After what felt like an extraordinarily long wait, the final full trailer for J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker premiered last night during Monday Night Football. Coinciding with the release of that stirring trailer, tickets went on sale for what will be the final film in the Skywalker Saga. And with the tickets going on sale, the runtime for Episode IX has been revealed and it’s long.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will clock in at a lengthy two hours and 35 minutes. This comes from the AMC Theatres website where you can now purchase your tickets for Rise of Skywalker. It confirms the Reddit leak that popped up last week pegging the film’s runtime at 155 minutes and is 20 minutes longer than the 135 minute runtime John Williams’ brother Don hinted at. That two hour and 35 minute runtime makes The Rise of Skywalker the longest Star Wars movie to date.
The longest film in the franchise up to this point was Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, clocking in at two hours and 32 minutes. The Rise of Skywalker will eclipse that by three minutes. Prior to The Last Jedi, for a long time the longest Star Wars film was Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones at two hours and 22 minutes. So The Last Jedi was 10 whole minutes longer than that prequel film and The Rise of Skywalker will be even longer.
The shortest Star Wars film was the first one, with A New Hope running two hours and one minute long and overall the majority of the films in the franchise, including the anthology films, have ran in that 130 minute to 140 minute range. While long runtimes don’t necessarily make a movie good or bad and often don’t provide a ton of clues about the film itself, there is much to discuss with regards to The Rise of Skywalker’s 155 minute runtime.
The first way we can look at the runtime for The Rise of Skywalker is that being the longest film in the Skywalker Saga is a good thing. We still(!) don’t know the plot of this movie, but just based on the trailers and what has happened in the Sequel Trilogy and Saga so far, there is a lot of ground to cover in Episode IX. This is the closing chapter of a nine-film series and there’s a lot of wrap up to do.
This isn’t just about the Resistance defeating the First Order once and for all, it’s about bringing balance to the Force, closure for all these characters and tying everything up. The Rise of Skywalker needs to not only bring back Emperor Palpatine, but explain how he’s back, in what form and have the heroes defeat him.
Plus, J.J. Abrams has said that he wants this film to be a cohesive ending to the entire Saga that answers as many questions as possible. Well, there are a lot of questions and that all takes time. It looks like he’s going to get it with a two hour 35 minute runtime.
I’m actually almost surprised that this movie isn’t longer. As we saw from the over three-hour Avengers: Endgame, long runtimes don’t dissuade audiences when the interest is there for a movie and a property and the interest is certainly there for Star Wars. But if J.J. Abrams can accomplish everything this movie needs to accomplish in two hours and 35 minutes, there’s no need to make the movie overly long just for the sake of it.
Especially after that emotional trailer, I think we all want to take one last long look at our friends from a galaxy far, far away. Fortunately, that last look will turn out to be the longest yet in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker charges into theaters on a majestic Orbak on December 20. Get your tickets now and check out our 2019 Release Schedule to see all the other movies headed to theaters this year.
