By Paul Bois - The Daily Wire




"Star Wars" fans hoping that the upcoming "Rise of Skywalker" will save the franchise from a social justice-induced death should really cool their jets, because according to director J.J. Abrams, the abysmal, uninspired, feminist film that was "The Last Jedi" actually "didn't really derail anything."

According to Bounding Into Comics, the director of the upcoming Star Wars sequel said that "The Last Jedi" simply continued the story laid forth in "The Force Awakens" and did nothing to derail the franchise.

"The story that we're telling, the story that we started to conceive when we did Force Awakens was allowed to continue," Abrams told Entertainment Tonight Canada. "Episode 8 didn't really derail anything that we were thinking about."

Abrams added that "The Rise of Skywalker" will be slightly different from the previous installments because the characters (Rey, Finn, Poe) will all be on a journey as a group — characters audiences still know little to nothing about despite nearly six hours of storytime.

"But I will say the fun of this movie is that these characters are all together on this adventure as a group," said Abrams. "That's the thing I was most excited about, to see the dynamic between these characters that these amazing actors play on this desperate seat of your pants adventure. That to me was the thing that was the most fun — having the group together."

The director's statements echo what he previously told Vanity Fair. "Working on nine, I found myself approaching it slightly differently. Which is to say that, on seven, I felt beholden to 'Star Wars' in a way that was interesting—I was doing what to the best of my ability I felt 'Star Wars' should be," he said. "It felt slightly more renegade; it felt slightly more like, you know, F*** it, I'm going to do the thing that feels right because it does, not because it adheres to something."

As noted by Bounding Into Comics, "The Last Jedi" director Rian Johnson expressly stated in previous interviews that J.J. Abrams essentially gave him a blank canvas after "The Force Awakens."

"He was really gracious, in just stepping back and giving us a blank slate to work with. The starting point was The Force Awakens script, which is quite a big, expansive, wonderful starting point. In that way, we are drawing directly from his work. But from that point forward it was a blank canvas," said Johnson.

Whatever the case, J.J. Abrams certainly had no objection to the film's overwhelming feminist bromides, which he helped create by turning the character Rey into a Mary Sue with "The Force Awakens." In fact, Abrams even referred to critics of "The Last Jedi" as men who "felt threatened by women."

"We're not asking to take away the male point of view or male artistry or male contribution," he told IndieWire. "We're simply saying, 'What is fair?' I can see why people might get freaked out by it, but the people who are getting freaked out are the people who are accustomed to that privilege, and this is not oppression, this is about fairness."

"Star Wars is a big galaxy, and you can sort of find almost anything you want to in Star Wars. If you are someone who feels threatened by women and needs to lash out against them, you can probably find an enemy in Star Wars," Abrams continued.

"You can probably look at the first movie that George [Lucas] did [Star Wars: A New Hope] and say that Leia was too outspoken, or she was too tough. Anyone who wants to find a problem with anything can find the problem. The internet seems to be made for that," he said.