Star Wars: The Last Jedi Director Rian Johnson Reveals the Exact Porg He Took Home

In the years since writer/director Rian Johnson delivered Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the filmmaker [...]

By Patrick Cavanaugh

In the years since writer/director Rian Johnson delivered Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the filmmaker has shared his memorable experiences with fans on social media, largely by way of his own photography of the production. Johnson has also previously revealed that he took home a porg animatronic from the film, as he recently confirmed that it wasn't just any porg, but the pint-sized creature that had a hilarious encounter with Chewbacca when the Wookiee attempted to eat one of the creatures he cooked up over the fireside. Of all the porg props the filmmaker could have in his collection, this is surely one of the most memorable.

In response to a fan asking Johnson on Twitter if he took home a porg, he shared a GIF of the moment from the film while noting, "The wonderful creature department gave me one. This one. A prized possession!"

The filmmaker also made sure to point out that, rather than merely being a maquette or stand-in, "It's like a full animatronic work of art, with feathers and everything, it looks like a real animal. Those folks are wizards."

Audiences first caught a glimpse of the creatures in teasers for The Last Jedi, and while they might not have played an integral component of the narrative, they provided the film with some of its most adorable encounters. While they may have been cute and cuddly in the finished film, The Last Jedi star Kelly Marie Tran previously detailed that working with the animatronics was a bizarre experience, as the apparatus required to operate them created a cybernetic oddity.

"When it was sort of still mechanical? It would move and it would like [buzz] and it was just so odd," she admitted to Nerdist of the puppets used on set back in 2018. "I've kind of seen porgs through the process and from the beginning, I mean, I loved them immediately. I think they're so adorable, and my first reaction was truly just kind of geeking out over them. Because I don't think that we've really seen something like that in the Star Wars universe before."

Sadly for porgs, just two years after their debut, they were largely pushed to the wayside when "Baby Yoda" debuted in the series premiere of The Mandalorian, with the Force-wielder becoming a major focal point of the franchise among the fandom.

Rian Johnson is currently slated to develop a trilogy of standalone Star Wars films, though no updates on the project have been announced since 2017.

Which prop from the series would you most like for your collection? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror.

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