The Last Jedi Director Asked J.J. Abrams to Change Force Awakens Ending

[Steven Bogos]

The Last Jedi Director Asked J.J. Abrams to Change Force Awakens Ending

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The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson asked The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams to make a small but significant change.

Warning: Spoilers for The Force Awakens follow.

At the end of The Force Awakens, Rey goes off to find Luke Skywalker, accompanied by R2D2. If you thought it was strange that good ol' artoo came with her, and not BB-8, who had been her companion throughout the film, that's because The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson specifically requested it.

"The big [favor] was, I asked if R2 could come with Rey, and if BB-8 could stay behind with the Resistance," Johnson told Entertainment Weekly [http://ew.com/movies/2017/05/04/star-wars-rian-johnson-force-awakens-ending/?xid=entertainment-weekly_socialflow_twitter]. "Originally, it was BB-8 who went with Rey, which makes sense for the story in a way. But I asked, 'Can you do me this solid and switch the droids?'"

Johnson said that Luke's story is essential to the plot of The Last Jedi, and as R2D2 has been such a huge part of Luke's life, it seems his presence is equally essential.

"Figuring out where his head was at was the very first thing I had to do when writing the movie," Johnson said. "I had to crack this. And it had to be something for me that first and foremost made sense. Why did Luke Skywalker go off to this island? That was the starting point, and that's what the entire movie explores."

Source: GameSpot [https://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-wars-the-last-jedi-director-asked-for-a-chang/1100-6449819/]

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[TelosSupreme]

Oh, okay. At first I thought this was a change being made for a future re-release and was like, "Here we go again."

 

[Bobular]

Makes more sense to me this way, BB-8 belongs to Poe and out of the two leads I felt he was more with Finn than Rey, both of which are still at the rebel base.

R2 would obviously insist on going with Rey to Luke because R2 is Luke's droid and even had part of the map to where Luke was so I would think that is what Luke intended anyway.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Johnson: Is it cool if maybe you have R2 at the end of Force Awakens instead of BB? I think it wou...

Abrams: Yeah yeah, whatever. I have to write about this Mystery Box!

 

[American Fox]

Spoilers?

For a two year old movie?

 

[Scytail]

Spoilers?

For a two year old movie?

You know how that "no spoilers" crowd is. Two years, five, ten, doesn't matter to those folks.

 

[Zydrate]

Wait, they didn't even know why he was on the island?
I thought when people planned for trilogies they usually had a plan for stuff like this, even if it's skeletal form. Beginning, middle, end. Rising action, climax, etc. I learned the simple stuff in school with little bubble maps to literally map out some of the major stuff and fill it in later.

So they were just like "Eh, island."

 

[Imre Csete]

Wait, they didn't even know why he was on the island?

Yoda was alone on a planet, so he must be aswell.

Homage > Story

 

[King_Julian]

I hope R2 and BB8 dont mate and we end up with some monstrosity of a squarcle with legs!

Serious note doh, it makes perfect sense to bring R2 to the island, although i still dont understand how he manages to do so well on bad terrain!

 

[RJ 17]

Wait, they didn't even know why he was on the island?
I thought when people planned for trilogies they usually had a plan for stuff like this, even if it's skeletal form. Beginning, middle, end. Rising action, climax, etc. I learned the simple stuff in school with little bubble maps to literally map out some of the major stuff and fill it in later.

So they were just like "Eh, island."

I can only imagine - and hope - that they're not just flying by the seat of their pants in that way. I'd imagine they probably did have a skeletal structure for this whole story planned out, and the detail of Luke being on the island was just previously left at "Some bad shit went down when Luke tried to train some apprentices then he went into exile." That much is revealed in The Force Awakens itself.

I'm guessing what the director of The Last Jedi meant when he talks about needing to get inside of Luke's head to determine why he ended up on that island is that he now had to fill in the specifics of just what went down when Luke tried to train some apprentices and why he (Luke) decided that self-imposed exile would be the best course of action for him.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

You know how that "no spoilers" crowd is. Two years, five, ten, doesn't matter to those folks.

"Those folks" are pretty reasonable, given Rosebud would probably hurt a viewing of Citizen Kane even now for someone who's new to it. Avoiding spoilers doesn't take any effort, but it may help someone have a much better experience with a film/book/show/game/whatever.

I'm guessing what the director of The Last Jedi meant when he talks about needing to get inside of Luke's head to determine why he ended up on that island is that he now had to fill in the specifics of just what went down when Luke tried to train some apprentices and why he (Luke) decided that self-imposed exile would be the best course of action for him.

I do hope so, else Star Wars might be fucked again... I assume they had/have a full story mapped out well before TFA began shooting, or at least have a clear direction containing specific plot beats, albeit with room for tweaks here and there.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Wait, they didn't even know why he was on the island?

JJ Abrams likes to have people remind themselves he did Lost.

 

[Pyrian]

I hope R2 and BB8 dont mate and we end up with some monstrosity of a squarcle with legs!

BB-8's parents are R2-D2 and the Death Star. Remember that scene in A New Hope where R2 sticks it into the Death Star's data port? Yeah. The resemblance is uncanny, isn't it?

 

[THM]

I hope R2 and BB8 dont mate and we end up with some monstrosity of a squarcle with legs!

BB-8's parents are R2-D2 and the Death Star. Remember that scene in A New Hope where R2 sticks it into the Death Star's data port? Yeah. The resemblance is uncanny, isn't it?

And there's my mind-bleach image of the day. O_O

 

[Zontar]

Johnson: Is it cool if maybe you have R2 at the end of Force Awakens instead of BB? I think it wou...

Abrams: Yeah yeah, whatever. I have to write about this Mystery Box!

Abrams probably figured that since the rest of the plot didn't make any sense, why would anyone care for such a small thing anyway? Not like people are watching for the story or anything /s

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Johnson: Is it cool if maybe you have R2 at the end of Force Awakens instead of BB? I think it wou...

Abrams: Yeah yeah, whatever. I have to write about this Mystery Box!

Abrams probably figured that since the rest of the plot didn't make any sense, why would anyone care for such a small thing anyway? Not like people are watching for the story or anything /s

Basically. This gives me hope that maybe Johnson at least gives a shit about telling a decent story rather than making one long pandering rehash.