[The following contains spoilers for Game of Thrones season 8, episode 3]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson poked fun at the fan backlash against his movie with a snarky comparison to Game of Thrones. Star Wars fans had high expectations going into 2017’s The Last Jedi, but writer-director Johnson in many ways went again those expectations, leading to a lot of online complaining from fans who felt they’d been cheated out of their perfect Star Wars experience.

Among the biggest surprises waiting for fans in The Last Jedi was the sudden and shocking death of Snoke, the mysterious character set up as the new trilogy’s apparent main villain in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Many fans had concocted elaborate theories about who Snoke really was and how he might connect to other important characters and events in Star Wars canon, but all those theories went out the window when Kylo Ren unceremoniously sliced Snoke in half with a lightsaber, leaving Kylo as the trilogy’s apparent Big Bad headed into Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Snoke theorists reacted with anger to the character being rendered unimportant after so much build-up, but Johnson stood by the decision (and all the rest of the decisions he made that angered fans).

Over a year after The Last Jedi established its reputation as one of the most divisive works in current pop culture, director Rian Johnson is still sparring with angry fans on Twitter. Johnson unleashed his latest shot after Sunday night’s big Game of Thrones episode, which saw the series’ supernatural villain The Night King being killed off in shocking - and some might argue anti-climactic - fashion. In a Twitter post, Johnson made a snarky comparison between The Night King’s demise and the demise of Snoke, which of course led to a new round of sometimes vicious replies. See Johnson’s tweet below:

Johnson’s tweet of course makes reference to the “Your Snoke Theory Sucks” meme that he participated in ahead of The Last Jedi. Many fans were angry with Johnson for mocking their theorizing at the time, and from his Twitter replies, it seems the anger has not died down much over time.

Fans indeed had many theories about The Night King also, and the role he might play in the final few episodes of Game of Thrones, including a major theory guessing that the character would skip the Battle of Winterfell entirely and head to King’s Landing for a surprise attack on Cersei Lannister and her mercenary army, and another even wilder theory positing that Bran Stark and The Night King were in fact one-in-the-same. But ultimately, The Night King was not that complicated of a character, and in fact his plans were quite straightforward (and easily guessed by Jon Snow and company). Many fans were pleased when the seemingly all-powerful Night King was killed by Arya Stark with a well-placed knife thrust through a weak spot in his armor, but others complained that the final moment for the once-menacing villain failed to live up to expectations.

After The Night King met a demise similar to that of Snoke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, causing many fan theories to fall apart, it’s not surprising that Johnson would respond with a bit of subtle trolling. Clearly, Johnson still enjoys having fun with disappointed fans, and won’t stop gently prodding them anytime soon.

More: Star Wars 9 Theory: Snoke Was Actually Palpatine All Along

Source: Rian Johnson

  • Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker Release Date: 2019-12-20