'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Director Speaks Out On Polarizing Response To Film

While he never set out to polarize his audience, Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson [...]

By Russ Burlingame

While he never set out to polarize his audience, Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson admitted on Twitter that he believes the conversations happening among the franchise's fan base are crucial to the evolution of the series.

Johnson, who is set to helm another trilogy following the events of 2019's Star Wars Episode IX, presided over a film that has a nearly forty-point gap between the critical score on Rotten Tomatoes and the audience score. The film's vocal detractors have hijacked much of the conversation and media narrative around The Last Jedi, leading fans on Twitter to ask Johnson for his take.

"The goal is never to divide or make people upset," Johnson tweeted. "But I do think the conversations that are happening were going to have to happen at some point if [Star Wars] is going to grow, move forward and stay vital."

With over 300 critical reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, the film sits at 92% positive, putting the film in fourth place behind The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars and The Force Awakens. The audience score, which has been tabulated by over 130,000 fans, gives it a 54% positive rating. This is tabulated by fans voting the film 3.5 or higher out of 5.

The survey was conducted by SurveyMonkey, however, concluded that 81% of people describing themselves as casual fans claimed to have loved the film.

Even franchise star Mark Hamill initially disagreed with Johnson's take on Luke Skywalker, although he has since walked back that reaction, saying that he was wrong.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is in theaters now.

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