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Star Wars: The Last Jedi's Rian Johnson was asked to add 'one extra thing' by Star Wars 9's director

Johnson had previously asked J.J. Abrams to change one crucial aspect of The Force Awakens' final sequence

Clarisse Loughrey
Wednesday 21 June 2017 05:41 EDT
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Teaser Trailer

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Warner Bros. may cling to Zack Snyder, James Cameron continues to build his Avatar empire - yet, Disney has made the unusual (and arguably commendable) decision to spread the responsibility of Star Wars' Skywalker saga.

Yet any team needs its collaboration, and it's interesting to learn about how the three new trilogy directors have influenced each other's work. The Last Jedi's Rian Johnson asked The Force Awakens' J.J. Abrams to swap out BB-8 for R2-D2 for Rey's journey to Ahch-To in the film's final sequence, for example.

And now Star Wars 9's Colin Trevorrow has a small request for Johnson himself, telling MTV's Happy Sad Confused podcast: "There was one little thing It wasn't an adjustment, it was just, 'Could you shoot this one extra thing while you're in this place on this day?' And he did, which was great."

It's likely Trevorrow's request is just as minor as Johnson's one, though these adjustments are still important in keeping the film's narratives flowing.

"It's part of the collaborative process that exists – everyone is in communication," he continued. "There's such a genuine want to get this right from everybody, and I think that one of the misconceptions is that there's some kind of great corporate overlord that is dictating this story to everybody, and that's what it's going to be because that's going to sell the most toys."


"The reality of it is that it's a small group of people, but it's actually, y'know, kind of large when you think about it – and none of them are corporate, all of them are creatives and all of them are genuinely, very sincerely, wanting to do the work of their lives in order to realise this."

Unfortunately, that level of collaboration doesn't seem particularly evident when it comes to the Star Wars anthology films, with the Han Solo film directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller dropped from the project mere weeks before shooting is meant to be completed.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi hits UK cinemas 14 December, while Episode 9 follows in May 2019.

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