For months, the cast and crew of The Last Jedi have participated in countless interviews and press events, earning everyone a well-deserved break from talking about the film, if that was their wish. Writer/director Rian Johnson, however, regularly takes to Twitter to engage with fans about their thoughts on the film, eloquently arguing a variety of points. Other times, Johnson gets much more direct and uses much more abrasive language, like in his defense of Leia’s Force abilities in the tweet below.
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The discussion began simply enough, with Johnson choosing to reply to a fan asking for an explanation for “Mary Poppins Leia,” referring to the moment she was ejected into space and used her Force abilities to return to her ship.
After Johnson replied to the vague question, another fan chimed in to elaborate how Leia, who we had never seen use Force abilities, could survive space in ways that other humans couldn’t.
“Rian, it was just very odd,” the fan asked. “She should be able to use the force, but my perception would’ve been that it would’ve been in a very limited capacity due to her focus on politics and not training with the force. That wasn’t some simple force jump she did.”
One would think a fan having to include “my perception…” would have alerted them to that perception possibly being incorrect, yet Johnson responded anyway.
“Interesting. I guess the fact that she’s in zero G and that space offers no resistance meant (to me) that it wasn’t a big feat at all – kinda minimal, in fact,” Johnson confirmed.
The fan, who seemingly thought the filmmaker hadn’t raised questions about how Leia could survive in space hadn’t thought about the situation hard enough, posited, “I thought about that, but then I also thought about the what kind of physical torment that being in the cold vacuum of space would do when you’re trying to channel the force? How could she focus to do that much with little to no training?”
Johnson opted to skip the long explanation and went with the more straightforward, “Cause she’s a badass muthaf-cka.”
Last year, Johnson explained the decision behind using this sequence in the film to be the debut of Leia’s abilities, which were teased in both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
“I liked the idea it would be an instinctual thing. This would be more like stories you hear about parents of toddlers who get caught under cars and they get Hulk strength and lift the car up,” Johnson shared with Entertainment Weekly. “It would be something in these final moments to show that she’s not done with the fight. And like a drowning person pulling herself back, that’s how it manifests itself for the first time in her.”
You can see Leia be a badass muthaf-cka in The Last Jedi, in theaters now.
[H/T Twitter, rianjohnson]
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Image Courtesy of Lucasfilm
