At the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) is duped by Finn and Han Solo and forced to let the Starkiller base force field down. Only to be dumped in a trash compactor, just moments before the planet-sized base is blown to pieces by the Rebel Alliance. We know (from the comics) that Phasma escaped the dumpster rather quickly, but Rian Johnson almost kept her in the dumpster when the planet exploded in the script for The Last Jedi.
The trailers for The Last Jedi shows FN-2187 squaring-off against Phasma, and director Rian Johnson had an amazing exchange happen between the characters. Johnson says that the scene was going to play out very different. In an interview with io9, Johnson says:
“When I was first writing, I got really excited because I’d written a line where she said ‘I was stuck in that garbage thing for three weeks’ and he gives her a look and says ‘What did you eat?’” Johnson explained to io9.
…but then he had the realization you probably just had.
“Then I realized, no, [Starkiller Base] blew up,” he said. “If she was in the garbage chute, that means she blew up with the planet.”
Johnson goes on to say that:
“We needed her alive here,” Johnson said. “Mostly because I wanted to hang out with Gwendoline Christie.”
“I think they put her into the garbage shoot and it’s taken a long time for that smell to wear away, and I think just, obviously there are the circumstances but the smell you see,” Christie told ComicBook.com. “When you can’t get rid of a smell that can absolutely plague you. That’s not something I personally experienced, but it can make you volatile, and I think she’s off the chain now, with Finn and the smell, she’s lost control.”
Star Wars: The Last Jedi drops in theaters on December 15.
