Despite being billed as the final chapter of the 42-year-long Skywalker Saga, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker certainly left a number of questions unanswered – not least how Emperor Palpatine managed to survive (or return from) his ‘death’ in Return of the Jedi.



While many of these will be answered in supplementary material such as the tie-in Visual Dictionary (or the myriad of books, comics etc. we can expect over the next couple of years), director J.J. Abrams has revealed in a new interview that he intentionally wanted to leave some mystery for the audience.

“We knew going in that we had to make this feel conclusive. It had to come to an end,” said Abrams. “And yet, there are certain things that I feel… here’s the way I feel about Star Wars. It’s the reason that I loved the original trilogy so much — and the reason I loved the Original Trilogy more than the Prequel Trilogy, for me — which was that the Original Trilogy posed great questions, and allowed you to infer the answer. It allowed you to do the math on your own.”

“Now, I’m not someone who needs to know about midi-chlorians,” he continued. “That doesn’t feel like it’s a thing for me. That’s not to say, however, in this movie we didn’t adhere to the eight films that preceded us and tell an ending that embraces all of it. I didn’t go against that stuff because I didn’t like it as much. But my point is that there’s something about answers, you need answers, but I don’t think demystifying everything is necessarily the key to a successful story.”

SEE ALSO: J.J. Abrams on retconning Rey’s lineage in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

What do you make of Abrams’ comments? Would you have preferred definitive answers from what is apparently the final chapter in the story? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, or on our social channels…

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker sees J.J. Abrams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) directing a cast that includes Star Wars veterans Daisy Ridley (Rey), Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), John Boyega (Finn), Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron), Lupita Nyong’o (Maz Kanata), Domhnall Gleeson (General Hux), Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico), Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca), Billie Lourd (Lieutenant Connix), Greg Grunberg (Snap Wexley), Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian) and Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa) as well as new additions Naomi Ackie (Lady Macbeth), Richard E. Grant (Logan), Dominic Monaghan (Lost), and Keri Russell (The Americans).