Rian Johnson Seemingly Responds To Mark Hamill's 'The Last Jedi' Criticism

Director Rian Johnson may have received acclaim for his "Knives Out," movie, but the response to his Star Wars movie, "The Last Jedi," was much more polarizing.

The 2017 film was the follow-up to the 2015 movie "The Force Awakens," which rebooted the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and preceeded the 2019 film "The Rise of Skywalker," which wrapped up the nine-episode Skywalker Saga.

Many have criticized the film and the direction of the characters, including veteran actor Mark Hamill, who strongly criticized the direction of his character, Luke Skywalker, he had been playing since 1977.

The Direct pointed to a 2o19 interview that Mark Hamill did with Den of Geek, where he expressed frustration with Rian Johnson killing off his character in "The Last Jedi." Not only that, but he was disappointed that J.J. Abrams killed off Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in "The Force Awakens," meaning that the two friends never actually got to share the screen again.

"I just thought, 'Luke's never going to see his best friend again.' You look at it in a self-centered way. I said that it was a big mistake that those three people would never reunite in any way," Hamill said. "I guess I was wrong, because nobody seems to care."

"I have to stipulate that I care, but it didn't really seem to affect the larger audience," he added. "Luke, Han, and Leia will never be together again, and I'll probably never get to work with Harrison again."

He also said that he felt "hornswoggled," or tricked, by his return. "Then the second thing was that they killed me off," he said at the time. "I thought: oh, okay, you should push my death off to the last one. That's what I was hoping when I came back: no cameos and a run-of-the-trilogy contract."

"Did I get any of those things? Because as far as I'm concerned, the end of VII is really the beginning of VIII," he pointed ut." I got one movie! They totally hornswoggled me."

Mark Hamill did admit that the new trilogy is "all about the new generation, as it should be," however, that didn't mean he wasn't disappointed in how they treated his character.

"Listen, I never expected to come back. We had a beginning, a middle, and an end," he said, referring to the original trilogy. "That's what I said: why mess with it? It's not something that worries me, because it's all about the new generation, as it should be."

He also dug a little deeper into his frustration with the way Rian Johnson treated Luke Skywalker as a character, saying that, during the filming of "The Last Jedi."

"They had me walking by 3PO, not even acknowledging him. I said: 'I can't do that!'" Mark explained. He said that Rian then said, "'Okay, go over and do whatever.' So I went over, and I did whatever. They say it in the script: 'Forget the past, kill it if you have to,' and they're doing a pretty good job!"

In an interview with Empire published on August 30, 2022, Rian Johnson said that he's "even more proud" of his movie almost five years after its release.

"I'm even more proud of it five years on. When I was up at bat, I really swung at the ball," he said. "I think it's impossible for any of us to approach Star Wars without thinking about it as a myth that we were raised with, and how that myth, that story, baked itself into us and affected us."

He also said that his "ultimate intent" for the film was "not to strip away," instead claiming that "the intent was to get to the basic, fundamental power of myth. And ultimately I hope the film is an affirmation of the power of the myth of Star Wars in our lives."

Although Mark Hamill still doesn't like the direction that Luke Skywalker took in his movie, Rian Johnson says that his movie has Luke Skywalker actually embracing the myth around his character.

"The final images of the movie, to me, are not deconstructing the myth of Luke Skywalker, they're building it, and they're him embracing it," Johnson explained. "They're him absolutely defying the notion of, 'Throw away the past,' and embracing what actually matters about his myth and what's going to inspire the next generation."

"So for me, the process of stripping away is always in the interest of getting to something essential that really matters," he added.

"The Last Jedi" is currently available to stream on Disney+.