She's a radical feminists dream. Hence the reason her ridiculous character is being pushed by Disney with their leftist agenda.
Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi [RT: 91%]
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She's a radical feminists dream. Hence the reason her ridiculous character is being pushed by Disney with their leftist agenda.
Vanity Fair - Star Wars: The Last Jedi: So, About That Title . . .
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/star-wars-the-last-jedi-title
Star Wars: Inside the Troubled Past and Exciting Future of Rey’s Lightsaber
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/star-wars-lightsaber-the-last-jedi?
Star Wars Nerds, Mark Hamill Is One of You
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/mark-hamill-star-wars-nerd?mbid=social_twitter
Here’s How Seriously Adam Driver Takes Playing Kylo Ren
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/adam-driver-kylo-ren-the-last-jedi?mbid=social_twitter
What's in and what's not in TLJ.
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...e-last-jedi-and-whats-not?mbid=social_twitter
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/star-wars-the-last-jedi-title
Star Wars: Inside the Troubled Past and Exciting Future of Rey’s Lightsaber
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/star-wars-lightsaber-the-last-jedi?
Star Wars Nerds, Mark Hamill Is One of You
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/mark-hamill-star-wars-nerd?mbid=social_twitter
Here’s How Seriously Adam Driver Takes Playing Kylo Ren
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/adam-driver-kylo-ren-the-last-jedi?mbid=social_twitter
What's in and what's not in TLJ.
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...e-last-jedi-and-whats-not?mbid=social_twitter
Kathleen Kennedy on Carrie Fisher’s Death and the Future of Star Wars
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/kathleen-kennedy-on-the-future-of-star-wars
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/kathleen-kennedy-on-the-future-of-star-wars
Is anyone else kinda worried this is gonna be a bust? Please give me hope for this production that seems slow to roll out a quality trailer, a director with huge shoes to fill, and no Harrison Ford to carry the weight of expectation.
I think it will be different from ESB, especially since Johnson has been very adamant about that. I believe it will have homages to ESB but will be a different movie.
The Last Jedi: Can Rey save Luke Skywalker from his own darkness?
Part 1 of EW’s new ‘Star Wars’ cover story features Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
Perhaps the only thing more unsettling than meeting your enemy is coming face-to-face with your hero.
That’s where the Star Wars saga left us at the end of The Force Awakens, with Daisy Ridley’s Rey standing atop a craggy, windswept island, holding out Luke Skywalker’s long-lost family lightsaber to the man she knew only as a legend. But in The Last Jedi, she actually has much further to go to find the warrior who inspired all those old stories.
This isn’t the Luke she’s heard about. It’s not the one we know either.
This is a broken man. One who would have preferred to stay lost. And he feels the same way about that lightsaber.
“The fact that Luke says, ‘I only know one truth. It’s time for the Jedi to end…’ I mean, that’s a pretty amazing statement for someone who was the symbol of hope and optimism in the original films,” Mark Hamill tells EW as part of our new cover story on the Dec. 15 film.
“When I first read it, my jaw dropped,” the actor says. “What would make someone that alienated from his original convictions? That’s not something that you can just make up in an afternoon, and I really struggled with this thing.”
Luke definitely does not give Rey the warm welcome he received when he went in search of Alec Guinness’ Ben Kenobi in 1977’s original Star Wars. She is warned. She is given an explanation. Nevertheless …
“She’s so hopeful to everything,” Ridley says. “And obviously there’s a hint of, ‘What the hell?’”
This rejection hits Rey’s abandonment issues. Hard.
IT’S A SHAME ABOUT REY
As we know, the young scavenger was ditched as a child on the hardscrabble junkyard world of Jakku by unknown parents and left for years to survive on her own. But lately, she has gotten accustomed to making fast friends, like BB-8, Finn, Chewbacca, and General Leia Organa. Even the murderous Kylo Ren became fascinated by her strength and resilience after kidnapping her.
“Regardless of everything else, she’s been welcomed. No one ever really turns away from her,” Ridley says.
That changes when she arrives on Ach-To.
Luke’s brush-off makes Rey miss the gruff warmth of Han Solo, Ridley says, giving us a peek inside the head of her character: “’Oh my God, this other man that I lost within a couple days was somewhat of a father figure. Now he’s gone, and instead I’m with this grumpy guy on an island who doesn’t want me here.’”
But Ridley says Rey is also placing huge expectations on Luke. She arrives on the island of Ach-To, site of a primitive Jedi temple, not to become a hero herself, but to shove Skywalker back into the fight.
“I don’t think one girl, who he doesn’t know, turning up with a lightsaber is gonna make him go, ‘Oh, s—, yeah, of course I’ll get back into the action,’” Ridley says.
“But does he not know her?” Hamill says in his separate interview.
That’s a question Star Wars fans have been debating for two years. Soon they’ll learn the answer.
ED MILLER/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
A big part of Rey’s future will be uncovering her own past: Who is connected to her? Where did she come from? And why was she cast away?
As she tries to pick up her own pieces, she may find they fit together well with the remnants of Luke Skywalker. Working together, they may become whole again.
RELATED: Exclusive New Star Wars: The Last Jedi Images
THE BROKEN WARRIOR
This isn’t going to be easy for fans. It wasn’t easy for Hamill.
No one wants their favorite hero to be laid low, but it’s worth remembering: Star Wars always begins with “A long time ago,” but it doesn’t end with “happily ever after.”
If there are going to be more stories, there has to be conflict, trauma, scars. A hero can’t still be the same triumphant figure he was decades before.
The Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson inherited a Luke Skywalker who had banished himself, but apart from nebulous hints of a Jedi academy gone wrong in the J.J. Abrams film, no one got a full explanation for the character’s disappearance.
“The very first step in the writing of this was figuring out why he’s on that island,” Johnson says. “We know that he is not a coward. He’s not just hiding because he’s scared. But we also know that he must know his friends are in danger. He must know the galaxy needs him. And he’s sitting on this island in the middle of nowhere. There had to be an answer. It had to be something where Luke Skywalker believes he’s doing the right thing – and the process of figuring out what that is and unpacking it is the journey for Rey.”
BRUNO DAYAN/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
The Force Awakens did tell us that Han and Leia’s son, Ben Solo, turned to the dark side and murdered his fellow students at Luke’s new Jedi academy – then went on to join the First Order under the name Kylo Ren. But it didn’t explain why Luke felt it was better to isolate himself than continuing to fight his former apprentice.
Hamill hints that Luke has begun to doubt his own connection to the Force, wondering if he has been misreading it all this time.
“[Luke] made a huge mistake in thinking that his nephew was the chosen one, so he invested everything he had in Kylo, much like Obi-Wan did with my character,” Hamill says. “And he is betrayed, with tragic consequences. Luke feels responsible for that. That’s the primary obstacle he has to rejoining the world and his place in the Jedi hierarchy, you know? It’s that guilt, that feeling that it’s his fault, that he didn’t detect the darkness in him until it was too late.”
But there’s more to it than we know. There’s also more to it than the film itself will reveal…
HIDDEN HISTORY
“There’s massive amounts of backstory that is left to your imagination and I couldn’t do my job without figuring out what that was,” Hamill says. “Since it’s not really important to the main story as a whole a lot of it is just for my own process. I talked with Rian about it and went into this elaborate scenario of what happened to Luke after the end of the Return of the Jedi.”
What we know for sure is that Luke is discovering there’s nowhere he can run that will allow him to escape himself.
He’s older now, about the same age Obi-Wan Kenobi was in the original film, but in many ways Luke is still that silhouette we remember standing on the rocks, staring out at the twin suns of Tatooine.
“I think he probably looks out on the horizon and wishes that he could be more effective, could be what Obi-Wan wanted him to be,” Hamill says. “But life is imperfect and without conflict there is no drama. Believe me, you’re going to see a lot of conflict in The Last Jedi. That is for sure.”
His dreams are different now. Less hopeful. More regretful.
But deep down, the farmboy turned warrior turned exile would also like to meet the hero known as Luke Skywalker again.
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/09/star-wars-last-jedi-rey-luke-skywalker-daisy-ridley-mark-hamill/
Part 1 of EW’s new ‘Star Wars’ cover story features Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
Perhaps the only thing more unsettling than meeting your enemy is coming face-to-face with your hero.
That’s where the Star Wars saga left us at the end of The Force Awakens, with Daisy Ridley’s Rey standing atop a craggy, windswept island, holding out Luke Skywalker’s long-lost family lightsaber to the man she knew only as a legend. But in The Last Jedi, she actually has much further to go to find the warrior who inspired all those old stories.
