**SPOILERS AHEAD**
The end of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” left fans gasping, with Luke Skywalker finally appearing, and Rey holding out his lightsaber to him, before J.J. Abrams smashed to the credits Christopher Nolan style. When the scene picks up in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Luke takes the lightsaber in his hands and….throws it over his shoulder. It’s fascinating how the same scene plays so differently with two different directors — mythic in the hands of Abrams, deconstructionist in the hands of Rian Johnson. As it turns out, Abrams had to prune his scene as Johnson was putting together the story for his film.
Speaking with Empire last year, Hamill revealed the final scene of ‘The Force Awakens’ had a moment that had to be trimmed to ensure it made sense with what was coming next in ‘The Last Jedi,’ which Johnson had finished writing.
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“There was something that happened at the end of ‘The Force Awakens’ when I’m standing on the cliff,” he said. “I called Rian [Johnson] in a panic because it was all wrong. He said, ‘It’s okay, I spoke to J.J. [Abrams] and he’s taking that scene out.’ It just didn’t match up with what Rian had written.”
With ‘The Last Jedi’ opening in China this month, Hamill has revealed the tweak that was made at the end of ‘The Force Awakens’ to accommodate the story in ‘The Last Jedi.’
“When we were doing [‘The Force Awakens’], Rian said, ‘We might have boulders floating to show your Force emanating,’ so I was led to believe that I still had the Force and it was really strong in me,” he explained (via Digital Spy). “When I read [‘The Last Jedi’] before [‘Force’] came out, I said, ‘What?!” and called J.J. or Rian to say, ‘Are you guys aware of this? Have you seen a cut? Is there floating boulders?’ And they said, ‘No, we caught that and we worked it all out.’ ”
It’s fascinating stuff, but it also makes total sense, that with Luke Skywalker in exile and rejecting The Force, he wouldn’t be using it to move rocks around. In a clever twist by Johnson, it winds up being Rey who moves boulders in a crucial scene at the end of ‘The Last Jedi,’ helping the rebels escape the old resistance bunker on Crait.
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is now playing.