When The Force Awakens was announced, the official title card lacked a certain something: any reference to the film being Episode XII.

Of course, the world knew JJ Abrams’ film was the start of a new trilogy, featuring the Skywalkers once more, but Disney made fleeting references to its numerical place within the series.

From a new interview with head of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, it seems the numerical Star Wars system may be dismissed completely following Episode IX. Not only that, but future films - following the new trilogy finishing - may only be stand-alone films.

Asked whether a new trilogy will start following Episode IX by Entertainment Weekly, Kennedy said: “That’s a conversation going on right now, too. I have to honestly tell you, could we [do nothing but stand-alones]? Sure. But I don’t know. We are looking at all of that.”

She also discussed how spin-offs will not feature the opening crawl, saving the iconic writing purely for saga films: “We feel that that is proprietary with the saga films. But how this evolves…? We haven’t fully decided, and [traditional Star Wars elements] may be pretty spare for this first one.”

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