Rian Johnson got pretty candid about his time working for Lucasfilm in a recent interview with Rolling Stone. The Last Jedi filmmaker is currently out there promoting the Season 2 finale of his Peacock series Poker Face, and when talking to the outlet, he opened up about his (positive) reaction to The Rise of Skywalker and why his Star Wars trilogy never really got off the ground.
Johnson first explained how the idea for the Holdo Maneuver in The Last Jedi had been with him for a very long time and originally came from a line in A New Hope:
“It was always in my head, when Han tells Luke that without the right calculations they could fly into a star, ‘and that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?’ I thought, ‘Well, if that’s physically possible, what would that look like?’ It seemed like something that was low-hanging fruit to me in a way. But I knew that if we were going to use it, we have to use it in a very big way; this can’t be a casual thing that happens this week. We should build the whole Return of the Jedi-esque three plotlines converging thing around this moment.”
The interviewer then brought up The Rise of Skywalker, which from his point of view sort of undermined the moment from Johnson’s movie — along with other key plot points, like Rey being a nobody. But Johnson explained how he was not disappointed in the least when watching the movie:
“When I saw the movie, I had a great time watching it. Again, this is all about point of view. I never approach this as, like, a territory I’m carving out for my thing. In my perspective, J.J. did the same thing with the third that I did with the second, which is not digging it up and undoing — just telling the story the way that was most compelling going forward.
That means not just validating what came before, but recontextualizing it and evolving and changing as the story moves forward. I didn’t feel resentful in some way. But you’re talking about a movie made by my friends, with my friends in it. I sit down to watch a movie, and it’s a Star Wars movie. It’s all stuff I love. I’m not the one to come to for a hard-hitting critique. You can go to YouTube for that.”
Johnson also spoke about the online reaction to the movie. While it was certainly not warm, Johnson, as a Star Wars fan, can understand the feeling based on how he had reacted in his day to the prequels:
“It never feels good to have anybody coming after you on the Internet, and especially coming after you saying things that I think I very much do not agree with about a thing I made and put a lot of heart and soul into.
But at the same time, having grown up a Star Wars fan ultimately let me contextualize it and feel at peace with it in many different ways. Just remembering, going back on one level to arguing on the playground about Star Wars as a kid.
And I was in college when the prequels came out. My friends and I were Prequel Hate Central. Everyone was ruthless at the time. And of course now the prequels are embraced. I’m not saying that as a facile, ‘Oh, things will flip around in 20 years, you’ll see!’
It’s more that this push and pull, and this hatred to stuff that seems new, this is all part of being a Star Wars fan. Culture-war garbage aside, I think that essential part of it is a healthy part.”
Finally, his infamous trilogy, which was officially announced a month before The Last Jedi came out in theaters, was brought up. Johnson explained how it was never more than kicking some ideas around with Kathleen Kennedy, and how the fact that he started making murder mysteries ultimately trumped the whole thing:
“Nothing really happened with [the other trilogy]. We had a great time working together, and they said, ‘Let’s keep doing it.’ I said, ‘Great!’ I would kick ideas around with Kathy [Kennedy]. The short version is Knives Out happened. I went off and made Knives Out, and was off to the races, busy making murder mysteries.
It’s the sort of thing if, down the line, there’s an opportunity to do it, or do something else in Star Wars, I would be thrilled. But right now I’m just doing my own stuff, and pretty happy.”
He then added that “There was never any outline or treatment or anything.” Whether it was because of PR or because there was an actual intention of doing it someday, both Lucasfilm and Johnson were saying for years that this was one of the projects that were in the works at the company and that they would get around to at some point. Now, almost eight years after it was announced, all of the parties seem to have moved on.
Rian Johnson has a third Benoit Blanc mystery coming out this fall, Wake Up Dead Man, and then he will likely move on to a different project. In the interview, he then mentioned that “Any kind of movie I haven’t made yet, I would like to make.” He also specifically mentioned making a musical as a personal ambition of his.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
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