Star Wars Bits: A Hint at Snoke’s Origin, Mark Hamill’s Second Role, and a Closer Look at the Caretakers

In this edition of Star Wars Bits:

The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi reveals some tantalizing behind-the-scenes tidbits
Mark Hamill hides behind CGI in a second, secretive Last Jedi role
One fan has a change of heart when it comes to The Last Jedi
Daisy Ridley dislikes your “Mary Sue” theory
And much more!

Some of the most impactful scenes in The Last Jedi were apparently added pretty late in the production process. As quoted in The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson explains:

The three flashbacks were a late addition – one of the last things that went into the script before we started shooting. It’s similar to Rashomon, but the actual story motivation was that I wanted some harder kick to Rey’s turn: ‘You didn’t tell me this.’ I wanted some harder line that was crossed – a more defined thing that we could actually see – between Luke and Kylo. I didn’t want to do a big flashback. So one flashback that you repeat three times but that’s just one moment seemed more right.

Read more at ScreenRant.

Also found in The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson talks about the “terrifying” decision to destroy Kylo Ren’s already iconic mask from The Force Awakens:

“By the time we were making the movie, the first film had come out and every kid was wearing Kylo Ren masks on Halloween…. But the whole premise of this film is that you’re getting inside this guy a bit more. More than that, Rey is seeing there’s more to him than she thought. And Adam Driver is one of my favorite actors working today. The notion of getting the mask off of him so we don’t have to deal with it and can look into his eyes seemed really important.”

Also important: Removing Kylo’s shirt, too, no doubt. Read more at ScreenRant.

ScreenRant found another tidbit in The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi in which Rogue One director Gareth Edwards comments on how much the Crait battle looked and felt like his film’s battle on Scarif. (Edwards was on set for a cameo as a Resistance soldier in the trenches of Crait.) Can someone let Edwards know that Star Wars movies generally all contain, uhh, war scenes?

Even though The Last Jedi is now in theaters, Mark Hamill is remaining tight-lipped over a certain TLJ easter egg: whom he played (or voiced) in one of the film’s Canto Bight scenes. EW has more info on Hamill’s cameo, plus some commentary on the mysterious “Force chant”, a dummy version of Leia, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s cameo. (Seriously, why didn’t Finn and Rose just park in a lot? I’m sure Canto Bight validates.)

Talk about an info dump. A glorious, exhilarating, illuminating info dump. Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Visual Dictionary, written by Lucasfilm’s own Jedi Sentinel of Star Wars continuity, Pablo Hidalgo, provides details about characters, props, and plot points not supplied in the film itself, like the “name” of Benicio Del Toro’s character, the symbolism of Leia’s new hairstyle, and Poe “Total Bro” Dameron’s specially-designed X-Wing. Check out BleedingCool for a whopping 58 facts gleaned from this precious tome.

ScreenRant highlights the Snoke entry in The Visual Dictionary, which describes Snoke’s purple “Attendants”: “Snoke’s retinue includes mute alien navigators who originated in the Unknown Regions. Were it not for the ancient hyperspace trails blazed by these towering servants, the Imperial survivors who fled into this uncharted realm would certainly have perished.” Does this mean that Snoke, too, hails from the Unknown Regions? Or maybe that his origin will remain forever unknown…

The Last Jedi is nothing if not polarizing, and one fan in particular has taken his internal struggle with the film to new extremes: Henry Walsh, the guy who started a Change.org petition to strike The Last Jedi from the Star Wars canon, now regrets his brief turn to the dark side and explains that he was pretty doped up on pain medication when he created the petition. In an impassioned plea, he expresses his frustration and implores Star Wars fans to help out “important” petitions instead: “I couldn’t get the help on GoFundMe to help pay for my surgery, and yet *this* gets this kind of attention? To the point that this petition has been in multiple news publications at this point? How many other people out there need help and can’t get attention?” Show the galaxy that there’s good in Star Wars fans, and donate to Walsh’s own GoFundMe here.

In an interview with The Playlist, Rian Johnson explains why he brought back Yoda as a Force Ghost instead of Obi-Wan Kenobi during a crucial scene in The Last Jedi. Spoiler alert: it involves a little thing called narrative continuity. “We never saw Luke interact with the Ewan version of Obi Wan, so there’s less of the emotional connection and it might have been a little odd,” said Johnson. Insert Obi-Wan’s slow, disappointed head shake.

Star Wars The Last Jedi - Adam Driver - Kylo Ren Redemption

Caitlin Busch over at Inverse offers a compelling theory about what happened to Ben Solo’s blue lightsaber after he took on the name of Kylo Ren. Methinks Emo Kylo Ren would approve, too.

As part of an ongoing series on the new creatures of The Last Jedi, StarWars.com talks to concept designer Jake Lunt Davies about the stuffy but fiercely dedicated Caretakers. “Puffin people” FTW!