It was only early this year that Star Wars Episode VIII’s title was finally revealed as The Last Jedi.
Referring to Luke Skywalker, the title was mentioned in the opening crawl for Episode VII: The Force Awakens.
Having seen The Last Jedi, is it possible to work out what JJ Abrams will call Episode IX?
Our best guess is a variation of the word “hope” for a number of reasons.
Star Wars Episode IX will not only bring the sequel trilogy to the end, but the whole nine episode saga, so it would make sense to have a title related to the other trilogies.
In The Last Jedi, “our last hope” is spoken of, which interestedly goes parallel with Luke in Episode IV: A New Hope and would tie in nicely as a conclusion to the series as a whole.
Of course it would be too similar to be called Episode IX: A Last Hope or The Last Hope.
But if Abrams choses to follow Rian Johnson and pinch the title from the previous film’s crawl, well hope does come up.
In the Episode VIII crawl it says: “Only General Leia Organa’s band of RESISTANCE fighters stand against the rising tyranny, certain that Jedi Master Luke Skywalker will return and restore a spark of hope to the fight.”
A Spark of Hope. Too farfetched? Did you notice that line the resistance kept on repeating throughout The Last Jedi?
Holdo and Poe often said: “We are the spark that’ll light the fire that’ll bring the First Order down.”
According to the crawl this was something Luke was going to bring, which he did on Crait, so perhaps this spark of hope goes hand in hand? Significant enough for the title? We’ll have to wait and see.
Star Wars: Episode IX will be released in UK cinemas on December 20, 2019.