So the drought of info on Star Wars: The Last Jedi is totally over. While we had a bushel of new images earlier, there was also the promise of much more to come. And now we're learning more about the film's central mystery, which is what in the universe happened to Luke Skywalker to turn him into a hermit cut off from everyone he loves?
That was the key question Rian Johnson, and to some extent Mark Hamill, had to answer before anything could move forward. What we know, or what was teased to us, was a betrayal by Luke's apprentice Kylo Ren over to the Dark Side, leading to the destruction of the Jedi Academy. Johnson says...
“The very first step in the writing of this was figuring out why he’s on that island. We know that he is not a coward. He’s not just hiding because he’s scared. But we also know that he must know his friends are in danger. He must know the galaxy needs him. And he’s sitting on this island in the middle of nowhere. There had to be an answer. It had to be something where Luke Skywalker believes he’s doing the right thing – and the process of figuring out what that is and unpacking it is the journey for Rey.”
Still, that doesn't answer the question, does it? So why didn't Luke stick around to help fight back against Kylo Ren and the First Order? Why is he off by himself when he knows the universe is in grave danger? Hamill, who has been open about his difficulty adjusting to Luke's storyline, has some thoughts on it and his own process...
“[Luke] made a huge mistake in thinking that his nephew was the chosen one, so he invested everything he had in Kylo, much like Obi-Wan did with my character. And he is betrayed, with tragic consequences. Luke feels responsible for that. That’s the primary obstacle he has to rejoining the world and his place in the Jedi hierarchy, you know? It’s that guilt, that feeling that it’s his fault, that he didn’t detect the darkness in him until it was too late.”
“There’s massive amounts of backstory that is left to your imagination and I couldn’t do my job without figuring out what that was. Since it’s not really important to the main story as a whole a lot of it is just for my own process. I talked with Rian about it and went into this elaborate scenario of what happened to Luke after the end of the Return of the Jedi.”
While Luke is still trying to figure himself out, Kylo Ren will be hanging out with Supreme Leader Snoke, the First Order's mysterious leader seen only in hologram (played by Andy Serkis) in The Force Awakens. He'll emerge fully in the flesh this time, though. And when he does arrive he'll be accompanied by his Praetorian Guard, who look a lot like Palpatine's Imperial Guard only much cooler. Turns out, the Praetorians will actually get busy, too, which is a nice change of pace. Johnson adds...
“The Emperor’s guards were very formal, and you always got the sense that they could fight, but they didn’t. They looked like they were more ceremonial, and you never really saw them in action. The Praetorians, my brief to [costume designer] Michael Kaplan was that those guys have to be more like samurai. They have to be built to move, and you have to believe that they could step forward and engage if they have to. They have to seem dangerous.”
As for Snoke himself, there have been some wild fan theories put forth over his identity. I saw one that thought he was friggin' Han Solo from the future or some nonsense. It gets crazy. My favorite is that he's Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson), having survived the seemingly fatal attack by Palpatine and Anakin Skywalker. Johnson promises that we will see "more" of Snoke, but if you think every question is going to get answered then you might want to think again...
“Similar to Rey’s parentage, Snoke is here to serve a function in the story. And a story is not a Wikipedia page. For example, in the original trilogy, we didn’t know anything about the Emperor except what Luke knew about him, that he’s the evil guy behind Vader. Then in the prequels, you knew everything about Palpatine because his rise to power was the story....we’ll learn exactly as much about Snoke as we need to.”
Excited yet? Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens December 15th! [EW]
