image: Johnson at the Star Wars: The Last Jedi premiere in Los AngelesDisney has handed The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson the keys to its biggest cinematic franchise, giving him the opportunity to develop a new, original movie trilogy set within cinema`s most famous galaxy far, far away. This is significant not only because of what a great opportunity it is for Johnson, but because of the infamously troubled time Disney has had with Star Wars directors.Josh Trank, Colin Trevorrow, and the directing duo of Christopher Miller and Phil Lord have all been let go, while Rogue One director Gareth Edwards was reportedly sidelined in favor of screenwriter Tony Gilroy when the production underwent extensive reshoots. Will things turn out better for Johnson?Depending on who you ask, either Star Wars is very lucky to have Rian Johnson, or cinema as a whole is worse off for the director being tied to a big blockbuster franchise for the next however-many years. But Johnson`s talents are exactly what Star Wars needs; looking over his short filmography shows that, as a director and writer, he`s capable of producing consistently great work across different genres and modes. His work in TV also shows how comfortably he can step into an existing world.Despite having only directed three films, Rian Johnson is an obvious fit for Star Wars (assuming that The Last Jedi is as good as we want it to be, at least). Let`s take a look at his career so far to see why.Brick (2005)Many argue that Brick is Johnson`s best work. It`s a neo-noir detective story about a high school student looking for his troubled ex-girlfriend, with a lot of long shots of bodies in motion. It`s a film where Johnson seems to be constantly experimenting, figuring out what he can do with a camera, when to go wide and when to go close. The experiment is a huge success--it`s gorgeous to look at. It`s also the film that essentially kickstarted the next stage of star Joseph Gordon Levitt`s career, and he would go on t ...
|
