'Star Wars: The Last Jedi': Snoke Mystery, Captain Phasma, Canto Bight & More

A slew of new information from Star Wars: The Last Jedi arrived this week from Vanity Fair's big cover story on the sci-fi sequel. Since their reporter David Kamp spent so much time hanging around Lucasfilm and talking to director Rian Johanson and the cast of The Last Jedi, he set up a Reddit AMA for fans to get any more details that might not have been included in his full report.

While answering questions, Kamp discussed how prominent Supreme Leader Snoke will be in The Last Jedi, when we might expect an announcement about the third Star Wars spin-off, and more. Furthermore, Vanity Fair also revealed some extra details about Captain Phasma and the new location known as Canto Bight.

We'll explore all of these Star Wars The Last Jedi details one-by-one.

One question that David Kamp asked Rian Johnson was about the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke. We don't know much about the character other than he's responsible for manipulating Kylo Ren and is the commander of the entire First Order. Kamp tried to find out who or what Snoke is and whether the character will be explored. This is what he said in the Reddit AMA:

"I asked Rian Johnson about Snoke—Who/what is he?—and Rian was fairly up front in saying that Snoke is not a character he particularly gets into in TLJ. Hmmm."

It sounds like the mystery surrounding Snoke will still be intact throughout The Last Jedi, but hopefully we'll get a little more info about the villain.

You might be thinking to yourself that the answer to this question is an obvious one. You probably assumed that Captain Phasma was human simply because you knew it was Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie under the chrome armor and helmet in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. However, behind the scenes, there was never a definitive decision as to who was under that shiny Stormtrooper gear.

Pablo Hidalgo spoke with Vanity Fair and explained the mystery of Captain Phasma and how only recently was it determined that the character was human:

"I think a big part of the allure of her character was just wondering what might be underneath. 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?'"

Honestly, I never thought there was anybody other than a human under that armor, but I wonder how many other fans didn't make that assumption. If Phasma was revealed to not be human, there would need to be a pretty good explanation as to why the First Order decided to employ a non-human, since they seem to have inherited the Empire's policy of being a culture that values humans above aliens.

Anyway, Captain Phasma is human, and as we've seen in the new photo of the villains from Vanity Fair, she has a new weapon. Pablo Hidalgo says it doesn't have a fancy name yet, but it will. The staff is retractable and collapses into an easy to carry, smaller shape. Apparently this weapon has a significant relevance in Phasma's character history, which will be explored in a new comic book coming in September to bridge the gap between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.

Yesterday's new photos from Vanity Fair also brought us new details on a Star Wars location called Canto Bight. It's a casino city where the upper class citizens of the galaxy hang out. Rian Johnson called it "a playground, basically, for rich assholes," and now Pablo Hidalgo has given us some more insight into the location as well.

You would think that the galaxy might be in a state of fear after the New Republic planet Hosnian Prime was blown up by the First Order. But Hidalgo explains that there's a whole sect of the galaxy who try to stay as far away from the war between the Resistance and the First Order as possible:

"What we're going to see in The Last Jedi 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."

So Canto Bight is full of a bunch of rich cowards. The question is what do Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) have to do there as part of their mission? We'll find out soon enough.

Finally, after Star Wars: The Last Jedi this year, the only movies on the schedule for Lucasfilm are the Han Solo spin-off in 2018 and Star Wars: Episode IX in 2019. That has left fans wondering what the next Star Wars spin-off will be and when it will be announced.

Thankfully, David Kamp heard from Kathleen Kennedy that fans should expect an announcement "fairly soon" about what the next installment in the A Star Wars Story franchise should be. We presumed that meant that Disney's D23 convention in July is when the announcement will be made, and that sounds about right with Kathleen Kennedy saying:

"We haven't identified it yet, but yes. We have a couple of things right now that we're circling, and we'll make a decision between the two pretty shortly. It's probably for 2020, and we will make a decision by June."

If you want to read the full Reddit AMA with David Kamp, check it out over here. That's all for this round of updates on Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the future of Star Wars. Stay tuned for more soon.