In a few hours, the review embargo on “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” will be lifted, so it feels a bit perverse to talk about a new trilogy that doesn’t even have a release date yet. But it says a lot about the faith Lucasfilm has in Rian Johnson that they have given him the keys to open up the galaxy to a non-Luke Skywalker story. Remarkably, the filmmaker pitched the idea with few details about what it would actually be about, but the powers that be gave them their blessing anyway.
In a lengthy chat with the official Star Wars site (note: there is a huge, throwaway ‘The Last Jedi’ spoiler at the link, so be warned before you click through), Johnson shares his grand ambitions for his new “Star Wars” story, though he cautions it’s still very early days.
“I’m just at the beginning of the beginning of the beginning with it. It really just came about because we had such a great time making VIII, not just with the production, but Kathy [Kennedy], Ram [Bergman] my producer, and I, we all just got along so well. All the folks at Lucasfilm, we loved. Disney, we had a great time with Bob Iger and Alan Horn and Alan Bergman. We just really had a great experience with everybody,” he explained. “So we were getting to the end of this movie, and it really started with just, ‘How can we keep working together? It’s been a great experience. Beyond loving ‘Star Wars,’ I just love these people, how can we keep this going?” So I just kind of floated out the idea of, ‘Well, we can talk about a stand-alone movie or something, but the thing that’s really the most interesting to me is the notion of a new trilogy and a new story told over three movies.’ My pitch was basically, ‘Let’s give ourselves a clear, blue, open sky. Let’s say we can set this anywhere, and it’s not gonna be dealing with the characters that we’ve already established. Let’s create a whole new group of folks, a whole new set of circumstances, and let’s go to new places and let’s create a mythic, beautiful, emotional, fun ‘Star Wars’ story over three films.’ ”
Honestly, we would’ve loved to be a fly on the wall of that conversation. Clearly, Johnson’s vision and passion was enough to sell executives. But first, let’s get this trilogy out of the way, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” lands on Friday.