• The Final Jedi filmmaker Rian Johnson revealed that he initially disliked George Lucas' Star Wars prequels.
• The director has since expressed admiration for the trilogy's thematic and technical accomplishments.
• Johnson additionally shared his ideas on J.J. Abrams' The Rise of Skywalker.

Rian Johnson is revealing new details about his relationship with the Star Wars motion pictures.

The Knives Out filmmaker mirrored on the backlash to his personal installment within the sci-fi franchise, 2017's The Last Jedi, in an interview with Rolling Stone revealed Saturday.

"Within the second, it's an advanced chain of reactions to it," Johnson mentioned. "It by no means feels good to have anyone coming after you on the web, and particularly coming after you saying issues that I believe I very a lot don’t agree with a few factor I made and put numerous coronary heart and soul into."

Nevertheless, Johnson famous that as a seasoned Star Wars aficionado, he fully understood that disdain for sure entries of the franchise is widespread within the fandom. "On the similar time, having grown up a Star Wars fan in the end let me contextualize it and really feel at peace with it in many alternative methods," he defined. "Simply remembering, going again on one degree to arguing on the playground about Star Wars as a child."

The Looper director additionally remembered being fairly harsh towards George Lucas' trilogy of prequel movies upon their preliminary launch between 1999 and 2005. "I used to be in faculty when the prequels got here out," he mentioned. "My mates and I had been Prequel Hate Central. Everybody was ruthless on the time."

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Johnson went on to say he thinks the consensus across the prequel movies, which has turn out to be way more favorable for the reason that trilogy's debut, illustrates the psychology of Star Wars fandom.

"Now the prequels are embraced," he mentioned. "I'm not saying that as a facile, 'Oh, issues will flip round in 20 years, you'll see!' It's extra that this push and pull, and this hatred to stuff that appears new, that is all a part of being a Star Wars fan. Tradition-war rubbish apart, I believe that important a part of it’s a wholesome half."

Johnson beforehand praised the prequel trilogy in a 2020 social media submit, celebrating the movies' political subtext and formal accomplishments. "Lucas made a stunning seven-hour-long film for youngsters about how entitlement and worry of loss turns good individuals into fascists, and did it whereas spearheading almost each technical sea change in fashionable filmmaking of the previous 30 years," he wrote on X.

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Elsewhere within the interview, Johnson shared his ideas on 2019's The Rise of Skywalker, during which director J.J. Abrams concluded the Skywalker Saga in a fashion that many followers considered as a retraction of Johnson's concepts in The Final Jedi.

"Once I noticed the film, I had a good time watching it," he mentioned. "In my perspective, J.J. did the identical factor with the third that I did with the second, which isn’t digging it up and undoing — simply telling the story the best way that was most compelling going ahead. Which means not simply validating what got here earlier than, however recontextualizing it and evolving and altering because the story strikes ahead."

He continued, "I didn't really feel resentful indirectly. However you're speaking a few film made by my mates, with my mates in it. I sit down to observe a film, and it's a Star Wars film. It's all stuff I really like. I'm not the one to return to for a hard-hitting critique. You possibly can go to YouTube for that."

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