You’re in an envious position being next to all this. Do you ever try and nudge Rian about things you want to see in a “Star Wars” movie?
Ram: Nope [both of them laugh]. I have all the trust in the world that Rian will come up with something super cool and personal. I think what makes Rian’s movies really special is how personal they all are. So even within the world of “Star Wars,” he makes something intimate.
I’ve got to talk about Carrie Fisher. Obviously, it’s such a tremendous blow personally, but it’s such a big blow to the series and the story too. Did you and Lucasfilm ever try and contemplate changing ‘The Last Jedi’ because of the way it would affect ‘Episode IX”?
Rian: No. [pause]. We came back together after New Year’s after she had passed away, and we had the movie pretty well cut together at that point. And I had a conversation with Kathy [Kennedy] about it and we both just decided… I don’t know, the idea of trying to manufacture some kind of ending for Leia in this movie — first of all it would be manufactured, therefore it wouldn’t be great, and second, it would mean, we would inevitably have to lose some of the great performance she gave in this movie.
I can’t imagine losing any of her big scenes with the actors in this film. Those scenes mean so much to me. I wanted us all to have that, to have those scenes from Carrie on the screen. So, no, we just decided, we’ll let it lie.
It’s a strange thing to say, but I would assume it’s kind of a relief that you don’t have to figure out that massive challenge of how to deal with Leia now that Carrie is gone and you can’t continue her story.
Rian: It’s going to be a big task, man [pause]. But also, as a J.J. fan, I know he’s going to find a way to kill it, and I get to kind of be an audience member and see him bring it home. It’s pretty exciting.
You decided to bring back Yoda. Did you ever consider any possibilities around Obi-Wan or Ewan McGregor?
Rian: Believe me, man, I would have loved to have had Ewan McGregor in the movie but it was just a matter of storytelling: Yoda was the one. The original relationship with Obi-Wan, and obviously if Alec Guinness were still with us that would have made sense. But we never saw Luke ever interact with the Ewan version of Obi-Wan, so there’s less of the emotional connection and it might have been a little odd. We could recreate that character [practically], so it made sense that Yoda be the one that comes back and kicks [Luke’s] butt a little.
Did you ever think about bringing back Lando Calrissian? I know fans are missing him.
Rian: Of course I’d love to see Lando. In terms of Lando, I briefly considered [him] in the Benicio [del Toro] part [the character DJ]. The problem is….I don’t think you would ever buy that Lando would just completely betray the characters like that and have that level of moral ambiguity. ‘Cause we love Lando, and you’d come into it with that [expectation]. And also, DJ, for the purposes of Finn’s character, had to be a morally ambiguous character that you’re not sure about, that you’re guessing about and we already know that we love the character of Lando. So it just wouldn’t have played in that part, story-wise.
It sounds like it was an organic writing process, as opposed to some blockbusters that write a wish list of what they want to, and then re-engineer things around big beats or even set pieces.
Rian: You have to write organically, otherwise it leads to contrived places. Which is just to say it’s all about the needs of the story and there’s only so much room on the table for favorite characters to be in the movie. So, It would lead to some really contrived places if you put your fist down and said, “I want to see so and so in this movie,” and then try and figure out a way to shoehorn them in. I think you also have to have your wish list in the back of your head, but what you end up getting to pull from has to entirely be dependent on the needs of your main characters.
Luke not being physically present on Crait is a pretty great fake out. Did you ever consider him actually being there in earlier drafts?
Rian: No, because if Luke was physically there…what led me to the whole projection thing was I needed Luke to come back. I wanted a scene between him and Leia, I wanted a confrontation with Kylo Ren. Because Kylo has to live towards the end of the movie, I couldn’t see how any showdown man to man with them would end short of either some kind of contrived thing with someone escaping or Luke getting killed by Kylo. And I didn’t want that. I didn’t want Luke’s ending to be a defeat at the hand of his nephew.
