It’s May the 4th, aka annoying “Star Wars” promotional day, which is oddly relevant in 2017, because in the real world, the evil empire known as the GOP is trying to kill millions of people by taking healthcare away from people in order to fund a tax cut for rich people rather than with a space laser. It was inevitable that some kind of “Star Wars” tidbit would be released to mark the occasion, and it’s arrived thanks to Entertainment Weekly.
The outlet report that when Rian Johnson was hired to direct the movie that became ‘The Last Jedi,’ and saw the script for J.J. Abrams’ prior film in the franchise, ‘The Force Awakens,’ then, about to go into production, Johnson asked Abrams to change one element of the ending. Saving Han Solo? Some kind of post-credits scene? Re-introducing Jar-Jar Binks?
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Nope: it was swapping around droid placement. Initially, in Abrams’s script, Rey was accompanied to the planet where Luke Skywalker has been hiding out by BB-8, who’d been her loyal companion for much of the movie. But Johnson wanted a shift. “The big [favor] was,” Johnson told EW, “I asked if R2 could come with Rey, and if BB-8 could stay behind with the Resistance. Originally it was BB-8 who went with Rey, which makes sense for the story in a way. But I asked ‘Could you do me this solid and switch the droids.’”
We imagine that this means that Johnson has very specific plans in mind for the pint-sized wheelie-bin, and can only assume this means one thing: R2-D2 is Snoke. Obviously. Beyond that, Johnson also talks a little about Luke Skywalker, who’ll be much more central to ‘The Last Jedi’ after only turning up at the very end of ‘The Force Awakens.’
“Figuring out where his head was at was the very first thing I had to do when writing the movie,” Johnson says. “I had to crack this. And it had to be something for me that first and foremost made sense. Why did Luke Skywalker go off to this island? That was the starting point, and that’s what the entire movie explores.” You’ll get to find out the answers when “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” opens on December 15th, assuming you’re not dead from not being able to afford healthcare by then.