This isn’t the Luke she’s heard about. It’s not the one we know either.
This is a broken man. One who would have preferred to stay lost. And he feels the same way about that lightsaber.
“The fact that Luke says, ‘I only know one truth. It’s time for the Jedi to end…’ I mean, that’s a pretty amazing statement for someone who was the symbol of hope and optimism in the original films,” Mark Hamill tells EW as part of our new cover story on the Dec. 15 film.
“When I first read it, my jaw dropped,” the actor says. “What would make someone that alienated from his original convictions? That’s not something that you can just make up in an afternoon, and I really struggled with this thing.”
Luke definitely does not give Rey the warm welcome he received when he went in search of Alec Guinness’ Ben Kenobi in 1977’s original Star Wars. She is warned. She is given an explanation. Nevertheless …
“She’s so hopeful to everything,” Ridley says. “And obviously there’s a hint of, ‘What the hell?’”
This rejection hits Rey’s abandonment issues. Hard.
IT’S A SHAME ABOUT REY
As we know, the young scavenger was ditched as a child on the hardscrabble junkyard world of Jakku by unknown parents and left for years to survive on her own. But lately, she has gotten accustomed to making fast friends, like BB-8, Finn, Chewbacca, and General Leia Organa. Even the murderous Kylo Ren became fascinated by her strength and resilience after kidnapping her.
“Regardless of everything else, she’s been welcomed. No one ever really turns away from her,” Ridley says.
That changes when she arrives on Ach-To.
Luke’s brush-off makes Rey miss the gruff warmth of Han Solo, Ridley says, giving us a peek inside the head of her character: “’Oh my God, this other man that I lost within a couple days was somewhat of a father figure. Now he’s gone, and instead I’m with this grumpy guy on an island who doesn’t want me here.’”
But Ridley says Rey is also placing huge expectations on Luke. She arrives on the island of Ach-To, site of a primitive Jedi temple, not to become a hero herself, but to shove Skywalker back into the fight.
“I don’t think one girl, who he doesn’t know, turning up with a lightsaber is gonna make him go, ‘Oh, s—, yeah, of course I’ll get back into the action,’” Ridley says.
“But does he not know her?” Hamill says in his separate interview.
That’s a question Star Wars fans have been debating for two years. Soon they’ll learn the answer.
ED MILLER/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
A big part of Rey’s future will be uncovering her own past: Who is connected to her? Where did she come from? And why was she cast away?
As she tries to pick up her own pieces, she may find they fit together well with the remnants of Luke Skywalker. Working together, they may become whole again.
RELATED: Exclusive New Star Wars: The Last Jedi Images
THE BROKEN WARRIOR
This isn’t going to be easy for fans. It wasn’t easy for Hamill.
No one wants their favorite hero to be laid low, but it’s worth remembering: Star Wars always begins with “A long time ago,” but it doesn’t end with “happily ever after.”
If there are going to be more stories, there has to be conflict, trauma, scars. A hero can’t still be the same triumphant figure he was decades before.
The Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson inherited a Luke Skywalker who had banished himself, but apart from nebulous hints of a Jedi academy gone wrong in the J.J. Abrams film, no one got a full explanation for the character’s disappearance.
“The very first step in the writing of this was figuring out why he’s on that island,” Johnson says. “We know that he is not a coward. He’s not just hiding because he’s scared. But we also know that he must know his friends are in danger. He must know the galaxy needs him. And he’s sitting on this island in the middle of nowhere. There had to be an answer. It had to be something where Luke Skywalker believes he’s doing the right thing – and the process of figuring out what that is and unpacking it is the journey for Rey.”
BRUNO DAYAN/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
The Force Awakens did tell us that Han and Leia’s son, Ben Solo, turned to the dark side and murdered his fellow students at Luke’s new Jedi academy – then went on to join the First Order under the name Kylo Ren. But it didn’t explain why Luke felt it was better to isolate himself than continuing to fight his former apprentice.
Hamill hints that Luke has begun to doubt his own connection to the Force, wondering if he has been misreading it all this time.
“[Luke] made a huge mistake in thinking that his nephew was the chosen one, so he invested everything he had in Kylo, much like Obi-Wan did with my character,” Hamill says. “And he is betrayed, with tragic consequences. Luke feels responsible for that. That’s the primary obstacle he has to rejoining the world and his place in the Jedi hierarchy, you know? It’s that guilt, that feeling that it’s his fault, that he didn’t detect the darkness in him until it was too late.”
But there’s more to it than we know. There’s also more to it than the film itself will reveal…
HIDDEN HISTORY
“There’s massive amounts of backstory that is left to your imagination and I couldn’t do my job without figuring out what that was,” Hamill says. “Since it’s not really important to the main story as a whole a lot of it is just for my own process. I talked with Rian about it and went into this elaborate scenario of what happened to Luke after the end of the Return of the Jedi.”
What we know for sure is that Luke is discovering there’s nowhere he can run that will allow him to escape himself.
He’s older now, about the same age Obi-Wan Kenobi was in the original film, but in many ways Luke is still that silhouette we remember standing on the rocks, staring out at the twin suns of Tatooine.
“I think he probably looks out on the horizon and wishes that he could be more effective, could be what Obi-Wan wanted him to be,” Hamill says. “But life is imperfect and without conflict there is no drama. Believe me, you’re going to see a lot of conflict in The Last Jedi. That is for sure.”
His dreams are different now. Less hopeful. More regretful.
But deep down, the farmboy turned warrior turned exile would also like to meet the hero known as Luke Skywalker again.
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/09/star-wars-last-jedi-rey-luke-skywalker-daisy-ridley-mark-hamill/
The Last Jedi: With Finn and Rose, a 'big deal' is redeemed by 'a nobody'
Part 2 of EW’s new ‘Star Wars’ cover story features John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
We’ve already seen John Boyega’s conscience-stricken Stormtrooper try to escape from a life of wrongdoing. In The Last Jedi, Finn finds himself ready to abandon the good guys, too.
You can’t blame him. He has been critically wounded by a lightsaber attack that still burns and has never quite healed. He watched Han Solo, another reluctant hero, die horribly at the hands of his own son.
Finn did his part. Starkiller base has been destroyed. Now he wants out.
“It got really real for him,” Boyega tells EW. “And he just wants to get away and not be involved. His intention in the first place was to go to the Outer Rim. He was always brought back [in The Force Awakens,], but this is his chance to get away and perhaps find Rey and go off together. He’s trying to do that at first.”
But it’s not going to be that easy for him.
DAVID JAMES/ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
Along with Luke Skywalker and Rey, the Stormtrooper formerly known as FN-2187 becomes a key part of The Last Jedi’s never-meet-your-heroes theme after befriending Rose Tico, a Resistance mechanic played by Star Wars newcomer Kelly Marie Tran.
“Everyone in the space, throughout the galaxy, would have heard about the young Jedi who discovered her powers and defeated Kylo Ren and the young former Stormtrooper who helped save the day,” Boyega says. “He’s a hero to people like Rose, who fight for the Resistance because their homes have been destroyed by the First Order.”
Finn’s boast to Han Solo from the previous adventure has come true. “When Rose first meets Finn, that’s how she views him,” Tran says. “He is ‘a big deal.’”
Rose, meanwhile, is not.
A NOBODY IN THE SHADOWS
She is a gearhead, a grease monkey, a behind-the-scenes jack-of-all-trades, while her sister Paige (played by Veronica Ngo) is the dynamic one — a Resistance gunner who fights on the front lines alongside Resistance luminaries like Poe Dameron, Oscar Isaac’s X-wing ace.
“Poe Dameron is super cool. Finn’s super cool. Even though [Rose] is good at what she does, she’s not known,” Tran says. “She’s not cool. She’s this nobody, this background player, which is what makes her interesting. She’s not the best. She’s not royalty. She’s someone who is just like everyone else.”
But Finn — she’s starstruck by him.
“He appreciates the adoration for a second, but when he meets her, Finn is trying to escape the whole war. He’s trying to leave,” Boyega says. “And she comes in and basically gives him a depiction of himself that wasn’t necessarily true.”
But he likes the impression Rose has, the vision she has of him.
A good guy. A brave guy.
Seeing himself through her eyes gives the ex-Stormtrooper something to live up to.
“It’s now an opportunity for him to be the best he can be. He has to make a decision, and Rose is there to help him make that choice,” Boyega says.
It shouldn’t be a spoiler to reveal that, yes, she helps Finn stay in the fight, although the urge to get out is still burning inside him.
Also… living up to Rose’s high expectations is not a task anyone can truly fulfill.
