It would be an understatement to say that director Rian Johnson’s ambitious Star Wars: The Last Jedi was a divisive film. Released in 2017 to glowing critical reviews but scathing reactions from a certain section of fans, The Last Jedi prompted a hasty course-correction from which the franchise never really recovered. But five years down the line, Johnson told Empire in a recent interview, he is “even more proud” of the film he made.

Johnson said that his goal was to understand the core of the Star Wars myth that had captured not just his imagination as a child, but that of an entire generation. Detractors of the film were particularly livid at its portrayal of the beloved Luke Skywalker, and actor Mark Hamill’s passive-aggressive comments certainly didn’t help. Hamill admitted that he had butted heads with Johnson about Luke’s arc in the film, which began with the character living in self-imposed exile, and ended with him sacrificing his life.

Johnson said that he “swung hard” with the movie, which until release had shown nothing but promise. In fact, the director was reportedly tasked with writing a treatment for the immediate follow-up, and was hired to direct a new trilogy of films (which ultimately didn’t materialize). He said that The Last Jedi isn’t merely a Star Wars movie, it’s a movie about Star Wars, and what it means to fans like himself. In his own words:

“I’m even more proud of it five years on. When I was up at bat, I really swung at the ball. I think it’s impossible for any of us to approach Star Wars without thinking about it as a myth that we were raised with, and how that myth, that story, baked itself into us and affected us. The ultimate intent was not to strip away – the intent was to get to the basic, fundamental power of myth. And ultimately I hope the film is an affirmation of the power of the myth of Star Wars in our lives… The final images of the movie, to me, are not deconstructing the myth of Luke Skywalker, they’re building it, and they’re him embracing it. They’re him absolutely defying the notion of, ‘Throw away the past,’ and embracing what actually matters about his myth and what’s going to inspire the next generation. So for me, the process of stripping away is always in the interest of getting to something essential that really matters.”

Leia Last Jedi
Image via Lucasfilm

RELATED: ‘Andor’s Adria Arjona on Her Relationship With Cassian Andor and the Way Tony Gilroy Created New Worlds and Characters

To combat the film’s divisive reactions, Lucasfilm brought Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams back on board to right the ship. But unfortunately for everybody involved, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker became the worst-reviewed installment of the main saga, and was classified as a box office disappointment despite making over a billion dollars worldwide. Following the tepid response to the film, Lucasfilm pivoted away from stories about the Skywalkers, and focused efforts on streaming content and standalone movies.

Johnson’s career, meanwhile, has flourished. He followed The Last Jedi up with his revisionist murder mystery Knives Out, which became a runaway hit at the box office and earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. He subsequently sold the rights to two Knives Out sequels to Netflix for nearly half-a-billion dollars. The first of the two planned sequels — Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery — will be released on Netflix on December 23. You can watch our interview with Hamill here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.