Star Wars: JJ Abrams on The Last Jedi's SUBVERSION 'I’d have made VERY different choices’

Back in 2015, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens released, offering something of a nostalgic retread of A New Hope. But for the sequel, JJ Abrams’ narrative plot points were handed over to Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed the controversial Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.

Now Abrams is back in the director’s chair for Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.

On where Johnson took The Last Jedi, he admitted to laughing at the first draft of the script.

Speaking with Rolling Stone, Abrams said: “When I read his first draft, it made me laugh because I saw that was his take and his voice.

“I got to watch cuts of the movie as he was working on it, as an audience member.”

READ MORE: Star Wars 9: Mandalorian Baby YODA shock role in Rise of Skywalker?

Asked how The Last Jedi affected him, Abrams admitted: “I had a real sense with [Force Awakens co-screenwriter] Larry Kasdan about where things would go, potentially.

“And I think that, when I read Rian’s script, what I felt was that with everything that happens in that movie, and quite a lot does, nothing sort of obviated a sense of inevitability where I thought the story could go.”

Meanwhile, Abrams has teased The Rise of Skywalker is daring and freer because of The Last Jedi.

Speaking with Slash Film, he said: “On this one, I let myself be, at least in the way I was approaching the thing, freer.”