Star Wars Weekly: Episode IX reveals at Celebration and Yoda strikes back

Time again for Star Wars Weekly, the SYFY WIRE series that rounds up the most important news of the week from a galaxy far, far away. Think of us as your own personal Star Wars Holocron.

EPISODE IX AT CELEBRATION

It was announced this week that Star Wars: Episode IX would be getting an official slot at Star Wars Celebration for a panel. J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy will be there and more surprises are promised.

Oscar Isaac has publicly talked about how he was heading to Celebration, though he's not been officially announced and is probably one of those surprises.

I hope the rest of the cast joins them, specifically Kelly Marie Tran. I'd love for her to see how much the crowd there loves her. I'd also love to see Richard E. Grant there; he's a ball of pure energy and I think everyone would benefit by his presence at the show.

THE END OF THE SKYWALKER SAGA

From the very first press releases about Episode IX, we've been consistently reminded that this will be the end of the Skywalker Saga. Oscar Isaac doubled down on that with the Today Show and it seemed to make news all over again.

This is not to say that this is the end of the Star Wars saga. We still have two more planned trilogies coming, one from the Game of Thrones creators and the other from Rian Johnson, but neither of these will involve the Skywalker legacy as far as we know.

Episode IX comes out on December 20.

YODA STRIKES BACK

Over the past year, a small contingent of fans has taken issue with some of the directions taken in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. They are pretty loud on social media, so it's no wonder that some of the creators behind the film would see or hear some of this criticism, warranted and unwarranted alike.

But it's not often when creators and talent like Frank Oz get in on the responses.

The above tweet was in response to fans claiming they felt that Yoda was inconsistent in The Last Jedi from his previous appearances. He wasn't, and Frank Oz weighed in to say so.

Perhaps the best response was Johnson's, who posted an image from Annie Hall, hearkening back to a scene in which a bloviating gasbag argues about movies and references media theorist and philosopher Marshall McLuhan, who steps in personally to tell the guy how wrong he is.

That didn't matter to some fans, who tried to fansplain back to Frank Oz that fans knew the character better than he did.

Which is absurd.

In any case, it was also announced Frank Oz will next be seen onscreen in Johnson's followup to The Last Jedi, the crime thriller Knives Out.

RESISTANCE SEASON FINALE

The first season of Star Wars Resistance is coming to a monumental close this weekend and you need to be tuned in. The new episode takes the series in an all-new direction for Season 2 and you don't want to miss what that direction is. I will say this, though: The show is embracing whole-heartedly its Robotech-inspired roots.

Here's a mini behind-the-scenes doc about introducing General Hux on the show:

It's great to see the show catch up to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The following scene happens in both halves of the finale episode and one fan cut it side-by-side with the corresponding scenes from The Force Awakens.

It adds weight to that film and is something you're not going to want to miss. The loss of Hosnian Prime just got a whole lot more personal.

The Resistance finale airs on Disney on Sunday.

ROGUE ONE FX

Todd Vaziri, a lead artist at Industrial Light & Magic, posted a breakdown of everything that went into recreating the Tantive IV's engines for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

It's a great piece that proves more thought goes into these sorts of things than you'd expect.

MARPHALUMP

To continue our look at all things Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in celebration of its 20th anniversary, I'll leave you this week with a blast from the past.

This is Marphalump. He was an alien character created to market Pepsi during the brand's promotion for The Phantom Menace. Although this seemed cheesy at the time (and maybe now, too), I can safely say this was pretty much what an 18-year-old Star Wars fan looked and acted like. I speak from personal experience.

They may as well have filmed this in my bedroom.

Until next week: May the Force be with you!