The Editors of Entertainment Weekly - ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY The Ultimate Guide to Star Wars Updated & Revised: Inside The Last Jedi

Episode VIII
The Last Jedi

Reys courage is tested, Luke Skywalker returns, and the galaxy bids farewell to Leia Organa as the late Carrie Fisher marks her final Star Wars screen role.

Rey (Daisy Ridley) meets her hero Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on the isolated Ahch-To.

Perhaps the only thing that is more unsettling than meeting your enemy is coming face-to-face with your hero.

Thats where the Star Wars saga left us at the end of The Force Awakens, with Daisy Ridleys Rey standing atop a craggy, windswept island, holding out Luke Skywalkers long-lost lightsaber to the man she knew only as a legend. But in The Last Jedi , out Dec. 15, 2017, she actually has much further to go to find the warrior who inspired all those old stories.

This isnt the Luke shes heard about. Its not the one we know either. This is a broken man. One who would have preferred to stay lost. And he feels the same way about that lightsaber. The fact that Luke says, I only know one truth. Its time for the Jedi to endI mean, thats a pretty amazing statement for someone who was the symbol of hope and optimism in the original films, Mark Hamill says of his character, referencing a quote from the films first trailer. When I first read it, my jaw dropped. What would make someone that alienated from his original convictions? Thats not something that you can just make up in an afternoon, and I really struggled with this thing.

Luke definitely does not give Rey the kind of warm welcome he once received from his mentor Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness) in 1977s original Star Wars, and this rejection brings up Reys abandonment issues. As a child, she was ditched on Jakku by unknown parents and left for years to become a lone-wolf scavenger. But lately she has grown accustomed to making fast friends, like BB-8, Finn (John Boyega), Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). Even the murderous Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) became fascinated by her strength and resilience after kidnapping her. Regardless of everything else, shes been welcomed, Ridley says. No one ever really turns away from her. That changes when she arrives on Ahch-To.

Lukes brush-off makes Rey miss the gruff charm of Han Solo, Ridley says, taking us inside the head of her character: Oh my God, this other man that I lost within a couple days was somewhat of a father figure. Now hes gone, and instead Im with this grumpy guy on an island who doesnt want me here.

To be fair, Rey is placing huge expectations on Luke. She arrives on an island on the planet Ahch-To, site of a primitive Jedi temple, not to become a hero herself but to shove Skywalker back into the fight. I dont think one girl, whom he doesnt know, turning up with a lightsaber is gonna make him go, Oh s---, yeah, of course Ill get back into the action, Ridley says. Well, sure, except...

Does he not know her? Hamill teases. As Rey charts a course for her own future in Episode VIII, a big part of that will be discovering her own past: Who is connected to her? Where did she come from? And why was she cast away? As she tries to pick up her own pieces, she may find they fit together well with the remnants of Luke Skywalker.

The hero theme of The Last Jedi hit writer and director Rian Johnson when he began thinking about picking up that lightsaber himself and continuing the saga where The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams left off. The 44-year-old filmmaker ( Looper ) grew up on George Lucass space opera, but hes not just a kid making up stories with action figures anymore. This is for real. There was a meta layer: Im showing up on-set and meeting my heroes and working with them, Johnson says.

That meant he had to play rough with his life-size toys. Star Wars always begins with A long time ago... , but it never ends with happily ever after. There has to be conflict, trauma, scars. For heroes to stay interesting, they cant still be the same heroes they were decades before.

Johnson inherited a Luke Skywalker who had banished himself, but apart from nebulous hints in the Abrams film of a Jedi academy gone terribly wrong, he didnt inherit much in the way of an explanation for the characters disappearance.

The very first step in the writing of this was figuring out why Lukes on that island, Johnson says. We know that he is not a coward. Hes not just hiding because hes scared. But we also know that he must know his friends are in danger. He must know the galaxy needs him. And hes sitting on this island in the middle of nowhere. There had to be an answer. It had to be something where Luke Skywalker believes hes doing the right thingand the process of figuring out what that is, and unpacking it, is the journey for Rey.

Just as The Force Awakens echoed plot points from the original Star Wars, The Last Jedi follows some patterns from The Empire Strikes Back. A young, aspiring Jedi goes off to find an old master; the Resistance is being hammered into submission by the First Order, while a squad of good guys heads off on a mission to a glamorous locationnot Cloud City on Bespin this time but the casino metropolis of Canto Bight on the world of Cantonica. (Think Las Vegas, if Nevada were its own planet.)

Finn, Boyegas redeemed ex-stormtrooper, is leading that part of the quest, but like Luke... he doesnt really want to. Finn also becomes part of The Last Jedi s never-meet-your-heroes theme after befriending Rose Tico, a Resistance mechanic played by Star Wars newcomer Kelly Marie Tran.

Everyone in space, throughout the galaxy, would have heard about the young Jedi who discovered her powers and defeated Kylo Ren, and the young former stormtrooper who helped save the day, Boyega says. Hes a hero to people like Rose, who fight for the Resistance because their homes have been destroyed by the First Order.

Finns boast to Han Solo from the previous adventure has come true. When Rose first meets Finn, he is a big deal, Tran says. She, meanwhile, is not. Rose is a gearhead, a grease monkey, a behind-the-scenes fix-it drone, while her sister Paige (Veronica Ngo) is the dynamic onea Resistance gunner who fights on the front lines alongside Poe Dameron, Oscar Isaacs X-wing ace.

Even though [Rose] is good at what she does, shes not known, Tran says. Shes this nobody, this background player, which is what makes her interesting. Shes someone who is just like everyone else.

Finn likes the way she views him. As a good guy, a brave guy. Seeing himself through her eyes gives the wounded warrior something to live up to. When he meets her, Finn is trying to escape the whole war, Boyega says. Hes trying to leave, and she comes in and basically gives him a depiction of himself that wasnt necessarily true.

Finn and Roses mission to Canto Bight introduces another new character, known only by two letters: DJ. This shabbily dressed, laconic figure, played by Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro, is a slicerthe galactic version of a hacker. We just need a code breaker, and hes the best in the galaxy, Boyega says. Unfortunately hes very dodgy and only in it for financial gain. Which doesnt make him the person you want to trust.

This is a side of the lore that the movies havent typically explored. Most of the saga has been devoted to the mystical side of thingsthe Jedi, the Sith, the Force rather than the technological aspects Lucas placed within his sci-fi/fantasy. There are also usually clear lines between good and evil, but the uncertainty over where DJ stands has a simple explanation: Hes neither. To him, the heroes and the villains arent enemiestheyre opponents. Until theres something in it for him. Tran calls Del Toros performance coiled and disturbing. When I was on-set with that character, I felt like there was a tiger in the room, and I always had to be watching, she says. At any moment he could do something, and I didnt know what.