Breaking down the most controversial Star Wars movie of all time.
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00:00Okay, so let's face facts here. There is, simply put, no more divisive Star Wars movie than The
00:05Last Jedi, which, depending on who you ask, is either a masterpiece or a flaming dumpster fire.
00:11This blockbuster took one look at the Force Awakens' safe, unambitious franchise resurrection
00:17and offered up a more daring, boundary-pushing sequel that carved its own subversive path
00:22and split the fanbase right down the middle. Yet, love it or hate it, the discourse surrounding The
00:26Last Jedi is so pervasively exhausting that you couldn't really be blamed for dipping out and just
00:32not engaging with the movie one way or another. And so, away from all of the toxicity,
00:36there's probably plenty that you actually don't know about The Last Jedi, from fascinating aspects
00:41of its production to sneaky easter eggs, cameos, and happy accidents that ultimately made the
00:46movie what it is. So let's take a look at them today, as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:50and this is 20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Wars The Last Jedi.
00:5520. Mark Hamill Hated Luke's Characterisation
00:59Perhaps the single most divisive aspect of The Last Jedi was Luke Skywalker's
01:03characterisation, reinventing him as a more world-weary, beaten-down, exiled Jedi,
01:08and one who even considered killing Kylo Ren years prior. Fans weren't the only one upset by this,
01:14as even Mark Hamill himself wasn't best pleased with how Luke was written, enough so that he made
01:19it very clear to the director, stating in an interview during the movie's press tour that
01:23I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you've made for this character.
01:28Now, having said that, I've gotten it off my chest, and my job now
01:32is to take what you've created and do my best to realise your vision.
01:35Hamill did, however, later apologise for voicing his doubts and insecurities in public,
01:40and added that despite his creative misgivings, that Johnson made an all-time great movie.
01:4519. The Porgs Were Created For One Specific Reason
01:49Another relatively polarising aspect of The Last Jedi was the introduction of the Porgs,
01:54a species of bird native to the planet where Luke exiled himself. The creatures were compared to
01:59Ewoks by some fans, who felt that they were blatant merch bait intended to appeal to very
02:04young children. Yet in actual fact, the Porgs actually came about as a result of practical
02:09problem-solving during shooting. While filming the scenes on the Irish island Skellig Michael,
02:14the shoot was constantly interrupted by native puffins who would fly into shot.
02:19And so because the puffins were a protected species and couldn't be touched,
02:22the director simply decided to include the puffins in the film but alter their appearance with CGI,
02:28because this was actually cheaper and easier than having them all painted out digitally.
02:32And so, the Porgs were born.
02:3418. Obi-Wan Was Almost In It
02:37Rian Johnson admitted after the film's release that he did toy with the idea of having Obi-Wan
02:42appear as a force ghost instead of Yoda, and yet rejected the idea for one major reason,
02:47and that was the casting. Due to the original Obi-Wan actor Alec Guinness having passed away
02:52many years ago, Johnson would have had to either use a CGI double or simply bring Ewan McGregor
02:58into the fold, and while McGregor was eager to reprise the role, Johnson wasn't quite as
03:02convinced. Ultimately, Johnson felt that having Mark Hamill interact with the McGregor version of
03:06Obi-Wan, an iteration of the character he's never shared the screen with before, wouldn't feel
03:11authentic. As fun as it would have been to see Obi-Wan in the movie, Johnson was probably right
03:16here. 17. Carrie Fisher Helped Polish The Script
03:19You may or may not know that the late, great Carrie Fisher spent many years in Hollywood
03:24working a side gig as a script doctor, and in that job she helped polish the scripts for numerous
03:29huge movies such as Hook, Sister Act, and The Wedding Singer, and even punched up the dialogue
03:34for the Star Wars prequels. Though Fisher more or less retired from script doctor work after
03:38the prequels came out, she did end up helping Rian Johnson complete the script for The Last Jedi.
03:43According to Johnson, he visited Fisher's house and they went over the entire script in fine
03:48detail, with Fisher making numerous suggestions, including rewriting much of Leia's own dialogue.
03:53Script doctors typically go uncredited for their work and their contributions may only be revealed
03:57years or even decades later, yet due to Fisher's untimely passing before The Last Jedi's release,
04:03it was fitting for Johnson to make that information public during the press tour.
