In just under seven months’ time, a saga spanning nine films, three generations and 42 years will finally be over, bringing the epic story of the Skywalker family to a close. After steering The Force Awakens into favourable regard with fans, JJ Abrams has returned to co-write and direct the final movie in Disney’s semi-rebooted sequel trilogy, after stepping aside for Rian Johnson for 2017’s The Last Jedi. He might come to regret it: Abrams has the unenviable triple-task of following a film that veered off at several unexpected vectors, wrapping up a self-contained trilogy and tying a bow around a vast tale whose telling has taken the best past of half a century. To say there’s a lot of responsibility resting on his shoulders would be putting it mildly.

Abrams, Lucasfilm head honcho Kathleen Kennedy and Episode IX’s cast recently sat down with Vanity Fair to discuss the film, somewhat inevitably giving almost nothing away. Nevertheless, a few titbits about what we can expect leaked through the NDA-imposed forcefield of tight-lippedness. Here’s what we know.

Through Hollywood magic, Carrie Fisher still plays a major part

Leia was intended to play an important role in the culmination of her family’s story, so actor Carrie Fisher’s death in 2016 presented a huge problem. We’ve known for a while that deleted scenes starring Fisher, taken from from previous films, were to be repurposed. Now we know the extent to which threading this footage into the narrative affected the narrative itself. “It was a bizarre, left side/right side of the brain sort of Venn diagram thing,” said Abrams of “figuring out how to create the puzzle based on the pieces we had”. Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd, who stars in the film as resistance fighter Connix, will “share” scenes with her departed mother. “There are moments where they’re talking, there are moments where they’re touching,” Abrams said. “Somehow it worked. And I never thought it would.”

C3PO’s first line is “common emblem”

Anthony Daniels let slip that he had trouble learning his opening line in the film. “The line that I couldn’t say was two words: ‘Common emblem’ … I just couldn’t say them!” The internet will doubtless go into overdrive trying to deduce what this means. Which is probably: nothing at all.

Episode IX will maintain an analogue feel

Abrams was keen to discuss how this film would continue to eschew the green-screen-and-CGI indulgences of George Lucas’s prequel trilogy, insisting on real locations and practical effects wherever possible. “I always preferred the look of the original movies, because I just remember when you’re in the snow on Hoth, when you’re in the desert on Tatooine, and when you’re in the forests of Endor, it’s amazing. If you put a vaporator there, almost any natural location suddenly becomes a Star Wars location.” While excellent news for fans still smarting over Jar Jar Binks and his CGI face, this admirable ethos was probably extremely unpleasant for all the actors who had to spend untold hours baking in the Jordanian sun under layers of prosthetics.

The film picks up a year after The Last Jedi

Whereas Johnson began Episode VIII mere minutes after the end of The Force Awakens, Abrams has allowed some time to pass between instalments, in which off-screen character development could take place. As evidenced in her acrobatics in the trailer, Rey (Daisy Ridley) is almost a fully qualified Jedi. Oscar Isaacs’ Poe Dameron has reingratiated himself with the Resistance’s rank and file. “There has been a bit of shared history that you haven’t seen,” Isaacs said. “In the other films, Poe is this kind of lone wolf, now he’s really part of a group. They’re going out and going on missions and have a much more familiar dynamic now.” This means Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) has had a year to shape the First Order in his own image, and his formidable Knights of Ren are finally due to make an appearance.

There’s a character called Jannah

She’s played by Naomi Ackie. And, well, that’s about all we know.

It ties together with all eight earlier films

Being the crescendo of a nine-film arc, great efforts have been made to form a closed loop, answering questions from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi while also representing a definitive end to the story George Lucas began in 1977. “The challenge wasn’t just to make one film as a standalone experience,” said Abrams, “but one that, if you were to watch all nine of the films, you’d feel like, ‘Well, of course, that!’” It’s mooted that this means the final battle between the Jedi and the Sith. “It’s less about restoring an old age [and] more about preserving a sense of freedom, and not being one of the oppressed,” said Abrams.

The Rise of Skywalker will also delve into more recent Star Wars lore, offering insight into the reasons Ben Solo became Kylo Ren. Adam Driver explained how being the progeny of a famous power-couple (Leia and Han Solo) would inevitably come with drawbacks. “How do you form friendships out of that? How do you understand the weight of that? If there’s no one around you guiding you … it can easily go awry.” Ren’s arc has apparently been set in stone from the beginning: “The details obviously hadn’t been worked out,” Driver said, “but we had talked about the very thing that we’d been working towards.” So, in addition to (hopefully) finding out about Rey’s parents and to what or whom the “Skywalker” in the title refers, we’ll also be in for some juicy Ben Solo backstory.

Episode IX won’t be a homage to the original trilogy

One of the major criticisms hurled at The Force Awakens was that it was essentially a rehash of A New Hope. For all its faults, The Last Jedi was happy to live or die as its own beast – and this freedom was something Abrams was keen to carry over to The Rise of Skywalker. “On VII, I felt beholden to Star Wars,” he said. “[Episode IX] felt slightly more like, you know, ‘Fuck it.’ I’m going to do the thing that feels right because it does, not because it adheres to something.”

•This article was amended on 23 May 2019 to correct the character name Poe Dameron.