'The Last Jedi' Final Scene Explained: What The Unexpected 'Star Wars' Ending Really Means

If you've seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi by now (and there's a good chance you have), you might have been taken aback by the film's surprising, powerful final scene. And if you have any lingering questions about that Last Jedi final scene, director Rian Johnson was nice enough to provide some insight into the moment. Of course, Star Wars being Star Wars, some eager fans were quick to try to apply the scene to the mythology as a whole. Read on for this, and more info about The Last Jedi final scene – and beware of spoilers, obviously.

ALERT: Here there be spoilers. If you haven't seen The Last Jedi yet, get the heck out of here. If you have, let's dive right in.

The final scene of Star Wars: The Last Jedi surprisingly doesn't involve classic characters Luke or Leia, or new favorites Rey, Poe or Finn. Instead, it involves a group of poor children who have forced into labor on the planet of Canto Bight. We see these kids earlier in the film too, and director Rian Johnson returns to them at the very end, where he shows one young boy in the group regaling a story about Luke Skywalker, the Jedi, and more. The boy is forced to go outside and start sweeping, at which point he casually uses the Force to draw his broom to his hand. The boy starts to sweep, then pauses, looking up at the vast, star-filled sky, clutching his broom like a lightsaber. It's a wonderful moment, with an image that speaks to anyone who has ever swung around a fake lightsaber and pretended they were part of this universe.

I had two distinct thoughts when I saw this scene. One: "Wow, this is fantastic, and powerful!" Two: "Oh no, people are going to assume this boy is some new main character who will play a big part in the franchise, and possibly be prominently featured in the next film!" To me, it was clear that this moment was Rian Johnson's way of illustrating the entire Star Wars universe is bigger than Luke, Rey, and all the other characters we know. With this one scene, Johnson was showing that the stories and legends of Star Wars will continue to spread throughout the galaxy, long after our current heroes are dead and gone. But clearly, some fans want to fan, and there has already been an attempt to place this boy somewhere within the established mythology.

ScreenRant reports that in the Star Wars: The Last Jedi Visual Dictionary, the broom boy's name is officially listed as "Temiri Blagg", which has some connection to Star Wars lore. Sort of. In the new Star Wars short story collection Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, Glen Weldon's story "Of MSE-6 and Men" – which, like all the stories in From a Certain Point of View, is set during the events of A New Hope – features an officer on board the Death Star who also happens to have the name "Blagg." Does this random officer in a short story have some connection to the boy in The Last Jedi? If you want this detail to be true, then by all means, go right ahead and believe it is. Personally speaking, I think this connection is a bit of a stretch.

For his part, director Rian Johnson was nice enough to reveal some details to CinemaBlend about just what the final scene in The Last Jedi really means. The director confirms that the ending really is about opening up the Star Wars universe, and revealing that the saga we've been following all this time has an impact on the galaxy as a whole:

"First and foremost, that scene and the stable kids were about, for me, Luke's journey and about the final act that Luke does, and showing at the end of the movie that it wasn't just about saving 20 people in the cave, but that it was about taking on the mantle of the legend of Luke Skywalker so that that would then spread through the galaxy and reignite the hope, and the underclass would start to rise again. And so... showing THAT through the stable boy at the end, that was the real intent of the scene. And yeah, just the little hint of... there is more out there."

Now, I won't say it's a definitive fact that the boy with the broom at the end of The Last Jedi won't show up again, but I'm about 99% sure anyone expecting him to become some major player in the next episode is going is barking up the wrong tree. That final scene isn't setting up a new storyline; it's revealing that the Star Wars universe is vast, and there are people and stories in it that exist beyond the scope of what we've seen so far. Or I'm wrong, and Broom Boy will be the main character in Star Wars: Episode IX. We'll see!