RELATED: Exclusive New Star Wars Images From The Last Jedi
JOURNEY TO CANTO BIGHT
Just as The Force Awakens seemed to reflect plot points from the original Star Wars, this film follows a few patterns from The Empire Strikes Back, although writer-director Rian Johnson says that was unintentional.
“I just tried to kind of ignore that aspect of it and have the story take the shape that it needed to,” the filmmaker says. “But look, Rey is off in a remote location with a Jedi master, and the Resistance is in a tough spot, and we’re intercutting those stories. By its very nature, there are some structural parallels. But these are new characters, they’re dealing with new things, and that ultimately is what defines the movie. So I think that’s going to be unique.”
Another parallel with that earlier film: Finn and Rose are part of a squad of good guys who head off on a mission to a glamorous location — not Cloud City on the gas giant planet of Bespin this time, but the casino metropolis of Canto Bight on the world of Cantonica.
“The whole city is kind of one sort of luxury resort that’s been built on this very otherwise abandoned, arid planet,” Johnson says. “It’s like Vegas with aliens. So maybe it is just like Vegas.”
NEXT UP: The creatures of the sacred Jedi island where Luke Skywalker is hiding.
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/09/sta...l&xid=entertainment-weekly_socialflow_twitter
Part 2 of EW’s new ‘Star Wars’ cover story features John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
We’ve already seen John Boyega’s conscience-stricken Stormtrooper try to escape from a life of wrongdoing. In The Last Jedi, Finn finds himself ready to abandon the good guys, too.
You can’t blame him. He has been critically wounded by a lightsaber attack that still burns and has never quite healed. He watched Han Solo, another reluctant hero, die horribly at the hands of his own son.
Finn did his part. Starkiller base has been destroyed. Now he wants out.
“It got really real for him,” Boyega tells EW. “And he just wants to get away and not be involved. His intention in the first place was to go to the Outer Rim. He was always brought back [in The Force Awakens,], but this is his chance to get away and perhaps find Rey and go off together. He’s trying to do that at first.”
But it’s not going to be that easy for him.
DAVID JAMES/ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
Along with Luke Skywalker and Rey, the Stormtrooper formerly known as FN-2187 becomes a key part of The Last Jedi’s never-meet-your-heroes theme after befriending Rose Tico, a Resistance mechanic played by Star Wars newcomer Kelly Marie Tran.
“Everyone in the space, throughout the galaxy, would have heard about the young Jedi who discovered her powers and defeated Kylo Ren and the young former Stormtrooper who helped save the day,” Boyega says. “He’s a hero to people like Rose, who fight for the Resistance because their homes have been destroyed by the First Order.”
Finn’s boast to Han Solo from the previous adventure has come true. “When Rose first meets Finn, that’s how she views him,” Tran says. “He is ‘a big deal.’”
Rose, meanwhile, is not.
A NOBODY IN THE SHADOWS
She is a gearhead, a grease monkey, a behind-the-scenes jack-of-all-trades, while her sister Paige (played by Veronica Ngo) is the dynamic one — a Resistance gunner who fights on the front lines alongside Resistance luminaries like Poe Dameron, Oscar Isaac’s X-wing ace.
“Poe Dameron is super cool. Finn’s super cool. Even though [Rose] is good at what she does, she’s not known,” Tran says. “She’s not cool. She’s this nobody, this background player, which is what makes her interesting. She’s not the best. She’s not royalty. She’s someone who is just like everyone else.”
But Finn — she’s starstruck by him.
“He appreciates the adoration for a second, but when he meets her, Finn is trying to escape the whole war. He’s trying to leave,” Boyega says. “And she comes in and basically gives him a depiction of himself that wasn’t necessarily true.”
But he likes the impression Rose has, the vision she has of him.
A good guy. A brave guy.
Seeing himself through her eyes gives the ex-Stormtrooper something to live up to.
“It’s now an opportunity for him to be the best he can be. He has to make a decision, and Rose is there to help him make that choice,” Boyega says.
It shouldn’t be a spoiler to reveal that, yes, she helps Finn stay in the fight, although the urge to get out is still burning inside him.
Also… living up to Rose’s high expectations is not a task anyone can truly fulfill.
RELATED: Exclusive New Star Wars Images From The Last Jedi
JOURNEY TO CANTO BIGHT
Just as The Force Awakens seemed to reflect plot points from the original Star Wars, this film follows a few patterns from The Empire Strikes Back, although writer-director Rian Johnson says that was unintentional.
“I just tried to kind of ignore that aspect of it and have the story take the shape that it needed to,” the filmmaker says. “But look, Rey is off in a remote location with a Jedi master, and the Resistance is in a tough spot, and we’re intercutting those stories. By its very nature, there are some structural parallels. But these are new characters, they’re dealing with new things, and that ultimately is what defines the movie. So I think that’s going to be unique.”
Another parallel with that earlier film: Finn and Rose are part of a squad of good guys who head off on a mission to a glamorous location — not Cloud City on the gas giant planet of Bespin this time, but the casino metropolis of Canto Bight on the world of Cantonica.
“The whole city is kind of one sort of luxury resort that’s been built on this very otherwise abandoned, arid planet,” Johnson says. “It’s like Vegas with aliens. So maybe it is just like Vegas.”
NEXT UP: The creatures of the sacred Jedi island where Luke Skywalker is hiding.
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/09/sta...l&xid=entertainment-weekly_socialflow_twitter
The Last Jedi: Meet the porgs and 'The Caretakers' from Luke Skywalker's island
Part 3 of EW’s new ‘Star Wars’ cover story explores the creatures surrounding Luke Skywalker on Ahch-To
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
Who doesn’t like porgs? They’re all cute, and fluffy, and ingratiating…
But they get everywhere.
Below, in a new image from The Last Jedi, we see Chewbacca at the helm of the Millennium Falcon with one such interloper.
These penguin-like wide-eyed creatures are native to the planet of Ahch-To, site of the first Jedi temple, and they’re just one type of new creature the Dec. 15 film introduces to the Star Wars menagerie.
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
The porgs are so ubiquitous, they even leaked out ahead of time, sneaking past Lucasfilm security to bounce around the internet. In real life, they were puppets created through Neal Scanlan’s creature shop, with wide black eyes and furry, flapping wings.
Writer-director Rian Johnson said that although Luke Skywalker retreated to Ahch-To, he didn’t want the Jedi to be alone. Inspiration for the porgs came during a visit to the Irish island of Skellig Michael, where the final scenes of The Force Awakens were shot.
“If you go to Skellig at the right time of year, it’s just covered in puffins, and they’re the most adorable things in the world,” Johnson tells EW. “So when I was first scouting there, I saw these guys, and I was like, oh, these are part of the island. And so the Porgs are in that realm.”
But there is another alien life-form inhabiting the primeval Jedi temple.
THE CARETAKERS
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
“They’re kind of these sort of fish-bird type aliens who live on the island,” Johnson says. “They’ve been there for thousands of years, and they essentially keep up the structures on the island.”
The Caretakers are slightly more anthropomorphic than the porgs. They’re animated with a person inside (Daisy Ridley said a friend played one of them) and they wear clothes and speak in an alien tongue.
“They’re all female, and I wanted them to feel like a remote sort of little nunnery,” Johnson says. “Neal Scanlan’s crew designed them, and costume designer Michael Kaplan made these working clothes that also reflected sort of a nun-like, spartan sort of existence.”
They can communicate with Luke through what Johnson describes as “a blubbery sort of Scottish fish talk” but they’re not thrilled to have him hanging around. Johnson says they “tolerate” his presence.
The Force is connected with life. Yoda’s world of Dagobah was a swamp, teeming with flora and fauna, and so this ocean world would naturally evolve beings who are drawn to this sacred place. Johnson said they’re amphibious and may have risen up from the seas to tend to the buildings on this craggy archipelago eons ago.
“You get the sense they did at some point or maybe they occasionally do [return to the sea,] but when we see them, they’re land creatures,” Johnson says. “They’re these big matronly creatures, but they have these little skinny little bird feet. They were really fun to work with on set.”
RELATED: Exclusive New Star Wars Images From The Last Jedi
JEDI CAVE PAINTINGS
We know from the teaser trailer that there is a tree-like structure on the Ahch-To island, and a fragile, ancient book that looks like the Journal of the Whills – a Jedi scripture that dates back to the original Star Wars mythology created by George Lucas. (In last year’s Rogue One, Baze Malbus, played by Jiang Wen, and Chirrut Imwe, played by Donnie Yen, were members of an order known as the Guardians of the Whills.)
