Anticipation is at an all-time high among Star Wars fans as we approach the month of December. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be the final chapter of the Skywalker Saga that has spanned three trilogies and multiple generations. More than that, people are curious to see if JJ Abrams will successfully be able to bridge the gap between the fandom after Rian Johnson drove a wedge right through it.
Speaking of, in an interview with Rolling Stone, JJ Abrams discusses some of the creative decisions made by Rian Johnson in The Last Jedi and how it made him feel. In regards to the death of Supreme Leader Snoke, Abrams said that it actually made him laugh, when he first read the draft.
When I read his first draft, it made me laugh, because I saw that was his take and his voice. I got to watch cuts of the movie as he was working on it, as an audience member. And I appreciated the choices he made as a filmmaker that would probably be very different from the choices that I would have made. Just as he would have made different choices if he had made Episode VII.
Abrams also talks about perhaps the most controversial decision Johnson made in The Last Jedi, which is to explore Luke’s flaws.
I felt the biggest surprise was how dark Luke was. That was the thing that I thought: ‘Oh, that was unexpected.’ And that’s the thing The Last Jedi undeniably succeeds at, which is constant subversion of expectation. The number of things that happened in that movie that aren’t the thing you think is going to happen is pretty fun.
Having said that, JJ Abrams also said that Rian Johnson’s bold creative choices didn’t actually change the ending he had in mind when he directed The Force Awakens.
I had a real sense with [Force Awakens co-screenwriter] Larry Kasdan about where things would go, potentially. And I think that, when I read Rian’s script, what I felt was that with everything that happens in that movie, and quite a lot does, nothing sort of obviated a sense of inevitability where I thought the story could go.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits Malaysian cinemas this 19 December.
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