The Director and the Jedi

This is an insightful and very well made documentary with great work from director Anthony Wonke. Also it contains great original music by Antony Partos. The positive aspect of it, is that you get a lot of inside in the art of filmmaking, working with actors, set design, animatronic puppets and the process of film shooting in general.

What's interesting about it is that watching the development of this movie you get the feeling that, although this was a huge production, it was made as if it was a low budget personal project by a single person. It is apparent that this project was literally handed almost to its entirety to Rian Johnson, as he wrote the story, the script and was in control of every aspect of the production, even the title! At some point you can't help it but wonder: How is it possible that a major production of the most popular franchise ever existed was handed in its entirety to a single person, a director who had previously made two or three low budged films, and had no connection to Star Wars or LucasFilm prior to this? Additionally it seems that the director had no cooperation or accepted any input by anyone related to LucasFilm previously, like story groups, people from the extended universe, actors, filmmakers, of even the screenwriters and director of the previous film "The Force Awakens", J.J. Abrams.

Kathleen Kennedy tries to explain this at some point by stating the following: "George Lucas created something and even now people are still trying to figure out, what was it that he tapped into that resonates still today? I think, part of it is that the ideas inherent in the story telling were meaningful to him and consequently they were to a lot of other people. So we have to be authentic to that process. Every single person that steps into the Star Wars universe has to ask themselves: Why is this meaningful to me? That's what is interesting about the contribution about that Rian is making. Every single decision is personal to him."

But was Star Wars really such a personal project to Lucas? If you think about it, it was THX 1138 and American Graffiti that were actually Lucas's personal projects. Star Wars was a classic fantasy Sci-Fi adventure with heroes and villains with a very clever story, great characters and special effects, which massively exceeding its scope and became a worldwide cultural phenomenon. And even if Star Wars was personal to Lucas, it is not personal anymore. Today it is a huge franchise with many divisions, with a supermassive following with a single heartbeat and enormous expectations.

However, the new LucasFilm decided to disregard this massive following and the audience expectations and made a conscious choice of turning episode 8 into a personal project by a single guy. Without collaboration, extensive discussion and teamwork by members of the established community of Star Wars, how would they know that this movie would capture the essence of what makes this effective and appealing to the audience? Well I guess they didn't seem to care about this.

It's interesting to note that even in this documentary, which was overseen by the Last Jedi production team, the fact that Mark Hamill strongly disagreed about the treatment of his character could not be concealed, neither be overlooked. Mark Hamill is an actor who has been defined by and carried this character on his shoulders for more than 40 years. He has been interacting with Star Wars creators and fans for all his life. Sure, he is correct to say "It's not my character to decide". But one would think that he is probably one of the most capable persons alive, able to capture the essence of, what the audience value about, what they treasure and expect from this character.

Instead, by the choice of LucasFilm, the fate of Luke, a character cherished and beloved by millions all over the world, was exclusively determined by a 43 year old guy from Maryland. Whether this was a good choice or not, the future will show.

Finally, anybody can see that throughout this documentary there is a sense of gloominess, as if this is covering something really sad that happened. Is it the music which sometimes is melancholic? Is the passing of Carrie Fisher? Is it the evident frustration and wretchedness of Mark Hamill during this production? Whatever it is, it doesn't help but make you wonder. What if LucasFilm had taken a different approach? What if other people were involved with this production, people who could genuinely capture the pulse of the Star Wars fans. This trilogy and these characters could have had a different fate.

In terms of a behind the scenes look at a Star Wars film, I feel this documentary is definitely worth a watch for how they did all of the sets and effects alone. It was a monumental task to design 200+ sets with such a small turn around for some. If you're at all interested in the technical side of filmmaking, or are just a big fan of practical effects, then this documentary will be well worth your time.

The sheer scale of it all really amazes me. Moments and effects I thought for sure had to be CG just based on their complexity had been hand crafted all along, just going to show how much effort the team was willing to put it.

One thing I do wish had been explored more was the writing. It's no secret by now that Mark Hamill and Rian Johnson really disagreed on how Luke was going to be portrayed in the movie, but at the end of the day the doc really only covers the broad strokes and leaves a lot to be inferred.

And on the subject of things I wished we'd seen more of, Carrie Fisher was without a doubt the biggest missed opportunity in the whole thing. I understand that during the filming of this they still expected her to be around for one more movie and her sudden death wasn't something anyone could have accounted for, but given everything I really wish we'd just gotten more moments with her on set, or more interview clips in the end. What's there is still really good, but I'd just been hoping she'd be more of a central focus.

That having been said, Mark and Rian were clearly going to be the main event all along, and even despite my earlier gripe I feel the doc managed to give both of them their due. From all the fun moments with Hamill on set, to the amount of work Rian put in with the actors, you really get to see both shine when they're in their element.

If The Last Jedi left a bad taste in your mouth, I don't think there's much here you're going to enjoy, but to anyone else I'd reccommend watching this.

This doc, to me, was nothing short of fantastic. Rarely do we get to see the ins and outs of the process quite like this. My appreciation for this film and those who made it possible have only been deepened by it. If you, like myself, enjoyed The Last Jedi, I'm certain you will be pleased with this documentary. If you, like many others, were less than impressed by the film, I would still recommend watching it. It may not change your opinion on The Last Jedi, but it will hopefully give a much better understanding behind the passion and dedication that made it all possible.

Misleading title. I was hoping for two hours of uncut footage of Mark Hamil and Rian Johnson yelling at each other about what Luke Skywalker's character should be, but it was just a normal behind the scenes documentary. It was well made but it didn't offer any insight into the creative differences between Hamil and Johnson that we didn't already know. You can probably skip this one and just watch the YouTube compilation of all the times Mark Hamil tried to warn us about The Last Jedi. It's a lot shorter and much more entertaining.

I'm a big film buff, and I always watch the BTS features, an hour and a half long documentary was amazing, and it showed all element of creating the film, not just the stunts of action scenes, creating what can only be called one of the best BTS looks into any movie.