So, that led to, “OK, how does this happen and where?” because as I came to the decision that it made sense for Luke to pass on at the end of this movie I knew I wanted that to be a contrast to Han Solo’s death in ‘The Force Awakens.’ Whereas Han’s death was a kind of violent defeat, I wanted Luke, in his death, to win and have a victory. And I wanted it to be on his terms. And I just couldn’t think of a way for that to happen with him coming face to face with Kylo if he was actually physically there.
So, it was kind of one of those “aha!” moments where I went straight to [“Star Wars” story consultant and in some ways, rules-of-the-galaxy enforcer] Pablo Hidalgo and went, “Can it be done? What do you think of this?” And we talked it through and talked about the precedent we were setting up with the Force connections between Kylo and Rey, and discussed it and decided, “Yeah, ok, let’s do this.”
Does that Force connection affect the universe going forward as this new power?
Rian: Their connection is only happening because of Snoke[‘s power]. And not only that, obviously as Kylo says, even with someone with Rey’s power it would kill her to try and open up that connection. So it’s something incredibly rare that takes a lot of power and we can see what it does to Luke in the end. It’s Luke motherfucking Skywalker and it takes out all the life force out of him to do what he did. So, it’s not something I think you’ll see casually done in the future.
It’s little things like that you have to take to the Lucasfilm group and see if it’s possible, right?
Rian: Absolutely. Again, I wanted to talk to the story group as much as possible. If anything, I was overly fearful about some of these new [ways the Force is used]. But they gave me permission: if the story requires it, push it.
And it’s important to remember that George Lucas did that too. With every single movie, he would introduce new things that the Force could do. The idea of the Force grabbing something did not come about until ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’ Same with Force ghosts — that was a new thing that was introduced in ‘Empire.’ And he introduced it because the story required it. And it felt right, so there it is. So the idea that we can never come up with new stuff and that it has to be locked in amber, [that’s not] where the Lucasfilm story group’s head is at.
I’m a big fan of the “what if.” Is there another version of this script where Luke lives? Did you play with that particular idea?
Rian: We played with all the ideas. Every one of these big decisions I messed with in some way, shape or form. Everything from… god, yeah… there’s an early version that I was writing where Poe and Finn went off on the adventure to Canto Bight. Obviously, I went back and forth endlessly about Luke at the end and the big questions…. Snoke I landed on pretty early and [his death] felt really right to me especially considering where I wanted Kylo’s character to go, so there was really never an alternate to his fate. But the writing process is — it’s not like you write down these things and they’re locked in stone. You’re writing a script and you’re trying to make the story work and something either works or it doesn’t and you have to adjust to that.
Are there going to be deleted scenes and stuff like that on the Blu-Ray?
Rian: There’s soooo much stuff we had to cut out of this movie. The movie is better for it, but some of my favorite stand-alone scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. So, there’s going to be a lot of —I’m going to sound like I’m selling Blu-Rays here, but there’s going to be a lot of really extensive deleted scenes that are included as extras on home video. I’m excited for folks to see them.
That’s slightly rare for a “Star Wars” movie.
Rian: Yeah, that’s true. I don’t know why this process was different, but we had a lot of really good stuff that got trimmed away for the sake of the whole film during the course of cutting.
Films change so much over the course of writing, production and then editing. I’m sure people would be fascinated to read the final shooting script. Do you think that will ever be published?
Rian: I definitely would think we would put out the full shooting draft out there at one point. I did that with “Looper” and with my other movies. As opposed to when they publish scripts after the movie’s out, where they do the version where they basically just rewrite it like so it’s like the film — which I’m sure they’ll do for this — but I would really love at some point to put out the original shooting draft so people can see the stuff that got cut, stuff that got rearranged, the stuff that got adjusted in rehearsals. I always think, even just from a film school point of view that’s always really interesting to see.
I’m super envious. I think you’re in an amazing position to be in to essentially write the very first “Star Wars” movie that isn’t in some way connected to the saga.
Rian: [Laughs]. Indeed, it is a very amazing position to be in. I’m lucky.
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is in theaters now.