The latest issue of Empire Magazine has a featured article on Star Wars: The Last Jedi, including cool covers and the reveal of Poe Dameron’s X-Wing.
Now Rian Johnson offers the following about Supreme Leader Snoke and Kylo Ren.
“We got the whole story of Palpatine’s rise to power in the prequels, but in the original films he’s exactly what he needs to be, which is just ‘The Emperor’” Johnson says in the new October issue. “He’s a dark force: the scary thing behind the thing. That was entirely how I approached Snoke. I wasn’t interested in explaining where he came from or telling his history, except where it serves this story.”
“Writing Kylo Ren is just so much fun,” Johnson offers. “Star Wars boils down to the transition from adolescence into adulthood. That’s the heart of these films and Rey is most obviously the one that hangs on. But it’s also Kylo. In the originals you project entirely onto Luke, while Vader is the scary other — he’s the minotaur. The fascinating thing about Kylo and Rey is that they’re two sides of something. We can all relate to Kylo: to that anger of being in the turmoil of adolescence and figuring out who he’s going to be as a man; dealing with anger and wanting to separate from his family. He’s not Vader — at least, he’s not Vader yet — and that’s something I really wanted to get into.”
Star Wars: The Last Jedi has a December 15, 2017 release directed by Rian Johnson starring Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, the late Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa, Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, Daisy Ridley as Rey, John Boyega as Finn, Lupita Nyong’o as Maz Kanata, Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron, Domhnall Gleeson as Hux, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma, Andy Serkis as Supreme Leader Snoke, with Benicio Del Toro, Laura Dern and Kelly Marie Tran as Rose.
