Colin Trevorrow Asked Rian Johnson To Add Something To 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' That Will Pay Off In 'Episode 9'

Director Colin Trevorrow's latest film, The Book of Henry, spent the past few days being absolutely hammered by critics, sitting at 25% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing. But the director seems to be taking all of the negative press in stride, tweeting "Be proud of everything you paint, even if Mom doesn't put it on the fridge." In the wake of The Book of Henry's failure in the eyes of critics, many reviewers have expressed concerns about the future of the Star Wars franchise, since Trevorrow will be directing Star Wars: Episode 9, the third film in the new trilogy that began with The Force Awakens.

Meanwhile, it sounds as if Trevorrow – who is also co-writing Episode 9 with his writing partner Derek Connolly – has been hard at work trying to make the best Star Wars film he can. In a new interview, the director revealed that he asked Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson to add "one extra thing" to that movie in order to set up something that will happen in Episode 9. Read about The Last Jedi extra scene below.

Before we dive into Trevorrow's comments, here's a very brief recap of some recent Star Wars history. While writing The Last Jedi, Johnson asked director J.J. Abrams to tweak one aspect of The Force Awakens to pave the way for something he needed to happen in his movie: he had Abrams ensure that R2-D2 went with Rey (Daisy Ridley) to meet Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on Ahch-To.

During an appearance as a guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Trevorrow was asked if he requested any similar changes to Johnson's script, and he replied:

"There was one little thing. It wasn't an adjustment, it was just 'Could you shoot this one extra thing while you're in this place on this day?' And he did, which was great. But, y'know, it's part of the collaborative process that exists – everyone is in communication. There's such a genuine want to get this right from everybody, and I think that one of the misconceptions is that there's some kind of great corporate overlord that is dictating this story to everybody, and that's what it's going to be because that's going to sell the most toys. The reality of it is that it's a small group of people, but it's actually, y'know, kind of large when you think about it – and none of them are corporate, all of them are creatives and all of them are genuinely, very sincerely, wanting to do the work of their lives in order to realize this."

I would not be surprised in the least if the "extra thing" Trevorrow sought involved a reference to Carrie Fisher's General Leia. The iconic actress passed away last December, leaving Lucasfilm and Trevorrow in a tight position. They had to regroup and rethink the movie in January of this year, and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has gone on the record saying that Leia won't appear in Episode 9. It's easy to see a scenario in which Trevorrow asked Johnson to, for example, maybe have a character mention that Leia was heading to a certain location that we later find out has been attacked or destroyed, which could explain why she won't be appearing at all in Episode 9. That's speculation on my part, but I'm sure you see what I mean.

The whole interview is worth a listen, especially for people who think Trevorrow – who jumped from an indie feature in Safety Not Guaranteed to blockbuster status with Jurassic World – was given too many opportunities far too quickly as a filmmaker. (Spoiler alert: he kinda shares that opinion!)

Star Wars: Episode 9 arrives in theaters on May 24, 2019.