When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 and announced it had plans to revitalize the Star Wars saga with an all-new trilogy, fans were elated. That continued when we learned that J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson would be directing the first two films in the new saga.
In 2015, Abrams’ The Force Awakens blew away the box office, raking in over $2 billion worldwide, although some fans complained that the movie was basically a rehash of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope. So not everything was perfect in the fandom, but there was still plenty of optimism for Johnson’s take on the series. He’d directed Brick, an excellent Indie film, and the well-received sci-fi thriller Looper, in addition to two of the best episodes of Breaking Bad, “Fly” and “Ozymandias.” Johnson had the chops, and fans were excited.
Then came Christmas 2017 and the premiere of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The movie instantly split the fandom down the middle. One side praised it as the most compelling movie in the Star Wars cycle to date. Others claimed it ruined their childhoods and was an affront to all things in a galaxy far, far away. They hated new characters like Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) and Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), and they despised the fact that Luke Skywalker was a grumpy old hermit rather than some all-powerful being who could use the Force to pluck a star destroyer out of the sky.
So it was messy, but The Last Jedi still earned a whopping $1.3 billion at the box office. People watched this movie, then went back and watched it again.
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Disney was happy with Johnson’s offering and decided to give him the reigns to his own trilogy to write and direct. That did not please the Last Jedi-loathing contingent of the fandom. Rian Johnson ruined Star Wars and nothing was going to convince them otherwise. For a solid year now, the director has been defending his choices on Twitter.
Recently, a blog called Super Bro Movies claimed Johnson was stepping away from his new trilogy over the Last Jedi backlash. Other sites ran the story, and the trolls were soon convinced they had successfully scared Johnson away from Star Wars. They hadn’t:
No it isn’t true, I’m still working on the trilogy. With all due respect to the movie bros, who I’m sure are lovely kind bros with good fraternal intentions.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) February 14, 2019
There you have it. Johnson is making his Star Wars trilogy, and it’s probably time to deal with it or move on.
In other news, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss are also gearing up to make Star Wars movies. We’re sure that’ll be fine.
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