Rian Johnson was “zero spooked” by some of the dismal responses to “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” the director wrote on X Friday. Johnson’s reaction was in response to outgoing Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy’s claim he “got spooked by the online negativity.”
Kennedy made a point of heaping praise onto the director.
“I think Rian made one of the best ‘Star Wars’ movies,” she told Deadline. “He’s a brilliant filmmaker and he got spooked. This is the rough part. When people come into this space, I have every filmmaker and actors say to me, ‘What’s going to happen?’ They’re a little scared.”
lol zero spooked, sorry https://t.co/1gWREzKxAO
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 17, 2026
Johnson tweeted, “lol zero spooked, sorry.”
The director was originally set to write and direct his own “Star Wars” trilogy following the release of “The Last Jedi.” The movie received largely positive reviews from critics and fans alike, though a portion of the audience responded negatively to Johnson’s portrayal of franchise hero Luke Skywalker.
In December Johnson told Polygon that his intent was to challenge the expectations fans had for the movie, and added that he knew fan pushback would be part of the process. “I was hoping for that — I wasn’t afraid of it per se,” he said.
Johnson continued: “Having grown up a Star Wars fan, I know that thing where something challenges it, and I know the recoil against that. I know how there can be infighting in the world of ‘Star Wars.’ But I also know that the worst sin is to handle it with kid gloves.”
“The worst sin is to be afraid of doing anything that shakes it up,” he also said. “Because every ‘Star Wars’ movie going back to ‘Empire’ and onward shook the box and rattled fans, and got them angry, and got them fighting, and got them talking about it. And then for a lot of them, got them loving it and coming around on it eventually.”
The post Rian Johnson Denies Report That He Was ‘Spooked’ by Online ‘Star Wars’ Criticism appeared first on TheWrap.
