'The Last Jedi' Director Responds To Backlash Over Shirtless Adam Driver Scene
<p>He certainly isn't the first shirtless Jedi...</p>
Updated April 21 2020, 4:41 p.m. ET
If you've seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson's latest installment in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, you may have been caught off guard by Adam Driver's shirtless Kylo Ren in a scene with Daisy Ridley's Rey. (By the way, before you get any further we should warn you: There will be spoilers in this post; if you haven't seen the movie and don't want to know what happens, seriously read at your own risk. This has been a PSA.)
Johnson, the film's writer and director, told PEOPLE the scene was not gratuitous:
It’s all about those Force connection scenes. The keyword being intimacy. And the idea that this was a way to just, why not step that up? The idea that, what’s even more uncomfortable having a conversation face to face with a person you don’t want to, is if they’re half-naked during it, while you’re having to do it. And so it was just another way of kind of disrobing Kylo literally and figuratively a little bit more, and pushing that sense of these conversations becoming increasingly more intimate.
Though some fans didn't care for the scene, others had a different reaction. One fan who has heard criticism of the shirtless moment was quick to remind people about the infamous "Slave Leia" scene that features Carrie Fisher tied up in a gold bikini.
And Johnson knew Driver was ready for it, so he felt it made even more sense to put the scene in (and based on the thirsty tweets, we know that there were a lot of people who agreed). The director explained, "Adam looks so damn good because he’d been training hardcore for the past six months for those fight scenes. I’m like, ‘Eh. He looks so good. We should put him up there.’"
h/t: Entertainment Weekly