Johnson said The Last Jedi touches on mystical history but doesn’t dive deeply into creating a whole galactic religion, but there will be elements on Ahch-To that deepen the mythology.
LUCASFILM
“Hopefully it will be fun to discover in the context of the movie,” he says. “My notion was this is a place that goes all the way back. This is where the cave paintings are.”
Johnson said he had to resist the urge to make it look too clean, too modern. It had to be something more primitive.
“The first designs that we had were temples, and I just kept pushing it back and saying, ‘No, think earlier, think earlier. Let’s push this all the way back and see how deep we can go into the foundations of where this all started.’”
NEXT UP: The protectors of Supreme Leader Snoke …
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/09/star-wars-last-jedi-porgs-caretakers/
Part 3 of EW’s new ‘Star Wars’ cover story explores the creatures surrounding Luke Skywalker on Ahch-To
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
Who doesn’t like porgs? They’re all cute, and fluffy, and ingratiating…
But they get everywhere.
Below, in a new image from The Last Jedi, we see Chewbacca at the helm of the Millennium Falcon with one such interloper.
These penguin-like wide-eyed creatures are native to the planet of Ahch-To, site of the first Jedi temple, and they’re just one type of new creature the Dec. 15 film introduces to the Star Wars menagerie.
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
The porgs are so ubiquitous, they even leaked out ahead of time, sneaking past Lucasfilm security to bounce around the internet. In real life, they were puppets created through Neal Scanlan’s creature shop, with wide black eyes and furry, flapping wings.
Writer-director Rian Johnson said that although Luke Skywalker retreated to Ahch-To, he didn’t want the Jedi to be alone. Inspiration for the porgs came during a visit to the Irish island of Skellig Michael, where the final scenes of The Force Awakens were shot.
“If you go to Skellig at the right time of year, it’s just covered in puffins, and they’re the most adorable things in the world,” Johnson tells EW. “So when I was first scouting there, I saw these guys, and I was like, oh, these are part of the island. And so the Porgs are in that realm.”
But there is another alien life-form inhabiting the primeval Jedi temple.
THE CARETAKERS
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
“They’re kind of these sort of fish-bird type aliens who live on the island,” Johnson says. “They’ve been there for thousands of years, and they essentially keep up the structures on the island.”
The Caretakers are slightly more anthropomorphic than the porgs. They’re animated with a person inside (Daisy Ridley said a friend played one of them) and they wear clothes and speak in an alien tongue.
“They’re all female, and I wanted them to feel like a remote sort of little nunnery,” Johnson says. “Neal Scanlan’s crew designed them, and costume designer Michael Kaplan made these working clothes that also reflected sort of a nun-like, spartan sort of existence.”
They can communicate with Luke through what Johnson describes as “a blubbery sort of Scottish fish talk” but they’re not thrilled to have him hanging around. Johnson says they “tolerate” his presence.
The Force is connected with life. Yoda’s world of Dagobah was a swamp, teeming with flora and fauna, and so this ocean world would naturally evolve beings who are drawn to this sacred place. Johnson said they’re amphibious and may have risen up from the seas to tend to the buildings on this craggy archipelago eons ago.
“You get the sense they did at some point or maybe they occasionally do [return to the sea,] but when we see them, they’re land creatures,” Johnson says. “They’re these big matronly creatures, but they have these little skinny little bird feet. They were really fun to work with on set.”
RELATED: Exclusive New Star Wars Images From The Last Jedi
JEDI CAVE PAINTINGS
We know from the teaser trailer that there is a tree-like structure on the Ahch-To island, and a fragile, ancient book that looks like the Journal of the Whills – a Jedi scripture that dates back to the original Star Wars mythology created by George Lucas. (In last year’s Rogue One, Baze Malbus, played by Jiang Wen, and Chirrut Imwe, played by Donnie Yen, were members of an order known as the Guardians of the Whills.)
Johnson said The Last Jedi touches on mystical history but doesn’t dive deeply into creating a whole galactic religion, but there will be elements on Ahch-To that deepen the mythology.
LUCASFILM
“Hopefully it will be fun to discover in the context of the movie,” he says. “My notion was this is a place that goes all the way back. This is where the cave paintings are.”
Johnson said he had to resist the urge to make it look too clean, too modern. It had to be something more primitive.
“The first designs that we had were temples, and I just kept pushing it back and saying, ‘No, think earlier, think earlier. Let’s push this all the way back and see how deep we can go into the foundations of where this all started.’”
NEXT UP: The protectors of Supreme Leader Snoke …
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/09/star-wars-last-jedi-porgs-caretakers/
The Last Jedi: Supreme Leader Snoke emerges with elite Praetorian Guard
Part 4 of EW’s new ‘Star Wars’ cover story
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
Villains always have heroes of their own. But they’re not necessarily anyone you’d ever want to meet.
That’s not the case with Star Wars.
In The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren will venture to the side of one of his malevolent icons, and fans will finally get their wish to see the enigmatic tyrant in the flesh.
Supreme Leader Snoke only appeared in The Force Awakens via hologram, but in the new film out Dec. 15, the towering character (performed via motion-capture by Andy Serkis) will finally emerge from hiding.
These will be his protectors – the Praetorian Guard, a variation on the crimson-cloaked Imperial guards who flanked the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
“The Emperor’s guards were very formal, and you always got the sense that they could fight, but they didn’t,” writer-director Rian Johnson tells EW. “They looked like they were more ceremonial, and you never really saw them in action. The Praetorians, my brief to [costume designer] Michael Kaplan was that those guys have to be more like samurai. They have to be built to move, and you have to believe that they could step forward and engage if they have to. They have to seem dangerous.”
The Praetorians get their name from our own true-life history and the elite special guard who protected ancient Roman emperors. “If we can get kids’ ears to perk up in history class a little bit when they hear that, that’d be a cool thing,” Johnson says.
Since we’re seeing the galactic Praetorians up close, that means Adam Driver’s aspiring Sith will also bring us face-to-what’s-left-of-his-face with his Dark Side mentor.
“They’re his personal guards,” Johnson says. “They stick with [Snoke]. So they’re essentially bodyguards.”
The last time we saw Snoke in The Force Awakens (seen below), he was summoning Kylo Ren and Domhnall Gleeson’s General Hux back to his own sanctuary as the Resistance launched a crushing assault on the First Order’s planet-killing device, Starkiller Base.
LUCASFILM
Star Wars fans have exerted immense energy over the past few years creating Snoke theories aimed at unraveling the villain’s history. Johnson says The Last Jedi will reveal more about Snoke and his goals, but his history will remain somewhat murky.
“Similar to Rey’s parentage, Snoke is here to serve a function in the story. And a story is not a Wikipedia page,” the filmmaker says. “For example, in the original trilogy, we didn’t know anything about the Emperor except what Luke knew about him, that he’s the evil guy behind Vader. Then in the prequels, you knew everything about Palpatine because his rise to power was the story.”
In The Last Jedi, Johnson says, “we’ll learn exactly as much about Snoke as we need to.”
The good news for fans of the bad guy: “We will see more of him, and Andy Serkis will get to do much more in this film than he did in the last one,” Johnson says. “And that guy is just a force of nature.”
In the behind-the-scenes video released at Disney’s D23 Expo last month, there appeared to be a shot of Johnson looking up at a looming figure that many thought looked Snoke-like. Whether it is or not, we still don’t know. But practical effects have been a priority for the new Star Wars films, so will we see Snoke performed as a real-life puppet?
STAR WARS/YOUTUBE
“No, it’s entirely a mo-cap performance,” Johnson says. “[Creature designer] Neal Scanlan built a maquette that we had on set for lighting reference and to give the actors a sense of what it was going to feel like. And then we scanned that and [Industrial Light & Magic] used that in their renderings, but Snoke will be an entirely CG creation.”
Johnson says Serkis will deliver satisfying menace when we finally get up close and personal with the First Order’s ruler.
“I’d be sitting at the monitor just with my eyes as big as dinner plates,” Johnson says. “It’s one of those performances where after every line, I’d look over at whoever’s standing next to me with an expression on my face like, ‘Oh, my God, we just got that.”
NEXT UP: A full, high-res gallery of all the new images from The Last Jedi …
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/09/star-wars-last-jedi-snoke-praetorian-guard/
Part 4 of EW’s new ‘Star Wars’ cover story
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
Villains always have heroes of their own. But they’re not necessarily anyone you’d ever want to meet.
That’s not the case with Star Wars.
In The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren will venture to the side of one of his malevolent icons, and fans will finally get their wish to see the enigmatic tyrant in the flesh.
