Star Wars: The Last Jedi Director Shades Online Film Discourse With Pokemon GO

Star Wars: The Last Jedi discourse never seems to really end and the conversations have shifted into overdrive this week. Ryan Johnson decided to comment on the controversy surrounding his film with the help of Pokemon GO. Now, the wildly popular smartphone app has a bunch of cute little monsters to collect, but the director chose Grimer to make his point. After catching on, Johnson named it Discourse and immediately posted an image of his catch to Twitter. There was no copy on the post at all, but the message is loud and clear, the discussion around the movie is about as toxic as can be. It comes as no surprise to anyone who was paying attention back in 2017 and saw the social media firestorm up close. The debate was somehow more volatile back then, but the past few days have reignited some of the feelings on both sides of this Star Wars divide. People who love the film are shouting down those who seek to minimize it as a bad film. Fans who can’t stand the movie are taking up their pitchforks again to provoke hopes that The Rise of Skywalker veers as far from The Last Jedi as possible.

Now, a huge impetus for this swell of comments again stem from quotes some of the cast gave when asked about their individual character arcs in the film. J.J. Abrams, John Boyega, and Daisy Ridley all had things to say about their experience with the film and some of it could be construed as pretty negative.

Abrams told the New York Times, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi is great in that it is full of surprises and subversion and all sorts of bold choices. On the other hand, it’s a bit of a meta approach to the story. I don’t think people go to ‘Star Wars’ to be told, ‘This doesn’t matter.’”

Boyega told HypeBeast that he was a bit “iffy” on the project as it stands now. “The Force Awakens I think was the beginning of something quite solid, The Last Jedi if I’m being honest I’d say that was feeling a bit iffy for me,” Boyega said in the interview. “I didn’t necessarily agree with a lot of the choices in that and that’s something that I spoke to Mark [Hamill] a lot about and we had conversations about it. And it was hard for all of us, because we were separated.”

Ridley’s take is somewhere more down the middle. “I wasn’t surprised, no,” Ridley told USA Today when asked about the backlash. “It’s just a different thing. Everyone’s going to have an opinion now anyway on the internet, but I also think it’s fair. If people hold something incredibly dear and think they know how it should be and it’s not like that, it’s fair for people to think they were done wrong. It doesn’t mean they were – ultimately, [writer/director] Rian [Johnson]’s a filmmaker and one person can’t dictate how a film is supposed to be – but freedom of expression, sure.”

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker strolls into theaters on December 20th.