**SPOILERS AHEAD**
Disappointed fans have been crying out “That’s not how the Force works!” in their various complaints about “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” Certainly, one of the most contentious moments comes when Leia gets sucked into outer space after First Order pilots shoot up the Resistance ship. As she slowly freezes to death, Leia summons herself back to her ship where’s she’s rescued in a sequence that’s fairly jaw-dropping. I’ll admit, when I first saw the film, it took me right out of the movie. However, in a subsequent viewing, if felt smoother, and even more organic — I could buy the moment.
On the Empire podcast, writer/director Rian Johnson reveals his thinking behind that crucial scene, and there’s a logic to it, though it likely won’t sway those for whom it doesn’t work.
“The idea behind that moment was that — first of all, her use of Force in that moment is not incredibly powerful she’s in space which offers no resistance. So it actually doesn’t take much to pull her back in, she is in zero gravity, but also [her use of the Force] is instinctual,” he explained. “That was the bigger thing for me, is that it’s the equivalent of like when you hear stories about parents who have a toddler trapped under a car and they lift the car up, and they get Hulk strength. It’s that idea ‘this is not going to end today, I’m not finished yet’ and that it’s almost like a drowning person is clawing their way to the surface, the way she pulls her way back.”
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Pivoting to Leia’s brother, Luke Skywalker had a grand exit from the franchise, squaring off as a Force projection against Kylo Ren, a process that ultimately takes the Jedi master’s life. And again, Johnson put a lot of thought into how it would all play out.
“He’s taken himself out of the fight, he’s sitting on that island in exile. I know the Luke I grew up with is not a coward, he’s not sitting out there hiding, so I had to come up with a reason he was there that was active and positive, and something I could genuinely believe. And the thing that came to me that seemed to make sense is this notion that he sees this hero worship of him and of the Jedi that is detrimental to the galaxy,” he elaborated. “The universe has put its faith in its false god of the Jedi and they need to forget the religion so they can get back to god, that light can rise from a worthier source. And because he’s the last Jedi and a symbol of that, it then becomes this self-sacrifice he has to do to take himself out of it when he knows his friends are dying, when he knows the thing he’d like to do is get back in the fight. He’s taken the weight of the world on his shoulders by taking himself out of the equation so that the Jedi can die out. The end of the movie is him embracing the part of the past that the present needs, which right now is the legend of Luke Skywalker. They need something to believe in, they need that action figure of Luke Skywalker to grab on to, that inspiration to stare up at the stars and believe that you can be a hero.”
The director was very keen on ensuring that Skywalker’s death served to inspire new rebels, such as the broom boy at the end of the film, who gazes up at the night sky…
“That was something I really stuck to, and believe me, we went back and forth in the editing room. In the script, when I wrote that scene in the Falcon, I wrote the words, ‘this seems like the perfect image to end on.’ To me, it was really important to have that final scene, because it turns what Luke did from an act that saves 20 people into an act that inspires the galaxy. The notion that what we’re setting up here is something big in the next chapter. And when Leia says, ‘we have everything we need,’ she’s talking about everyone on the Falcon, but also about what we see next, which is we now have a galaxy that has seen this beacon of hope and is getting inspired to fight the good fight,” Johnson said.
Listen to the full conversation with Johnson below and given “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” another whirl in cinemas right now. [via io9/Heroic Hollywood]