Supreme Leader Snoke only appeared in The Force Awakens via hologram, but in the new film out Dec. 15, the towering character (performed via motion-capture by Andy Serkis) will finally emerge from hiding.
These will be his protectors – the Praetorian Guard, a variation on the crimson-cloaked Imperial guards who flanked the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
“The Emperor’s guards were very formal, and you always got the sense that they could fight, but they didn’t,” writer-director Rian Johnson tells EW. “They looked like they were more ceremonial, and you never really saw them in action. The Praetorians, my brief to [costume designer] Michael Kaplan was that those guys have to be more like samurai. They have to be built to move, and you have to believe that they could step forward and engage if they have to. They have to seem dangerous.”
The Praetorians get their name from our own true-life history and the elite special guard who protected ancient Roman emperors. “If we can get kids’ ears to perk up in history class a little bit when they hear that, that’d be a cool thing,” Johnson says.
Since we’re seeing the galactic Praetorians up close, that means Adam Driver’s aspiring Sith will also bring us face-to-what’s-left-of-his-face with his Dark Side mentor.
“They’re his personal guards,” Johnson says. “They stick with [Snoke]. So they’re essentially bodyguards.”
The last time we saw Snoke in The Force Awakens (seen below), he was summoning Kylo Ren and Domhnall Gleeson’s General Hux back to his own sanctuary as the Resistance launched a crushing assault on the First Order’s planet-killing device, Starkiller Base.
LUCASFILM
Star Wars fans have exerted immense energy over the past few years creating Snoke theories aimed at unraveling the villain’s history. Johnson says The Last Jedi will reveal more about Snoke and his goals, but his history will remain somewhat murky.
“Similar to Rey’s parentage, Snoke is here to serve a function in the story. And a story is not a Wikipedia page,” the filmmaker says. “For example, in the original trilogy, we didn’t know anything about the Emperor except what Luke knew about him, that he’s the evil guy behind Vader. Then in the prequels, you knew everything about Palpatine because his rise to power was the story.”
In The Last Jedi, Johnson says, “we’ll learn exactly as much about Snoke as we need to.”
The good news for fans of the bad guy: “We will see more of him, and Andy Serkis will get to do much more in this film than he did in the last one,” Johnson says. “And that guy is just a force of nature.”
In the behind-the-scenes video released at Disney’s D23 Expo last month, there appeared to be a shot of Johnson looking up at a looming figure that many thought looked Snoke-like. Whether it is or not, we still don’t know. But practical effects have been a priority for the new Star Wars films, so will we see Snoke performed as a real-life puppet?
STAR WARS/YOUTUBE
“No, it’s entirely a mo-cap performance,” Johnson says. “[Creature designer] Neal Scanlan built a maquette that we had on set for lighting reference and to give the actors a sense of what it was going to feel like. And then we scanned that and [Industrial Light & Magic] used that in their renderings, but Snoke will be an entirely CG creation.”
Johnson says Serkis will deliver satisfying menace when we finally get up close and personal with the First Order’s ruler.
“I’d be sitting at the monitor just with my eyes as big as dinner plates,” Johnson says. “It’s one of those performances where after every line, I’d look over at whoever’s standing next to me with an expression on my face like, ‘Oh, my God, we just got that.”
NEXT UP: A full, high-res gallery of all the new images from The Last Jedi …
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/09/star-wars-last-jedi-snoke-praetorian-guard/
The Last Jedi: In her final role, Carrie Fisher restores hope for Leia Organa
Part 5 of EW’s ‘Star Wars’ cover story
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
POSTED ON AUGUST 10, 2017 AT 12:37PM EDT
Live fearlessly, live boldly, and even after you’re gone that strength and inspiration burn on.
After Carrie Fisher’s unexpected death in December, The Last Jedi will mark her final performance as Leia Organa — the Star Wars character who went from orphan to princess, to spy, to senator, and finally general of the Resistance.
She remains a light that will never go out in the galaxy.
“Her character to some degree or another has been defined by loss through this whole saga, starting with the loss of her home planet. She’s just taken hit after hit, and she’s borne it, and she focuses on moving forward and the task at hand,” says writer-director Rian Johnson.
UNBROKEN, UNBOWED
LUCASFILM
No matter what grief or trauma Leia faced, she never wavered in her commitment to fighting for freedom in the galaxy, and her battle continues in The Last Jedi. Leia remains in charge of the scattershot Resistance movement, cut off from the Republic, whose leadership and capitol was annihilated in The Force Awakens.
Anyone who expected the Resistance to fill that void and maintain order would be mistaken. “No, no, no. Not at all,” Johnson says. “They’re a small band that’s now cut off, on its own, and hunted when the Republic is shattered. When the First Order did that hit, the Resistance is isolated, and they’re very, very vulnerable. That’s where we pick them up.”
While the galaxy teeters on takeover by the First Order, Leia is also dealing with personal grief, mourning the death of Han Solo – murdered at the hands of their son, Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren. The young man once known as Ben Solo has now fully fallen to the Dark Side, just as Darth Vader, Leia’s father, did a generation before.
“She’s suffered quite a bit,” Johnson adds. “While I was figuring out what her deal was going to be in this film, it’s one of the things I talked about with Carrie before I started writing: where the character would go.”
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THE CUSTODIAN OF LEIA
That’s what Fisher often called herself. “She’s become me, and I’ve become her. Because it’s been a while,” Fisher told EW in 2015 before the release of The Force Awakens.
As she did in her own novels and memoirs, like Postcards from the Edge andWishful Drinking, Fisher’s wry and brash performance as Leia allowed the character to face her hardships with a blaster-proof sense of humor and whatever the galactic version of chutzpah would be.
Although she won’t complete the saga (Lucasfilm says Episode IX is being rewritten out of respect for her passing), Leia’s impact will continue to reverberate.
Despite the hardship, Leia always finds the hope in any given situation. This time, her story is entwined with Poe Dameron, the hotshot X-wing pilot played by Oscar Isaac. Their relationship is not just general and warrior.
They’re family.
And in Star Wars, the notion of family goes far beyond blood relations.
LUCASFILM
“Poe is in some ways a surrogate son for Leia,” Isaac tells EW. “But also I think she sees in him the potential for a truly great leader of the Resistance and beyond.”
In The Last Jedi, a torch is being passed. It’s about the peril of meeting your heroes, facing down disappointment, and rising to fight nonetheless. Just as Luke Skywalker – reluctantly – may be passing on his knowledge of the Force to Rey, Leia is guiding Poe, encouraging him to look beyond the crosshairs in his cockpit. There are other ways to fight, other ways to lead.
“Poe’s arc is one of evolving from a heroic soldier to a seasoned leader, to see beyond the single-mindedness of winning the battle to the larger picture of the future of the galaxy,” Isaac says. “I think Leia knows she won’t be around forever and she, with tough love, wants to push Poe to be more than the badass pilot, to temper his heroic impulses with wisdom and clarity.”
CONFLICT WITHIN
There are also rivalries and alliances within the movement. Johnson isn’t ready to reveal what Laura Dern’s Vice Admiral Holdo’s role is in the story, but as a fellow commander in the Resistance she is likely to have a history with Leia Organa. The nature of it will be for the movie to reveal.
“The secrecy does have a purpose in that part of the fun with Laura’s character, with Admiral Holdo, is figuring out what her relationship is to everybody as you go along through the movie,” Johnson says.
In a behind-the-scenes video for The Last Jedi, there was at least one shot of the two women facing each other. It doesn’t look hostile, but under the right circumstances even friendships can turn dark.
LUCASFILM
“I don’t want to tip the hat too much, but I will say that the heat is immediately turned up on the Resistance,” Johnson says. “Everybody is put in a pressure cooker right away, and relationships crack and strain under that pressure. That was really interesting to me, the notion of putting this small army under a lot of external pressure and showing some of the results within the Resistance itself.”
THE UNWANTED FAREWELL
The storyline wasn’t changed after Fisher’s death, but Johnson says he hopes it will still be satisfying to the legion of Leia fans who see the character as a source of true-life inspiration in our world.
“There’s no way that we could’ve known this would’ve been the last Star Warsmovie she would be in, so it’s not like we made the film thinking that we were bringing closure to the character,” Johnson says. “But watching the film, there’s going to be a very emotional reaction to what she does in this movie.”
While Leia’s influence as a leader endures within the narrative of the Star Warssaga, Fisher also made a personal impact on the actors who will be carrying the franchise forward without her.
