Q&As About 'Star Wars':Why did J.J. Abrams give way to Rian Johnson for 'The Last Jedi' but is now returning for the third movie of the trilogy?

J.J. Abrams did not, as you put it, give way to anyone as far as directing Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.

Per the original plan that Abrams and the people in charge of Lucasfilm Ltd., each of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy films was to be directed by a different director. Thus, by the time Abrams began pre-production on The Force Awakens, the lineup looked like this:

The Force Awakens - Directed by Abrams, with a December 2015 release date

Episode VIII - Directed by Rian Johnson, originally scheduled for a May 25, 2017 release

Episode IX - Directed by Colin Trevorrow, scheduled for a May 2019 release.

And in between each of the Saga films, a Star Wars Story anthology movie would be released as well.

For Star Wars: The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams would direct from a screenplay he co-wrote with Lawrence Kasdan. Originally, the writer for The Force Awakens was Michael Arndt, a solid writer but one who takes a while to get a script done. Abrams really wanted to “just” direct, but when Arndt turned in his first draft (which allegedly was based on George Lucas’s story treatment for Episode VII), he said he could not meet the deadline that would allow Lucasfilm to meet the December 2015 release date, so off he went. Abrams then asked Larry Kasdan to help him write the next draft of the script, even though Kasdan was already working on the Han Solo origin story script with his son Jon.

So even before The Force Awakens was finished, Rian Johnson and Colin Trevorrow had already been hired to direct Episodes VIII and IX, a move made necessary by Lucasfilm’s parent company’s decision to release one Star Wars movie per year from 2015 to 2019. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was already being developed as the follow-up to The Force Awakens, and Solo was a legacy project inherited from the George Lucas era of Lucasfilm.

So Rian Johnson was not exactly a guy who walked up to Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy and said, “Listen, Kathy, shove J.J. aside for VIII and let me direct it.” Nope. To meet the complex deadlines imposed by the release schedule set by Disney, Lucasfilm began working on The Last Jedi in the midst of producing not just one but two films in the franchise.

Abrams had agreed to direct The Force Awakens if he didn’t have to helm the entire Sequel Trilogy. He signed on to stay as executive producer of the other two installments and even worked on the ending of his Episode with Rian Johnson so that one film would lead seamlessly into the other. (This, of course, contradicts the myth bandied about by The Last Jedi bashers that Johnson simply wrote and directed his film without Abrams’ input or approval.)

Then, in 2016, the plan fell apart, due in no small part to the tragic death of Carrie Fisher in late December of that year.

Now, when Fisher passed away on December 27, 2016 at the age of 60, she had completed all of her scenes for The Last Jedi. It is said that she was looking forward to working with Colin Trevorrow on the final film of the Trilogy; if The Force Awakens had been Harrison Ford’s sendoff and The Last Jedi was Mark Hamill’s turn to shine, then Episode IX was going to be Fisher’s “last hurrah” as General Leia Organa.

Well, her death threw a huge wrench into the works. Allegedly, Colin Trevorrow’s and his writing partner had come up with a Leia-centric script. But with the actress being dead and Lucasfilm adamantly stating that there would be no CGI Leia or a recast Leia, that story was deader than Han’s tauntaun on Hoth. Complicating matters were “creative differences” between Lucasfilm and Trevorrow, which were compounded by the firing of directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord from the shoot of Solo: A Star Wars Story. Trevorrow was either fired or quit (no one is saying much about that), so Lucasfilm was in a bind.

To make a long story short: Faced with a 2019 release date and smarting from the Solofiasco (the film was eventually completed by director Ron Howard), Lucasfilm asked Abrams to come back and direct the film that is now titled The Rise of Skywalker. Reportedly, Abrams at first thought about turning the job down, but with millions of dollars at stake, he relented and agreed to helm Episode IX.

Again, though, he was not forced to give way to Rian Johnson when The Last Jedi was made. That line of thinking is absurd; the film industry simply doesn’t work like that.