Rian Johnson Calls Fan Service a 'Mistake,' Wants to Challenge Them Instead

Rian Johnson continues to face criticism for creative decisions he made with 'The Last Jedi.'

Rian Johnson
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Rian Johnson

Star Wars fans haven't let up about The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson's creative decisions, even though the film is about two years old. Johnson appeared on the Swings & Mrs. podcast recently and addressed the ongoing backlash by explaining why he doesn't make decisions about his films based on fan reactions.

"I think approaching any creative process with [making fandoms happy] would be a mistake that would lead to probably the exact opposite result," Johnson said in the Radio.com interview. "Even my experience as a fan, you know if I’m coming into something, even if it’s something that I think I want, if I see exactly what I think I want on the screen, it’s like ‘oh, okay,’ it might make me smile and make me feel neutral about the thing and I won’t really think about it afterwards, but that’s not really going to satisfy me."

Johnson explained that he wants to "shocked" and "surprised" when he watches movies. "I want to be thrown off-guard, I want to have things recontextualized, I want to be challenged as a fan when I sit down in the theater," he added.

"What I’m aiming for every time I sit down in a theater is to have the experience [I had] with Empire Strikes Back, something that’s emotionally resonant and feels like it connects up and makes sense and really gets to the heart of what this thing is and in a way that I never could have seen coming," he continued.

Early reactions for The Rise of Skywalker hit the web on Monday, and some critics thought the film tries to fix the mistakes made by The Last Jedi. Laura Prudom, deputy entertainment manager at IGN, felt as though director J.J. Abrams was trying to achieve an "unnecessary course-correct" from the previous film.

We'll see if fans agree when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters on December 20.

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