You have questions, I’ll answer them, starting with the biggest, ‘why?’
In the winter of 2017 a film was released to a strange reaction from the ‘internet’, at once it was heralded as bold and exciting, and awful and franchise-breaking. I wasn’t particularly interested at the time on going to see a 150 minute movie that might not hold my attention or offer me anything, even if it might also blow my mind and do the dishes, so I never got round to witnessing Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi on the big screen. And as twitter does, over the next month details of the film went from cryptic to outright, I got little tastes of what the heck the film actually was. I knew, thus, that someone lands on the red-dust planet from the trailer, licks the ground and says ‘salt’. I knew there was a shot of a ship coming in to land but it was actually an extreme close-up of an automated iron. I knew that Mark Hamill’s character receives the baton from the previous film, only to fling it over his shoulder in a giant middle finger to the earlier installment. And I knew that Adam Driver got his top off (This was more through gifs on Facebook from some of my thirstier friends, and I don’t blame them for that one bit)
As the year of 2018 wore on and the film became easier for people to see, the details increased and thus I got deeper snapshots of little moments, but still no actual plot. Now I knew there was a female character played by an actress that did one episode of a TV show I like, who was hounded off twitter by the internet. I discovered Laura Dern’s character had pink hair and couldn’t not shoot a blaster and make the sound effects in the takes. On one revealing podcast-listen-on-a-train I discovered that Benecio bloody Del Toro was in the film. That was a weird one. And a fun jaunt to a casino planet. Oh, and of course, Porgs.
But I still had no clue what the plot of the film was. The obvious story movements from Episode VII were, according to the rabid fanbase, burnt down, and thus everything changed. It was kinda fun to not know. And so, egged on by some friends, I thought I’d write down what I thought was the film. I wrote a treatment in July, over 3 hours. That could have been where the story ended, some guy comes up with what he assumes is the Star Wars film that is out but isn’t and wow, what imagination he maybe has or something. That would be a real lack of commitment to the bit.
No
Instead, between July and April, between work, writing, drawing, recording, comedy, editing, life, death, beyond and procrastination, I have written the script for what I think The Last Jedi might be. However, I don’t remember the characters’ names. I mean some of the new ones. Even watching The Force Awakens 6 months into the venture didn’t help, so some people (sorry Domhnall Gleeson) don’t get character names. I hope it doesn’t break the experience as you saddle up and begin reading the screenplay to Star Wars: Episove VIII – The Last Jedi – But Not The One You’ve Seen, which page-length-wise is about on par with the runtime of the film (A small bit of research just to check)
Of course, as a writer, I couldn’t just throw together some ideas and call it a film, there’s much more to it, inherent long-running themes and motifs, arcs and contemplations beyond the space-fighting genre. If you appreciate the hard work, simply sign me to an agency that is willing to package a deal without letting me have any monetary gain in the proceedings.
Oh, Reel Original 