Warning: There are spoilers ahead for "Star Wars: The Last Jedi."
"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" director Rian Johnson is schooling fans who haven't done their homework.
Johnson took to Twitter Friday to directly address one big critique fans have been divided over near the film's end.
Near the end of "The Last Jedi," Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) appears on the planet of Crait to engage in an epic lightsaber battle with his nephew Kylo Ren and have a small, intimate moment with Leia. There was just one problem.
He wasn't really there.
At the end of the movie, it was revealed Skywalker never left the planet of Ahch-To. Instead, he merely projected a younger version of himself onto Crait to help the Resistance and his sister escape the First Order. When Skywalker was finally at peace, he died and became one with the Force. (You can read more on what happened to Luke at the end of "The Last Jedi" here.)
The idea that Luke was simply a projection for a good chunk of the end of the film only to die right afterward upset a lot of fans.
Between that and Leia Organa flying through space, it seemed like Lucasfilm was just making up new rules for the Force.
But Johnson assured fans that wasn't the case — at least with Luke.
In a series of tweets, the director masterfully zoomed into a text sitting on a shelf. Without tweeting any words, a passage from the book "The Jedi Path" put to rest how Skywalker could have made a strong projection of himself using the Force.
👀
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 19, 2018
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 19, 2018
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 19, 2018
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 19, 2018
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 19, 2018
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 19, 2018
The text shown shows an excerpt describing "Advanced Force Techniques."
Johnson hones in on one section that focuses on creating a doppelganger, also known as a Similfuturus. Here's what it says:
"Doppelganger, or Similfuturus, permits a Jedi to create a short-lived duplicate of himself or herself or an external object that is visually indistinguishable from the real item. Those who have perfected this ability can create phantoms of any person of their choosing or trick an enemy into seeing more objects, such as droids, than are actually present."
That explains why Kylo Ren wasn't able to immediately distinguish his uncle Skywalker from a mere projection. It also explains why Luke was able to give his sister Leia a pair of dice from the Millennium Falcon that also wasn't real. (Of course, if you were paying close attention, you would have noticed there was the smallest moment of recognition between the siblings where Leia realized Luke was nothing more than a projection.)
In case you're quick to think Johnson is just pulling new texts out of thin air provided to him by Lucasfilm to explain away a controversial plot point, think again.
The book Johnson shows is a 2010 text "The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force" from before Disney ever purchased Lucasfilm. You can check it out here.
One problem some fans may point out is that Disney famously announced that any books written before it purchased Lucasfilm in 2012 are no longer considered canon anymore.
OK. Fine. But the fact Johnson took the time to reference a "legacy" book in "The Last Jedi" shows some commitment to making sure that the franchise is living up to what preceded the Disney era of Lucasfilm.
And if you're thinking that Johnson has too much time on his hands right now, he does have an entire new "Star Wars" trilogy to get to work on. So he's living in a galaxy far, far away each and every day.
— Geek Girl Diva (@geekgirldiva) January 19, 2018
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