LUCASFILM
Everyone who worked on the film has a Carrie story, but the sweetest and most heartbreaking one belongs to Isaac:
“One of my favorite things that would happen from time to time on set would be when Carrie would sing old songs,” he says. “Whenever that would happen I would offer her my hand and we would waltz around the set – on a starship, in a Rebel base, on an alien planet, and she would sing and we would dance. So surreal and beautiful to think about now. For all of her delicious, wicked humor and fiery energy she also had such sweet grace. I miss her dearly.”
COMING UP: What we know about Benicio Del Toro’s secret character in The Last Jedi…
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/10/star-wars-last-jedi-leia-organa-carrie-fisher/
The Last Jedi: New details on Benicio Del Toro's devious character
Part 6 of EW’s ‘Star Wars’ cover story.
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
Before the movie began shooting, the actor hinted in a radio interview that he was playing “a villain” in the film, but in subsequent conversations, this sit-down with Entertainment Tonight, he said, “I don’t know if he’s a villain. People are saying that, but it’s like they read a different script than I read.”
Seems like the Oscar-winner is an unreliable narrator here, but maybe he’s just staying true to his character.
All we know for sure is that Del Toro plays a man who goes by the name “DJ.” And his shabby appearance suggests someone familiar with the underbelly of the galaxy.
As part of EW’s cover story about The Last Jedi, Lucasfilm has revealed a little more.
Here’s the official one-liner on him: “DJ is an enigmatic figure whose tattered, threadbare clothes and lackadaisical attitude conceal a sharp mind and expert skills.”
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We also know that DJ is part of the mission that John Boyega’s Finn and Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose undertake to the wealthy, gambling resort city of Canto Bight. But … do they bring him there? Do they capture him there? Do they free him there?
That’s something the film itself will have to reveal. But as part of our cover story, we also got a closer look at the structure Lucasfilm identifies as the exterior of the central casino we’ve seen in other images.
With so much money and jewelry on display, and so many powerful figures gathered from throughout the various star systems, the casino is surrounded by law enforcement. There are landing pads for spike-winged police speeders, with armored security officers patrolling the perimeter. (You can click the image to expand to a high-res version.)
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
It’s a perfect place for an unscrupulous figure like DJ to practice his craft, and Del Toro’s co-stars did reveal a bit more about his “expert skills.”
“We just need a codebreaker and he’s the best in the galaxy. Unfortunately, he’s very dodgy and only in it for financial gain. He doesn’t fight for any side,” Boyega says.
In Star Wars parlance, a hacker is known as a “slicer,” and this is a side of the lore that the movies haven’t typically explored. Most of the saga has been devoted to the mystical side of things — the Jedi, the Sith, the Force — rather than the technological aspects George Lucas placed within his sci-fi/fantasy.
The saga also usually has clear lines between good and evil, but the uncertainty over where DJ stands has a simple explanation: he’s neither. To him, the heroes and the villains aren’t enemies — they’re opponents.
Until there’s something in it for him.
“He has distinct opinions,” Boyega says. “The Resistance bombs the First Order one day, the First Order bombs the Resistance on another. It’s an ongoing war that will never end. For him, he’s trying to benefit off of that — which doesn’t make him the person you want to trust.”
Tran describes Del Toro’s performance as coiled and disturbing. “When I was onset with that character, I felt like there was a tiger in the room, and I always had to be watching,” she says. “Like an animal, at any moment he could do something, and I didn’t know what.”
With DJ, the unexpected is the best we can expect.
FRIDAY: Rian Johnson on why Rey’s family history matters so much.
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/10/the-last-jedi-new-details-on-benicio-del-toros-devious-character/
Part 6 of EW’s ‘Star Wars’ cover story.
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
Before the movie began shooting, the actor hinted in a radio interview that he was playing “a villain” in the film, but in subsequent conversations, this sit-down with Entertainment Tonight, he said, “I don’t know if he’s a villain. People are saying that, but it’s like they read a different script than I read.”
Seems like the Oscar-winner is an unreliable narrator here, but maybe he’s just staying true to his character.
All we know for sure is that Del Toro plays a man who goes by the name “DJ.” And his shabby appearance suggests someone familiar with the underbelly of the galaxy.
As part of EW’s cover story about The Last Jedi, Lucasfilm has revealed a little more.
Here’s the official one-liner on him: “DJ is an enigmatic figure whose tattered, threadbare clothes and lackadaisical attitude conceal a sharp mind and expert skills.”
View image on Twitter
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Vahn @ImTheFilmEditorBenicio Del Toro, a newcomer to the saga, plays the shifty character "DJ" #StarWarsTheLastJedi #StarWars #VanityFair
9:00 PM - May 24, 2017
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We also know that DJ is part of the mission that John Boyega’s Finn and Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose undertake to the wealthy, gambling resort city of Canto Bight. But … do they bring him there? Do they capture him there? Do they free him there?
That’s something the film itself will have to reveal. But as part of our cover story, we also got a closer look at the structure Lucasfilm identifies as the exterior of the central casino we’ve seen in other images.
With so much money and jewelry on display, and so many powerful figures gathered from throughout the various star systems, the casino is surrounded by law enforcement. There are landing pads for spike-winged police speeders, with armored security officers patrolling the perimeter. (You can click the image to expand to a high-res version.)
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
It’s a perfect place for an unscrupulous figure like DJ to practice his craft, and Del Toro’s co-stars did reveal a bit more about his “expert skills.”
“We just need a codebreaker and he’s the best in the galaxy. Unfortunately, he’s very dodgy and only in it for financial gain. He doesn’t fight for any side,” Boyega says.
In Star Wars parlance, a hacker is known as a “slicer,” and this is a side of the lore that the movies haven’t typically explored. Most of the saga has been devoted to the mystical side of things — the Jedi, the Sith, the Force — rather than the technological aspects George Lucas placed within his sci-fi/fantasy.
The saga also usually has clear lines between good and evil, but the uncertainty over where DJ stands has a simple explanation: he’s neither. To him, the heroes and the villains aren’t enemies — they’re opponents.
Until there’s something in it for him.
“He has distinct opinions,” Boyega says. “The Resistance bombs the First Order one day, the First Order bombs the Resistance on another. It’s an ongoing war that will never end. For him, he’s trying to benefit off of that — which doesn’t make him the person you want to trust.”
Tran describes Del Toro’s performance as coiled and disturbing. “When I was onset with that character, I felt like there was a tiger in the room, and I always had to be watching,” she says. “Like an animal, at any moment he could do something, and I didn’t know what.”
With DJ, the unexpected is the best we can expect.
FRIDAY: Rian Johnson on why Rey’s family history matters so much.
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/10/the-last-jedi-new-details-on-benicio-del-toros-devious-character/
The Last Jedi: Rey takes her first steps toward uncovering her family history
Part 7 of EW’s ‘Star Wars’ cover story.
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
Rey’s family has become the “Rosebud” of Star Wars: Who are they? What’s their significance? How will that revelation shape her destiny?
The mystery was introduced in The Force Awakens when Daisy Ridley’s desert scavenger touched the ancestral Skywalker lightsaber and saw a series of visions, including a starship abandoning a much younger version of herself on the junkyard world of Jakku.
Now, The Last Jedi will finally resolve the question that fans have been debating for two years.
This article, obviously, won’t spoil anything. The theory I’m holding onto is still this one.
But in EW’s interview for our cover story on The Last Jedi, writer and director Rian Johnson did offer his thoughts on a related question: How much does Rey’s past matter — or is this a tangent fans have obsessed over unnecessarily?
“To me, it’s important insofar as it’s important to her,” Johnson says. “And I think it’s important to her in terms of what is her place in all of this? What’s going to define her in this story? She was told in the last movie that the answer’s not in the past; it’s looking forward. But she’s showing up on this island to talk to this hero from the past.”
Let’s just pause for a line from Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon For the Misbegotten: “There is no present or future — only the past, happening over and over again — now.”
If Rey understands her origin, it can be a map for her future, a guide to avoiding whatever fear or mistakes have come before. In that way, Johnson says Rey does need to know. (And so do we.)
“You can be told [‘the answer’s not in the past’], but I think she still has a lingering hope that she’s going to find the thing that’s going to say: This is where you belong. This is where you are. I think she still holds onto the thought that where she comes from will help define where she’s going.”
ONCE WAS LOST
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
Ridley says Rey will ultimately find the answer — and discover that it doesn’tmatter that much. It won’t change who she is, or at least who she wants to be.
“You can always look for answers and that doesn’t mean that the rest of your life is so easy. It’s not like, oh, I know who my parents are so now everything falls into shape, especially in the Star Wars world,” the actress says.
Anakin Skywalker had a loving mother but became the galactic warlord Darth Vader. Luke and Leia are the children of Vader but have fought tirelessly for good and decency. Ben Solo was the son of Han and Leia, but lost his way and fell into darkness, like his grandfather before.
