Johnson said there was "never any outline or treatment or anything" for the remainder of the films, though he did note that the ideas he had were "all very conceptual" without further elaboration. Lucasfilm first announced the planned trilogy in November 2017, a month before The Last Jedi 's theatrical release.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Johnson addressed the notion that he and J.J. Abrams—who made the first and third films in the sequel trilogy, The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker —didn’t communicate enough about their 2015 and 2017 Star Wars films, leading to a disjointed feeling between the two.

Around the time that some fans were having a meltdown over Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson and Lucasfilm were planning to piss them off even further with a whole new trilogy helmed by Johnson.