Star Wars returned to the big screen in 2015 with the J.J. Abrams directed “The Force Awakens” and this year Rian Johnson will continue the saga with “The Last Jedi.”
Johnson started working on “The Last Jedi” while “The Forces Awakens” was still being filmed, and he recently revealed to EW that he asked J.J. Abrams to make a small, but significant change to the film. Rey spends most of the film with BB-8, but Johnson asked if R2 could replace BB-8 when Rey travels to meet Luke Skywalker.
“Yes … The big [favor] was, I asked if R2 could come with Rey, and if BB-8 could stay behind with the Resistance,” Johnson says. “Originally it was BB-8 who went with Rey, which makes sense for the story in a way. But I asked, ‘Can you do me this solid and switch the droids?’”
Rian Johnson also noted that the first thing he did when putting “The Last Jedi” together was figure out why Luke Skywalker would go into hiding, and he says there will be a good reason that makes sense to Luke and the audience.
“Figuring out where his head was at was the very first thing I had to do when writing the movie. 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?” Johnson says. “That was the starting point, and that’s what the entire movie explores.”
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” hits theaters on December 15, 2017.
