By: Dominic Jones
Yesterday at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, following a screening of the documentary The Director and the Jedi, Rian Johnson, writer/director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi took the stage to answer fan questions about the film. Johnson spoke about how he approached writing Luke Skywalker's story for The Last Jedi, telling fans,
"If you look at any classic hero's myth that is actually
worth its salt, at the beginning of the hero's journey, like with King
Arthur, he pulls the sword from the stone and he's ascendant — he has
setbacks but he unites all the kingdoms. But then if you keep reading, when it deals with the
hero's life as they get into middle-age and beyond, it always starts to
get into darker places. And there’s a reason for that: It’s because
myths are not made to sell action figures; myths are made to reflect the
most difficult transitions we go through in life."
I love hearing Johnson's thought process on creating the film. While the Luke Skywalker arc has be controversial for some, personally I felt that Johnson's take on Luke was exactly what the film needed. It was far more interesting to see Luke facing new challenges, then if he were some sort of perfect hero with no flaws or challenges to overcome. The Luke we got was not the myth that we (and Rey) imagined, but was instead a man who had been broken by years of tragedy and war. And it was far more satisfying to see him overcome this in the end than it would have been if he had nothing to overcome. All this is not to say there aren't issues with The Last Jedi, there certainly are, just that Luke Skywalkers arc is not one of them.
The Director and the Jedi is included on the home media release of The Last Jedi. You can seen an eleven-minute preview of the documentary here. The Last Jedi is available digitally now and will be released on blu-ray and 4K Ultra on March 27th.
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