I have never been shy about expressing my love for Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I published my four-and-a-half star review for CinemaBlend the day the critic embargo lifted, and I stand by every point I made: from my appreciation of the unexpected plot twists and visual style to my lukewarm feelings about the Canto Bight storyline. That being said, since seeing J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker and witnessing all of the ways that the final film in the Skywalker Saga tried to reverse all of the changes Johnson made, I have wondered about what kind of communication that went down between the two directors as The Last Jedi was developed – particularly in regards to the role/non-role ultimately played by Andy Serkis' Supreme Leader Snoke.
Thanks to Rolling Stone, that relationship has now been clarified. A new interview with Rian Johnson is principally about the second season of Poker Face (now available to stream in full with a Peacock subscription), but the filmmaker is also asked about the discussions he had with J.J. Abrams in the making of The Last Jedi and the shocking fate of Snoke. Watching The Force Awakens, one might get the sense that the villain is being set up as the true big bad of the sequel trilogy... but Johnson felt it was more dramatic for him to act as a stepping stone for Adam Driver's Kylo Ren:
