Rian Johnson Reveals the Real Reason He Wants to Make More Star Wars Movies
Eight years after The Last Jedi split the fandom, Rian Johnson confronts the backlash and reveals why it hasn’t driven him from the galaxy—if anything, it’s made him more eager to make more Star Wars.
Rian Johnson just revisited The Last Jedi discourse eight years later, and here is the twist: the backlash is actually why he wants to make more Star Wars. Not less.
Where this came from
Johnson sat down for a chat at the Newport Beach Film Festival, and a clip of the conversation was shared by Star Wars Culture on Nov 5, 2025. The topic was unavoidable: The Last Jedi, the split reaction, and whether all that noise pushed him away from a galaxy far, far away.
Did the divisive response scare him off?
"No, not at all. In fact, it’s the reason that I wanted to."
That’s Johnson’s answer to whether the controversy turned him off Star Wars. He framed the heat around The Last Jedi as a feature, not a bug. He described himself as a lifelong Star Wars fan who understands how intense the fan energy gets — people love what they love, hate what they hate, and argue about it. He pointed out that none of this is new; the prequels were a huge battleground too.
Why the split matters to him
Johnson’s take is that Star Wars has always meant different things to different people, and that tension is part of the fun — emphasis on keeping it respectful. The arguments, the push-pull, the wildly different reads on the same text — that friction is baked into the franchise’s DNA, and he seems energized by it rather than exhausted.
How he feels about The Last Jedi now
The Last Jedi hit theaters in 2017 and earned strong reviews from most critics, while fan reactions ran the gamut from high praise to we-need-to-talk outrage. Regardless of where anyone landed, Johnson says making that movie and meeting the audience through it was the most positive experience he’s had on anything he has made. He came out of it liking Star Wars fandom more than when he went in. That is not the vibe people expected, but here we are.
So what about that other Star Wars trilogy?
Lucasfilm hired Johnson to write and direct a separate Star Wars trilogy after The Last Jedi. Since then, he has not worked with Lucasfilm again, even as he kept busy with Knives Out and its sequel. None of this changes the key point, though: he still wants to do more Star Wars.
If you just want the beats
- Setting: Newport Beach Film Festival; clip shared by Star Wars Culture on Nov 5, 2025.
- Johnson’s stance: not only did the backlash not scare him off, it made him want to make more Star Wars.
- Context: he highlights that fan divisions go back to the original days, including the prequels, and sees respectful arguing as part of the fun.
- His takeaway from TLJ: says it was his most positive experience engaging with an audience; he left loving the fandom more.
- Status check: he was hired to create a separate Star Wars trilogy but has not worked with Lucasfilm since The Last Jedi.
- Where to watch: Star Wars: The Last Jedi is streaming on Disney+.
Originally reported by Dan Girolamo for SuperHeroHype.