I have never been shy about expressing my love for Rian Johnson‘s Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I published my four-and-a-half star review for CinemaBlend the day the critic embargo lifted, and I stand by every point I made: from my appreciation of the unexpected plot twists and visual style to my lukewarm feelings about the Canto Bight storyline. That being said, since seeing J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker and witnessing all of the ways that the final film in the Skywalker Saga tried to reverse all of the changes Johnson made, I have wondered about what kind of communication that went down between the two directors as The Last Jedi was developed – particularly in regards to the role/non-role ultimately played by Andy Serkis’ Supreme Leader Snoke.
Thanks to Rolling Stone, that relationship has now been clarified. A new interview with Rian Johnson is principally about the second season of Poker Face (now available to stream in full with a Peacock subscription), but the filmmaker is also asked about the discussions he had with J.J. Abrams in the making of The Last Jedi and the shocking fate of Snoke. Watching The Force Awakens, one might get the sense that the villain is being set up as the true big bad of the sequel trilogy… but Johnson felt it was more dramatic for him to act as a stepping stone for Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren:
That was, in reading J.J.’s script, and watching the dailies, and seeing the power of Adam Driver’s character. The interrogation scene in the first movie, between Rey and Kylo, was so incredibly powerful. Seeing this complicated villain that’s been created, I was just so compelled by that. This is all a matter of perspective and phrasing, but to me, I didn’t easily dispense with Snoke. I took great pains to use him in the most dramatically impactful way I could, which was to then take Kylo’s character to the next level and set him up as well as I possibly could.
While J.J. Abrams was seemingly thinking about mirroring a Darth Vader/Emperor Palpatine dynamic for Kylo Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke, Johnson felt it was more dramatic to do something fresh and different with the characters instead of just echoing what audiences have already seen.
As for the discussions that Johnson had with Abrams, the former says that there were conversations about the big picture direction of the Star Wars franchise – but Abrams was in the midst of making The Force Awakens, and Johnson was left to his creative instincts to run with the canon ideas. Said the Knives Out director,
We communicated. We met and I spent days with him and was able to get into his head and all the choices he had made. That having been said, I communicated and I went and made the movie. And he was in the middle of Force Awakens. Ultimately, I feel like the choices in it, none of them were born out of an intent to ‘undo’ anything. They were all borne out of the opposite intent of, how do I take this story that J.J. wrote, that I really loved, and these characters he created that I really loved, and take them to the next step?
Rian Johnson was also dealing with a certain pressure generated by the legacy of the canon. In discussions of the original trilogy, people love Star Wars a.k.a. A New Hope, but the best movie in the canon is Empire Strikes Back, and it’s because of the way it rocks the audience in the aftermath of the previous chapter. The seminal 1977 blockbuster is a classic hero’s journey and a tale of good defeating evil, but the sequel has said hero learn a devastating truth about his parentage, lose his hand, and see his friend frozen in a block of metal.
The Last Jedi writer/director was given specific instructions from LucasFilm and studio president Kathy Kennedy to bring something like that to the experience of The Last Jedi. While there are people who didn’t like what resulted, he went with what he felt was the best and most dramatic direction for the story. Johnson continued,
Kathy said, ‘We’re looking at someone to do the Empire of this series.’ I took that assignment very seriously. Maybe more seriously than someone would have liked. I guess to me that didn’t mean making something that just had nods to Empire — that meant trying to genuinely do what Empire did.
Love it or hate it, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a key piece of lore in the franchise, and if you’re in the first camp, you can stream the blockbuster ad infinitum with a Disney+ subscription.
