Going into Star Wars: The Last Jedi, some fans were curious to see how writer/director Rian Johnson’s sequel would address the death of Han Solo from The Force Awakens. Harrison Ford’s iconic character was a massive piece of the Star Wars puzzle, and his absence would certainly have reverberations for the characters that knew him directly. But while The Last Jedi picks up right where The Force Awakens left off, the film very much moves full-speed ahead from the get-go, and there’s not a ton of time for the characters to sit down and contemplate Han’s absence.

Of course J.J. Abrams gave the character’s death some beautiful moments at the end of The Force Awakens, so there really wasn’t a need to explicitly slow down and once again mourn the loss of this beloved character. Still, some fans felt a funeral for Han Solo was appropriate, so during an exclusive Q&A with Collider’s own Steve Weintraub after Collider’s IMAX screening of The Last Jedi, Johnson explained why they never considered including a funeral for Han Solo:

“[There was no debate of showing Han Solo’s funeral], just because pacing-wise it didn’t have a place. It’s tough in Star Wars because I always think about the mourning that Luke gives to Ben’s death, which is all of four-and-a-half seconds before, ‘Come on kid we’re not out of this yet’ and then boom, you’re into ‘Yay, woo-hoo! Don’t get cocky!’ There’s the moment for it, but it’s not long. We don’t have time for our sorrows, commanders. That’s kind of the thing of Star Wars; you don’t really linger on grief because you’re moving forward.”

Johnson said they did linger a bit on a moment with Leia, but reiterated that for pacing reasons, there was never any serious discussion about including Han Solo’s funeral explicitly in the film: