Pablo Hidalgo and Rayne Roberts explain how The Last Jedi’s production codename “Space Bear” came about and what each character was named.
Luke / Mark Hamill = Space Bear Yoda / Frank Oz = Baby Bear Rey / Daisy Ridley = Goldilocks Kylo / Adam Driver = Grizzly Bear Poe / Oscar Isaac = Smokey Bear Hux / Domhnall Gleeson = Paddington Bear
“When he peeks into her mind, there’s something profound that happens bewteen them, and the way Larry (Kasdan) use to describe it was that there’s this energy between them. Like this kind of almost…and I don’t want to say it, but something a little bit more that you would expect. And I think it’s fun to see it play out”
– Rayne Roberts from the Lucasfilm story group about Reylo
Lucasfilm: In the interrogation scene, something profound happens between Kylo and Rey. There’s an a [REDACTED] energy between them. They literally get memories and skills from each other during that scene.
“[Luke] is basically tailoring this projection to have maximum effect on Kylo,” Johnson explained. “He knows that Kylo’s Achilles heel is his rage, and so that’s why he kind of makes himself look younger, the way Kylo would’ve last seen him in their confrontation at the temple, and that’s why he decided to bring Kylo’s grandfather’s lightsaber down there – the lightsaber that Kylo screamed at Rey, ‘that’s mine, that belongs to me.’” As far as Johnson’s concerned, Luke believes that Anakin’s lightsaber will have a much more visceral impact on the erstwhile Ben Solo than Luke’s own green blade.
But why did Kylo fall for his uncle’s Force Illusion when he saw Anakin’s lightsaber split in half right in front of him? Because, Johnson pointed out, he didn’t actually see it.
“We as an audience saw that… The truth is, we see the lightsaber split in half – Kylo sees a blinding flash of light and is knocked unconscious, and then Rey takes the lightsaber away before he wakes up,” he said. “So if you really want to dig into it and get an explanation, you can say that he doesn’t 100 percent know what happened to the lightsaber.”
Listen, I knew this – we knew this – there was no other reason he would appear like that. He was deliberately triggering Kylo and I KNOW Kylo was on the wrong side, Luke was saving the Resistance – but it’s SO FUCKING heartbreaking to get confirmation of it.
‘‘Is it true that you turned down Mark Hamill’s invitation to have lunch with him before you guys started making The Last Jedi?’‘ No, that’s not true. I heard that too […]. He did stopped me and said ‘‘I don’t know what your process is but I’m around if you want to talk about the character’’ and I was like ‘‘Oh, great’’. That’s what Mark is like. He’s generous, if you want to talk about it… Which I took to mean ‘‘I’m not above not talking about it if you want to’’.
“I don’t know that he ever comes to terms with the relationship of the light and dark within him. I think it’s still always an internal battle. That’s the thing that Rian understands in his characters—that people are never all one thing, even though we’d like them to be. There’s a lot of grey in the world and especially within ourselves. That’s an interesting thing that I find fun about playing that character. He’s never all one thing.”
“Just as there are directors who can take up a lot of air and space,” J. J. Abrams told me by phone, “there are actors who can do the same. I could imagine a version of an actor whose process is about getting attention, or about being more the subject of the process than a sherpa to get us all there. But none of what Adam does has anything to do with anything other than doing his best work.” Abrams continued, “You think, Well, isn’t that what actors should do? Shouldn’t they be mesmerizing? Shouldn’t they bring a magic? Shouldn’t they bring a profundity and a complexity and a depth and an authenticity? Of course, that’s what you hope for. But you don’t always get the person that has the emotional or intellectual depth to make something better, or to make something more interesting, or deeper, or surprising. Adam does, almost as a rule. The gift of working with him, the fun of it—while it is very serious business for him—is seeing what that business results in. It’s that sort of alchemy of having an incredible face, an incredible understanding of the human condition, a great awareness of what the text and subtext of the scene may be, and a willingness to explore it.”
Reylo Source 