Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
The long-awaited return of Luke Skywalker
Handed the keys to ‘Star Wars,’ a relatively untested director finds himself on his own creative quest
A conversation with Rian Johnson, the director of “Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.”
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” director Rian Johnson, who turns 44 on today, has been playing in the “Star Wars” universe since he was 4. So when he walked onto the Millennium Falcon while filming “The Last Jedi,” Johnson got a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes.
“It’s not just because of what these movies mean to you,” he says. “It’s because I flashed back to being 7 or 8 years old and playing with the Millennium Falcon toy and projecting myself inside it.
“The bizarre reality of suddenly being an adult and standing in the real thing — it’s like being at the Grand Canyon. You can see pictures of it, but until you are there you don’t know the effect it has on you.”
Johnson had much bigger toys to play with as the writer-director of the much anticipated “Last Jedi.” He also faced the difficult proposition of picking up from J.J. Abrams’ 2015 “The Force Awakens,” which reinvigorated the franchise
That film — the seventh chapter of the space saga — created new adventures for Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess (now General) Leia (Carrie Fisher), and new characters like the mysterious heroine Rey (Daisy Ridley) and the Darth Vader-like Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), as well as a number of others.
With “Last Jedi” being the middle part of the trilogy, Johnson also had to be able to make sure it played into “Episode IX,” which Abrams will direct for release in 2019.
Early reviews of “Jedi” are strongly positive after its premiere Saturday, but Lucasfilm, headed by Kathleen Kennedy, must have already liked what they had seen in Johnson because it was announced on that same day that he would write a new “Star Wars” trilogy to take place in a different part of the long-ago and far-away galaxy. He will direct the first of them.
Pretty amazing, because until “Last Jedi,” Johnson had only been known for directing indie films like “Brick” and “Looper” and TV episodes of “Breaking Bad.”
The director still seems to be getting his head wrapped around it. (We talked on the Sunday before the premiere.)
“I guess they rolled the dice a bit,” says Johnson, who went to San Clemente High School and USC’s film school.
He wasn’t intimidated, although he didn’t accept the offer right away. At first he tried to figure out how to fit into the franchise, but eventually, “I cut myself loose from trying to just imitate the past and tell the story as excitingly as I can.”
Johnson says he didn’t find the size of the movie-making machinery a hindrance. “It was an efficient tool to get things I was interested in getting in the movie.”
While the special effects learning curve was steep, working with Industrial Light and Magic made it easier, Johnson says. “Like any of the other departments or any of the actors, working with people who were that good at what they do takes away barriers and that allows you to focus on what matters.”
Johnson says he still did his “little storyboards” for the film and he didn’t want the special effects to distract.
“You don’t want the audience using any brainpower figuring out what they are looking at.”
Still, connecting the trilogy was a tricky proposition.
“I wanted the film to feel like a full meal and that the audience had gone on a journey and had a real experience,” says Johnson. “I didn’t want it to feel like there were ellipses at either end.”
“I wanted the film to feel like a full meal and that the audience had gone on a journey and had a real experience. I didn’t want it to feel like there were ellipses at either end.” — Rian Johnson
Adding: “Hopefully, the way that we set up the next one is by developing the characters where they are more complicated and you care about where they’re going next.”
With the death of Fisher, who has a bigger role in “Jedi” than in “Force Awakens,” the “Star Wars” team had to rethink “Episode IX.”
Johnson was grateful for having gotten to know Fisher but says he had expected her to be “cynical or blasé” about the “Star Wars” universe. “As we became friends, I learned how deeply it meant to her and how seriously she took it.” So does Johnson. Famously, the book “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” by Joseph Campbell inspired George Lucas when creating “Star Wars,” so many people think the films are all about a hero’s journey.
Johnson sees it differently, as seen in his approach to Kylo Ren. After reading the “Force Awakens” and seeing Driver’s performance, the director says he couldn’t wait to get his hands on the character.
“There’s complexity in Kylo, especially in the way that Adam portrays him. He wants to be Darth Vader but isn’t. You see the cracks in his armor.”
Johnson believes the movies are in a way about adolescence. “It’s ultimately what the hero’s journey is, exploring the transition from childhood into adulthood, whether it’s about Luke or Rey, and in his own way, Kylo.
The character is something of a counterpart to Rey, says Johnson, and an expression of the transition, “rejecting where you come from, anger and rebellion. In a very mythic sense, it’s expressed in killing your father.”
Driver’s character, as is revealed in “The Force Awakens,” is Han Solo’s son, and you know what happened with that.
Right now, Johnson is feeling the excitement at the idea of digging into a new “Star Wars” trilogy. “I’m sure when I’m working on it I may want to slam my head against the wall and wonder, ‘Why the hell did I get into to this?’ But that’s just writing.”
Adding, “The possibilities are endless. This is obviously a world that I’ve loved and been playing in since I was 4. Now, I have a blank slate to tell a story that can be really something special.”