The Last Jedi Rian Johnson to Write & Direct Star Wars Episode VIII

[jokesonm3]

This is the official thread to discuss all things Rian Johnson, writer and director of the upcoming blockbuster Star Wars: Episode VIII.

Love it, hate it? In Between? Well say no more! Come and discuss all things to do with him for SW8!

His film credits include:

Evil Demon Golfball from Hell!!! [1996] WRITER, DIRECTOR

Brick [2005] WRITER, DIRECTOR

The Brothers Bloom [2008] WRITER, DIRECTOR

Looper [2012] WRITER, DIRECTOR

His Television credits include:

Terriers [2009] DIRECTOR Episode: "Manifest Destiny"

Breaking Bad [2010 - 2013] DIRECTOR Episodes: "Fly", "Fifty-One", "Ozymandias"

 

[jokesonm3]

Now me i believe that Looper was a great film.

However what i'm most impressed about is his television work especially on the show Breaking Bad, the episode titled OZYMANDIAS is still to this day what i consider to be one of the greatest episodes of modern television, the sheer amount of emotions in me when i watched that episode were insane, a well directed episode!

So me personally i believe that Rian Johnson is the man for the job.

 

[DarknessOfDeath]

While i haven't seen any of his work...and while I am hearing pretty good things about him, I will give him time once we get closer to the release date of VIII before I make any sudden judgements. I'm sure he'll do a great job just like JJ Abrams and Co did with VII.

 

[jokesonm3]

Director and Writer of Star Wars Episode VIII, Rian Johnson, might make an "in theater" director's commentary for Star Wars Episode VIII.

https://***********/rianjohnson/status/684414625534722049

 

[The Chris]

Episode 8 is in massively great hands. I have a massive love for Looper, Brick, Breaking Bad: The Fly and Breaking Bad: Ozymandias, and I think he can do for The Force Awakens what Empire Strikes Back did for A New Hope. You can measure this guy's talent just by Bruce Willis' performance in Looper. 99% Bruce looks like he wants to be anywhere else but the film he is in these days, but not in Looper. I hadn't seem him invested like that in an action piece in years.

 

[Closerframe]

I have complete faith in Rian. As others have stated, his film and television work speaks for itself and demonstrates the range in his vision but also the consistency in his ability to get his actors to display such emotional depth. I have no doubt that Episode VIII will be better than The Force Awakens given Rian both writing and directing the episode and doesn't have to limit himself by imitating what came before it--something JJ is good at, but it is also one of his biggest problems.

 

[Brother Jack]

[YT]zzlAvPZT2nA[/YT]

It's still absurd to me that Rian Johnson is writing and directing the next Star Wars movie, not to mention writing Episode IX. That's a huge amount of creative purchase given to a guy with a small but, in my opinion, great track record full of original ideas and smart, distinctive writing and directing. It feels to me very much like Disney/Lucasfilm's Christopher Nolan-type decision; handing the reigns of a huge franchise in the hands of an up and coming auteur.

I enjoyed Force Awakens very much but the film and the decision to have JJ Abrams make it was in a lot of ways a safe, if logical, choice. Getting Johnson is the exact opposite of that and I wonder if that was completely intentional on the part of the corporate overlords. Reintroduce Star Wars and bridge the gap from the OT to this new generation of characters in a familiar, fairly predictable way in VII and then strike into this era's real distinctive identity with Johnson in VIII and IX. Do something new with this story.

As good as VII was, I'm expecting a better film with VIII. And I cannot wait to see it.

 

[smappy45]

Never seen his work. Actually I'm glad I never seen his work, so I really don't know what to expect. I will believe the hype but I decided to keep my expectation low and minimum, just so I won't be disappointed if VIII doesn't turn out the way I hope.

 

[DarknessOfDeath]

I am with you on that, smappy...I love VII and cannot wait for VIII and to see what Rian and co bring to the table for this one. I kept my distance from SW in general to not know everything going in so I'll be doing the same thing for every sw movie coming out by keeping my expectations low. Feels good to be back as a Star Wars fan.

 

[BatLobster]

[YT]zzlAvPZT2nA[/YT]

It's still absurd to me that Rian Johnson is writing and directing the next Star Wars movie, not to mention writing Episode IX. That's a huge amount of creative purchase given to a guy with a small but, in my opinion, great track record full of original ideas and smart, distinctive writing and directing. It feels to me very much like Disney/Lucasfilm's Christopher Nolan-type decision; handing the reigns of a huge franchise in the hands of an up and coming auteur.

I enjoyed Force Awakens very much but the film and the decision to have JJ Abrams make it was in a lot of ways a safe, if logical, choice. Getting Johnson is the exact opposite of that and I wonder if that was completely intentional on the part of the corporate overlords. Reintroduce Star Wars and bridge the gap from the OT to this new generation of characters in a familiar, fairly predictable way in VII and then strike into this era's real distinctive identity with Johnson in VIII and IX. Do something new with this story.

As good as VII was, I'm expecting a better film with VIII. And I cannot wait to see it.

Completely on the same page as you there.

Considering Alan Horn is the chairman at Disney now, and was one of Nolan's biggest friends/proponents when he was at WB, I'm not surprised that at he would be on board with bringing in an up and coming talent like Johnson. And it also doesn't surprise me that Kennedy would have the foresight to see why he'd make an excellent choice.

