Books A/V The Art of Star Wars The Last Jedi

So I received the book this morning and it's great since it's really the only in-depth look at the behind of the scenes of these movies in the absence of Making Of books. I'll say the major difference between this book compared to the one for TFA is that it has less Blue sky phase. It seems like RJ was really confident very early on what he wanted in his movie. At the beginning there's another snippet of the early visualist meetings, especially about Luke/Kira/Jedi temple,her training and Han's death, which was one of my favorite part but then there's a time jump to Rian Johnson's vision but it's ok because now we know when they decided to make the villain Han and Leia's son. The book also has more comments from Rian Johnson in this, I don't remember seeing any from JJ or Kasdan in the Art of TFA, only the artists. Overall, a very good book if only a little bit less out-there ideas compared to TFA but that doesn't make it bad or anything.

 

It's really lovely that they've decided to openly discuss George Lucas' influence instead of making it something fans speculate and stew about for years.

 

I was kind of surprised at how involved in the first few months of TFA's development he was. It wasn't even talked about in the Art of TFA but from this, it seemed like he was relatively directly overseeing it until Abrams got involved. It also seems like the Rey and Luke storyline from both TFA and TLJ had its origins in Lucas's initial ST treatments, given some of the things quoted from Arndt here. On that topic, it's also interesting that in the earliest concepts for TFA, the Rey/Luke training was going to be in TFA before Arndt decided it took too much out of the movie and needed to be held back for VIII.

Also on the topic of writing, Johnson had a much clearer notion from the start of how the movie was going to go, and the shooting script was not much changed from the initial draft (even always had the title The Last Jedi). The major changes mentioned in the original script draft versus the final:

• The opening space battle was not during the evacuation of D'Qar, and instead of a dreadnought, the big ship was going to be a First Order tanker; also, Finn was fully healed and was Paige's pilot, and would be with her when she died
• No DJ character, and an entirely different Canto Bight sequence: the Master Codebreaker had a much larger role, and roped Finn and Rose into helping him pull off a heist against an insect warlord called the Butcher of Brix, which goes awry when his flying security droid sucks all of them off into jail. Finn and Rose break out, and went to the Supremacy only with BB-8 and no fourth person.
  
• No final duel between Rey and Luke just before she leaves
• None of the flashback scenes to Luke and Ben

Other things of note:

• Gareth Edwards plays one of the Resistance troopers in the trenches on Crait. It seems like most of those trench soldiers are cameos from Lucasfilm/TLJ crew.
  
• Mention that the only reason Phasma exists is because relatively late in TFA's development, Kennedy saw the concept art (originally a Kylo Ren design) and demanded it get used; Abrams then quickly wrote her into the script. Also some reference to a few of the art team not being happy with Han, Luke, and Leia never getting a reunion.
  
• Confirmation that there is, in addition to the Story Group, a "brain trust" that helps the movie teams develop stuff that feels like the Star Wars setting. The trust includes Filoni, John Knoll, and Doug Chiang.
  
• There's a really bizarre early concept art for Luke with him having a beard, shaved head, padawan-type braid, and forehead tattoo
• Luke's sunken X-wing, along with Snoke's cloaked attendants and some of the Canto Bight aliens (and Snoke's golden robe, as we know from Art of TFA) were all reused concept art developed but unused from TFA. Also one or two pieces developed but unused for Rogue One. So seems like the concept art books are a good way to get hints at what might be used in the future.
  
• Holdo's first name seems to have come from Johnson
• Rey seeing the mirrored vision of herself was the first idea Johnson had for the movie
  
• Snoke's throne room was inspired by the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks; Leia's outfit on Crait was inspired by Blade Runner; and the Falcon's escape pod was inspired by the CS Lewis book Perelandra
• There's concept art for additional Jedi students from Luke's temple, with the artist noting they specifically avoided the prequel-era look; however, all the concept seemed to show the students being young.
  
• Hidalgo and Chee sent the art team a six page PDF on the imagery of the Jedi Order from earlier Star Wars works for use in Luke's Jedi library. I also didn't realize that the Jedi tree is supposed to be vaguely in the shape of the Rebel Phoenix.
  
• Han's golden dice are lettered in a script developed specifically for it, which they talked about supposed to be the Corellian alphabet. So I'll be curious if it gets used again in Solo.
  
• The implication at least is that the AT-STs and AT-ATs seen at the end are supposed to be the leftover Imperial models, not new updates (not sure if the visual guide or anything else states otherwise). Also some great concept art of both the huge AT-AT landing barge, and these scuttle-crab walkers. The little shuttle that Finn, Rose, and BB-8 take to Canto Bight is also supposed to be just the pilot module of the Resistance transport seen in TFA.
  
• Johnson talks a lot about his influences (all of which are fascinating, especially the non-SW stuff from Skywalker Ranch), including owning a lot of very early Star Wars books. Additionally, not only The Illustrated Star Wars Universe by KJA, but amusingly enough, McQuarrie's art for The Star Wars Holiday Special, get specifically namedropped as sources used to help develop the look of TLJ.

Overall I did like Art of TFA better just because, as @Ancient Whills says, it goes a lot further out into alternate ideas and dropped plot developments, but that's also just the nature of TFA's development versus TLJ's, and this was still a really excellent book. Not only for the glimpses, but a lot of the art is stuff I wish I could blow up and hang in my home.

 

Now I'm sold. I haven't been by my Barnes and noble yet but I'm picking this up today or tomorrow.

 

So Leland Chee is still around. I was wondering what had happened to him. Unlike his partner-in-crime Pablo, we don't hear much from Leland anymore.

