The more you know.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi shook the series up in ways that fans have never seen before, and for some, it was a lot to deal with. But as we found out watching the special features on The Last Jedi's Blu-ray release, it's impossible to fully judge the movie until you find out exactly why director Rian Johnson made so many controversial choices.
Did you know that Mark Hamill hated the direction Johnson took Luke Skywalker in for the movie, or that the design for Supreme Leader Snoke changed throughout production because Johnson felt he wasn't intimidating enough?
What about the fact that--according to Mark Hamill--George Lucas wanted to recast C-3PO's voice actor during production of the original Star Wars? Or that it took over 20 takes to capture General Leia slapping Poe Dameron across the face?
Click through the gallery for a lot more. The Last Jedi's special features are spread across a feature-length documentary--The Director and the Jedi--as well as a shorter one, Balance of the Force, several breakdowns of key scenes, and more. We dove in and pulled out these tasty factoids, but there's plenty more to discover when you watch for yourself.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out digitally now, and on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and Blu-ray disc March 27.
1. Mark Hamill did not like the direction for Luke Skywalkerwan.
From: The Director and the Jedi
Mark Hamill emphasizes over and over in the feature length documentary The Director and the Jedi that he disagreed with the direction of Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi. "I told Rian this. It's no surprise. I said, 'I just fundamentally disagree with your concept of this character and how you use him.' Now having said that, I'll do everything within my power to realize your vision. Because, you know, it's not my character to decide. It belongs to other people. They just rent it out to me."
2. Hamill wrestled with the fact that Luke is no longer the hero.
From: The Director and the Jedi
"You have your own view of how your character should be, and how he should be utilized. My character always represented hope and optimism, and now here I am very pessimistic and disillusioned and sort of demoralized," Hamill says.
"It was heavy on him," says producer Ram Bergman. "He thought he's gonna be the Luke Skywalker of this trilogy. It's just the realization that in this trilogy, he's not Luke Skywalker. He's [Obi-Wan Kenobi]."
3. Hamill's struggle wasn't lost on director Rian Johnson.
From: The Director and the Jedi
Johnson says in the documentary: "I don't think he ever got to the point where he thought 'OK, I understand why Luke has to go at the end of this.' But he was completely devoted to making what I had written the most powerful version it can possibly be on the screen. I'll always be dazzled by the fact that he had the generosity of spirit to do that, and always feel like I really, really owe him for that. You know, I don't take that lightly."
4. Johnson wanted to achieve as many scenes with practical effects as possible.
From: The Director and the Jedi
Even scenes like the one in which Luke milks the sea cow--which is relatively unimportant in the scheme of the movie--were done with practical effects. "So to actually go to Ireland and place the sea cow on a rocky outcrop, the sea, the sound, the light, all of these aspects would just gel together to make the whole shot look incredible," says creature and droid effects supervisor Neal Scanlan.
5. Kylo Ren's distinctive scar was designed over several months.
From: The Director and the Jedi
And it got wider and wider as they iterated on the design, according to hair and makeup designer Peter Swords King, who has an incredibly awesome name.
6. The actor and puppeteer behind Yoda is the same as in the originals.
From: The Director and the Jedi
This may be common knowledge to some Star Wars fans, but others might be unaware that the voice actor and puppeteer behind Yoda in The Last Jedi is Frank Oz, who also controlled the iconic Jedi master in the original Star Wars trilogy.
7. The same goes for C-3PO.
From: The Director and the Jedi
The same goes for C-3PO, who as always is played by Anthony Daniels. Daniels provides the voice and dons the suit for the protocol droid, as he has in all eight main Star Wars movies to date.
8. George Lucas originally wanted to re-cast C-3PO.
From: The Director and the Jedi
From a story told by Mark Hamill in the documentary: "George got back and looked at all the footage and didn't like C-3PO's voice. And so he saw over 100 actors--voiceover guys--to come in and audition for the role of 3PO's voice. Mind you, it's all been filmed. And we're so used to Tony. 'Oh yes, how's that sir.' All of that, I mean, it was all part and parcel of the organic character. He's almost like the droid equivalent of Upstairs, Downstairs. He's much more comfortable in a drawing room serving champagne. That was the humor of 3PO!"
9. Snoke's design changed partway through production.
From: scene breakdowns
Partway through production, Rian Johnson felt that Snoke didn't look threatening enough. So they re-designed the villain to make his shoulders and jaw wider and make him half a foot taller.
10. Snoke's motion capture was insanely detailed.
From: scene breakdowns
The motion capture on Andy Serkis playing Snoke was so detailed that they were able to transfer small touches like Andy's flaring nostrils, slight twitches, and flying spittle onto the CG character.
11. Rian Johnson wanted The Last Jedi to redefine The Force.
From: Balance of the Force
In a second, shorter documentary feature on the Blu-ray, Johnson explains that he wanted the movie to redefine what The Force is. "The Force is not a superpower," he says. "I wanted in this movie to do a little bit of a reset lesson, especially for kids who are coming to these movies for the first time."
12. Johnson had strong ideas for Luke's motivations in this movie.
From: Balance of the Force
Johnson had clear ideas for why Luke has closed himself off to The Force and sequestered himself on this distant planet. "The Jedi have done nothing but add to the problems of the universe. And the most selfless act he can do is to do what he couldn't do in The Empire Strikes Back, and ignore the calls of help from his friends, and lock himself off," the director says. "And suddenly it turns into this kind of burden that he has to hold. He would love to jump back in and help everybody, but he's realized that if he brings the Jedi back into this, then the Sith are going to rise up again, and the whole thing is going to start again, and it's just going to be more misery."
