Category Archives: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

The Last Jedi Comes Home: 3/13 Digital and 3/27 Everywhere Else!

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Via StarWars.com:

The latest film in the Star Wars saga is coming home. Star Wars: The Last Jedi will arrive, it was announced today, on Digital (in HD and 4K Ultra HD) and via Movies Anywhere on March 13, and on Blu-ray 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and On-Demand on March 27. And along with the number one movie of 2017 comes a galaxy of bonus features, including The Director and the Jedi — an intimate journey into the creation of Star Wars: The Last Jedi with writer-director Rian Johnson — as well as an audio commentary and much more. The full list includes*:

  • The Director and the Jedi – Go deep behind the scenes with writer-director Rian Johnson on an intimate and personal journey through the production of the movie—and experience what it’s like to helm a global franchise and cultural phenomenon.
  • Balance of the Force – Explore the mythology of the Force and why Rian Johnson chose to interpret its role in such a unique way.
  • Scene Breakdowns
    • Lighting the Spark: Creating the Space Battle – Get a close-up look at the epic space battle, from the sounds that help propel the action, through the practical and visual effects, to the characters who bring it all to life.
    • Snoke and Mirrors – Motion capture and Star Wars collide as the filmmakers take us through the detailed process of creating the movie’s malevolent master villain.
    • Showdown on Crait – Break down everything that went into creating the stunning world seen in the movie’s final confrontation, including the interplay between real-word locations and visual effects, reimagining the walkers, designing the crystal foxes, and much more.
  • Andy Serkis Live! (One Night Only) – Writer-director Rian Johnson presents two exclusive sequences from the movie featuring Andy Serkis’ riveting, raw on-set performance before his digital makeover into Snoke.
  • Deleted Scenes – With an introduction and optional commentary by writer-director Rian Johnson.
  • Audio Commentary – View the movie with in-depth feature audio commentary by writer-director Rian Johnson.

* Digital bonus offerings may vary by retailer.

‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Sound Designers Explain The Big Silent Moment

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Via Variety.com:

The ninth installment of Hollywood’s most successful space saga features one of its most unusual and compelling moments when “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” director Rian Johnson tries something that none of the previous films attempted: silence.

For the film’s release, some movie theaters even posted signs warning audiences that approximately one hour and 52 minutes into the movie, all sound stops for 10 seconds and to not be alarmed, as the effect is intentional.

“When we heard about this, we got a big kick out of it,” says sound designer Ren Klyce, who served as a co-sound supervisor alongside supervising sound editor Matthew Wood, with both collecting a recent Oscar nomination for sound editing. Klyce also shares an Oscar nom on the film for sound mixing with Stuart Wilson, David Parker and Michael Semanick.

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Domhnall Gleeson Clarifies Rian Johnson Wrote Hux’s Big ‘The Last Jedi’ Moment

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Via Comicbook.com:

Actors can’t always anticipate how their comments will be interpreted during press interviews in support of a film, as evidenced by The Last Jedi’s Domhnall Gleeson wanting to clarify recent remarks. The actor gave the impression that he had created a moment for his character Hux in the film, yet wanted to assure fans that the moment was, in fact, crafted by writer/director Rian Johnson.

“It’s funny, Kevin Smith was asking me that yesterday. And it was funny, I was saying that was something I talked to Rian about, that we added in to the thing,” Gleeson clarified to Uproxx. “And I realized it sounded like I was saying it was my idea, like that actor who’s always like, ‘That was all me.’ Rian wrote that, but after we’d had a conversation about making the change.”

The moment in question saw Hux enter Snoke’s throne room after Kylo confronted his master, with Hux drawing the conclusion that Kylo was an even bigger threat than he imagined. Instinctively, Hux goes for his blaster, only to remember that the weapon would be virtually useless against the Sith.

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Rian Johnson Explains One Of Luke’s Skywalker’s Big Scenes

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Via Digitalspy.com:

If you’re really into picking into the nitty gritty details of Star Wars – as many fans are – then you may have noticed this anomaly in The Last Jedi.

At the end of the movie, we sadly had to say goodbye to Luke Skywalker as he became one with the Force and faded into the air.

That was because he used all his Force energy to create a projection of himself on Crait to distract Kylo Ren and the First Order while our heroes escaped.

However, as we see Luke disappear from his perch on Ahch-To and his cloak fall, one artificial aspect we don’t see fall to the ground is his fake hand.

Surely it didn’t transition to the afterlife with his body given that it’s made of metal?

Well, that question was posed to star Mark Hamill, who seemed to be just as confused as everyone else.

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Empire’s Podcast Special With Rian Johnson

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Via Empireonline.com:

It’s taken a while, but here it is at last — our Star Wars: The Last Jedi spoiler special podcast, ready to go down as smooth as a green milkshake.

 

In this two-hour behemoth, the Empire Podcast team — Chris Hewitt, Helen O’Hara, James Dyer, and Ian Freer — have a good old spoiler-heavy chat about the ups and downs, and the ins and outs of Episode VIII, and tackle a whole bunch of listeners’ questions. Let’s just say this is not going to go the way you think.

First up, though, is Chris’ chat with the film’s writer/director, Rian Johnson, who was in great form as he expounded on some of the film’s most shocking revelations, as well as shedding more light on his love of Adrian Edmondson. Which is, perhaps, the most shocking revelation of them all.

