Here’s why Rian Johnson didn’t include the Knights of Ren in Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Star Wars: The Last Jedi didn’t really give a decent explanation as to what happened to the Knights of Ren, and director Rian Johnson explained why.

First seen in Rey’s Force vision at Maz Kanata’s castle, the Knights of Ren appeared to be some sort of masked goon squad that served under Kylo Ren. Most of us guessed that they were survivors of the attack on Luke Skywalker’s Jedi academy, and expected Star Wars: The Last Jedi to show us what happened that day in its entirety.

And it sort of did. We did see what led Kylo Ren to become so angry that he killed innocent padawans, and we learned that some survived, too. But as to what became of them, Rian Johnson mostly left the audience to fill in the blanks themselves. While we know that Snoke trained at least one other apprentice, there are some exchanges between Snoke and Kylo Ren that seem to suggest he was the only survivor at that point (or at least the only one who mattered).

Unfortunately, their fate remains a mystery as of The Last Jedi, simply because Rian Johnson had too many characters to deal with, apparently. While on the Empire podcast, he explained:

"We have a very full movie already there literally was just not room for another element. I guess I could’ve used them in place of the Praetorian guards but then it would feel like wasting them because all those guards had to die. And if Kylo had some kind of connection to them it would’ve added a complication that wouldn’t have helped the scene… Truth is, I just didn’t see a place for them in the movie."

For the same reason, Johnson diminished Captain Phasma’s role in the film as well. Personally, that strikes me as really lazy filmmaking, just based on simple math. Why should Johnson be able to add new toys to the bin (Vice Admiral Holdo, DJ, Rose Tico) if he couldn’t handle the ones that already existed? The cynical answer is that he wanted to make his own movie instead of faithfully continuing the trilogy, which is all well and good.

I liked The Last Jedi in spite of its flaws and inability to move the story forward. But Johnson could’ve accomplished a lot more with this film, and the fandom as a whole would’ve probably been a lot happier with it. Perhaps, he should’ve cut out unnecessary shirtless fodder and weird milking scenes and added more exposition.

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Of course, J.J. Abrams could still bring the Knights of Ren back in Episode IX, though. Now that Kylo Ren is the new Supreme Leader, he may need to get his old band back together.