04:0716. Kylo Ren's Scar Was Actually Changed Between Movies
04:11Near the end of The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren takes a shot to the face from Rey's lightsaber,
04:16leaving him with a significant scar running from his hairline down to his jaw. However,
04:20a few eagle-eyed fans noticed that Kylo's scar had subtly changed between the movies,
04:25shifting from between his eyebrows to instead cutting through his right eyebrow and going
04:29further down his right cheek. In a now-deleted tweet, Johnson said that he made the call himself,
04:34and it was purely for the sake of his own aesthetic preferences. While it's unlikely that
04:38the fans would have been hugely bothered by the original scar placement, this just goes to show
04:42the many hundreds of tiny creative decisions that go into even the most seemingly mundane parts of
04:47a massive blockbuster movie. 15. Tatiana Maslany,
04:51Gina Rodriguez, Olivia Cooke, and others were considered for Rose
04:55The role of Resistance member Rose Tico was heavily sought out in Hollywood, as,
04:59of course, eventually went to the largely unknown Kelly Marie Tran. It's especially
05:03impressive on Tran's part, considering that she had to fend off competition from a bevy
05:08of considerably more established and well-known actresses. This included the likes of Tatiana
05:12Maslany, Gina Rodriguez, and Olivia Cooke, all of whom made the shortlist and may have
05:16even been screen-tested for the part. Ultimately hiring an unknown actor to play Rose may have
05:21been for the best, though, allowing her to function as an easy audience surrogate without
05:25the distracting potential a more high-profile performer might have brought to the role.
05:2914. Mark Hamill also plays a secret second role
05:33In addition to finally giving Luke Skywalker a full reprise in The Last Jedi, Mark Hamill also
05:38plays a secret second character in the film who appears in the movie's divisive Canto Bight
05:43sequence. Hamill asked Rian Johnson if he could play a CGI creation in the film in addition to
05:48his upfront duties, and ended up being cast as Dobu Skei, the mischievous drunk amphibian gambler
05:54who hilariously mistakes BB-8 for a slot machine and inserts a coin in him.
05:58Hamill not only provided the small voice role for the character, but according to Hamill himself,
06:02also wore a motion capture suit on set to act out his movements.
06:0613. It was the first Star Wars film to show books and paper
06:10You probably remember that Luke Skywalker had custody of a collection of sacred Jedi
06:15text on his exiled planet, but you may not have put two and two together and appreciated that
06:19this is actually the first time that we've ever seen books and paper in the canonical cinematic
06:24universe. The presence of the Jedi text confirms once and for all after so many decades that paper
06:30does indeed exist as we know it in the world of Star Wars, despite information typically being
06:35stored and presented digitally. It's a fascinating sliver of low-key world building that has evidently
06:40been taken for granted by most fans, confirming just how damn ancient those Jedi texts truly are.
06:4512. The DJ character was almost Lando Calrissian
06:49Benicio Del Toro has a small but vital role in the film as DJ, an underworld codebreaker who
06:54ends up double-crossing the Resistance to General Hux in order to win his own freedom.
06:59In the early scripting stages, however, the role was actually written for Lando Calrissian,
07:03but Rian Johnson ultimately decided to reinvent the part as an entirely new character because
07:07he didn't want to have Lando categorically betray the heroes. Lando's certainly no stranger to
07:12subterfuge or looking out for number one, but at least he usually does the right thing in the end.
07:17DJ, on the other hand, never gets his redeeming moment and effectively just disappears out of the
07:22story after turning on Finn and Rose. Lando, of course, finally returns to the franchise
07:26in The Rise of Skywalker, albeit only in a piecemeal, strictly fan-serving capacity.
07:3111. BB-8 says, I've got a bad feeling about this
07:35It was initially reported that The Last Jedi was the first film in the Skywalker saga to
07:39omit a variation of the iconic phrase, I have a bad feeling about this, but yet that's actually
07:44not the case. Instead, Rian Johnson decided to get a little cute with this one and include the
07:48one-liner in a highly concealed form. Johnson confirmed that BB-8 actually says the very same
07:54phrase to Poe Dameron in the movie's opening scene, making a series of binary beeping noises
07:58as they take on the First Order. Upon hearing and understanding BB-8's anxiety, Poe responds with,
08:04Happy beeps here, buddy. Come on. And Johnson said of the inclusion,
08:07It seemed like a fun character to deliver that line. I think originally I had Poe respond,
08:11Oh, I got a good feeling about it. Keep your chin up. And then I made it a little less explicit
08:16just to make it more fun. 10. George Lucas thought
08:19that it was much better than The Force Awakens Back in 2019, then-Disney CEO Bob Iger released
08:25his memoirs, which included the revelation that George Lucas wasn't actually too keen
08:29on Star Wars The Force Awakens. He said, He didn't hide his disappointment. There's nothing
08:33new, Lucas said. In each of the films in the original trilogy, it was important to him to
08:37present new worlds, new stories, new characters, and new technologies. In this one, he said,
08:42there weren't enough visual or technical leaps forward. It's perhaps fitting, then,
08:46that Lucas was reportedly far more impressed with the more original boundary-pushing The Last Jedi.
