Lucasfilm’s Story Group Dishes the Best Behind-the-Scenes Details from The Last Jedi

With a canon of comics, novels, video games and more, Star Wars has become an entire universe unto itself. You could spend hours combing The Last Jedi for hidden references and ties to the rest of the universe, but luckily Star Wars Show host Andi Gutierrez, and some very special guests, did it for you.

Leland Chee, Pablo Hidalgo, Matt Martin, and Rayne Roberts from Lucasfilm’s Story Group walked through some of the coolest details of The Last Jedi. If you didn’t spot the name of the horse running on the track at Canto Bight, thanks to Pablo Hidalgo, it was named Hoth Stuff. The creative minds also chatted about Admiral Holdo’s introduction in the comics – which have a ton of juicy depth if you haven’t read them. There’s also a more obvious callback to Rogue One in the film they discuss in case you didn’t catch it.

One of the best references was honoring the memory of Han. You probably caught the dice in the Millenium Falcon, but turns out there was a deleted shot from The Force Awakens that inspired director Rian Johnson. The show reveals that Harrison Ford actually hung the dice in the ship, but the shot never made it to the film.

One of the coolest parts of movies is the props, and there’s a story from The Last Jedi that reminds us what absolute super humans work on these films.  Within a week of shooting the scene in Luke’s hut on Ahch-To, the story folks brought him an idea to include a compass from Battlefront II. Nearly overnight, the prop department had made a real life version with a 3D printer, and it made it into the film.

The real hero of the entire Star Wars franchise is R2-D2. He’s a legend, and his callback to Leia’s holographic message is a spike the ball moment. The team actually recovered the original dailies from Carrie Fisher’s original performance to recreate that moment. They even thought to degrade the image more than the first time we saw it as it’s aged since first being transmitted.

The group goes into detail about the incredible sound design from BB-8’s best moments, to the deafening silence from Holdo’s heroic moment. It’s the most rich The Last Jedi discussion we’ve seen and definitely has the most insider detail. Settle in when you have 30 minutes and watch the whole thing.