Five years after the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson has said that he is prouder than ever of the film, which was controversial upon its release and remains so today.
In a recent interview with Empire magazine, Rian Johnson looked back on The Last Jedi five years later. When it was released, the film was highly polarizing, with some saying it was an abomination that ruined the franchise and others calling it one of the best Star Wars movies ever made. Thinking back on it now, Johnson says, “I’m even more proud of it five years on,” and added, “When I was up at bat, I really swung at the ball.”
According to Empire, for Johnson, The Last Jedi is not simply another Star Wars movie, but rather a movie about Star Wars. "I think it’s impossible for any of us to approach Star Wars without thinking about it as a myth that we were raised with, and how that myth, that story, baked itself into us and affected us,” The director said. "The ultimate intent was not to strip away—the intent was to get to the basic, fundamental power of myth. And ultimately I hope the film is an affirmation of the power of the myth of Star Wars in our lives."
Johnson also discussed his intent behind Luke Skywalker's journey in The Last Jedi, which was not well-received by everyone. “The final images of the movie, to me, are not deconstructing the myth of Luke Skywalker, they’re building it, and they’re him embracing it,” Johnson said in his interview. “They’re him absolutely defying the notion of, ‘Throw away the past,’ and embracing what actually matters about his myth and what’s going to inspire the next generation. So for me, the process of stripping away is always in the interest of getting to something essential that really matters.”
Although The Last Jedi aroused some controversy, the film was at its core playing with the concepts of the myth that are crucial to Star Wars and exploring what Luke Skywalker and the memory of Darth Vader (to Kylo Ren in particular) meant to that universe. In addition, the movie explored some of the moral values of the original series that had to some extent been lost after decades of Star Wars being nothing but a corporate money-making machine: most notably bravery, trust, and militarism.
In many ways, the memory of Luke Skywalker, in the films and in real life, had also grown and twisted into an almost god-like figure in the decades since the original series. Johnson deftly subverted people's expectations with his handling of Skywalker in a way that both fit with his troubled character and reminded fans what Jedi were to the world of Star Wars.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is available to stream on Disney Plus.
Source: Empire