Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's JJ Abrams promises "cohesive" end to Skywalker Saga

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's JJ Abrams has promised there will be a "cohesive" ending to the Skywalker saga.

The director says that "endings are the thing that scare me the most", and you can hardly blame him when he has such a monumental task on his hands: brining all nine movies of cinema's biggest ever franchise to a satisfying conclusion.

Related: Can JJ Abrams stick the landing for Star Wars?

"This is about bringing this thing to a close in a way that is emotional and meaningful and also satisfying in terms of actually answering [as many] questions as possible,” Abrams told Entertainment Weekly.

“So if years from now, someone’s watching these movies, all nine of them, they’re watching a story that is as cohesive as possible.”

Abrams, who has returned to direct the last film of the new trilogy, went onto say that creator George Lucas's original plans for the third act of Star Wars didn't prevent him from coming up with new ideas and taking the story in a different direction.

"While there were many things that were planned for and discussed — George Lucas himself said when he created this he saw it as three, three-act plays — that doesn’t mean there isn’t discovery, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that come up that make you realize, ‘Oh, here’s an opportunity,'" he said.

"It also doesn’t mean that there’s a list of payoffs that we have to do because of setups. But we also were very much aware this is the end of the trilogy and it needs to satisfy. We went into this thing knowing it has to be an ending. We’re not screwing around."

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has a release date of Thursday, December 19 in the UK and Friday, December 20 in the US.

Disney+ Sign up for Disney+

Shop at Disney+

Disney/Lucasfilm Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

£4 at Amazon

Disney/Lucasfilm Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Complete Box Set [Blu-ray] [2019] [Region Free]

£100 at Amazon

Century Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Expanded Edition) by Rae Carson

£7 at Amazon

Disney/Lucasfilm Star Wars - The Complete Saga (Episodes I-VI) [Blu-ray] [1977] [Region Free]

£52 at Amazon

Disney/Lucasfilm Star Wars: The Original Trilogy (Episodes IV-VI) [Blu-ray] [1977] [Region Free]

£33 at Amazon

Disney/Lucasfilm Star Wars: The Force Awakens [Blu-ray] [2015] [Region Free]

Now 27% Off

£4 at Amazon

Disney/Lucasfilm Star Wars: The Last Jedi [4K UHD] [Blu-ray] [2017]

£10 at Amazon

Disney/Lucasfilm Rogue One: A Star Wars Story [Blu-ray] [2017] [Region Free]

£12 at Amazon

Disney/Lucasfilm Solo: A Star Wars Story [4K] [Blu-ray] [2018] [Region Free]

Now 15% Off

£17 at Amazon

Digital Spy is launching a newsletter – sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox.

Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Chris Edwards

Chris Edwards is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy.