Star Wars: The Last Jedi Director Reveals His Influences

Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson has revealed some of the films that had an influence on the upcoming sci-fi blockbuster. In an interview with Empire, Johnson said the movies Twelve O'Clock High, Three Outlaw Samurai, and To Catch A Thief each impacted him in different ways.

"Twelve O'Clock High was a big touchstone, for the feel and look of the aerial combat as well as the dynamic between the pilots," Johnson said. "Three Outlaw Samurai for the feel of the sword-fighting, and the general sense of pulpy fun. And To Catch A Thief was a great film to rewatch, for the romantic scale and grandeur."

For comparison, The Force Awakens director JJ Abrams said he was influenced by John Ford westerns, Akira Kurosawa's High And Low, and the films of Terrence Malick, according to CinemaBlend.

Also in Empire's new interview, Johnson said he's "in the thick of editing" The Last Jedi right now, after shooting wrapped up last summer. "It's taking shape and I'm very excited," he said. Earlier this week, Johnson shared a picture from the editing bay of The Last Jedi's title slate.

Johnson--who also co-wrote The Last Jedi--was asked what the hardest thing about writing dialogue for Star Wars is.

"I found myself constantly wanting to push modern idioms into the dialogue, and sometimes that can work, but you have to be very careful," he said. "If you go too far, you can break that Star Wars spell. The other challenge is the tech talk, which has to be simultaneously complex enough to sound real and conceptually simple enough to follow. The original films were brilliant at that."

Read the full interview here at Empire.

The Last Jedi arrives in theaters on December 15, 2017. It stars Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Laura Dern, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, and Andy Serkis. Carrie Fisher filmed her Leia scenes for the movie before she passed away in December.

The Last Jedi picks up immediately after The Force Awakens, but we don't know much about the story or what the mysterious title might have to do with it, if anything.