08:51After seeing the film, Lucas called it beautifully made and spoke directly with Johnson to praise him
08:55further. To date, Lucas hasn't offered up his opinion on The Rise of Skywalker,
08:59though the fact that he was absent from its world premiere could definitely be telling.
09:039. Carrie Fisher's Dog Gary Has A Cameo
09:07If you know much about Carrie Fisher's personal life, you're very likely aware that she adored
09:11her pet French bulldog, aptly named Gary Fisher. In addition to travelling with Fisher everywhere
09:16she went, Gary actually ended up making a sneaky cameo appearance in The Last Jedi,
09:21showing up as an alien pet by an unidentified creature in the Kanto bite sequence. It's a
09:26fleeting appearance that's tricky to spot, but it was indeed confirmed by Rian Johnson on the eve
09:30of the film's release, and better yet, apparently Gary had quite the bull watching himself on the
09:34big screen at the movie's premiere. 8. Maz Kanata's Role Was Cut Down
09:39During Rewrites After Maz Kanata was given such a
09:42strong and memorable introduction in The Force Awakens, fans understandably expected to see more
09:46of her in The Last Jedi. But alas, Maz shows up for just a minute-long cameo appearance in the
09:51film and left fans both mystified and disappointed. However, Maz originally had a much larger role in
09:57the story, as she was initially supposed to appear at the Resistance base on Crait,
10:01with the concept art from the book The Art of Star Wars The Last Jedi confirming this.
10:05J.J. Abrams even shot a scene for The Force Awakens which showed Maz returning to the
10:09Resistance base, yet because there wasn't anything for her to do but simply sit around,
10:13it was decided to remove it. And so, this had a knock-on effect on The Last Jedi,
10:17resulting in Maz's role being reduced during rewrites, and in the end, this is all we got.
10:217. Frank Oz Helped Direct and Edit The Yoda Scene
10:25One of The Last Jedi's biggest surprises was the unexpected appearance of Yoda,
10:29who shows up in forced ghost form not as a digital creation, but as a classic, practical puppet.
10:35In addition to Frank Oz providing the voice for Yoda and operating the Yoda puppet, he actually
10:39helped direct the scene on set and then went into the editing room with Rian Johnson to provide
10:44added assistance. Given Oz's decades of experience working with puppets, Johnson invited him to help
10:49shape the Yoda scene in post-production. Oz primarily aided Johnson in editing around the
10:54puppet to maximise its presence on screen and make Yoda feel real to the audience. And you know
10:58what? This was definitely a success. 6. Anthony Daniels Was Disappointed
11:03By C-3PO's Small Role Mark Hamill wasn't the only
11:07legacy actor a little miffed about his character's treatment in the movie. Anthony Daniels was also
11:11unhappy with C-3PO's role in The Last Jedi. In Daniels' case, it was less about the creative
11:16particulars of 3PO's presence than the sheer size of his role, with Daniels saying,
11:21In The Last Jedi, I became a table decoration, which I regretted, because 3PO was worth more
11:26than that. Daniels isn't really wrong, in that C-3PO spends most of the film aboard Vice Admiral
11:31Holdo's ship and doing little of major consequence. Ironically, Daniels was decidedly far more
11:36enthusiastic about his part in The Rise of Skywalker, with the film giving 3PO far more to do.
11:415. Rose's Personality Was Changed During Production
11:45Curiously, the movie's most air-quotes controversial and divisive character was one
11:49who underwent a fair reworking during production. Though when we first meet Rose she's something of
11:54a resistance fangirl and remains a pillar of chirpy optimism throughout, Rian Johnson originally
11:59wrote her as a more dour and cynical character. Once he cast Kelly Marie Tran and saw how she
12:04interacted with John Boyega, he tweaked Rose to be less surly and more hopeful. He said,
12:09The character was written as more of an Eeyore type initially in the script,
12:12so she was a little more grumpy and didn't really trust Finn. The more I got to know Kelly,
12:16she just has this open, beautiful spirit, and I thought you have to see that at the
12:20beginning of this character. That's got to be what this character is about. It was really because of
12:25Kelly that the whole dynamic of the character changed, thank God. Would a less open-hearted
12:30take on the character have changed fan perception of Rose? Well, considering the bigoted basis of
12:34many fans' issues with Rose, probably not, unfortunately.
