Rian Johnson Requested a Mysterious Change to J.J. Abrams’ ‘Force Awakens’ Script
Happy Star Wars Day, everyone! We are only a little more than six months away from finally checking back in with Finn, Rey, and the gang in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Because Disney and Lucasfilm are such pros at keeping things secret, we have close to zero idea what is actually going to happen in the movie. That doesn’t mean we won’t try our best to decipher every little clue, though.
Rian Johnson told Entertainment Weekly that he asked J.J. Abrams to put one specific change in his screenplay for The Force Awakens.
Yes … The big [favor] was, I asked if R2 could come with Rey, and if BB-8 could stay behind with the Resistance. Originally it was BB-8 who went with Rey, which makes sense for the story in a way. But I asked, ‘Can you do me this solid and switch the droids?’
Well, well, well. Johnson doesn’t elaborate, and so we’re left to speculate about why this specifically was so important to him. It would have been fun for Rey to have been able to bring her buddy BB-8 with her, but it actually makes a lot more sense for R2-D2 to be there, just from a story perspective. First off, R2 and Luke have a deeper connection than has been delved into so far, since R2 was the one who had the rest of Luke’s map. R2 and Luke also go back quite a ways — R2, by now, is a very old droid. Maybe, if Kylo Ren ends up finding the three of them on Luke’s island, he thinks R2 could give him some information about his grandfather Darth Vader.
But, most importantly, it means that Rey is now alone. If she’d brought BB-8 with her, she’d have a companion of her own, but now that it’s her and a droid she’s only just met, plus a man she’s never seen before in her life (maybe), she has room to grow and evolve away from the comforts of home. Which is what Star Wars is all about.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi hits theaters December 15.