J.J. Abrams on The Rise of Skywalker Critics and Defenders: “They’re All Right” (original) (raw)

Remember when Obi-Wan Kenobi decided he would no longer fight Darth Vader in their final showdown during the original Star Wars? At a post-screening Q&A for The Rise of Skywalker on Friday night, J.J. Abrams essentially did the same thing, lifting his lightsaber in reflection rather than battle. Strike if you feel that's right; but he will not be striking back.

The only thing he rejects is the notion that there is a disturbance or hostility between him and The Last Jedi filmmaker Rian Johnson.

The newest Star Wars film has received punishing reviews from critics, although audience scores on sites like Rotten Tomatoes are significantly more positive. There’s no denying that the ninth film in the Skywalker saga has divided the vast fandom for the series, even as it tallies strong box office numbers. Intense and heartfelt reactions both in favor of its story and against it continue to emerge as more people see it.

After a screening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday, I asked Abrams what he would say to those who are unhappy. Are they not getting something? Is there a problem in the fandom? “No, I would say that they’re right,” he answered quickly. “The people who love it more than anything are also right.”

You can watch the exchange here:

The director had just returned from a global tour with the film, where he also fielded questions about that mixed reaction. “I was asked just seven hours ago in another country, ‘So how do you go about pleasing everyone?’ I was like’ What…?’ Not to say that that’s what anyone should try to do anyway, but how would one go about it? Especially with Star Wars.”

With a series like this, spanning more than four decades, nearly a dozen films, several TV shows, and countless novels, comics, and video games, the fanbase is so far-reaching that discord may be inevitable. “We knew starting this that any decision we made — a design decision, a musical decision, a narrative decision — would please someone and infuriate someone else,” Abrams said. “And they’re all right.”

Abrams still believes in his movie, but he expressed respect to those who had a differing view and suggested everyone in the fandom should do the same to each other, no matter where they stand.“There is an MO of either: ‘It’s exactly as I see it, or you’re my enemy,’” he said. “It’s a crazy thing that there’s such a norm that seems to be void of nuance and compassion — and this is not [a phenomenon] about Star Wars, this is about everything.”

SENSING A DISTURBANCE

But he insists they are wrong about him and Johnson, and the notion that The Rise of Skywalker is trying to undo what Johnson did with The Last Jedi. “It would be a much more interesting answer if there were conflict,” Abrams said. “The truth is when I was getting [_The Force Awakens_] up and running, I was nothing but grateful that a director and writer I admire as much as Rian was coming in to do [the next one.] Not expecting to come back to this, it was just fun to watch what was happening and get to respond to it.”

Johnson earned exceptionally high marks from critics for The Last Jedi, which depicted Luke Skywalker as fearful and embittered before rediscovering his courage through the help of Rey’s decency and determination. However, that 2017 film was just as divisive within the fandom— with some irked about moments like Luke dismissively tossing aside his family lightsaber, and Kylo Ren smashing his iconic mask after it was mocked by his Supreme Leader.

A backlash and counter backlash over The Last Jedi endures to this day. It was hailed for its originality by some, but criticized by others for going too far to subvert expectations. There were critiques about the movie’s plot and logistics, but it also suffered unspeakable and indefensible racist and misogynist attacks from online trolls.

Abrams urged fans to remember where The Last Jedi left some of its characters rather than where it started them. He said he tried to carry on those threads, noting specifically that Luke’s presence in Rise is more in line with the hero he returns to being than the hopeless figure he was when Rey first met him.

"One of the many brilliant things that Rian did in The Last Jedi was give Luke an arc. He learned something. He got somewhere. Soo at the end of that film he recommitted to the thing at the very beginning of the film he was rejecting, so the idea that even Luke Skywalker can learn something," Abrams said. "I think for a kid to hear Luke Skywalker say I was wrong, I think is a beautiful thing. And I think it’s something we could all probably do with, a little bit."

Defenders of Rise have noted a few others: with Snoke now deceased in The Rise of Skywalker, Ren rebuilds his mask — but the ugly memory from that previous insult lingers, and he is hypersensitive to anyone he believes might mock it. Johnson also introduced "the democratization of the Force," a notion that the invisible cosmic power was reaching out to ordinary people beyond the descendants of Jedi and Sith. That premise is still in Rise, albeit less overtly, in the form a group of new warriors led by Jannah (Naomi Ackie) who reveals she and others have experienced a kind of extrasensory power that guides them in inexplicable ways. They’re describing the Force, although they don’t have the word for it.

There is one major change, though, that is prompting the most objection from The Last Jedi fans. The Force Awakens introduced a mystery about Rey’s family history, and Johnson's sequel appeared to answer it by having Kylo Ren reveal that the former scavenger was far from the being the descendant of a powerful Force-wielder. Instead, she was a “nobody, from nowhere,” whose parents were junk traders who sold her for drinking money.

THE HARDEST ANSWER

Johnson has said he tried to devise the most devastating possible twist to the question Abrams raised.

“The easiest thing for Rey and the audience to hear is, Oh yeah, you’re so-and-so’s daughter. That would be wish fulfillment and instantly hand her a place in this story on a silver platter,” Johnson said at a Q&A for the same opening-weekend Academy screening in December 2017. “The hardest thing for her is to hear she’s not going to get that easy answer. … You’re going to have to find the strength to stand on your own two feet and define yourself in this story.”

Tasked with the creation of a new film, Abrams and co-screenwriter Chris Terrio (Argo) felt they had to up the ante — taking her despair at being “no one” and revealing that there may be an even more unsettling answer than that.

Abrams said Johnson was consulted on the story, adding that many of their new plot points were only possible because they built upon Johnson’s offbeat narrative.

“We had conversations with Rian at the beginning. It’s been nothing but collaborative,” Abrams said. “The perspective that, at least personally, I got from stepping away from it and seeing what Rian did, strangely gave us opportunities that would never have been there, because of course he made choices no one else would have made.”

“In a way it felt kind of like a gift, though of course there were challenges in every direction,” Abrams said. “It was actually weirdly more helpful than not, having that other energy to the story. There was an alchemy because of the things that he did.”