Unlike most film-set photo shoots, there are more than slick costumes and stunning locations on display in Vanity Fair’s exclusive images from Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Annie Leibovitz traveled to the rocky shores of Ireland and the closely guarded Pinewood Studios set to photograph some never-before-seen characters and confirm a rumor or two in the process. Lucasfilm has mastered the art of secret-keeping—remember that Rey didn’t hold a lightsaber in any The Force Awakens marketing— but is ready to pull back the curtain on some of The Last Jedi’s mysteries in these exclusive photographs from the Summer issue of Vanity Fair.
To help point out some significant details you might have missed, VF.com asked Pablo Hidalgo— Lucasfilm Story Group creative executive and, in the words of The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams, “keeper of all arcane details of Star Wars”—to explain some of the portfolio’s hidden depths.
One of the biggest surprises waiting in the pages of Vanity Fair is the first look at Laura Dern’s magenta-haired Admiral Amilyn Holdo. Hair this color is not commonly seen in Star Wars films, but Hidalgo confirms that Dern’s character, a high-ranking officer in the Resistance, is human. The magenta hair, he says, has to do with her “cultural background.” When quizzed on whether this is the first time a human in the films has adopted such an unnatural hue, Hidalgo responded like a walking encyclopedia with a sense of humor, “I know there was a platinum blonde in Jabba’s Palace whose hair color was probably suspicious, but only her hair dresser knows for sure.”
But as much as Hidalgo knows about every nook and cranny of the Star Wars universe, he and Lucasfilm did not reveal any extra details about Benicio Del Toro’s enigmatic character—not even his name. This is the Last Jedi character most shrouded in secrecy. But Vanity Fair’s David Kamp was able to wring a few hints out of director Rian Johnson in our Summer cover story, which you can read here.
Though not much is known about either of these new characters, it looks as though Dern’s Admiral Holdo would fit right in with the high-class occupants of Canto Bight—The Last Jedi’s upscale answer to the Mos Eisley cantina. It’s especially odd to see the upper echelon of the galaxy partying in The Last Jedi considering that the capital planet of the New Republic, Hosnian Prime, was blown up by the First Order’s Starkiller in The Force Awakens. Are these well-dressed patrons just fiddling while Rome burns?
“What we’re going to see in The Last Jedi,” Hidalgo explains, “are some people who have managed to carve out a life for themselves where they can live apart from the galactic struggle. They found a way to live above it or beyond it. There’s a class of wealthy that have helped build all sorts of loopholes in society that will always ensure that they’ll survive or even thrive no matter what else is happening out there.” As Johnson summed it up in our cover story, Canto Bight is “a playground, basically, for rich assholes.”
And though that chrome-plated trooper suit is, by now, firmly a part of the Star Wars iconography, this portfolio is the first time Gwendoline Christie’s Captain Phasma has shown her face. “I think a big part of the allure of her character was just wondering what might be underneath,” Hidalgo explains of keeping the Game of Thrones star helmeted in the first film of the current trilogy. “It was only relatively recently that we wanted to commit to the idea that there was a human under there. The Force Awakens left that question, but as we got further into Last Jedi, as well as some other stories we’re thinking about with Phasma, we had to ask ourselves, ‘All right, do we agree there’s a human under there?’ ”
The definitely human Phasma is also sporting a slick new weapon which, Hidalgo says, “doesn’t have a fancy name yet.” (But it will—these things always do.) Unlike the weapons we’re used to seeing in Star Wars—lightsabers and blasters—Phasma’s accessory is a retractable pole arm that collapses into a smaller, easy to carry form should she ever find herself shoved down a trash compactor again. This weapon, Hidalgo says, has a strong connection to Phasma’s history, which will be explored in a comic-book series out in September. “Her background,” Hidalgo hints, “is more low-tech than many would assume.”
Eagle-eyed Force Awakens fans may notice that Kylo Ren’s battle wound has, well, migrated since Rey slashed his face and won their lightsaber duel. Is this some kind of advanced Sith healing method? As a matter of fact, no. “It was my decision to slightly adjust it,” Rian Johnson tweeted at a fan after the first glimpse of Ren’s scar in The Last Jedi trailer raised some questions. “It honestly looked goofy running straight up the bridge of his nose.”
Star Wars fans got to know and love Carrie Fisher’s constant canine companion, Gary, during the press tour for The Force Awakens. Who can forget a dog that so easily steals the show on national TV? Gary’s appearance in this portfolio should come as no surprise—though you might need to look closely at General Leia’s skirts before you find him. But it’s Mark Hamill’s daughter’s dog, Millie, standing at his feet, that might turn heads. Millie was also a presence on the Episode VIII set and even crashed a panel or two this year at Star Wars Celebration.
Blink and you might miss a shiny bit of bling dangling from the ceiling of the Millennium Falcon cockpit just above Chewbacca’s head. The small pair of golden dice first made a brief appearance in A New Hope and then disappeared for 38 years before popping up again on our Force Awakens cover, where you can see them swinging between the “V” and the “A.” Why do the dice come and go? Hidalgo says it’s possible the production team simply forgot about them between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. When J.J. Abrams and his team looked back at footage in order to faithfully reconstruct the Falcon for The Force Awakens, the dice made their triumphant return.
But the official in-universe story of the dice has been bedeviling fans for decades. Yes, believe it or not, those little accessories have prompted numerous legends. Here’s the official one—probably. “The story that you would hear if you traveled to cantinas or watering holes around the Star Wars galaxy,” Hidalgo says, spinning his yarn, “is that those dice were involved in a game of Corellian Spike—a dice-using version of a card game called sabacc. Rumor has it Han won the Millennium Falcon [from Lando Calrissian] with those dice. Whether or not that’s just bar talk, I can’t say.” So will those dice and that fateful gambling showdown be making an appearance in the upcoming Han Solo prequel starring Alden Ehrenreich as Han and Donald Glover as Lando? “That’s in the future,” Hidalgo says coyly. “Ask me a movie from now.”
One of the more striking features of Skellig Michael—the real-life Irish island initially used as the location for Luke Skywalker’s new home on the planet Ahch-To—are the medieval monks’ beehive-shaped stone dwellings, visible in the final scene of The Force Awakens. As David Kamp outlines in our cover story, the huts were faithfully re-created on the (much more accessible) Dingle Peninsula for The Last Jedi. But what do those structures mean for the Star Wars universe? Are they the remains of the original Jedi temple that Luke was reportedly seeking? Or merely a local village? Turns out those huts belong to a race of non-Jedi caretaker inhabitants of Ahch-To that Rian Johnson told Kamp are “not Ewoks.” The design of the huts was dictated by the centuries-old structures on Skellig Michael, though Hidalgo says they’ve been given a few modifications to look “other-worldly.” But much of Ahch-To’s look is shaped by nature and our own crumbling history. Why mess with perfection?
The complete Annie Leibovitz portfolio, including portraits of Carrie Fisher posing with on-screen brother Mark Hamill and real-life daughter Billie Lourd, and the complete cover story by David Kamp can be found here. The Summer issue of Vanity Fair will be on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on June 1, and nationally on June 6. Readers in search of the full Vanity Fair–Star Wars experience, including all four covers, a commemorative poster, and early access to our digital editions, with lightsaber effects by Industrial Light & Magic, on May 24, can purchase here.
