**SPOILERS AHEAD**
No matter what side of the fence you’re on with “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” it gives us something we haven’t had for a long time in the franchise — substance worth talking about. Rian Johnson‘s entry in the saga is rich with ideas, and in many ways, challenges the foundations of the series as a whole. That’s what makes it so thrilling to watch and unpack, even as debates storm around subjects like Rey’s parents. In fact, diehard fans are struggling to believe that she comes from nothing, that her legacy is one filled with pain, and not tied to a Jedi bloodline. However, Johnson has the perfect answer for the doubters.
Speaking with THR, the writer/director points out that even in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” it’s foreshadowed that Rey’s journey is all about looking forward. Or in other words, it’s about letting go of the past….
“It was hinted at in ‘VII’ when Maz [Lupita Nyong’o] says the answers lay ahead, not behind, but it was something that was obviously still on Rey’s mind and the audience’s mind. It felt like a powerful thing that she was still holding onto this notion of the past defining her,” he explained. “And I guess I was entirely looking at it from a perspective of…what would be the thing that would be the most difficult for her to hear? The easiest thing for her to hear would be, ‘Yes, you are so and so’s daughter.’ Or ‘Yes, here’s where you fit into this. Here’s the answer.’ The tougher thing to hear is, ‘You’re going to have to stand on your own two feet, you’re going to have to figure out what you’re worth in this world yourself. Your place in this story is not going to be handed to you. You are going to have to find it.’ That to me was the most interesting and toughest thing for Rey.”
Again, it’s a great answer from Johnson, who continues to prove he knows the saga inside and out. This deep knowledge has also come in handy when defending how the Force works in the film, with some complaining that Luke’s Force projection, or the Force connection between Rey and Kylo, somehow breaks the rules George Lucas established. We’ll let Johnson take it from here….
https://twitter.com/slashfilm/status/951627605207277568
https://twitter.com/slashfilm/status/951629980970098689
https://twitter.com/rianjohnson/status/951635702046863360
Score another point for Johnson.
Lastly, the filmmaker explains why in the climactic showdown between (Force projected) Luke and Kylo Ren, the Jedi master looks like a younger version of himself. It’s an answer you probably figured out already — or should have inferred — but in case it didn’t connect, he’s happy to explain. Johnson also reveals why Kylo didn’t notice that Luke is holding his lightsabre, which had been destroyed earlier.
“We as an audience saw that,” Johnson told IGN. “The truth is, we see the lightsaber split in half [but] Kylo sees a blinding flash of light and is knocked unconscious, and then Rey takes the lightsaber away before he wakes up. So if you really want to dig into it and get an explanation, you can say that he doesn’t 100 percent know what happened to the lightsaber.”
“[Luke] is basically tailoring this projection to have maximum effect on Kylo. He knows that Kylo’s Achilles heel is his rage, and so that’s why he kind of makes himself look younger, the way Kylo would’ve last seen him in their confrontation at the temple, and that’s why he decided to bring Kylo’s grandfather’s lightsaber down there—the lightsaber that Kylo screamed at Rey, ‘That’s mine, that belongs to me,’ ” he added.
Disagree with Johnson? Want to nitpick? Hit the comments section. “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is now playing everywhere in the galaxy.
“Want to nitpick?” I find so funny how the you proud yourself in being a disrespectful asshole to anyone who has genuine problems with the movie. That’s the position of everyone that defends The Last Jedi. Also, this whole thing is so Trumpian, where truth and objective facts means nothing anymore. The complaints have always been that the way he writes the Force makes no internal sense or logic, which is a HUGE problem and not a fucking niptick, as anyone with even a little decency would admit. Than the director himself says he didn’t even bother to try and make sense of it, and you go “Ha, good one!”. Jesus fucking Christ. Honestly, I didn’t hate the movie, but the more I see people defending it, the more it pisses me of.
Force astral projection is actually called a Force Doppelganger and appears in both SWTOR and KOTOR, in a bunch of other games, novels, and comic books, and first appeared in a comic book in 1991. So the truth is anyone who thinks the way the force was used in TLJ was dumb and made no sense, doesn’t actually know all that much about Star Wars, and are in fact fake fans who are upset over space magic in a fiction universe.
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We all know that Han had his dice on him when he died but what Rey’s force projection presupposes is….maybe he didn’t?