rise Of Skywalker, the ninth chapter in the all-conquering, generation-straddling Star Wars saga. It’s pitched as the pay-off, the grand climax, the last hurrah of the Skywalking bloodline: one final binary sunset to cap a trilogy of trilogies. To quote a Corellian scoundrel, let’s blow this thing and go home…
As long games go, it’s impressive. “It wasn’t long after I began writing Star Wars that I realised the story was more than a single film could hold,” said George Lucas in 1994. “As the saga of Skywalkers and Jedi Knights unfolded, I began to see it as a tale that would take at least nine films to tell.” All is as the great bearded, plaid-shirted seer foretold. Well, not quite – Lucas surrendered his galaxy to Disney in 2012. While he was consulted on the storyline for The Rise Of Skywalker – more than a courtesy, you imagine, given the pressure to deliver the perfect conclusion to a narrative millions of moviegoers have invested in – this Episode IX is very much the vision of JJ Abrams, who also helmed The Force Awakens, 2015’s opening crowdpleaser in Disney’s reborn franchise.
Abrams never expected to close the saga. He only returned to the ways of the Force when original helmer Colin Trevorrow exited the project after a creative clash with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, one of a spate of high profile fall-outs that have dogged the franchise in recent years. So why did he take it on, with a Death Star’s weight of expectation on his shoulders?
“Everyone’s opinion needs to matter, including the people telling the story”
“Mostly because it was unexpected,” Abrams tells , “and mostly because it was an
