The Press Box - The Big Picture' - ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Is Just the Beginning for Rian Johnson (Ep. 401)

Episode Date: December 18, 2017

Ringer editor-in-chief Sean Fennessey chats with writer-director Rian Johnson about making ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi,’ putting his own spin on the franchise, and his upcoming spinoff trilogy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I feel like if you can't have fun in a Star Wars movie, what the hell are you in a Star Wars movie for? But I get it. I mean, you know, different people want different things from Star Wars movies. I'm Sean Fennacy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is a special bonus episode of The Big Picture. And it's a special episode because we had the chance to talk with The Man of the Hour, the writer-director of Star Wars, The Last Jedi, Ryan Johnson.

Ryan has long been tipped as the future of big top Hollywood franchise movies, and with The Last Jedi, he does something unique. He makes a story bound by mythology and does something he's, he can call his own. Ryan and I talked about how he did that, the characters he couldn't wait to write for, the trilogy of Star Wars movies he signed up to make next, and the filmmaker who blows his mind. So without further ado, here's our special minipod with Ryan Johnson. I am seeing Ryan Johnson for the second time in two days. He introduced a screening of Star Wars The Last Jedi last night at Arklight Hollywood, or at least a man who looked like Ryan Johnson.

One of their employees. It was a striking resemblance to me. Ryan, thank you for joining us on the show today. Thanks for having me. Ryan, I want to jump right into things. Yeah. What was the best piece of advice you got before you started on this journey towards The Last Jedi? The best piece of advice was from JJ's editors who told me, no matter what scene you're shooting, if BB8's in the scene,

take 10 minutes and get a cutaway shot of BB8 reacting to everything. You will not regret it. How much BB8 is on the cutting room floor then? Oh, there's quite a bit. There's a whole, and we had a couple really fun little bits that we had that we ended up cutting out with BB8 in them. But there's a ton on the other than room floor. We had a lot of the scenes that we cut.

All my colleagues, after they saw the film last night, that was their big takeaway is protect BB8 at all costs. I know one must. So, Ryan, I want to know it. Your previous film's world building is a big part of what you do, not necessarily in maybe the Marvel Cinematic Universe sense, but you're creating a new language at times and creating a new history or a new future.

You're obviously entering established mythology here. Yeah. What was it like for you to try to figure out how to build your own worlds inside of these stories. Well, I mean, for me, I guess because it was something where, you know, the world of it is kind of me trying to capture what Star Wars felt like, what those movies felt like to me and what they were to me when I was growing up. So I guess, first of all, everyone's going to have a slightly different interpretation of that,

you know, I guess. And that, to me, tonally at least, defines what Star Wars always was for me. But then there's a lot more, obviously. You know, that's a big, complicated question. And that's one that I kind of answered just by making this movie. This is kind of what Star Wars feels like to me, I guess. Did you have to channel your 13-year-old self? Yeah, you always had to check back.

It was an invaluable resource, you know, having that sort of internal compass of, does this feel right to me? And it's tricky because every single fan has a different compass because everyone grew up also in a slightly different time. I was 10 years old when Return of the Jedi came out, I think. So I was in prime age for that movie. But then as I became an adult, Empire was the one that I got more and more into. But of course, New Hope was like the very first one I was into with toys.

And so all this imagery from that is deeply embedded. Anyway, it's a very personal thing. I know it's different for every fan. But I had to make it personally. had to kind of make my version of what felt right in it. When you were writing or making the film, would you go back and watch those films or did you try to have a little bit of personal distance? Oh, no.

I would go back and rewatch them. I know them so well, you know? It's not like I had to refresh my memory with them, but it was, I did find it was good to go back and just get the spirit of them more than anything else. And inevitably, that was the thing that would surprise me when you go back and watch them, whether it's, you know, the banter on the death start or in their minimum. between all three of them or Han Leia and 3PO and the Falcon and Empire, the sense, the way that they always have that slightly, almost like, you know, I don't know,

verging, never tipping over, but verging on screwball sense of fun and banter, the way that that is never far apart from our characters in the original trilogy. It was good to always remind yourself of that. Yeah, your movie has a great comic tone, and it's something that people have really noticed, which is in Force Awakens, but it seems like it's pitched up a little bit here. Were you worried about any pushback

when you were writing the story about what you could and couldn't get in there tonally? No, I just tried to make it feel right to me, I guess. I mean, I think there is probably a lot of humor in it very intentionally, you know, and I know that, you know, I'm sure there'll be some folks that feel like there's too much.

