Now that The Last Jedi is officially out and about, the crew and cast can address some of the choices made in the film. Entertainment Weekly has the details from a post-screening Q&A at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
First up, Mark Hamill, Rian Johnson and Luke Skywalker.
“I had huge hesitance,” Johnson says of ending one of the most beloved characters in movie history. “I was terrified. It was a growing sense of dread when I realized this was going to make sense in that chapter.”
Then, the suprise (or not-so-suprising?) return of Yoda….
“That was really it,” the filmmaker said at the Q&A. “When I was thinking about what Luke’s arc is going to be, and realized that someone coming back and kicking his butt would be his final beat on the island, Yoda just made the most sense.”
Carrie Fisher’s last turn as Leia…
Johnson felt overt Force powers might only awaken in her this directing in the midst of a crisis. “I liked the idea it would be an instinctual thing. This would be more like stories you hear about parents of toddlers who get caught under cars and they get Hulk strength and lift the car up,” he said.
“It would be something in these final moments to show that she’s not done with the fight. And like a drowning person pulling herself back, that’s how it manifests itself for the first time in her.”
In another interview, Johnson reveals some lines that Carrie had a hand in.
“I can’t speak to what they’re going to do. And there’s always, in these movies, a question of ‘a certain point of view,’” Johnson said, invoking Obi-Wan’s line from Return of the Jedi, explaining why he told Luke his father was dead rather than the truth that he had become Darth Vader.
“But for me, in that moment, Kylo believes it’s the truth,” Johnson added. “I don’t think he’s purely playing chess. I think that’s what he saw when they touched fingers and that’s what he believes. And when he tells her that in that moment, she believes it.”
More coming tomorrow.
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