Page 52 - Star Wars Insider #181

CINEMATIC FORCES

galaxy and friends they love, yet for the most
10
part they fail in their immediate quests. Poe
Dameron doubts the strategy of Vice Admiral
Holdo, and goes so far as to commit mutiny
against her. Finn and Rose’s mission to disable
the hyperspace tracker only further endangers
the Resistance because of DJ’s betrayal. And Rey’s
efforts to convince Luke to join the fi ght against
the First Order appear to fall short and cause her
to leave Ahch-To without the fabled Jedi Master
aboard the Millennium Falcon.
This is not to say The Last Jedi is a meditation
on failure. For, despite their initial stumbles, Poe,
Finn, and Rey survive and are reunited to fi ght
another day. They may have made errors, but
their resolve is not broken. Neither is that of
Gosha’s three outlaw samurai. As they stroll

down the road in the film’s last shot, they will no
doubt venture into another village where they
will be called upon to protect the weak. Even
when facing the constant
savagery of tyrants, these
samurai have not lost faith 08 / Like Sakura
in Three Outlaw
in trying to make the world Flash
Samurai, the
a better place, and neither devious DJ is not
have our Resistance heroes. all he seems.
09 / Poe’s mutiny Gordon
is an extension of
Three Outlaw Director: Mike Hodges
Samurai ’s study
on heroism. (DINO DE LAURENTIiS Co. 1980)

lash Gordon may not have been one of the
films Johnson drew direct inspiration from,

F but he has stated that The Last Jedi shares
its particular brand of wonder and imagination.
In fact, the 1980 fi lm has a historical connection
to the Star Wars franchise. Before making Star
Wars, George Lucas approached mega-producer
Dino De Laurentiis about obtaining the movie
rights for Flash Gordon, which originated as a
newspaper comic strip drawn by Alex Raymond
before garnering even greater popularity as radio,
08 film, and television series. When De Laurentiis

refused to sell him the rights, the director decided
that if he couldn’t make Flash Gordon, his own

film would at least capture the same otherworldly
adventure and optimistic wonder that fi lled the
panels of Raymond’s comic strip.
At the time, De Laurentiis was busy trying to
lure two of Italian cinema’s greatest directors,
Federico Fellini and Sergio Leone, to direct a
Flash Gordon movie, but nothing came of his
attempts. In the wake of the success of Star Wars,
De Laurentiis eventually produced a big-budget
feature film version in 1980, hiring Mike Hodges,

the filmmaker behind British gangster fi lm Get
Carter (1971), as director, with a screenplay by
09
Lorenzo Semple, Jr., the mastermind behind the

52 / STAR WARS INSIDER