Rian Johnson Explains Why Obi-Wan Kenobi Wasn't in THE LAST JEDI and Says He Considered Using Lando

Over the past few days, I've been having a ton of conversations with people regarding Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Whether you loved it or hated it, the film has been a hot topic of conversation. During these conversations, there have been a few people who have had questions regarding Obi-Wan Kenobi and why he didn't show up. Then some people have brought up old rumors regarding Lando Calrissian's involvement. 

It's not a spoiler to tell you that these two characters are not in the movie, but I'm going to throw up a spoiler warner because some spoiler things are discussed.

In a recent interview with CinemaBlend, director Rian Johnson explains why he didn't want to bring back Obi-Wan Kenobi, explaining that it wouldn't have worked for the story:

"Believe me, man. I would have loved to have had Ewan McGregor in the movie but it was just a matter of storytelling. The original relationship with Obi Wan – obviously if Alec Guinness were still with us that would have made sense. But we never saw Luke ever interact with the Ewan version of Obi Wan, so there’s less of the emotional connection and it might have been a little odd."

That's completely understandable. It would have been weird seeing old Luke interacting with young Obi-Wan. In the end, the way things were handled in the film regarding bringing back old characters from the original trilogy was done wonderfully. It was so awesome to see Yoda back in action! Rian Johnson went into more depth about bringing this character back in a previous interview. 

In a separate interview with CinemaBlend, Johnson revealed that at one point during the development of The Last Jedi, he actually considered bringing Lando into the story and even had a rough plan for him, but ultimately he decided not to use them. He explains:

“Of course I’d love to see Lando. In terms of Lando, I briefly considered — would he work in the Benicio [del Toro] part, [DJ]. I don’t think you would ever buy that Lando would just completely betray the characters like that and have that level of moral ambiguity. Cause we love Lando and you’d come into it with that [expectation]. And also, DJ, the character that they met, for the purposes of Finn’s character, had to be a morally ambiguous character that you’re not sure about, that you’re guessing about, and we already know that we love the character of Lando so it just wouldn’t have played in that part story wise.”

Again, it all comes down to not being able to effectively work the character into the story. But I have seen some interesting suggestions online about how Lando could have been involved. One of them is that he could have taken the place of Admiral Holdo, who sacrificed herself to save the Resistance. Lando in that role might have actually made sense, but then Laura Dern wouldn't have been in the movie. Regardless of that, Johnson ultimately decided against using him. Johnson went on to explain: 

“You have to write organically. Otherwise it leads to contrived places. Which is just to say it’s all about the needs of the story and there’s only so much room on the table for… favorite characters to be in the movie.”

What are your thoughts on Johnson deciding against using these characters in the movie?