You certainly can’t please everybody all the time, and when it comes to a property with a fervent and frothing fanbase, that is triply the case. Since its release, Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been controversial and divisive among fans for a number of reasons, some of them founded and some of them…slightly less so. I adore the movie (as you can read here) but I can certainly understand some of the criticisms, but some of them are downright nitpicky. Writer-director Rian Johnson has certainly heard these criticisms, and responded to many of them…but his response to one Luke-related issue in particular has us howling.
If for some reason you haven’t seen The Last Jedi yet and have somehow managed to remain unspoiled, then be aware that the following Twitter thread will be super spoilery.
https://twitter.com/rianjohnson/status/954398041598918656
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One common complaint calls out the use of Force abilities that we hadn’t seen on screen before, with some claiming that Johnson made them up specifically for plot convenience purposes. The finale of The Last Jedi sees Luke Skywalker confront Kylo Ren on Crait, only for it to be revealed that he’s actually doing a long-distance Force-projection of himself to use as a decoy to allow the ever-dwindling Resistance to get away. (Sidebar: the ENTIRE REMAINING RESISTANCE can fit snugly on the Millennium Falcon?!?! DAAAAAMN!)
This has certainly given many people pause, as we didn’t know Luke could do that, or anyone really. But, as Johnson shares in a hilarious series of image Tweets, the notion of Force Doppelgangers, or Similfuturus, can be found in the official Lucasfilm book The Jedi Path, by Daniel Wallace, under the heading of “Advanced Force Techniques.” That book, for the record, was released in 2011, a full six years before The Last Jedi came out.
And this means, friends and viewing public, Luke’s abilities are canon, and have been for at least 13 months prior to Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm. And Lucasfilm has a crack team of lore experts who would say “yay” or “nay” to any changes to canon, so…
That’s at least one quibble that’s got factual evidence to support it; now I’d like to see Johnson try to explain away space-gravity.
Images: Lucasfilm
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!
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