WithThe Last Jediarriving on Digital HD in a few weeks, and on Blu-ray and DVD a few weeks later, fans will be able to pore over the movie again and again, finding as many Easter Eggs as possible. It seems one may have been uncovered ahead of the home video release. IGN reporter Scott Collura tracked down a rare copy of the 1980 book Once upon a galaxy: A journal of the making of Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back by Alan Arnold, which features an interview withEmpire Strikes Backdirector Irving Kirshner. His quote about the difference between the Empire and the Rebels is almost exactly recreated for a line by Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose at the end ofThe Last Jedi. Here’s the excerpt from Irving Kirshner’s interview below.
“They will not sacrifice lives. They do not descend to the level of the enemy. That’s the difference between the Rebels and the Empire. It’s possible to fight because you love, not just because you hate.”
The last line in that excerpt from the director’s interview is strikingly similar to a line of dialogue whichRosesays to Finn (John Boyega) towards the end ofThe Last Jedi, “We’re going to win this war not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.” Scott Collura posted an image from the obscure book on Twitter, taggingdirector Rian Johnsonin his tweet. While the director wouldn’t confirm that this line was inspired by this interview from the book, he did reveal that he was given a copy of the book during production ofThe Last Jedi. Here’s what the director had to say about the book in two separate tweets.
“A friend gave me that book when we were in production, it’s amaaaaazing. Really worth tracking down, feels like a sort of fluke that couldn’t exist today, a strangely plain & intimate view of the production with lots of very unguarded interviews.”
What’s interesting is that, long before the movie hit theaters in December, there were no shortage of rumors about howThe Force Awakens"mirrors" certain aspects ofThe Empire Strikes Back, including Rey’s (Daisy Ridley)Jedi trainingwith Luke (Mark Hamill) and much more. While the events and tone ofThe Last Jediwere ultimately far different thanThe Empire Strikes Back, director Rian Johnson admitted that there were some narrative influences, during an interview on the Bullseye with Jesse Thorn podcast.
“The Force Awakenswas the first chapter in our trilogy,Empire Strikes Backwas the second chapter. We’re the second chapter in this trilogy. And if you look at whereEmpire Strikes Backtook that very simple hero vs. bad guys dynamic, and I guess this is kind of easy to lose the shock of this over the years, the ‘I am your father’ moment has become so ubiquitous and ingrained in culture. If you really think about, in the context of everything you just described about that first Star Wars movie, what that does is suddenly it takes…Luke has just been able to project his shadow, and us as the audience by extension, project his shadow onto this literally faceless bad guy that’s the personification of evil, so it’s black and white, good and bad. Awesome.Empire Strikes Backhit ‘I am your father,’ all of that. Suddenly, the waters get muddy. Suddenly, that is completely subverted. And the bad guy you thought you could just kill is actually a part of you. And…you now have to start thinking in terms of a much more complicated arc of redemption. And his reaction to that, that’s one of my favorite moments in all the movies, is Mark’s [Hamill] performance when he screams that ‘No!’ in reaction to that. That’s what I felt like we had to do in this one.”
While writer-director Rian Johnson certainly had the script forThe Last Jedidone before production started, and presumably before he was given a copy of theOnce Upon a Galaxybook, it’s possible that he could have rewritten that particular line during production, after coming across that part in the book. Regardless of its origins, Rose’s line is still among the most memorable in the entire movie. Take a look at this series of tweets fromScott Collura Twitteralong with tweets from Rian Johnson and one from Mark Hamill.