It's a "risk", but it's got the potential to pay off massively. The nice thing is that everyone in the fan community universally seems to be on board with the decision too. OT fans, PT fans, saga fans...everyone believes in him.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

Rewatched Looper recently and now I am even more excited. Johnson's frame is always very spacious with the characters maintaining noticeable distance from each other. Very western. Which means his aesthetic is even more appropriate for Star Wars than JJ. I also have a feeling that we, or at least I, will be spared from the obnoxious crane shots that Abrams annoyingly uses. Johnson is simply more meticulous with his shots.

 

[BatLobster]

Yep. Also, Johnson is using the same DP that he's done all his movies with.

 

[kickass]

Director and Writer of Star Wars Episode VIII, Rian Johnson, might make an "in theater" director's commentary for Star Wars Episode VIII.

https://***********/rianjohnson/status/684414625534722049

What exactly does this mean? I've never seen an in theatre commentary before. How does that work?

 

[Boom]

He's writing Episode IX too?

In any case, love the choice. Literally cannot wait.

 

[venom892]

I've only seen his Breaking Bad episodes, but that is enough for me to have full confindence in him. Also I hope he writes IX as I'd prefer Trevorrow to only direct.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

But I assume there must have been some conversation about that in the writing process too, how much to reveal and how. Because the audience does need some things to attach to. So can you talk about figuring out how much to say about her and how much to hold back?

J.J. Abrams: The thing about Star Wars is everyone who has seen these movies thinks, you know, “I am your father.” It’s one of the first things you think about. And, “There is another.” And moments like that. But when you think about those big moments and then you stop and go, oh, neither of those things were in Star Wars. You know, Star Wars didn’t say that Luke was the son of Vader. Star Wars didn’t say that Leia was the sister of Luke. You didn’t really understand what these references were. The Empire, dark times, Clone Wars. There are these things that are discussed that don’t get explained. It was Episode IV. You know, George, among the unbelievable list of brilliant things he did, dropped you into a story and respected you and said, “You will infer everything necessary to understand exactly what you need to know.” And that’s what we tried to do with this. We knew we were going to have a moment when Snoke was going to say to Ren, “Your dad’s in the picture.” Can this movie actually also hold, you know, “And Rey is this and Finn is that and this is where Poe…”? It was one of those things, and again it speaks to your restraint...Look, this is the first, this is an opportunity of a lifetime to write a movie that is the first of a series, and there is a story to be told. And it will be. But this movie, it felt like “the droid is in the hands of your father, Han Solo” was probably the one real revelatory familial piece we could get away with.

http://www.wga.org/content/default.aspx?id=6130 (December 22, 2015)

There were things that we - at the very beginning of the process - were outlining and discovering and we just knew would be in ‘Episode 8’ or ‘9’. A couple of those were things I was so excited about getting to do, but realised early on that there was no way we could shove them into ‘Episode 7’. Then of course Rian Johnson came along and is incorporating some of these things very closely to what we were thinking about - and in other cases things that we would never have imagined.

https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/post/135452826201/jj-abrams-on-the-new-chewbacca-episode-8-and-that (December 18, 2015)

Larry and I had a bunch of thoughts of where certain things could go and we shared those things with Rian Johnson, who's directing VIII. He had things that he came up with where he asked if it was possible if we could make some adjustments with what we were doing at the end, most of which we did — there were just a couple that didn't feel right, so he made adjustments — but it was just collaboration. We're all fans and friends and supporters of each other, and there's been no one cheerleading and supporting louder and more consistently than Rian on this, and I feel that I am grateful that I now get to take that position for him.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/awards-chatter-podcast-jj-abrams-853171 (January 8, 2016)

 

[DieSmiling]

I'm glad he's replacing JJ. I expect him to do much better.

 

[Gianakin_]

There's the "F**K YEAH" choice missing from the poll.

 

[NewYorkSpider]

The only thing I've seen from him is his Breaking Bad episodes. Might have to give Looper a watch in the future.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

Looper is awesome. You should watch it.

 

[Marvolo]

Definitely watch Looper. There's no need to rush out and watch The Brothers Bloom.

 

[Brother Jack]

Watch Brick as well.

 

[OutOfBoose]

I watched only Looper and liked it a lot, outside typical time travel paradoxes/BS. He's really capable of writing good characters. If Star Wars won't feature time travel, he should do fine. Force Awakens built an awesome foundation for future stories, can't wait to see VIII...

 

[BatLobster]

I finally got around to watching Brick (currently available on HBO NOW fyi)

Tbh, it has a bit of a student film vibe to it, in some cases the production style felt a little rough around the edges- but as a lover of neo-noir I definitely appreciated the gimmick, and I think if nothing else it shows that Rian is a very sharp writer. The snappy, old-timey dialogue was the best part, imo.

I really think Rian has every opportunity here to knock this out of the park and become a huge name director. Even beyond VIII, I'm excited for some more original genre films from him.

 

[Loki882]

Brick is my favorite film of his. But the others are really good as well. And his work on Breaking Bad was great as well.

And he's writing Episode VIII as well, which makes it all the more exciting.