Family gives you the starting point, but the destination is a matter of choice.
Still, Ridley agrees that Rey needs to find out about her lineage, at least so she can stop wondering.
“Yes, it would potentially change her mind, or at least give her a little bit more peace in moving forward. But ultimately what’s coming is coming, and whatever abilities she has are there. So, personally, I think it’s less important than even she may think.”
One thing Ridley said to expect from The Last Jedi is that no one falls easily onto the good or bad side. There is always potential to change — for better and for worse.
“What’s wonderful is it’s not so cut and dry, who’s good and who’s bad and that’s not me saying, ‘Oh, my God, some people are gonna go bad,'” Ridley says. “There’s always room for bad people to make good decisions and vice versa. Again, that could be nothing to do with your parents and it could be everything to do with your parents.”
There’s also another new figure in the Star Wars saga who has uncertain origins, but fans haven’t latched onto theories about him the way they have with Rey.
FINN’S FAMILY MYSTERY
All we know about John Boyega’s ex-stormtrooper Finn is that he was expendable for the First Order, probably less valuable than the white armor he wore into battle. He was a child soldier, taken from wherever he was from and conscripted into their fascist military operation. He didn’t even have a name, just numerals and a number: FN-2187.
Will we find out more about Finn’s family?
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
“Yeah, definitely,” Boyega tells EW. “But it’s not explored in depth in Episode VIII. But he definitely has a past that is troubled. … I don’t know how all that’s going to play out.”
Sounds like more about Finn may be forthcoming in Episode IX. But the actor suggested that The Last Jedi will explore the character’s recent history.
“We will learn more about his past and where he came from, and potentially why he made the decision [to escape] that he made,” Boyega says. “I’m also very curious. The question that needs to be answered is why he decided to leave as a stormtrooper in the first place. We will find out just a little bit more about him.”
Even though they are separated for much of the film, Finn and Rey remain on somewhat parallel journeys of self-discovery.
“The big thematic push and pull in the movie is the past and what role the past has in moving us forward into the future,” Johnson says.
NEXT UP: Tales from the Dark Side — where will The Last Jedi find Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma? (And a mourning Chewie?)
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/11/the-last-jedi-rey-family/
Part 7 of EW’s ‘Star Wars’ cover story.
ANTHONY BREZNICAN@BREZNICAN
Rey’s family has become the “Rosebud” of Star Wars: Who are they? What’s their significance? How will that revelation shape her destiny?
The mystery was introduced in The Force Awakens when Daisy Ridley’s desert scavenger touched the ancestral Skywalker lightsaber and saw a series of visions, including a starship abandoning a much younger version of herself on the junkyard world of Jakku.
Now, The Last Jedi will finally resolve the question that fans have been debating for two years.
This article, obviously, won’t spoil anything. The theory I’m holding onto is still this one.
But in EW’s interview for our cover story on The Last Jedi, writer and director Rian Johnson did offer his thoughts on a related question: How much does Rey’s past matter — or is this a tangent fans have obsessed over unnecessarily?
“To me, it’s important insofar as it’s important to her,” Johnson says. “And I think it’s important to her in terms of what is her place in all of this? What’s going to define her in this story? She was told in the last movie that the answer’s not in the past; it’s looking forward. But she’s showing up on this island to talk to this hero from the past.”
Let’s just pause for a line from Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon For the Misbegotten: “There is no present or future — only the past, happening over and over again — now.”
If Rey understands her origin, it can be a map for her future, a guide to avoiding whatever fear or mistakes have come before. In that way, Johnson says Rey does need to know. (And so do we.)
“You can be told [‘the answer’s not in the past’], but I think she still has a lingering hope that she’s going to find the thing that’s going to say: This is where you belong. This is where you are. I think she still holds onto the thought that where she comes from will help define where she’s going.”
ONCE WAS LOST
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
Ridley says Rey will ultimately find the answer — and discover that it doesn’tmatter that much. It won’t change who she is, or at least who she wants to be.
“You can always look for answers and that doesn’t mean that the rest of your life is so easy. It’s not like, oh, I know who my parents are so now everything falls into shape, especially in the Star Wars world,” the actress says.
Anakin Skywalker had a loving mother but became the galactic warlord Darth Vader. Luke and Leia are the children of Vader but have fought tirelessly for good and decency. Ben Solo was the son of Han and Leia, but lost his way and fell into darkness, like his grandfather before.
Family gives you the starting point, but the destination is a matter of choice.
Still, Ridley agrees that Rey needs to find out about her lineage, at least so she can stop wondering.
“Yes, it would potentially change her mind, or at least give her a little bit more peace in moving forward. But ultimately what’s coming is coming, and whatever abilities she has are there. So, personally, I think it’s less important than even she may think.”
One thing Ridley said to expect from The Last Jedi is that no one falls easily onto the good or bad side. There is always potential to change — for better and for worse.
“What’s wonderful is it’s not so cut and dry, who’s good and who’s bad and that’s not me saying, ‘Oh, my God, some people are gonna go bad,'” Ridley says. “There’s always room for bad people to make good decisions and vice versa. Again, that could be nothing to do with your parents and it could be everything to do with your parents.”
There’s also another new figure in the Star Wars saga who has uncertain origins, but fans haven’t latched onto theories about him the way they have with Rey.
FINN’S FAMILY MYSTERY
All we know about John Boyega’s ex-stormtrooper Finn is that he was expendable for the First Order, probably less valuable than the white armor he wore into battle. He was a child soldier, taken from wherever he was from and conscripted into their fascist military operation. He didn’t even have a name, just numerals and a number: FN-2187.
Will we find out more about Finn’s family?
ILM/© 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.
“Yeah, definitely,” Boyega tells EW. “But it’s not explored in depth in Episode VIII. But he definitely has a past that is troubled. … I don’t know how all that’s going to play out.”
Sounds like more about Finn may be forthcoming in Episode IX. But the actor suggested that The Last Jedi will explore the character’s recent history.
“We will learn more about his past and where he came from, and potentially why he made the decision [to escape] that he made,” Boyega says. “I’m also very curious. The question that needs to be answered is why he decided to leave as a stormtrooper in the first place. We will find out just a little bit more about him.”
Even though they are separated for much of the film, Finn and Rey remain on somewhat parallel journeys of self-discovery.
“The big thematic push and pull in the movie is the past and what role the past has in moving us forward into the future,” Johnson says.
NEXT UP: Tales from the Dark Side — where will The Last Jedi find Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma? (And a mourning Chewie?)
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/11/the-last-jedi-rey-family/
The Last Jedi: Kylo Ren's humiliation — and other tales from the Star Warsdark side
ANTHONY BREZNICAN•@BREZNICAN
As we close out EW’s cover story on The Last Jedi, let’s take a trip into the dark side of the galaxy.
Most of the previous stories have focused on the heroes of the Star Wars saga and the new film’s theme about the risks and rewards of meeting those you idolize
Here’s a look at some of the villains, and a tease of what to expect from them when the film opens on Dec. 15.
KYLO REN
The aspiring Sith let his last bit of light slip away when he drove his janky, handmade lightsaber into the heart of his father, Han Solo. But there was no victory for Kylo Ren as he sank into the abyss.
Instead, he was humiliated. By a scavenger girl, of all things.
“He’s definitely been knocked off base,” saysThe Last Jediwriter-director Rian Johnson says. “The defeat that he had at the end ofThe Force Awakens, but even bigger than that, his huge defining act which, spoiler alert, is the murder of his father…that’sthe more interesting thing to dive into. How has hedealt with that in his head? Where is he at in terms of that act and what does that mean for him?”
Johnson said Ben Solo’s shift to darkness is symbolic of “the treacherous road through adolescence” that Star Warsoften explores.
“Kylo represents kind of the rebellious anger that you feel during that period. Honestly, sometimes it’s a healthy desire to push away from the place that you know, from the things that you came from. But he obviously does it in an extreme that’s not healthy at all.”
He said Kylo and Rey are “two halves of the dark and the light.”
Among their shared interests: She is an expert pilot, and in this film well see him maneuvering his own starship, the TIE Silencer, which is a variation on his grandfather, Darth Vader’s old ship.
HAN SOLO
Yes. He’s back. In a way.
Kylo Ren’s murder of Han Solo also makes Rey’s contempt for him much more personal. He’s no longer just a random madman terrorizing the galaxy. Rey has a grudge: He stole from her the father-figure she’d been searching for her whole life.
