Sanderson praised “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”, but pointed out one plot issue

Brandon Sanderson, the creator of the sprawling Cosmere universe and the author of the Mistborn series, has repeatedly said he loves “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” However, even a fan had one criticism that’s hard to get out of your head after your first encounter with it. The storyline with the so-called “casino planet” of Canto Bight, in the writer’s view, remains a textbook example of an unnecessary detour that throws off audience expectations.

The comment was made in 2022 at a public panel at New York Comic Con, where Sanderson shared storytelling advice and discussed narrative pacing with the audience. The context was purely about the craft: how to hold a reader’s and viewer’s attention without losing the story’s focus.

Unnecessary detours—and three chapters on the casino planet

Speaking about extraneous elements, Sanderson gave an example instantly recognizable to any Star Wars fan. He suggested that listeners watch for the moment when a plot starts to get bogged down in unnecessary details and detours that aren’t obvious to the audience.

“Watch for extraneous plot elements, unnecessary informational inserts, and other stray things—when you spend three chapters on a casino planet and nobody understands why you ended up there.”

Interestingly, the scenes on Canto Bight caused particular confusion among younger audiences, for whom the very idea of a physical casino with roulette wheels and racing feels like an anachronism. A generation raised on online gambling perceives games of chance very differently: not as lavish halls with live music, but as mobile apps and bonus promotions. 

Over the past ten years, the iGaming industry has radically lowered the barrier to entry, offering free spins, promotions, and lots of no-deposit bonuses. It’s precisely this digital reality that makes the visual language of Canto Bight feel alien to viewers who aren’t even thirty yet. Still, the problem Sanderson pointed to lies not in the setting, but in the story structure: it doesn’t matter what the casino looks like if the viewer doesn’t understand why the characters ended up there.

Respect for a director who took risks

At the same time, Sanderson isn’t out to bash it. He specifically noted that he has deep respect for director Rian Johnson and understands how difficult it is to experiment within a franchise of that scale. What’s more, the writer admitted that he himself has fallen into the same trap more than once in his own novels.

“We like to joke about ‘The Last Jedi,’ but I have enormous respect for Rian Johnson because he did a lot that was new and unfamiliar for ‘Star Wars,’ and that, as we know, isn’t easy. I ran into almost the same thing in my books, when beta readers said, ‘Why are we even on this side quest?’ And you have to remember that a big part of reader psychology is this: if they don’t understand why the side quest is necessary—especially when the characters themselves have made it clear they don’t want to be there—that becomes a problem.”

When a character says one thing but the story does another

Sanderson highlighted the key mechanism that makes a viewer or reader start to get irritated. If a character has stated their goal, but the narrative drags them in the opposite direction, it leaves the audience with a lingering sense of “we’ve been pulled off track.” The general principle is simple: a mismatch between the hero’s stated intention and the plot’s actual movement feels like a waste of time. A specific illustration is no less telling: Finn, whose arc is built around the desire to find and help Rey, suddenly ends up on a completely different mission—one he shows no interest whatsoever in.

The problem, Sanderson says, runs deeper than a single unsuccessful episode. It’s tied to what expectations the author has “promised” the audience in advance—and how consistently they deliver on them.

“If, for example, Finn says, ‘My arc is that I need to find my friend Rey and help her,’ and the story replies, ‘No—you’re going to do this other thing,’ that will lodge in the reader’s mind. Watch my lecture on promises, progress, and payoff, because often you just didn’t set up the right promises. You did something, and the reader feels like the whole story is spinning its wheels, trying to get back to the main plotline—and that’s another kind of sluggish pacing.”

Sanderson’s overall view of the film

Sanderson’s attitude toward “The Last Jedi” remains positive. He values the director’s boldness and acknowledges that eight years of nonstop debate around the film speaks to its significance. However, the Canto Bight episode is still, for him, a telling example of a side storyline that derails audience expectations and slows the main plot’s forward motion.