When Disney and Lucasfilm decided to revive the Star Wars film series, they hired J.J. Abrams to get the ball rolling with The Force Awakens, and looking at the movie's critical and commercial performance, the relaunch was incredibly successful. Last December, The Last Jedi picked up immediately after The Force Awakens, but Rian Johnson's first contribution to a galaxy far, far away not only felt tonally different from its predecessor at times, it also included a number of twists that polarized moviegoers. Whatever your opinions about The Last Jedi are, it certainly distinguished itself as a unique entry to the Star Wars canon, and Domhnall Gleeson, a.k.a. General Hux, was pleased with how Johnson's vision for the movie turned out, particularly concerning his character. Gleeson explained:
It worked in a completely different way to how it worked in the previous film, and I think that's really cool. It takes real imagination and confidence to see what happened before -- I mean JJ knocked it out of the park with VII -- then have the confidence to say 'I'm not just going to copy what JJ did, I'm going to develop my own thing.' I just thought that was fantastic. And not unexpected I suppose, or shouldn't have been, because Rian is so distinctly his own filmmaker.
Domhnall Gleeson's Hux was among the many new main characters The Force Awakens introduced to the Star Wars universe in 2015, and he had an expanded role in The Last Jedi as he led the efforts to exact revenge on The Resistance for blowing up Starkiller Base. While reception to Hux was more mixed this time around due to the humor surrounding him and his repeated humiliations, Gleeson had no issue with his character's portrayal. But even looking beyond Hux, Gleeson's comments indicate that he liked how Rian Johnson used not only made sure The Last Jedi didn't feel like a duplicate of The Force Awakens, but also used it to steer this film series into new territory. Clearly the higher-ups at Lucasfilm agreed, because last year, it was announced that he will oversee a new Star Wars trilogy that will be separate from the Skywalker saga.
Although The Last Jedi was met with positive reception from critics, within the more passionate side of the Star Wars fan community, the debates continue about the movie's more controversial elements, including Snoke being abruptly killed off (and without revealing any of his backstory beforehand), Rey's parents being revealed as simply junk traders, and Luke Skywalker Force projecting himself from Ahch-To to Crait, among other things. The Last Jedi ended with the few surviving members of The Resistance escaping on The Millennium Falcon, and with Luke's sacrifice, they can now rebuild and become stronger than ever. While Domhnall Gleeson hasn't seen a script for Episode IX yet, he did mention during his interview with Radio Times that he's hoping that the next movie, which J.J. Abrams is directing and co-writing with Chris Terrio, will give Hux even more comedic moments.
The current Star Wars trilogy will conclude when Episode IX is released on December 20, 2019, but before that, the franchise will wind the clock back for Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opens on May 25.
