***Lots of people have lots of opinions about Star Wars: The Last Jedi. You have one. I have one. But you know whose opinion I want to hear? Rian Johnson’s. He wrote it. He directed it. Now let’s hear what he has to say about it. That’s what this space is for. This is “Rian Johnson on The Last Jedi.“***

By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder

The Scene: Picking right up from the ending of The Force Awakens, Rey has arrived on the planet Ahch-To to seek out Luke Skywalker. She brings him his father’s lightsaber, the same one he lost on Bespin decades ago. Luke tosses the weapon over the cliff, refusing to help Rey.

Rian Johnson Says (Via The Last Jedi Commentary Track): “This moment of Mark [Hamill] tossing the saber, that was always just something that made a lot of sense to me … The first thing I had to do as I was writing the script was figure out, why was Luke on this island? … So he knows his friends are fighting this good fight, he knows there’s peril out there in the galaxy, and he’s exiled himself way out here and taken himself out of it. So I had to figure out why. And I knew because it was Luke Skywalker, who I grew up with as a hero, I knew the answer couldn’t be cowardice. So I knew the answer had to be something active, he couldn’t just be hiding. It had to be something positive. He thinks he’s doing the right thing.

“And that kind of led to…the notion that he’s come to the conclusion from all the given evidence that the Jedi are not helping. They’re just perpetuating this kind of cycle. They need to go away so that the light can rise from a more worthy source. So suddenly that turned his exile from something where he’s hiding and avoiding responsibility to him kind of taking the weight of the world on his shoulders and bearing this huge burden of know his friends are suffering. And because he thinks its the bigger and better thing for the galaxy, he’s choosing to not engage with it.”

I Say: The notion that they handed this series off to Johnson without a plan, or answers to certain questions, is flabbergasting to me. Supposedly, that is indeed what happened. He sat down and wrote this movie with no idea why Luke had exiled himself, who Rey’s family was, who Snoke was, or any of that. He had to create his own answers. So I can sympathize with the position he was apparently put in.

The reason he came up with for Luke’s exile was fine. I like it a lot, in fact. I can certainly appreciate that it wasn’t simply cowardice. What I, and certainly numerous others, did not appreciate was the comedic chucking of the lightsaber over the cliff. That moment between Luke and Rey at the end of The Force Awakens had so much weight to it. It was the first time we’d seen Luke since Return of the Jedi. He was shocked to see this new person who’d discovered him, and Rey was vulnerable, silently asking for his guidance. It was a cliffhanger suitable to end the movie, and one we waited two damn years to get the payoff for…

It’s not Luke’s rejection of the weapon, and thus Rey’s question, that irks me. It’s the tonality of it. Instead of having Luke toss it, why not just let it drop to his feet? It’s less heavy-handed (no pun intended), and subtly speaks to his refusal to take on the responsibility of being a hero. Instead, he just tosses the weapon away like a discarded soda can or something. To do it the way they did was almost disrespectful to The Force Awakens…

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