I don't. I feel like if you can't have fun in a Star Wars movie, what the hell are you in a Star Wars movie for? But I get, I mean, different people want different things from Star Wars movies. And if it, you know, from me, I don't know, I really enjoyed especially because I knew we were going to be going to be going to be darker, more intense places, because I knew we were going to be sitting on an island for a big chunk of the movie talking about religion. You know, I wanted there to be a buoyancy to the movie that. that kept it light on its feet and kept it feeling like a Star Wars movie. Who was the character you were most excited to sink your teeth into? Kylo, Ren. Yeah. Tell me more about it.

Well, first of all, Adam is just one of my favorite young actors working today. I mean, I could say that about any one of the cast. You know, Boyega and Oscar and Daisy, everyone. But the fact that with Kylo, JJ, and Larry and Michael created this character who, I don't know, the potential just seems so great. you know, to dig into him.

The fact that he wants to be Vader but isn't, the fact that there's a complexity and kind of a emotional vulnerability there, but that he still is a absolutely despicable guy who you hate coming into this because he killed Hans Solo. And the fact that we have a perfect proxy of Ray to come at him with.

I don't know, I was rubbing my hands together. I couldn't wait to get into Kylo. Yeah, Adam is incredible in the movie. That was my biggest takeaway is his, you know, his character represents something that is, I think, somewhat unique about your movie, which is there's a profound moral ambiguity to a lot of the storylines. And that seems like it could be perceived as a risk. I'm wondering kind of how you arrived at some of the choices you made there. Well, somewhat, but at the same time, I think these movies have a tradition of that, you know. I guess for me, the seeds of that are in, go back to empire. You know, they're with the Vader reveal, where in the first movie, Darth Vader, he was a very simple black and white, Vader is the bad guy. You can hate Vader and boo Vader we want to kill him. And then with one moment with, I Am Your Father, suddenly Vader is not that.

suddenly Vader is part of our protagonist in a weird way. And we have to think about him in more complex terms. And we have to think about him not in terms of just this thing we can project our shadow onto mindlessly. But we have to suddenly integrate him into our own journey and think about redemption with him. The prequels, my God, the prequels are talking about something where it's literally from taking, you know, the most innocent angel of a good spirited child possible and seeing how they turn into a fascist, You know, fascinating, like showing the layers, the layers that Lucas built into that Anacan's journey in the prequels. So, no, I think that's always been an element of these films. And I think at the end of the day, just like in the previous films, we do land on, this is, you know, because it's something I believe, we land on what's worth fighting for.

And we land on, you know, I don't think we necessarily land on a note of pure ambiguity, but I think acknowledging it is part of any story. Yeah, there's a real power in which way will someone go in the movie, you know, and it applies to almost every character that we meet. Yeah. Was there any character that was challenging for you, since you obviously didn't create some of the new characters, but you felt this emotional fealty to the original trilogy is, yeah. Anybody you had a hard time kind of tapping into? Well, I mean, the toughest not to crack at the beginning, because it was the very first thing I had to figure out was Luke. Because he was my hero growing up, Luke was my guy when I was a kid in the original trilogy. And because, you know, coming out of Force Awakens, you don't know much about him, but the big thing you know about him is a very defining thing, which is his friends are fighting the good fight, and he's taking himself out of it. You know, he's sidelined himself.

Knowing what I know about Luke from growing up, why did he do that? You know, and it had to, he has to believe that he's doing the right thing by taking himself out of the fight. And once you start putting in those terms and putting the pieces together, where he's at and a journey for him very quickly starts defining itself. And there are less options than you think in terms of where his head can be at. So it was just a process for me of figuring out what that was going to be. And it was a tough one because the look that I knew from the original movies is the one I loved. And he's in a different place now. It's like when someone you know and love when you're growing up changes. You know, they're both changes and also you have to still be able to draw a line between then and now and see how they got there.

