It would be a pretty huge understatement to say that Disney and Lucasfilm weren’t prepared for the overwhelming wave of backlash that initially greeted Star Wars: The Last Jedi. After The Force Awakens came under fire from certain sections of the fanbase for relying too heavily on nostalgia in what many labeled a thinly-veiled remake of A New Hope, Rian Johnson was vilified online for doing the opposite.
The changes made to the established mythology split opinion right down the middle, with star Kelly Marie Tran in particular becoming a major target for their ire, and there was even a campaign to have the movie remade. However, those same fans proved to be an incredibly fickle bunch almost as soon as The Rise of Skywalker was released into theaters, with Johnson finding himself trending on social media as he was roundly thanked for his contributions to the franchise.
It appears as though people will never truly agree on their opinions surrounding the most recent trilogy, but now it looks like two of Star Wars’ most influential figures might not hold The Last Jedi in the highest regard. According to novelist, writer and producer Kamran Pasha, no less of an authority than George Lucas himself isn’t exactly the movie’s biggest fan.
“I don’t have internal knowledge, but I do have people who know George Lucas personally and well, who have said to me that he hates The Last Jedi, and he’s horrified by what’s happened. I have had people, screenwriters that have worked with Lucasfilm, that have told me directly that he hates it. I don’t have the slightest bit of doubt from the source that I got it from, who I know knows Lucas. I know that he knows Lucas.”
Those are some pretty big accusations to be leveling at the man who created the entire franchise, but if that wasn’t enough, Pasha also claimed that The Mandalorian showrunner Jon Favreau hated The Last Jedi as well, and that he actively campaigned to come on board after becoming so concerned about the current creative direction.
“I’m going to say this, and I’ve never revealed this publicly, I have a friend who is very close with Jon Favreau and has worked on several of his movies. And this is what he said to me, and I don’t know Jon Favreau. He said to me Jon Favreau hates The Last Jedi. Again, this is coming from a friend who I know has worked on Favreau’s productions in his inner circle multiple times. And he said to me that Favreau told him that once he saw The Last Jedi, he realized that Star Wars was out of control and that he actively lobbied to get involved in it, because he’s a fan and he wanted to save the franchise. It wasn’t just that Lucasfilm went after him, but he was like, ‘Guys I can help with this. You guys are on the wrong track’.”
Obviously, this has to be taken with a grain of salt because Pasha doesn’t present any other evidence besides ‘my friend told me,’ but there’ve been rumors of a civil war brewing at Lucasfilm over the future of Star Wars for a while now. Even if Lucas and Favreau did hate Star Wars: The Last Jedi though, the Skywalker Saga is in the past now anyway, and the Iron Man director looks to be holding the keys to the kingdom with The Mandalorian set to be the driving force behind the next generation of stories.