“She just doesn’t understand Kylo,” Daisy Ridley says. “When all she wanted was parents, why would a person who hasparents do that? It’s so beyond comprehension, it’s ridiculous. So she has grief for the loss and then there’s anger. To be honest, she couldn’t understand doing something like that – let alone to your parents.”
Although his character is no more, Han Solo’s legacy lives on.
“Han, the ghost of – well, not literally,” Johnson says, interrupting himself with a laugh. “I don’t want to misguide. I have to be very careful with my words here. But a figurative ghost of Han had to be present throughout this entire film.”
CAPTAIN PHASMA
Those who wanted the silver-armored stormtrooper to get more screen time in The Force Awakens will be getting their wish this time.
Gwendoline Christie’s merciless First Order officer Captain Phasma has a more significant role in The Last Jedi.
“Gwendoline Christie is one of my favorite people, and you get to see her in action which I think is going to be really fun,” Johnson says. “That character is just so damn cool looking. Like, okay, let’s see what we can do with her. Let’s put her in action and see what happens.”
In the trailer, we can see her leading an assault on a Rebel base, and John Boyega promises we’ll see her in a showdown with his ex-stormtrooper Finn. (The two last saw each other when he was stuffing her down a garbage chute into a trash compactor.)
The Last Jedi won’t necessarily explore new backstory for Phasma, but her broader tale will be told in two new books:
-The novel Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson, which delves into how she originated on a hardscrabble planet and sought escape by joining the First Order. (It’s on shelves Sept. 1.)
-The Marvel comic book Captain Phasma, which reveals how she escaped from that trash compactor on Starkiller base and made her way to the action of The Last Jedi. (The first issue hits Sept. 6.)
CHEWBACCA
Okay, he’s clearly not a villain, but there is darkness surrounding the Wookiee in this film.
Chewbacca (played by Joona Suotamo, fully taking over the role from original actor Peter Mayhew) is mourning his best friend, Han Solo, and that grief is not easy to articulate despite his proficiency with roars and groans.
We aren’t going to see a depressed Chewie, but we might encounter one who is a little more volatile than usual.
Johnson says things will be okay for him. Ultimately.
“Chewie’s doing all right. It’s tough. It was obviously a big loss for him, but, you know, he’s Chewie. He’s resilient,” Johnson says. “He’s got broad Wookiee shoulders, and he also has a new mission. He’s got Rey, and she’s someone that Han, to a certain extent, handed the keys to. So I think that that helps.”
It could be worse.
“If Chewie was just unemployed and sitting at home, things might be a little rougher, but he’s got a task to focus on,” Johnson adds.
Also, he’s got some new friends.
Or judging by the feather in his mouth here … are they snacks?
MAZ KANATA
Again, this character isn’t a bad guy by any means, but we’ve got some unfortunate news that places her in our Dark Side round-up.
There will be less of the little orange sage in this movie, although Lupita Nyong’o’s character still turns up for an important moment in the spotlight.
“She has a smaller part in this than she has in The Force Awakens, but it’s a really fun part, and Lupita is so awesome,” Johnson says. “I’m just happy I got to work with her.”
Maz has insights into the past, and for a film about history, family connections, and the way the Force shapes destiny, she is bound to deliver important information.
Johnson says even he learned something.
“This was my first time working with mo-cap characters and working with actors in that way,” he says. “I feel like I got such an incredible education watching Lupita work.”
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/11/star-wars-last-jedi-kylo-ren-dark-side/amp/
ANTHONY BREZNICAN•@BREZNICAN
As we close out EW’s cover story on The Last Jedi, let’s take a trip into the dark side of the galaxy.
Most of the previous stories have focused on the heroes of the Star Wars saga and the new film’s theme about the risks and rewards of meeting those you idolize
Here’s a look at some of the villains, and a tease of what to expect from them when the film opens on Dec. 15.
KYLO REN
The aspiring Sith let his last bit of light slip away when he drove his janky, handmade lightsaber into the heart of his father, Han Solo. But there was no victory for Kylo Ren as he sank into the abyss.
Instead, he was humiliated. By a scavenger girl, of all things.
“He’s definitely been knocked off base,” saysThe Last Jediwriter-director Rian Johnson says. “The defeat that he had at the end ofThe Force Awakens, but even bigger than that, his huge defining act which, spoiler alert, is the murder of his father…that’sthe more interesting thing to dive into. How has hedealt with that in his head? Where is he at in terms of that act and what does that mean for him?”
Johnson said Ben Solo’s shift to darkness is symbolic of “the treacherous road through adolescence” that Star Warsoften explores.
“Kylo represents kind of the rebellious anger that you feel during that period. Honestly, sometimes it’s a healthy desire to push away from the place that you know, from the things that you came from. But he obviously does it in an extreme that’s not healthy at all.”
He said Kylo and Rey are “two halves of the dark and the light.”
Among their shared interests: She is an expert pilot, and in this film well see him maneuvering his own starship, the TIE Silencer, which is a variation on his grandfather, Darth Vader’s old ship.
HAN SOLO
Yes. He’s back. In a way.
Kylo Ren’s murder of Han Solo also makes Rey’s contempt for him much more personal. He’s no longer just a random madman terrorizing the galaxy. Rey has a grudge: He stole from her the father-figure she’d been searching for her whole life.
“She just doesn’t understand Kylo,” Daisy Ridley says. “When all she wanted was parents, why would a person who hasparents do that? It’s so beyond comprehension, it’s ridiculous. So she has grief for the loss and then there’s anger. To be honest, she couldn’t understand doing something like that – let alone to your parents.”
Although his character is no more, Han Solo’s legacy lives on.
“Han, the ghost of – well, not literally,” Johnson says, interrupting himself with a laugh. “I don’t want to misguide. I have to be very careful with my words here. But a figurative ghost of Han had to be present throughout this entire film.”
CAPTAIN PHASMA
Those who wanted the silver-armored stormtrooper to get more screen time in The Force Awakens will be getting their wish this time.
Gwendoline Christie’s merciless First Order officer Captain Phasma has a more significant role in The Last Jedi.
“Gwendoline Christie is one of my favorite people, and you get to see her in action which I think is going to be really fun,” Johnson says. “That character is just so damn cool looking. Like, okay, let’s see what we can do with her. Let’s put her in action and see what happens.”
In the trailer, we can see her leading an assault on a Rebel base, and John Boyega promises we’ll see her in a showdown with his ex-stormtrooper Finn. (The two last saw each other when he was stuffing her down a garbage chute into a trash compactor.)
The Last Jedi won’t necessarily explore new backstory for Phasma, but her broader tale will be told in two new books:
-The novel Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson, which delves into how she originated on a hardscrabble planet and sought escape by joining the First Order. (It’s on shelves Sept. 1.)
-The Marvel comic book Captain Phasma, which reveals how she escaped from that trash compactor on Starkiller base and made her way to the action of The Last Jedi. (The first issue hits Sept. 6.)
CHEWBACCA
Okay, he’s clearly not a villain, but there is darkness surrounding the Wookiee in this film.
Chewbacca (played by Joona Suotamo, fully taking over the role from original actor Peter Mayhew) is mourning his best friend, Han Solo, and that grief is not easy to articulate despite his proficiency with roars and groans.
We aren’t going to see a depressed Chewie, but we might encounter one who is a little more volatile than usual.
Johnson says things will be okay for him. Ultimately.
“Chewie’s doing all right. It’s tough. It was obviously a big loss for him, but, you know, he’s Chewie. He’s resilient,” Johnson says. “He’s got broad Wookiee shoulders, and he also has a new mission. He’s got Rey, and she’s someone that Han, to a certain extent, handed the keys to. So I think that that helps.”
It could be worse.
“If Chewie was just unemployed and sitting at home, things might be a little rougher, but he’s got a task to focus on,” Johnson adds.
Also, he’s got some new friends.
Or judging by the feather in his mouth here … are they snacks?
MAZ KANATA
Again, this character isn’t a bad guy by any means, but we’ve got some unfortunate news that places her in our Dark Side round-up.
There will be less of the little orange sage in this movie, although Lupita Nyong’o’s character still turns up for an important moment in the spotlight.
“She has a smaller part in this than she has in The Force Awakens, but it’s a really fun part, and Lupita is so awesome,” Johnson says. “I’m just happy I got to work with her.”
Maz has insights into the past, and for a film about history, family connections, and the way the Force shapes destiny, she is bound to deliver important information.
Johnson says even he learned something.
“This was my first time working with mo-cap characters and working with actors in that way,” he says. “I feel like I got such an incredible education watching Lupita work.”
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/11/star-wars-last-jedi-kylo-ren-dark-side/amp/
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