Rian Johnson defends Star Wars’ need to be ‘goofy’

Not everyone who saw The Last Jedi appreciated its unique humor — and Rian Johnson thinks that’s as silly as Star Wars deserves to be, according to a recent interview.

Speaking with GQ about the various films he’s worked on over the years, Johnson — who wrote and directed 2017’s sequel to The Force Awakens — recalled how watching Star Wars made him feel as a child, and questions the belief that Star Wars should always be “serious.”

"“For me, everything in the movie is Star Wars, and everything in the movie I can trace back to deeply, in a deep way, what Star Wars is for me. Everyone has a different take. I know there are Star Wars fans who somehow think that Star Wars was a serious thing, like the Batman movies or something. I was so young that when I watched Empire Strikes Back, it had this deep, profound impact on me, because it was terrifying, because I was just young enough to not experience it as watching a Star Wars movie, but to have it feel like too real. …Anyone who thinks that slightly goofy humor does not have a place in the Star Wars universe, I don’t know if they’ve seen Return of The Jedi.”"

Star Wars is about wars in the stars — of course it’s going to have its somber and even unsettling moments. Andor had plenty of that. But for many, fantasy is escapism — a place they want to get away from the seriousness of their own lives for a while. A little humor never hurt anybody, and Star Wars can be multiple things at once and still tell effective, captivating stories.

Johnson recently confirmed — again — that his plans for a Star Wars trilogy are still completely up in the air. While he would be OK with never making another Star Wars movie — or, at the very least, not making one anytime soon — a trilogy filled with the lighthearted moments that made The Last Jedi shine even brighter might be worth waiting for.

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