With the exception of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the opening crawl has been an iconic fixture of the Star Wars universe ever since the words “it is a period of civil war” preceded A New Hope almost 40 years ago. That legacy will continue through the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi in December and sure enough, writer-director Rian Johnson touched base on the sequel’s opening during Celebration this past weekend.
Per MTV, Johnson, best known for his work across Looper and the wildly popular Breaking Bad series, confirmed that The Last Jedi‘s crawl is three paragraphs in length. Cue the speculation!
Even if it picks up right where the last one left off, there’s still a lot of unanswered questions about what the state of everything is. We were able to fill three paragraphs.
Two years ago, The Force Awakens opened with the rather evocative line “Luke Skywalker has vanished,” so it’ll be interesting to see what Johnson and Co. have in store for December. Out of all the entries in Lucasfilm’s crown jewel, comparisons have been drawn between The Last Jedi and Empire Strikes Back, and going off Friday’s show-stopping trailer, the First Order will surely execute their retaliation in spectacular fashion.
By reining in the focus, though, we know that Star Wars: The Last Jedi will get to the bottom of Rey’s parentage – even if Rian Johnson is coy about revealing all the answers. When that question was raised during his interview with Good Morning America, Johnson responded as so:
There’s lots of twists and turns, and I really want people to experience those when they see the movie for the first time. How we address that and how you feel about it and what happens with that is one of them.
Last and certainly not least, there have been rumblings that Princes William and Harry are on board for cameo roles in the upcoming sequel, to which Johnson told Yahoo Movies that, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have no clue. The last voice you heard … I can neither confirm nor deny.”
On December 15th, Star Wars: The Last Jedi will herald the next chapter in the Skywalker saga. Where exactly Lucasfilm’s franchise goes from here is still subject to debate – Episode IX and the Han Solo origin story notwithstanding – but make no mistake, Star Wars isn’t going anywhere.