Star Wars Episode 9 Lego sets expected in September 2019

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 01: Star Wars Force Friday II kicks off in the USA with midnight store openings in NYC. Hundreds of fans showed up to be the first to get their hands on new merchandise celebrating Star Wars: The Last Jedi at the Disney Store Times Square on September 1, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media)
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 01: Star Wars Force Friday II kicks off in the USA with midnight store openings in NYC. Hundreds of fans showed up to be the first to get their hands on new merchandise celebrating Star Wars: The Last Jedi at the Disney Store Times Square on September 1, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media) /
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The release of the next Star Wars Saga film was pushed back to December 2019, so here’s what that means for the Lego sets attached to that movie.

We had some big time Star Wars news drop this week, part of which directly affects Lego launches in 2019. J.J. Abrams was announced as the director of Star Wars Episode IX, replacing Colin Trevorrow. Being that Abrams is meticulous and doesn’t want to rush Star Wars, the release date for the film was pushed back from May to December of 2019.

That means all three current Skywalker Saga films will have been released in December of a given year. It also means we can expect the LEgo releases for the movie (and all other merch) to hit when it has the past three years: in September.

This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it should just be the plan from now on for Lucasfilm and Star Wars. Releasing Star Wars movies in December is fantastic from standpoint of it gives us all something to look forward to at the end of the year. It feels like more of an event, and a large part of that is the build up to the release that we’ve all become accustomed to.

Force Friday is, next to the release of the actual film, one of the most looked forward to days for Star Wars fans. Since 2015 it’s been an annual event (two saga films and Rogue One) and has become part of our routine in digesting the films. Maybe it’s because I was too young to properly remember the product lead-up to the prequel films, but there doesn’t seem to have been something as extravagant as Force Friday. It’s literally a Star Wars exclusive Black Friday, and a lot of that has to do with the film’s release coming out in the sweet spot of the holiday shopping season.

Force Friday is exciting not just because of the Lego releases, but because it’s the unofficially final countdown to the release of the movie. The fall/winter months are already romanticized in our minds, and now Star Wars is as much a part of this time of year as the leaves changing colors and the first snowfall.

Next: 25 custom Star Wars Lego sets you need to see to believe

It used to be that Star Wars was the crown jewel of the summer box office, but we’ve now moved so far past that into something cooler. Star Wars is an event — from the film’s release to the product lead up — and having the movies released in December only punctuates that in ways we didn’t think was possible.