“Star Wars” fandom and the geek culture at-large has been responsible for some outlandish rumors and Rian Johnson is looking to set things straight after there had been this reoccurring narrative that J.J. Abrams and Johnson were at-odds creatively during the process of the last two sequel trilogy installments, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
According to Johnson himself, while chatting with Rolling Stone Magazine, this wasn’t the case when the outlet brought up those notions of the two directors clashing behind the scenes, including over the death of Snoke.
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“We communicated. We met and I spent days with [J.J. Abrams] and was able to get into his head and all the choices he had made. That having been said, I communicated and I went and made the movie. And he was in the middle of [‘The Force Awakens’]. Ultimately, I feel like the choices in it, none of them were born out of an intent to ‘undo’ anything. They were all borne out of the opposite intent of, how do I take this story that J.J. wrote, that I really loved, and these characters he created that I really loved, and take them to the next step? Kathy [Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm] said, “We’re looking at someone to do the Empire [Strikes Back] of this series.” I took that assignment very seriously. Maybe more seriously than someone would have liked. I guess to me that didn’t mean making something that just had nods to Empire — that meant trying to genuinely do what Empire did.
There had also been talk of Johnson being ousted from making “Episode IX” due to the mixed reaction of “The Last Jedi” or for other creative differences, before Colin Trevorrow (his version “Duel of the Fates“ never made it to the screen) was brought on, only to be later replaced by Abrams.
Johnson clarified how he was only assigned to do a single installment and didn’t plan on carrying over his ideas for the next installment or assumed the next director would either, “I think we must have been wrapping up. But also, to be clear, we had never put our names in the hat. We never were anticipating doing a third one. It was nothing we were pitching ourselves for, and [Kennedy] made the decision…No, absolutely not. The reality is, if I thought I was doing both of them, I would have ended it the same way. From the very start, the assignment was doing [film number] eight, and another director would do nine. I didn’t know it would be J.J. but the whole thing was being the middle leg of the race.”
“When I saw [‘The Rise of Skywalker’], I had a great time watching it. Again, this is all about point of view. I never approach this as, like, a territory I’m carving out for my thing. In my perspective, J.J. did the same thing with the third that I did with the second, which is not digging it up and undoing — just telling the story the way that was most compelling going forward. That means not just validating what came before, but recontextualizing it and evolving and changing as the story moves forward. I didn’t feel resentful in some way. But you’re talking about a movie made by my friends, with my friends in it. I sit down to watch a movie, and it’s a Star Wars movie. It’s all stuff I love. I’m not the one to come to for a hard-hitting critique. You can go to YouTube for that,” Johnson said while sharing kind words for “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
At this point, it’s hard to see Johnson coming back to Lucasfilm to make three more “Star Wars” movies (even as just a producer/writer) he had been tasked to develop after he recently revealed in that same interview that he didn’t even complete outlines, as he was busy with his originals like “Knives Out” and “Poker Face.” Even more so as he’s been teasing a new sci-fi project, which sounds like yet another original that is going to take up his creative energy and time.
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