Movies

Rian Johnson Turns To The Sacred Jedi Texts To School 'Last Jedi' Complainers

Sacred jedi Texts
By Chris Evangelista/

Well, well, well. Look what we have here! Rian Johnson, director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, has spent a lot of the promotional time for his hit new Star Wars film having to deflect fan outrage. Long story short: some hardcore Star Wars fans are angry that Johnson took liberties with what they consider to be established Star-lore. While some of these Last Jedi complaints may be valid, there's one in particular that Johnson just dropped the mic on. Check it out below. And beware of spoilers.

Welcome to week 4,034 of People Mad Online About The Last Jedi. Rian Johnson's Star Wars sequel is a box office hit and a critical darling, but some Star Wars fans were not thrilled with a lot of the risky, unexpected choices the filmmaker took with the franchise. One particular problem some people had involved a huge climactic scene in which Luke Skywalker creates what amounts to a Force-hologram of himself in order to confront his former apprentice, Kylo Ren. As far as some fans were concerned, this move was a big no-no – no other Star Wars film had featured a character using the Force like this, therefore Johnson must have just pulled the move out of his rear-end. How dare he!

First and foremost, let me just say: the writer and director of a film is free to pretty much do whatever the heck they want, as long as the decision is in service of the story. And the ending scene with Luke is definitely in service of the story. But, if you're a stickler for "established lore," Johnson just brought out some receipts to put your complaints to bed. In a Twitter thread to end all Twitter threads, Johnson went to a book shelf, pulled down a copy of Star Wars: The Jedi Path, written by Daniel Wallace and published in 2011, and let the words speak for itself. Here's the thread:

Cue Luke Skywalker screaming, "The sacred Jedi texts!!"

Anyway, there you have it: creating a Force doppelgänger has precedent in Star Wars lore. It even has its own name: Similfuturus, which sound a bit Harry Potter-esque, in all honesty. While this should put this particular argument to bed, I'm sure there will still be some angry fans out there willing to argue that since we've never seen this particular move in a film before, it shouldn't count.

Here's a full description of The Jedi Path, just in case you want more info on this book:

Passed down from Master to apprentice, The Jedi Path is an ancient training manual that has educated and enlightened generations of Jedi. Within its pages, the Jedi-intraining will discover the history and lore of the Jedi Order, the ways of the Force and how to wield it, the subtle nuances of lightsaber combat, and the dangers of the Dark Side. The only remaining copy in existence, this hallowed tome features handwritten annotated notes by Yoda, Luke Skywalker, Count Dooku, and Darth Sidious, among many others. Created in collaboration with Lucasfilm along with an acclaimed Star Wars author and revered Star Wars illustrators this volume also introduces never-before-seen ships, creatures, characters, and details about the Star Wars galaxy.

That's right: this book is intended to be a gosh darn JEDI TRAINING MANUAL, which means all Jedi have the opportunity to learn this one particular Similfuturus move. In other words: just enjoy the movie!

(It should be noted that our editor-in-chief Peter Sciretta feels very strongly about this ending and disagrees with all of this! We recently hashed this out in an episode of the /Film Daily podcast, should you want to hear it.)

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