And it has to make sense to you. So it was a challenge. Yeah, he has like a sort of a Boo Radley quality in the movie a little bit. Were there other archetypes that you were thinking about when you were trying to recast some of these famous characters? A little bit, yeah. I mean, yeah, Luke's got kind of a Fisher King type thing going on with him. He's very much the Fallen King. you also you know

and then with Leah and Poe and Holdo and that whole section you know I rewatched a bunch of World War II movies and there's a recurring thing of the hot shot young pilot bumping up against the you know

figure of authority in the military who's trying to teach them the real hard lessons anyone particular that stood out to you well 12 o'clock high was a big reference Gregory Peck and that movie is amazing Don Patrol, which is a British film with David Niven,

has got a similar kind of, you know, five. But it's all over. I mean, you see it over and over again in World War II movies. It's a recurring trope. And especially in trying to figure out how do we challenge Poe, who is just this badass fighter pilot, whoever one loves, thinking about in the context of old war films,

suddenly I was like, oh, this could be the key to how to kind of push this character a bit. What was the most challenging thing about actually making the movie on set? we had you know we had a really good experience on set i don't really have any like war stories i kind of wish i did because it would be more interesting but um was there anything sort of like intellectual that you couldn't wrap your head around yeah i mean every single day there were challenges but uh and i think that it was yeah every single day in terms of the character work with the actors something would come up or it was like

especially with in because the story does have some you know complexity to it on several different levels because there's a lot weaving through it. I just had a lot. Luckily, we had rehearsal time with all the actors. And so we had weeks in advance to sit down with, like I sat down with Mark and Daisy, and we just went through all the stuff. I talked them through why each scene was the way it was.

But then even so, you get the scene on its feet on set, and if something's not playing, you've got to figure out why. Yeah, would you guys change things in the moment? Oh, absolutely, 100%. Once you get on set, for me, even though I wrote the script, that suddenly it's a different person who wrote the script. And usually I'm very resentful of that person. Why do you write this?

So no, on set, if we would constantly be cutting lines, changing lines, simplifying lines, just trying to figure out. You do kind of get a, once you're actually there on set, it's like, yeah, you made all these great plans when you were doing the script, but now you're in the boat and it's springing leaks and you don't want to sink, so you just got to do what you got to do. Okay. So just to wrap up, let's talk a little bit about your,

journey into the next 10, 20 years of your life. You're committed to making this new trilogy. But I've also heard you talk about wanting to still be able to do other films that are not in this universe. So I'm curious about how you demarcate all of this headspace for Star Wars and then everything else that you want to do in your career. I'm curious too, man. No, I'm just, I don't have a grand plan. I'm just at the very beginning of starting to think about what the next years are going to look like. Yeah, I have a couple of really well-formed ideas for smaller movies. that I want to get done. But I'm also, it's not like I've got those and I'm like, oh, God, and also I have to do this.

I mean, the Star Wars stuff is the idea of a new trilogy. It's kind of, it's everything I ever wanted to make movies for. You know, it's incredibly exciting. And so, yeah, but in terms of time allocation-wise, how it's going to work. It sounds tricky. Yeah, it's going to be tricky. But I'm going to dive into it and figure it out. Do you have any concern about spending too much time?

in Star Wars world? I don't right now, no. I mean, for me, I'm not really thinking of it in those terms for me. I'm just thinking of the notion of telling a story

on this canvas of three films right now in this world. Just in the immediate, I'm standing on the diving board about to jump into this pool just is so creatively invigorating and exciting to me. So no, that's not where my head's at all.

And if my head ever goes there, I promise I'll step out. I promise I'll tap out. Because I think that these movies will be invigorating and alive and exciting as long as the people telling them feel invigorated and alive and excited to be telling them. Last question. Always end the show with what's the last great thing you've seen? What is the last great thing? A Phantom Thread, yeah.

You've been talking and writing about that a little bit. Can you just tell me a little bit about it? Well, he's, you know, he's my favorite filmmaker working today, you know, and he's, I think that he, I don't want to wax too. wax on about it, wax on, wax off about it. Yeah, what he does is just, it's magic to me, the way that movies were magic when I was a kid. What he captures transcends, transcends technique. And it really is like music.

It's something that just evokes. It gets in my head. It lives there already this movie. I've just seen it twice, but already it's this living thing in my head that I go to and filtering the world through. And it's same way for the master, there will be blood or any of his movies, you know. And that's like the epitome of what good cinema can do, I think. Right now there's someone probably saying the same thing about you.

I doubt that highly. But God bless you. Ryan Johnson, thank you so much for doing that. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Thanks so much for listening to my podcast with Ryan Johnson. And if you're interested in more Star Wars The Last Jedi content, please check out some of our other podcasts, including The Watch and binge mode,

both of which really went deep on Jedi. And stay tuned later this week. I'll have a very special podcast where I talk with some of the staffers at the ringer about the best movies of 2017. See you soon.