The films in the Star Wars saga take place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, often allowing the films to avoid incorporating pop culture references. When it came to designing Supreme Leader Snoke‘s throne room for The Last Jedi, however, design supervisor Kevin Jenkins couldn’t help but pay homage to iconic mystery series Twin Peaks and its mystical locations.
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The location on Snoke’s ship features bright red, billowing walls and a cold, black, reflective floor, much like the red room in Twin Peaks. Jenkins confirmed this influence in The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
“I thought, ‘How do you reinvent the throne room from [Return of the] Jedi?’ And [writer/director] Rian [Johnson] said, ‘I don’t want to reinvent the throne room fromJedi because it’s already been done,’” Jenkins shared. “He always used the words ‘organic’ and ‘theatrical.’ Early on, the one thing that stuck was the heavy red with colonnade banners. It is part of the Ran/[Akira] Kurosawa thing–the samurai influence. It’s a colonnade leading you to a dais and a chair. Rian didn’t mention Twin Peaks‘s Black Lodge–the red room–but we all did in an art department meeting.”
The connection between Snoke’s throne room and the series’ red room goes no further than the aesthetics, as they serve vastly different purposes. In the series, the room serves as a connection to two different planes of existence, the Black Lodge and the White Lodge, with Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) experiencing a series of bizarre occurrences in the location.
What makes the connection between the TV series and the latest Star Wars film even more interesting is that at one point, David Lynch was attached to direct Return of the Jedi instead of Richard Marquand.
Lynch’s Eraserhead in 1977 was initially relegated to being a “Midnight Movie,” with its bizarre and surrealistic images appealing only to very niche audiences. In 1980, Elephant Man flexed a different type of muscle for the filmmaker, resulting in George Lucas offering Lynch the opportunity to helm the third film in his trilogy. The filmmaker instead chose to develop an adaptation of the seminal sci-fi novel Dune, resulting in a massive commercial and critical failure.
Twin Peaks initially ran from 1990 to 1991, with the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me debuting in 1992. Earlier this year, the long-awaited third season of the series debuted on Showtime.
The Last Jedi is in theaters now.
[H/T Twitter, JEBermenator]
