While Rian Johnson is likely rightly celebrating the outpouring of praise for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,“ let’s not forget what a monumental leap he took. Before landing in a galaxy far, far away the director largely made small, more hand-crafted films like “Brick,” “The Brothers Bloom,” and “Looper.” The latter saw him expand his palette a bit, but even for a sci-fi picture, it was fairly down ‘n dirty. With ‘The Last Jedi,’ Johnson was dropped into a huge sandbox, and he didn’t mind filling it up with plenty of ambition. The only problem was his imagination slightly ran with him.
Production designer Rick Heinrichs reveals that an early screenplay called for 160 distinct sets, a massive number by any measure, and one that would’ve been nearly impossible to execute for ‘The Last Jedi.’
READ MORE: George Lucas Says ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Was “Beautifully Made”
“The original script had about 160 sets in it, a ridiculous amount of sets. I didn’t say that to Rian, because I figured on something this big he’ll find that out on his own. It’s a 100-day shooting schedule,” he explained to THR. “So there’s more than one set a day you have to prepare for.”
However, Johnson wisely honed his script, to get it down to 125 sets spread across 14 stages at Pinewood in London.
“The truth is we ended up combining things and trying to be smart about how we’re going to do it,” Heinrichs said. “He did do some trimming and cutting. It forced him to actually cut the shoe leather, as they say, and combine things in the script as well and reduce a number of things that way.”
Even with the trim, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is the longest movie in the series to date, running 2.5 hours. But Johnson wasn’t afraid to make hard choices, noting that there are still plenty of deleted scenes to sift through.
May the force be with you this weekend.