Rian Johnson

The last Jedi’s writer/director on the movie’s biggest moments…

Were you surprised by the extreme fan reactions to

The Last Jedi?

No. Star Wars is always going to have people who love it and people who don’t love it. Look, I was in my twenties when the prequels came out. I lived through the prequels era! That side of Star Wars fandom is not something where I’m shocked it exists. Even the extreme anger. That’s just the other side of the coin of extreme passion.

You undercut expectations, though. Like Snoke’s surprise exit…

Yes and no. I wrote the movie before The Force Awakens came out [and all the fan theories on Snoke]. It would’ve been frankly weird to stop and explain where he came from. I don’t know that any of the main characters care. The movie is not about him. I never would write from a place of, “Ha-ha-ha, people are coming up with all this stuff, I’ll do this to screw them over!” I can’t even imagine what kind of an asshole would do that! I was just writing my story the way that felt right to me.

Did the reaction to a Force-flying Leia take you aback?

Yeah, I was confused. I engaged with some folks on Twitter – what exactly bugged you about it? It largely seemed to come down to the fact that some people thought someone flying in a dress looked funny!

When you presented the idea of Luke’s fate, how did that go down?

The truth is, I was just as terrified of that decision as anybody. But it was also the process of coming up with the story… I very purposefully made it a very collaborative thing with the folks at Lucasfilm. It’s not like I wrote this, dropped it in their laps and held my breath. We were talking through what led to that decision from the beginning.

Do you see Luke’s death as similar to Obi-Wan’s sacrifice?

Episode IV

It’s different. First of all, when Obi-Wan sacrifices himself, we’ve known him for the length of that film. This, we have all the history with Luke. So it had to be a bigger, grander sacrifice. Luke at the end of this movie, he saves the Resistance, he reignites hope broadly in the galaxy based on the legend of Luke Skywalker and he hands Kylo his ass! He humiliates Kylo and he does it all without spilling a drop of blood! For me, that feels like the note I want to see him go out on. It felt very right to me.

So he’s not turning up in

Episode IX?

I didn’t say that! We’ll see, man. I don’t know. I’m waiting to see just like you.

What can you say about your new trilogy?

Star Wars

Right now my plan is to come up with a map for the whole trilogy, write and direct the first one and see where it goes. That’s the only thing in my mind that’s set. I’m still figuring out how the rest of it will work. James Mottram

‘extreme anger is just the other side of the coin of extreme passion ’