The closer we get to the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi this December, the more JJ Abrams’ achievement on The Force Awakens begins to crystallize. That cliffhanging final scene – with Daisy Ridley’s Rey reaching out to a mute, disbelieving Luke Skywalker on the remote planet of Ahch-To – left Rian Johnson with the perfect platform to go deeper into the new Star Wars galaxy in part two. Vanity Fair’s latest issue offers an in-depth look at the highly-anticipated sequel to Abrams’ blockbuster megalith. Here are six takeaways from the magazine’s extensive behind-the-scenes view.

Carrie Fisher would have been front and centre in Episode IX

Carrie Fisher … ‘She thought IX would be her movie. And it would have been.’ Photograph: Allstar/Disney/Lucasfilm

As leader of the Resistance, it always made sense for Leia Organa Solo to be heavily involved in part two of the new Star Wars trilogy, which will presumably see Supreme Leader Snoke’s scurrilous New Order striking back after the destruction of Starkiller Base last time out. Vanity Fair confirms that Leia will get more screen time this time around, but also makes it clear that Episode IX was intended to be the movie in which Fisher took centre stage.

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy reveals: “The minute she finished [shooting The Last Jedi], she grabbed me and said, ‘I’d better be at the forefront of IX!’ Because Harrison (Ford) was front and centre on VII, and Mark (Hamill) is front and centre on VIII. She thought IX would be her movie. And it would have been.”

We don’t learn too much more about Leia’s role this time out, bar the fact that Fisher took great joy in striking Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron a total of 27 times for a scene in which the heroic X-wing fighter gets slapped by his superior. But the suggestion is that Colin Trevorrow and his team now have a major task on their hands to “reconceive” an Episode IX that has lost a key focal point.

The Last Jedi will show us the galaxy’s privileged 1%

The new Bernie? John Boyega as Finn. Photograph: AP

Johnson’s screenplay sees John Boyega’s Finn recovering from his encounter with Kylo Ren with the help of a Bacta tank, before journeying to the exotic casino city of Canto Bight with newcomer Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), a low-ranking maintenance worker for the Resistance. Word is that the pair are on a secret mission behind enemy lines, hinting that the new location – described by Johnson as “a Star Wars Monte Carlo environment, a little James Bond-ish, a little To Catch a Thief” – is deep in First Order territory.

One imagines these scenes being the equivalent of Finn and Rey’s journey to Maz Kanata’s castle on Takodana in The Force Awakens, with Star Wars costume designer Michael Kaplan given the chance to imagine the serious next-level space fashion being worn by the galaxy’s privileged 1%. New photos show a cavalcade of humans and aliens, mostly dressed in varieties of sleek yet flamboyant monochrome, like extra-terrestrial pawns on a giant, boho, high society chess board.

This will be the first time we’ve really seen the wealthier corners of the Star Wars galaxy since the prequels. “I was thinking, okay, let’s go ultra-glamour,” says Johnson. “Let’s create a playground, basically, for rich assholes.”

Ahch-To has its own indigenous species

There have long been rumours that the planet where Rey finally met Luke Skywalker at the end of The Force Awakens has other, non-human inhabitants beyond the ageing Jedi knight. Vanity Fair describes them as an “indigenous race of caretaker creatures”, with Johnson keen to point out that they are not the cuddly Ewoks introduced in 1983’s Return of the Jedi. The magazine also confirms that Ahch-To is indeed the site of the first Jedi Temple, as teased by Harrison Ford’s Han Solo in The Force Awakens.

Rian Johnson gorged on samurai movies while writing the script

Akira Kurosawa’s films influenced the latest Star Wars franchise. Photograph: film company handout

George Lucas famously borrowed from Akira Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress when imagining the world of Star Wars, and it sounds like the Looper director has gone back to the source. As well as watching war movies such as Henry King’s 1949 action drama Twelve O’Clock High, about American airmen flying daylight bombing missions over Germany, Johnson gorged on “funky 60s samurai stuff” such as Kihachi Okamoto’s burlesque Samurai comedy Kill! and Hideo Gosha’s masterful Three Outlaw Samurai.

Such a mix of styles sounds about right for The Last Jedi, which Johnson says he worked hard to ensure never dipped too permanently into doom and despair. “I didn’t want this to be a dirge, a heavy-osity movie,” he told Vanity Fair. “So one thing I’ve tried really hard to do is keep the humor in there, to maintain the feeling, amid all the heavy operatic moments, that you’re on a fun ride.”

Johnson also said he approached writing The Last Jedi with the aim of challenging all his key players, from Luke to Kylo Ren. “I started by writing the names of each of the characters, and thinking, what’s the hardest thing they could be faced with?”

Kylo Ren still hasn’t shaken off the killing of his father

Daddy issues: Kylo Ren. Photograph: Allstar/DISNEY/LUCASFILM

In the case of everybody’s favourite neighborhood Darth Vader wannabe, it sounds like the aftermath of his brutal patricide will have ramifications for Ren’s mental health going forward. Crucially, obeying Snoke’s order to terminate Han Solo’s life does not appear to have entirely cured the moody emo dark lord of his light-side tendencies. Fanboy theorists who reckon Adam Driver’s First Order psychopath is on a trilogy-long journey of redemption to mirror Vader’s can keep dreaming a little while longer.



“I feel like everyone is in that rehabilitation state,” Driver tells Vanity Fair. “You know, I don’t think that patricide is all that it’s cracked up to be. Maybe that’s where Kylo Ren is starting from. His external scar is probably as much an internal one.”