Remember that Favor that Rian Johnson Asked of JJ Abrams?

On May 4th, 2017, it was widely reported that Rian Johnson had revealed he asked a favor of J.J. Abrams. The original ending had Rey, Chewie, and BB-8 going to Ahch-To to find Luke. Rian Johnson asked J.J. if he could leave BB-8 with the Resistance, and instead have R2-D2 go on the Falcon to Ahch-To. It seemed to make sense at the time that R2-D2 could be reunited with Luke, but we obviously now know exactly what Johnson had planned.

In one of the more emotionally touching scenes from The Last Jedi, R2 plays back the original holo-recording of Leia's plea for help to Obi-Wan Kenobi. It's a pivotal moment for Luke, and it seems this convinced him to stop being a schmuck and do something to aid the Resistance.

Interesting to think what would have happened instead, if Rian did not make this request in time for J.J. to make the adjustment. It's also possible J.J. could have said, "You know what Rian? I'll do whatever I feel like I wanna do. Gosh!" and out of spite, killed off R2-D2 completely. But anyway, how could Johnson have maintained his storyline ideas without R2 being on Ahch-To? Maybe Luke could have found the training remote, which isn't as emotional, of course. Han's gold dice could have done it, as they ended up being pretty pivotal to ending. Or maybe he could have just had a flashback rush when he entered the Falcon cockpit about all the good memories he had with his Rebel friends.

It turns out, it worked beautifully.

So I wonder if J.J. had any special requests of Rian Johnson. He could have asked to have Nien Nunb be one of the Resistance survivors, so that he could co-pilot the Falcon one more time with Lando to save the day in IX. Or maybe he had asked to have Leia die so that he wouldn't have to worry about how to handle it, and Rian just said, "You know what, J.J.? I've got my own trilogy to worry about. Figure it out yourself, you jerk!"

None of that seems likely, but we'll see.

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