It has been five long years since the release of Rian Johnson’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” Thankfully, over the past year or so, it feels like the discourse surrounding it has tempered a bit and people aren’t ready to murder each other on social media if you even mention the film. That said, there are still a lot of opinions out there about ‘The Last Jedi.’ And in a recent interview, Rian Johnson is here to at least talk about his intentions with the film, whether or not you believe he was successful.
Speaking to The Atlantic, Rian Johnson talked about the trouble with trying to make the middle chapter of a serialized story. This, as you might imagine, brought on a discussion about the end of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” The filmmaker explained that he intended to craft a memorable ending to his film, even though it was clearly the middle chapter of a new trilogy and the eighth chapter of a decades-spanning saga. Regardless of whether you think he was successful or not, you have to agree that Johnson wasn’t given an easy task.
“Look, in terms of the ‘Star Wars’ movie I did, I tried to give it a hell of an ending,” he explained. “I love endings so much that even doing the middle chapter of the trilogy, I tried to give it an ending. A good ending that recontextualizes everything that came before it and makes it a beautiful object unto itself—that’s what makes a movie a movie. It feels like there’s less and less of that. This whole poisonous idea of creating [intellectual property] has completely seeped into the bedrock of storytelling. Everyone is just thinking, How do we keep milking it? I love an ending where you burn the Viking boat into the sea.”
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He’s not wrong in thinking that serialized, IP-driven storytelling can result in some less-than-satisfying endings. When you think about it, outside of maybe “Avengers: Endgame,” have any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films had a truly incredible ending? An ending that makes you stand back and marvel at the ambition? Sure, ‘Infinity War’ ended with the shocking death of half of the universe, but did anyone really think Spider-man and Black Panther were dead? No. Of course not. That would be terrible IP-driven storytelling because you need those characters for their next billion-dollar adventure.
So, when Rian Johnson was given the task of crafting a satisfying ending for a middle chapter of a trilogy and the eighth film in a saga, he really did swing for the fences. No, the film wasn’t universally beloved, and it might have changed the trajectory of the entire franchise for the worse. But at least he tried, right?