 

damn Snoke is from the black lodge mystery solved

 

A few other things that stick to mind:

• The art team really wanted to incorporate the Rebel Starburst icon into the island somehow before finally settling on the shape of the tree. At various points it was going to be the symbol in the reflecting pool (before the Prime Jedi was chosen) or on the cover of Luke's books. So I don't know if it's been established elsewhere, but the TLJ team at least definitely thought of the Rebel insignia of originally being a Jedi symbol.
  
• Speaking of Jedi symbols, another early concept was that the Jedi island was going to feature a window with the same design as the window of the Emperor's chamber from ROTJ, with the idea being that Palpatine had adopted an ancient Jedi symbol for his throne room.
  
• There is also a page of discussion of the symbolism and thought that went into the mosaic of the Prime Jedi (or "Jedi Prime" as he's called by the artist), with it supposed to have been from before the light and dark side split. Especially given some of the stuff from the Art of TFA on Luke's views of the Force, I'll be curious if this gets adopted into the canon. Notably the dark parts of the Prime Jedi mosaic are not supposed to be the dark side, but the aspects of the Force holding all things together.
  
• In the earliest concept art for TLJ, Luke's library was actually a building, not a tree.
  
• The earliest concept art for Holdo had her as an alien. Also, her placeholder name during development was "General Hard-Ass". Early concept art for Rose had her as a blonde, which is strange to see now.

 

Could you elaborate about the Jedi Prime being pre-split? And what it means about the dark parts not representing the dark side but the Force binding everything together?

 

This is interesting, because this is the symbol of the order:

And it never once occurred to me that wasn't the same thing as the Rebel starbird.

Which would make sense, given his throne room is in the Jedi temple, now.

This is very in line with what Luke says about the dark side, anyway.

I would have liked to see this. I'm sorta sad it was only three books, even if it wouldn't have made sense for there to be a lot more.

Same for Finn. I wonder if concept artists default to white because they think of it as a "blank slate," but that actually conceiving of a character as being anything else would feel to them like locking in casting.

 

Some early concept arts for the Jedi Temple.

Spoiler

Too bad it wasn't in the movie.

Some of theses designs are very prequelish if you ask me.

 

Well, if Doug Chiang did them, he also did a lot of the Episode I concept art.

 

The middle one is really the only one that feels very prequel-ish to me. The top one more draws from the early McQuarrie stuff for Jabba's palace, and the bottom one is supposed to be a more mystical fantasy type thing where the Force power is so great that things just generally levitate on the island. Kind of like Dawn of the Jedi, come to think of it.

I liked the idea of Palpatine's ROTJ throne room having a design connection to the First Jedi Temple when paired with the abandoned TFA idea of having the DSII wreckage fall into an ocean, and Rey diving into the now-underwater throne room to find the map to Luke (and hence the First Temple).

Actually speaking of links with abandoned TFA concept art, there's also concept art of Rey and Kylo's (masked) face blending together, which definitely seems like it continues on from the TFA concept art of Anakin's Force-ghost phasing into Vader.

 

Finn being with paige when she died... dear lord how on earth could they have decided to move past that. Instead we get him spouting off "INEEDTOFINDREYDIDIMENTIONREYYET" the entire first act. That time jump was a much better idea.

 

Where are you getting this from? The book says nothing about it being before the dark-light split, nor does it say the dark parts aren't the dark side. The Jedi are meant to be balanced.

 

can someone elaborate on what it does say

 

I haven't read the whole book, but the 'dark rocks holding everything together' is a reference to another mosaic design that wasn't used. All it says next to the final design is 'Yin-Yang' and a quote by Rian saying that it was difficult to land on a final design.

 

Rian discusses this: not only did the narrow time-gap make it unlikely for him to be recovered in time, it creates a bunch of storytelling pressures that you avoid if he's not there.

 

He recovers in the span of a day regardless in the final film.

 

Finn being with Paige is loaded with problems. #1 - how would he reset to court jester? Oh, maybe he reenacts Jar Jar's boom ball scene and accidentally destroys the Dreadnought. Unfortunately, he also knocks Paige out of the bomber in the process.

 

Spoiler: pic

He wasn't finished baking.

 

Baking? He was still in the marinade part of the recipe.

 

Sort of a brine.

 

I got this book as a birthday present yesterday and I paged through all Rey, Luke, Snoke, Kylo stuff briefly at the beginning of the book. I liked that they used an old Ralph McQuarrie sketch for Snoke's throne and the artist said something along the lines of "no need to reinvent the wheel."

This hypothetical sequence of events appeared in my head...

Lucasfilm Headquarters:
Rian Johnson: We are doing a Snoke throne room scene. I need an idea for a throne room.
Artist: Hey, here's this old Ralph McQuarrie sketch where he designed a throne room for Palpatine.
Johnson: Perfect! We'll use that. Next topic.

Elsewhere before the movie comes out:
Fan 1: OMG! Did you hear that they're using an old sketch for Palpatine for Snoke! What does that mean?
Fan 2: Well that obviously means that Snoke is blah blah blah.
Fan 1: Well I think Snoke is blah blah blah.
Fan 3: You're both wrong. Snoke is blah blah.

Reason 1,875 why your Snoke theory sucked: it was based on false assumption and connecting lines that were never meant to connect.
Although, it does beg the question if that kind of stuff crosses their minds during pre-production for some things and not others. I'm sure there are a lot of designs where things of the past are VERY intentional like Han's dice or new vehicles

 

McQuarrie was a good artist, but we've now had three movies in a row where a good chunk of the art direction was "let's just use the already-iconic designs that this one artist drew forty years ago and that have already been recycled a few times, and avoid anything too new." I hope at some point, which likely won't be until after IX, that we start getting movies whose directors aren't afraid to use imagery that doesn't keep going back to the same well.