What Star Wars: Episode IX's First Trailer Needs to Accomplish

Rumors arose last week that the first trailer for Star Wars: Episode IX could arrive as early as Christmas, giving audiences their eagerly anticipated look at the final film in the trilogy that launched in 2015 with The Force Awakens. There's a lot riding on the 2019 film, following the divisiveness of The Last Jedi, which nevertheless earned $1.3 billion worldwide, and the disappointing box-office performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story. As such, the debut trailer must clear a high bar for fan expectations, a full year before Episode IX arrives in theaters.

While the current trilogy has certainly introduced a new generation to the franchise, longtime fans were for split by writer/director Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi. Some praised its narrative risks and the expansion of the roles of new characters like Rey and Kylo Ren, while detractors criticized some of the storytelling choices, first and foremost, the treatment of Luke Skywalker. While Russian bot reportedly amplified that enmity, seeking to sow discord by targeting a cultural touchstone, there's little denying the underlying dissension was already there.

That was followed less than five months later by the release of Solo, the second "standalone" film, following the 2016 blockbuster Rogue One. A gamble from the start, as the prequel required the iconic roles of Han Solo and Lando Calrissian to be recast with younger actors, was the franchise's first commercial fumble earning just $393 million worldwide. Industry analysts theorized the disappointing box office may have been a symptom of franchise fatigue: Since 2015, a new Star Wars film had been released each year like clockwork, diminishing the novelty and the excitement; Solo had the added misfortune of premiering mere months after The Last Jedi, to a still-roiled fan base.

Rey and Kylo Ren fighting Imperial Elite in The Last Jedi

After the abrupt departure of original filmmaker Colin Tremorrow from Episode IX, J.J. Abrams returned to the franchise he helped revive just three years earlier, tasked to follow up a story that he had no direct hand in crafting. And that may be his greatest challenge for the trilogy's finale.

The Last Jedi took massive risks with both the franchise and its characters that have major ramifications beyond that film. Kylo Ren staged a coup with Rey's help, slew his mentor Supreme Leader Snoke, and seized control of the First Order, with a reluctant General Hux at his side. The Resistance was virtually annihilated, with the few members who remained huddled aboard the Millennium Falcon. And Luke Skywalker sacrificed himself to provide Resistance the time it needed to stage an escape, leaving Rey's training incomplete as she struggled with her own dark impulses and unrealized potential. Those are major plot threads left dangling, that will not only have to be tied up in Episode IX, but likely referenced, in some fashion, in the first trailer -- while not further alienating those fans still smarting from the previous film.

Episode IX has purportedly been referred to at Lucasfilm as a "course correction," following the reaction to The Last Jedi and Solo. Further, it's expected to both acknowledge and resolve elements from its two immediate predecessors. (Remember the Knights of Ren?) That's a lot of material to draw from, but with Han Solo and Luke Skywalker dead, and Leia Organa's role limited to unused archival footage following the loss of Carrie Fisher, that means fan-favorite characters from the original trilogy will be largely absent, even with the return of Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, and Mark Hamill reprising his role as Luke in an unspecified capacity.

Nostalgia played an enormous part in The Force Awakens' $2 billion-plus success, buoyed with the novelty of the release of new live-action Star Wars films, a decade after Revenge of the Sith. Abrams no longer has either of those elements to help generate audience excitement. He'll instead have to do it on the quality of the film, coupled with a strong marketing campaign. That no official images have been released from Episode IX only underscores the tremendous importance of the first trailer.

In essence, it needs to remind audiences why they fell in love with the space opera in the first place, while presenting them with something simultaneously new and familiar, and that can bridge the divide between fans who enjoyed The Last Jedi and those who didn't. That's to say nothing of the hint of a satisfying conclusion that plot threads, some of which haven't been touched since 2015.

That's quite a feat, but, given Abrams' filmography, he's more than up to the task. Whenever that first trailer for Episode IX does drop, may the Force be with it; it could be the franchise's new hope.

Directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, Star Wars: Episode IX stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, Keri Russell, Matt Smith, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams and Carrie Fisher, with Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant. The film is scheduled to open on Dec. 20, 2019.