***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: Moments after being blown into the vacuum of space, Leia, seemingly by instinct, uses the Force to drift toward the safety of a nearby Resistance ship.

Rian Johnson Says (Via The Last Jedi Commentary Track): “This was something that Kathy Kennedy would bring up. The notion that Leia is a Skywalker as well, and she’s got that same heritage. There’s a line in [Return of the Jedi] where Luke says ‘you’ve got these powers too.’ We never see them manifest. And the notion that in a moment like this, when it seems like all is lost, and she just realizes she’s not done yet. … Almost like you hear about parents when their kids are caught under cars being able to get Hulk strength and lift them up. That’s kind of what I wanted this moment to be with her using the Force kind of for the first time in these movies to pull herself back and say, ‘No. We’re not done. This is not ending here.'”

I Say: I distinctly remember my jaw hitting the floor when that ship blew up, and seeing Leia violently jerked into the vacuum of space. Keep in mind, when The Last Jedi came out Carrie Fisher had been gone just shy of a year. So the notion of the Leia character being killed off so abruptly was jarring, to say the least.

I didn’t have as big a problem with this as other people did. But I can definitely see where the criticism comes from. There’s definitely an unintentional silliness to it. And yes, the idea that even as a Skywalker, an untrained Leia can use a Force in such a drastic way does push at the boundaries of believably. In a Star Wars movie, that’s certainly saying something.

One of the missed opportunities with this new trilogy is that we never learned why Leia didn’t become a Jedi herself. In the old expanded universe novels, now under the “Legends” banner, she more or less decided it wasn’t her path. Obviously, something like that has happened here as well. But why? We’ve never even gotten a throw-away line or a reference to it. Some closure on that would be nice at some point.

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