13. Johnson has a good reason for Rey's parents being nobodies, too.
From: Balance of the Force
"In the first trilogy, the hardest thing Luke could be told in that moment was that Vader was his father. It turns everything on its head for Luke, it takes away all the easy answers, and it makes him face the hardest thing, which is that 'I no longer have just a bad guy I can hate,'" Johnson says.
"For Rey I think it's the exact opposite. If she were told that she is related to this person, or Luke is her this, or whatever, that would be the easiest thing she could hear. That's everything she wants. That would instantly define what her place is in this universe. So to me, the equivalent of 'I am your father' is 'Nope, you've got to stand on your own two feet. There are not going to be those easy answers here for you.'"
14. Johnson came up with the visual for Rey's vision before he knew what it meant.
From: Balance of the Force
"The mirror cave is another thing that I didn't even know what it meant when I first had the visual idea," Johnson says. "And then as I developed the story I realized, oh, this is its place in all this, and what it means to Rey."
15. Sounds for Oscar Isaac's ship in the opening scene include a roll of tape.
From: scene breakdowns
The sound design team clearly had a good time working on The Last Jedi. They got pretty creative; in the opening scene, for example, the sounds that went into creating Poe Dameron's ship include the slowed-down crinkle of a roll of tape being quickly unwound.
16. The bomber ships in that opening scene were inspired by World War II era B-17 bombers.
From: scene breakdowns
Their vertical design is deliberate as well, meant to communicate visually the sheer impressive number of bombs each holds.
17. Leia slapping Poe was one of the first things they shot.
From: scene breakdowns
It took around 24 takes, according to Oscar Isaac.
18. The idea for Holdo's sacrifice actually came from the original Star Wars.
From: scene breakdowns
The idea for Holdo's sacrifice, when she cuts through Snoke's fleet at light speed, came from the original Star Wars, when Han Solo says "Without precise calculations, we'd bounce right through a star or fly too close to a supernova, and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"
Johnsons says he wanted to find out what that would look like.
19. Crait's white and red surface was one of the first visual ideas Rian Johnson had for the movie.
From: scene breakdowns
The designers struggled to create the pulpy, red explosions that Johnson envisioned. They tried out a number of materials for the red undersurface, including red rubber, red ice, and red snow. They ultimately landed on shredded paper, wetted and dyed red.
20. The "gorilla walkers" make interesting sounds too.
From: scene breakdowns
The sounds for the walkers during the battle of Crait are a combination of a metal press and a heavily distorted lion.
21. The ice cave section on Crait was inspired by the original Star Tours.
From: scene breakdowns
Before Disneyland's Star Tours ride was revamped, there was a section where riders traveled through a comet and smashed through the ice at the other end. The ice cave chase on Crait was directly inspired by this section of the ride, Johnson says.
22. The crystal foxes could have been played by real dogs.
From: scene breakdowns
They tested both live animals and animatronics for the crystal foxes on Crait, but ultimately went with full CG creatures to make them as elegant and beautiful as possible.
23. There were doubts about the casino sequence's place in the movie.
From: scene breakdowns
Says costume designer Michael Kaplan, "A casino in Star Wars, you know, with fancy dressed people? It just seemed, ehh, and I expressed my fears to Rian, and asked for more input, and he didn't really make it easier. He said he wanted them to look very elegant."
24. Johnson sees Benicio del Toro's character more as a Han Solo figure than a villain.
From: The Director and the Jedi
"Not a villain. Don't believe the internet," Johnson says. "I think he was there to meet a guy about a thing. You know? He was there on other business basically, and he was going to get in and get out, and then he got tossed in [jail]. I mean, really subconsciously, what we want to evoke in the audience is Han Solo. We don't want to play it too close to that, but the whole thing of a scoundrel, and the audience expects him to have a heart of gold."
25. The scenes between Luke and Rey were some of the first they shot.
From: The Director and the Jedi
They were shot so early that other characters, like Rose Tico, hadn't even been cast yet. They were only given access to Skellig Michael, the small island off the coast of Ireland, for two days, in part because it's a bird sanctuary. "It felt so good to get out here and actually roll some film...it's going to be hard to go back to looking at charts and having board meetings," Johnson says.
26. BB-8 was difficult to operate on terrain that wasn't flat, such as ramps.
From: The Director and the Jedi
Goodness he's cute.
27. Johnson sees Rey and Kylo as two halves of a single protagonist.
From: The Director and the Jedi
"Kylo, that was the character that I was most excited about getting into and writing, because in the first Star Wars films, Vader was a great villain, but he was never someone that you identified with," Johnson says. "Whereas with Kylo, it's almost like Rey and Kylo are two halves of the protagonist. And if this is all about the transition from adolescence into adulthood, Kylo is that anger of adolescence."
28. There are subtle hints during Luke and Kylo's fight that Luke isn't really there.
From: scene breakdowns
For example, the falling salt flakes don't interact with Luke or his lightsaber, and Luke's feet leave no marks in the salt on the surface of the ground.
29. Mark Hamill's reaction when he learned the movie's title is adorable.
From: The Director and the Jedi
Cameras captured the moment Rian Johnson told Mark Hamill the title of the movie for the first time. "You can't tell Marilou [Hamill] or anybody, it's just me and you, because there's really only a couple of people who know," Johnson says, before telling him the movie will be called "The Last Jedi."
"Oo. Wow. That means me!" Hamill responds. "Simple, direct, powerful. I love it. Wow, I'm glad I didn't know, I mean, because it's an added burden when I think of it."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.