Rian Johnson Reveals The Word He’s Most Proud To Have Gotten Into Opening Crawl Of ‘The Last Jedi’

As iconic as virtually any character, planet, or quote, the opening text crawl in Star Wars serves as not only a way to get audiences caught up on what has gone on in the world since the last film, but also allows the audience to enjoy John Williams’ score, bringing our anticipation to its highest levels. The pressure on a writer to craft the perfect few paragraphs to set the stage is immense, one that The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson handled as best he could. Looking back on his words, the filmmaker revealed he was most proud to squeeze the word “decimated” into the opening crawl.

When speaking with The L.A. Times at D23, Johnson spoke about how he struggled to craft the words that he knew would set the tone for the upcoming film.

The filmmaker began to say that he was “petrified” at the task, but mid-sentence, he caught himself, revealing, “Actually, you know, I just did it.” Johnson continued, “I just started writing the draft. I wrote something, and it was terrible. And then I was watching one of the behind-the-scenes things and [George] Lucas said, ‘It’s like writing a haiku.’”

Johnson added, “I realized as I was refining it what he meant. We didn’t finish the opening crawl and totally lock it until a few weeks ago actually. Because you’re like, ‘Do we need this word, do we need that word, what if we shift?’ It’s like a poem, there’s very little room for error in trying to get it just right. Which is awesome, it’s really fun.”

Before revealing his inclusion of “decimated” made him particularly proud, Johnson joked about the word he was especially proud of fitting into the crawl.

“It would be funny if it was ‘poop,’” Johnson joked. “Which is a first for the Star Wars universe. That’s the whole crawl, just the word ‘poop.’”

The Last Jedi opens in theaters December 15.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the second film in the new Star Wars sequel trilogy that began with Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015. The film will deal with Luke training Rey to become a, and possibly the last, Jedi. Meanwhile, the Resistance, including Poe Dameron and First Order defector Finn, continues to fight against the First Order, led by General Hux, while Supreme Leader Snoke and his Dark Side follower Kylo Ren continue their mysterious plot.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is written and directed by Rian Johnson and stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Andy Serkis, Benicio Del Toro, Laura Dern, and Kelly Marie Tran.

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