Transcribed from Rian Johnson’s Q&A with Collider on Jan 31st, 2018.
Please credit me if you’re sharing my transcript elsewhere!
Steven Weintraub: I think we all love the fight sequence [between Rey and Kylo and the praetorian guards]. But after Snoke is killed, I want to talk about shooting that sequence and rehearsals and how you decided where the camera was going to go and the use of red… I want to break that shit down. Talk about the writing of that sequence and talk about what was fun about it.
Rian: That sequence was fun on several levels, like the fight stuff was really fun, the design elements with that set—that was one of my favourite sets because it’s one of the few sets that’s entirely practical: the throne room, the reflective floor, and we actually stretched red fabric all the way around and so when we walked on to that set, it looked really the way it does in the movie. It was so striking and beautiful. Rick Heinrichs our production designer did an amazing job with it.
And then it terms of the scene that happens before it, it was fun with the actors because it’s a scene where each one of them has—it’s fun also figuring out shot-wise who’s perspective you’re with at certain points—because each one of them thinks something different is happening in the scene, and just working it out, both with the writing but also with the coverage, that the audience is getting that as clearly as they possibly can and getting the information when they’re supposed to.
Even though Adam spends 80% of the scene kneeling like this looking blankly, apparently, he’s not. I spent a lot of time with Adam going through what he knows when, what his agenda is when he walks in, at what point does he make the decision [of] ‘Here’s my chance,’ what is he thinking there at different points in the scene.
Steven: What I wanted to ask if I could ask a follow-up, when he walks in that room, does he know what he’s going to do? Or is he making that decision in the moment?
In my mind, he walks in there knowing basically that he is going to betray Snoke but he doesn’t know yet exactly what the mechanism is and what his opportunity is going to be.
But he’s gone in there with the intent of, whether it’s now or whether it’s later or whenever it is, when he brings Rey in there, he’s had that connection with her and what he says in the elevator… from that, in my head I thought, ‘Okay, he knows he’s going to do this but he doesn’t know how yet’ and when he sees that opportunity with that lightsaber next to him and sees Snoke distracted and realizes he can give this an attempt, he goes for it.
Steven: I believe there’s dialogue there where he says, “I know what I have to do”.
Yeah, yeah.
Steven: I love that sequence but talk a little bit about the action sequence and the fight because I think I speak for everyone when I say that sequence is amazing and that lightsaber sequence is just awesome.
All the credit goes to the actors and the stunt guys because we had an amazing stunt team, and then Adam and Daisy worked their butts off for the entire prep and the entire shoot up until that point just training and training and training, and what that meant was that they were in such great shape—I mean you could see how great in shape Adam was in the movie—they were in such great shape that I didn’t have to put the camera in a long lens and jangle it around and chop it up in order to cover up [like] ‘oh they’re not really fighting.’ They could really do it.
And that meant for me, that I could design the shots so that it was covered the way that I loved seeing fight scenes covered, like a Jet Li movie or a Jackie Chan movie where you can just put a wide-angle lens on and you could just see the actual fighting going on, which was great because that also meant that with wider shots you could then make all the fiery stuff in the background and everything part of the design of it much more than if you had to be in tight and faking it.
So the ability to do that visually is entirely because Adam and Daisy just really really went for it.
It’s so insignificant but that bit when Rey kills a guard from Kylo/Ben’s side always catches my attention. They’re back to back fighting against whomever pops up in front of them and then suddenly we see her turning and eliminating someone from his viewpoint too. It was only for a second, but a nice glimpse of them standing right next to each other in battle (and in life).
In this moment she chose to open herself up to an attack so that she could protect him
Exactly. I love these two so very much. I can’t get over just how awesome this all was.
So, Ben touched Rey’s hand and had a vision and was like, Welp, my overgrown gremlin of a master of several years now needs to die, because I am no longer single. Rey touched Ben’s hand and had a vision and was like, Screw this grumpy old Jedi almost murderer, I’m getting a new outfit and some Maybelline Great Lash, crossing the galaxy, and shipping myself to that boy like space FedEx. …And y’all wanna tell me this ain’t a love story???
