Star Wars: Rian Johnson Looks Back on Giving The Last Jedi a “Viking” Ending

Both audiences and Lucasfilm alike knew that Star Wars: The Last Jedi would serve as a middle chapter of an overall trilogy of films, but writer/director Rian Johnson recently recalled how he never approached the script from the point of teasing plot points for a future film, instead considering the ending of the film as being akin to a “Viking” funeral. As compared to the finale of the previous film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, things are wrapped up in a much more complete way, even if audiences then believed it to be to the detriment of the overall trilogy and how the final film, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, found itself in a tough storytelling position to start with.

“In terms of the Star Wars movie I did, I tried to give it a hell of an ending. I love endings so much that even doing the middle chapter of the trilogy, I tried to give it an ending,” Johnson explained to The Atlantic. “A good ending that recontextualizes everything that came before it and makes it a beautiful object unto itself — that’s what makes a movie a movie. It feels like there’s less and less of that. This whole poisonous idea of creating [intellectual property] has completely seeped into the bedrock of storytelling. Everyone is just thinking, How do we keep milking it? I love an ending where you burn the Viking boat into the sea.”

Ahead of the release of The Last Jedi, Johnson was announced as developing a trilogy of all-new Star Wars films, the first of which he was expected to direct. In the years since that announcement, no concrete details have been given on when that project will ever be realized.

Funnily enough, Johnson made these comments when discussing Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, the sequel to his own 2019 murder mystery Knives Out. This latest Benoit Blanc film, though, is meant to serve as its own standalone story, to the point that he laments having “Knives Out” in the title to the film in the first place.

“I’ve tried hard to make them self-contained. Honestly, I’m pissed off that we have A Knives Out Mystery in the title,” the filmmaker shared. “I want it to just be called Glass Onion. I get it, and I want everyone who liked the first movie to know this is next in the series, but also, the whole appeal to me is it’s a new novel off the shelf every time. But there’s a gravity of a thousand suns toward serialized storytelling.”

Stay tuned for details on Johnson’s future with Star Wars. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is now streaming on Netflix.

What do you think of the filmmaker’s remarks? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!