Rian Johnson Is Totally Chill About J.J. Abrams' STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER — GeekTyrant

Geek Tyrant

6 days ago

Star Wars fans are pretty familiar with the tug-of-war narrative surrounding The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker . Was J.J. Abrams actively undoing everything Rian Johnson built? Was it a creative clash? A lightsaber tug-of-war between two opposing visions?
According to Johnson himself, it's not that dramatic. In fact, he's fine with how it all played out.
While speaking with Rolling Stone about the second season of Poker Face , Johnson said he had no hard feelings watching The Rise of Skywalker . He explained:
'When I saw the movie, I had a great time watching it. Again, this is all about point of view. I never approach this as, like, a territory I'm carving out for my thing.
'In my perspective, J.J. did the same thing with the third that I did with the second, which is not digging it up and undoing – just telling the story the way that was most compelling going forward. That means not just validating what came before, but recontextualizing it and evolving and changing as the story moves forward. I didn't feel resentful in some way.'
Johnson went on to add:
'But you're talking about a movie made by my friends, with my friends in it. I sit down to watch a movie, and it's a Star Wars movie. It's all stuff I love. I'm not the one to come to for a hard-hitting critique. You can go to YouTube for that.'
Despite The Last Jedi drawing a wave of online backlash back in 2017, Lucasfilm clearly had faith in Johnson's vision. He was even handed a brand-new Star Wars trilogy. But then Knives Out happened, and then its sequels, and Poker Face . And now Wake Up Dead Man drops this December.
He's busy, he's thriving, and he's not losing sleep over lightsabers.
Still, he hasn't ruled out a return to the galaxy far, far away. If that trilogy ever gained traction again, he'd jump on it.