12:374. Joseph Gordon-Levitt Voiced The Alien, Slow and Low
12:41Joseph Gordon-Levitt starred in Rian Johnson's stellar directorial debut,
12:45and later his 2012 sci-fi masterpiece, Looper, and has made cameo appearances in all of Johnson's
12:50other films since. Gordon-Levitt had a voice cameo in The Last Jedi, portraying the alien
12:55creature known as Slow and Low during the Canto Bight sequence. The character's peculiar moniker
13:00is a reference to the Beastie Boys' song Slow and Low, what with executive producer J.J. Abrams
13:05being a huge fan of the rap group. With Gordon-Levitt having appeared in every single Johnson
13:09movie in some capacity to date, we can expect to either see or hear him in the Knives Out
13:14sequel Glass Onion due out later this year. 3. It's The Only Main Star Wars Movie Without
13:19A Lightsaber Duel The Last Jedi is the first mainline
13:23film in the series without a lightsaber duel. Though Rogue One lacked a saber fight the year
13:28before The Last Jedi, this is the first of the nine main Skywalker saga movies without one.
13:33For despite Kylo Ren and Rey using their laser swords to dispose of Snoke and his Praetorian
13:38guards during the iconic throne room scene, they're the only ones using lightsabers in this
13:42sequence, so it's not actually a duel. And of course, just when it seems like we're going to
13:46get an epic showdown between Kylo Ren and Luke at the film's end, we learn that Luke's simply
13:50force-projecting himself onto that location, preventing the possibility of a duel. It's a
13:55totally on-brand move for a Star Wars movie so concerned with upending audience expectations,
14:00even if like some of the movie's other creative calls, it did leave some fans firmly disappointed.
14:052. Tom Hardy's Cameo As A Stormtrooper Was Cut
14:09Just about everybody wants to make a cameo appearance in Star Wars, and after Daniel
14:13Craig made a brilliant appearance as a stormtrooper in The Force Awakens,
14:16fans were eager to see who would show up in The Last Jedi. Yet despite persistent pre-release
14:21reports that Tom Hardy will be playing a stormtrooper, he was nowhere to be seen or
14:25heard, and Rian Johnson later revealed that his role was actually cut. The deleted scene
14:29was eventually released, showing Hardy playing a southern-accented stormtrooper who knows Finn,
14:34and seeing him suited up in Captain's uniform for his mission sees him express
14:38surprise that he's climbed the ranks, while seemingly oblivious to Finn's defection from
14:42the First Order. Johnson hasn't ever confirmed why Hardy's role was cut,
14:45though it's safe to say that it was either due to pacing – I mean, after all, the final cut
14:49was 152 minutes long – or because Hardy's southern caricature was perhaps a little bit
14:53too silly for its own good. 1. Actor Timothy D. Rose
14:57Was Left In Tears Over Admiral Ackbar's Death Many fans were left disappointed by the death
15:02of Admiral Ackbar at the hands of Kylo Ren, but nobody was more crestfallen than Timothy D. Rose,
15:07who played Ackbar in 1983's Return of the Jedi and returned to portray him in both The Force
15:12Awakens and The Last Jedi. In addition to expressing frustration with the secrecy on
15:16set while shooting both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, Rose felt that Ackbar's death
15:21was treated as a joke on set. He said,
15:23We finished all of our bits and they asked me to come down to camera and I thought,
15:27oh well, maybe they're going to say thank you for being one of the heritage characters and giving
15:3030 years and all that. But what they did was ask me to look at the camera and say,
15:34it's a wrap. I was actually in tears in the suit because I thought, after everything,
15:38after hoping there'd be something, after knowing that there wasn't going to be anything else,
15:42Ackbar's final moment before he went into the box was a big joke about it's a wrap.
15:47Rose's comments have earned him a lot of sympathy from fans, who also felt that Ackbar should have
15:51received a more ceremonious and meaningful demise, rather than being disposed of so flippantly.
15:56To compensate for this, though, General Ackbar's son was introduced as a minor
16:00character in The Rise of Skywalker. And there we go my friends, those were 20
16:03things you didn't know about Star Wars The Last Jedi. I hope that you enjoyed that,
16:07and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section below.
16:10As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJay but the O is a 0,
16:15or you can swing by Instagram where it's the same handle, RetroJay but the O is a 0. As always,
16:20I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.