WHY DID LUKE SKYWALKER USE A BLUE LIGHTSABER IN STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI?

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Via Ign.com:

Star Wars: The Last Jedi has encouraged plenty of discussion and debate among fans since it debuted in December, and while there are some aspects of filmmaker Rian Johnson’s narrative that remain open for interpretation — at least until Episode 9 is released — there’s one burning question that keeps coming up regarding Luke Skywalker’s spectacularly snarky showdown with Kylo Ren at the film’s climax.

Many viewers have questioned why Luke chose to use his father Anakin’s blue lightsaber — which was shattered in Kylo Ren’s fight with Rey just a few scenes earlier — in his confrontation with his nephew. After all, shouldn’t that have been an immediate clue to Kylo (and the audience) that Luke wasn’t really there?

IGN had the opportunity to discuss the film with Johnson recently, and we couldn’t resist posing the question to the writer-director himself. Naturally, the architect of The Last Jedi — and a brand new Star Wars trilogy — had a perfectly sensible answer that should put the debate to rest.

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‘Last Jedi’ Editor Has Second Thoughts About Off Screen Death

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Via Huffingtonpost.com:

If you were going into “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” expecting some great Admiral Ackbar scenes, sorry to break it to you: It’s a trap!

Ackbar didn’t get a ton of screen time in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, showing up for a limited amount of scenes in “Return of the Jedi.” But the hero of the Battle of Endor went on to become one of the most-memed, quoted and parodied characters of the franchise, even reaching No. 14 on HuffPost’s own ranking of “Star Wars” characters (which was last updated after “Rogue One”).

With all this fanfare, and even an appearance in “The Force Awakens,” it was a shock in “The Last Jedi” when (spoiler alert!) Ackbar was killed off-screen during a Kylo Ren-led attack on the rebels.

In the scene, Ren holds off on firing at a rebel ship containing Leia, but his squadron doesn’t. They blow up the bridge of her command ship, seemingly killing all the leaders within ― save for Leia, of course.

Though viewers don’t see his actual final moments, Gial Ackbar’s death is confirmed in a line of dialogue following the incident, which explains that nearly all of the rebel leadership, including Ackbar, were killed. Then, just like that, everyone moves on. And we were all like, “Ack-cuse me?”

Many fans felt the same.

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‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Losing Opening-Day Race in China

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Via Hollywoodreporter.com:

The Disney and Lucasfilm juggernaut is getting beaten badly by local comedy ‘The Ex-File 3,’ which opened in China a week ago.
Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi is off to an inauspicious start in China, its final major box-office test.

The prior two Star Wars films underperformed in China, but the early results for The Last Jedi, which finally debuted locally on Friday, look even worse than expected.

The film earned $560,000 (3.65 million RMB) in midnight previews, well behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ $2.5 million (16 million RMB) previews score — and way behind The Fate of the Furious’ record $8.7 million preview total (60 million RMB) in 2017.

Worse still, Friday’s early box-office results have The Last Jedi clearly losing to local comedy The Ex-File 3: The Return of the Exes. As of 4:30 p.m., Beijing time, The Last Jedi had earned approximately $5 million (33 million RMB) compared to Ex-Files 3’s $11.6 million (75 million RMB), according to data from mobile ticketing service Maoyan.

The results came despite The Last Jedi getting substantially more screens — approximately a 35.6 percent share of all Chinese screens — compared to Ex-File’s 32.3 percent (again, as of 4:30 p.m. Friday). And adding insult to injury: Ex-File opened in China a full week ago.

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REBUILDING YODA FOR THE LAST JEDI

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Via Nerdist.com:

The Last Jedi featured a number of surprises, but the biggest of all the twists and turns was also the smallest: Yoda. The wizened Jedi Master introduced in The Empire Strikes Back returned to give Luke Skywalker advice in Episode VIII, bringing the iconic character into the modern Star Wars fold. To get his appearance on Ahch-To right, Neal Scanlan—head of the creature shop (which is also responsible for aliens)—knew they had to make a puppet from the instant he learned of Yoda’s return. He told Nerdist the experience of creating Yoda was a gift.

“To know that we were going to have Yoda, we just said, ‘Look we need to go back and look at Empire Strikes Back, we need to look at how Stuart [Freeborn] created Yoda because that is the most pure puppet moment,’” Scanlan said. “It’s Frank Oz, who is one of the greatest puppeteers ever, and we knew that Frank was going to redo this. We just felt that it was absolutely right and proper that we create the puppet in the closest likeness to the original and to give Frank exactly what he had the first time around.”

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AMC Theaters Remove Warning About Star Wars: The Last Jedi Scene

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Via Ew.com:

After taking matters into their own hands, two AMC movie theaters have removed signs that tipped off moviegoers to one particular scene in Star Wars: The Last Jedi when the sound cuts out. According to an AMC spokesperson, they were removed even before media coverage of them.

“The sign was up at two of AMC’s 660 locations. It was removed last week before the media coverage began,” read a statement to EW.

The signs appeared as fan criticism mounted against director Rian Johnson and his choices for Episode VIII. (Even Mark Hamill had said some things that he now regrets.) They first came to the public’s attention when actor Paul Scheer posted an image of one to Facebook.

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