Rian Johnson Defends Luke’s Powers In Star Wars: The Last Jedi

“This is not going to go the way you think!”

That’s Luke Skywalker there, desperately trying to warn Rey on the Jedi Temple of Ahch-To. But in many ways, it feels as though that pertinent quote is also directed at the Star Wars fanbase, given The Last Jedi delivers more story twists and emotional wallops than the last several movies combined.

Soon after its arrival on December 15th, the critical consensus deemed the pic to be a meticulously crafted sequel that helps accelerate Lucasfilm’s franchise toward a bright future, one in which the galaxy’s fate rests on the shoulders of Rey, not Luke. And that’s just it. With Luke Skywalker ostensibly out of the picture – barring a ghostly cameo in Episode IX – a small portion of fans rallied against Disney and, in particular, Rian Johnson for “ruining Star Wars.”

This campaign, if that’s what you want to call it, continues to fester online, and Johnson himself has once again weighed in via Twitter. His message came after a heated debate began about the all-new Force power that Luke displayed when he projected his image across the galaxy to confront Kylo. You know the scene, right?

Some are alright with it, feeling that it’s simply a natural extension of what we’ve already seen. Others, however, call it a Deus ex machina, which is a “plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the inspired and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.”

Taking to the social media platform, the director posted the following message:

“I should stay out of this but… were ANY aspects of force use in the OT (force grabbing objects, force ghosts, even the Jedi mind trick) explicitly ‘set up’ before they happened? I’ll take my answer off air.”

Though some may disagree, Johnson does have a point here. In the past, we’ve seen Luke – and others – use Force powers that seemingly came out of nowhere, and no one got too upset over it back then. While we can see why some fans might be a bit frustrated with this, it does kind of seem like at this stage, people are just looking for things to hate on since they feel dissatisfied with the film overall. After all, every other day some kind of heated debate breaks out on social media over a particular aspect of Episode VIII.

In more positive news, now that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is dominating theaters near and far (well, except China, that is), Lucasfilm recently detailed every single Easter egg buried within Rian Johnson’s spectacular sequel. Fair warning: it’s riddled with potential spoilers. But if you’ve already seen the pic, which we imagine you have if you’re reading this, we suggest checking it out.