RIAN JOHNSON THREW EVERYTHING HE HAD INTO THE LAST JEDI, WHICH CHALLENGED EVERYONE: HIM, HIS CAST AND HIS AUDIENCE. FIVE YEARS SINCE ITS RELEASE, HE LOOKS BACK AT THE FILM THAT SHOOK UP THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE FOREVER

WORDS ALEX GODFREY

Snowtroopers advance. An older,

THE DUST HAS SETTlED

Or has it? It’s been five years since The Last Jedi was released. The sequel trilogy wrapped up in 2019. Lucasfilm and Disney+ are wheeling out Star Wars shows like they’re trying to complete the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Rian Johnson has moved on, and is in the midst of an already hugely successful murder-mystery franchise. And yet… and yet.

We wanted to revisit The Last Jedi because a) we love it so, and b) it’s hard to think of another recent Star Wars outing that has inspired quite so much discussion. And there was so much discussion. “Still is!” laughs Rian Johnson. Yes. There very much is.

The Last Jedi fires people up. Passions still run high for the film that took what J.J. Abrams had introduced with The Force Awakens and deepened it, interrogated it, flipped it, taking the saga in unpredictable and thrilling directions. Johnson made daring choices, sometimes shocking us — and his own cast — while remaining true to the foundations laid by George Lucas. “I’m even more proud of it five years on,” Johnson says now, on Zoom video from his home in Los Angeles. “When I was up at bat, I really swung at the ball.”

That he did. There’s all the fun stuff: that incredible Kylo-and-Rey fight in Snoke’s throne room; that breathtaking Holdo manoeuvre; that gobsmacking climactic showdown; and, erm, Luke milking that massive island creature and quaffing the spoils. But most of all, it has heart, acutely challenging its characters while giving us everything we wanted, without us knowing we wanted it. Which was exactly the point. Its left-turns felt right.

“I love it as a Star Wars movie,” says Johnson, who can now appreciate it with somewhat of a detached eye. “My intention from the start was to put everything I love about Star Wars into it. And, in a very meaningful way, try and dig into what Star Wars means to me, what Star Wars meant when I was a kid, what Star Wars meant now, through the whole journey I had, that I think a lot of us our age had,” he says, referring to a childhood with the original trilogy before then, as an adult, taking in the prequels, and finally ruminating on — and running with — it all as he geared up for his own contribution. For one film at least, the fate of the galaxy was in his hands.