The Last Jedi<\/em>\u00a0teaser<\/a>whetted fans’ appetite, but since the full trailer and new poster arrived earlier this month, it\u2019s been a feeding frenzy of speculation. Fan speculation is running rampant\u00a0over whether or not Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) has gone over to the dark side (or perhaps that it’s Daisy Ridley’s Rey who is turning that way).<\/p>\nDirector Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman recently sat down to talk about the movie as part of Ireland Week \u2014 talks on culture, art and commerce taking place at locations including the Regal Theater at L.A. Live through Oct. 21. A significant portion of\u00a0The Last Jedi<\/em>\u00a0was shot at Ireland\u2019s UNESCO World Heritage Site Skellig Michael, which fans will remember from the final frames of\u00a0The Force Awakens<\/em>, which showed Luke\u2019s emerald-tower hideaway high above a roiling sea.<\/p>\n\u201cThat very last image of\u00a0The Force Awakens<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>with Rey holding the lightsaber out to Luke, that was so evocative. In every other case,\u00a0Star Wars\u00a0<\/em>movies jumped forward in leaps of time. I knew I was supposed to do that, but the last image was intriguing. I knew I wanted to know where we were going next,\u201d Johnson told the audience about the Dec. 15 release.<\/p>\nA behind-the-scenes video showed John Boyega and Oscar Isaac, as well as Ridley and Hamill, scampering up and down Skellig\u2019s steep hillside and shooting scenes in Oscar-winning production designer Rick Heinrichs\u2019 breathlessly cantilevered Jedi village, which was suspended 700 feet above the surf.<\/p>\n
Johnson said the best\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0movies tread a fine line between bubblegum and opera, but had little to say about\u00a0The Last Jedi<\/em>, noting only that his favorite ship is the A-wing, which the new film will have plenty of.<\/p>\nAfter the discussion, he sat down for an interview with\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter\u00a0<\/em>to discuss fan speculation about that new poster, how the film will recontextualize other\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0movies and walking up 600 steps just to get to work.<\/p>\nThe Jedi-village set looks like a monastery. Did you design it with the island\u2019s existing sixth\u00a0century monastery in mind?<\/strong><\/p>\nIt\u2019s a direct translation of it. Those domes, that beehive kind of design of the huts, is exactly what\u2019s on Skellig. And we moved the geography of them around a little bit to what we needed. But the design was taken straight from Skellig. We wanted to fit in with what was on the islands.<\/p>\n