Star Wars: What If Rian Johnson Had Directed The Rise of Skywalker?

screenrant.com:

Each of the three films in the Star Wars sequel trilogy was divisive in their own ways, and a world in which Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson had also directed Stars Wars: The Rise of Skywalker would have been very different. Unlike the prequel trilogy, all of which were directed by George Lucas, the sequel trilogy took a closer approach to the original trilogy in terms of different creative teams for each entry in the franchise. While J.J. Abrams ended up directing two of the three films in the sequel trilogy, Episodes VII, VIII, and IX were originally planned to be helmed by a different director each.

That came close to happening as Colin Trevorrow was set to direct Star War 9 before being fired from the project in September 2017. Trevorrow already had a first draft for the movie, but irreparable creative differences with Lucasfilm resulted in him leaving the project. Two years later, J.J Abrams' The Rise of Skywalker would hit the theaters. However, history could have been quite different for the last movie in the sequel trilogy.

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There were conflicting reports back when Episode VIII had yet to come out as to whether Rian Johnson had been offered the opportunity to direct Episode IX after Colin Trevorrow was fired. One thing is for sure: a Rian Johnson Episode IX would have taken the Star Wars sequel trilogy to a different path than Abrams’ Rise of Skywalker did. For better or worse, the film would probably have stood by the decisions made in The Last Jedi – even the most controversial ones. That said, it would have been interesting to see how audiences would react to Star Wars doubling down on the divisive Last Jedi director.