New Star Wars: The Last Jedi Documentary Shows Rejected Droid Designs, Lightsaber Fights, And More

With the Blu-ray and digital release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi drawing close, Disney has released a sneak peek at one of the movie's most exciting special features. The Director and the Jedi is a feature-length documentary that takes fans behind-the-scenes of the film. If you don't want to wait until the documentary is made available digitally on March 13, you're in luck. The first 12 minutes can be watched right now.

In The Director and the Jedi, filmmaker Anthony Wonke follows The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson throughout the entire process of writing and directing the latest Star Wars film and reveals some very interesting secrets along the way--including concept art for a droid that never made it to the big screen.

In the clip, which you can watch above, Johnson and his team study the concept art of another ball droid, which is more mechanical than BB-8, before deciding it doesn't work for their movie. "I feel it looks too much like a droid. Too complicated, too robot-y, too Doctor Who," the director says of the unnamed droid that looks like some sort of space-age disco ball. "I feel like they gotta be classier."

While it's not confirmed in the film, it's entirely possible this particular droid was reworked in BB-9E, which was the Empire's BB-8 counterpart in The Last Jedi. With its all-chrome look, it certainly looks quite cold and colorless--unlike BB-8's white and orange paint job.

Elsewhere in the preview, Johnson rehearses dialogue with Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), choreographs lightsaber battles with his stunt team, and gives a peek at a much bigger scene involving the Caretakers on Ahch-To. In that particular moment, numerous Caretakers are seen dancing. It could be that this was simply done to entertain the cast and crew but it would have been nice to see more of the bizarre species in The Last Jedi--especially if they were dancing. Perhaps, that would give this new trilogy its own version of the Ewoks.

The Director and the Jedi will be included with both the digital and Blu-ray release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. You'll be able to but the movie digitally on March 13, but it won't land on Blu-ray until March 27.