Re: Hot Toys - Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Luke Skywalker (Force Projection) - SPECULA
I don't envy the writers when it comes to handling Leia's absence. If you jump the story too far, it's going to be tough to explain how Kylo hasn't extinguished the Resistance now that their numbers are so low, especially given how obsessed he is with Rey (who is with them). Maybe they'll have Leia realize (off screen, obviously) that Luke was right in thinking that more good could be done from the spirit realm. Maybe she offers herself up to the Force to join Luke and reach her son that way. Luke could be on screen, while Leia reaches her son in a more implied way off screen. Who knows?
Well to be fair, it was clearly not in their original plans to have Kylo be the only remaining Skywalker on screen in IX, but with Fisher's passing it just sort of ended up that way.
Although I guess it could still be enough to have Luke around as a Force Ghost. Especially if he could interact with the real world the way Yoda did...
I obviously wasn't suggesting that Rian Johnson was responsible for the absence of Leia moving forward. In fact, his over-the-top way of demonstrating Leia's Force abilities might have been to set her up for the major role she was going to have in Episode IX. Lucasfilm has said that TFA was to focus more on Han, TLJ to focus on Luke, and Ep. IX to focus on Leia. My guess is that "ghost Luke" almost
has to be a part of the story now to "fill in" for the role Leia was to play. It would also help tie the films back to the Skywalker saga (where these nine films belong, IMO).
The complaint I raised about Rian Johnson killing most of the connections to the Skywalker legacy (that The Force Awakens left open) has more to do with the lightsaber toss, the Rey/Kylo dynamic, and the reveal about Rey's lineage. There seemed (to me) to be an effort made by Rian Johnson to purposely get rid of the Skywalker Saga elements. That's what I object to.
These nine stories were initially intended to be as much about the Skywalker drama as anything else. In TFA, JJ Abrahms left plenty of directions for that premise to be fulfilled. Rey could have easily been connected to the Skywalker saga (even if not directly related). When fans got upset in TFA that Leia embraced Rey instead of Chewie after what happened to Han, there could have been a connection between the two that would have made more sense of that. The lightsaber calling to Rey could have been because of a connection to explain that scene differently (or at all). Kylo seeming to feel "familiar" with Rey could have been explained the same way. And the lightsaber handoff could have been a way to bridge the past to the future. Instead, all those storylines got tossed aside as quick as the lightsaber did in an effort to bury the past and move forward (one of the themes of TLJ).
I recognize that this is a matter of personal preference, and not really a knock on his film-making. But, the Skywalker Saga could have been incorporated through the openings that TFA established and helped TLJ seem less disjointed from the rest of the franchise. It wouldn't have fixed everything that makes many fans think that TLJ didn't "feel" like Star Wars; but it could have helped.
I've been really stunned to read Rian Johnson explaining that he doesn't know where they'll take these things in Episode IX. This was always going to be a trilogy, so how would it not make sense to plot out a full story (7 - 9) first and just let each director play with how to present that story? Otherwise, you run the risk of not only creating a sense of disjointed chapters, but also of losing sight of what the main story of Star Wars was always supposed to be about. These are supposed to be three
sequels, not spin-offs. The integrity of the main story needs to be preserved in order to justify the "sequel" label.
