WARNING: The following contains minor spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, in theaters now.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker director J.J. Abrams is delving deeper into the movie's pioneering same-sex kiss that gave the long-running sci-fi franchise the biggest LGBT moment in its 42-year history.
Speaking to MovieZine, Abrams said he'd always wanted it to be a subtle moment in The Rise of Skywalker's background. "It just felt like in this one scene of celebration, it felt like an opportunity to show [an LGBT kiss] without it being heavy-handed or making too loud of a deal," he explained.
Although many had championed John Boyega's Finn and Oscar Isaac's Poe to couple up, the LGBT kiss was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in the movie's climax between Amanda Lawrence's Commander Larma D'Acy from The Last Jedi and another female pilot.
"Part of the whole experience was to see a same-sex couple have a moment together that was explicitly saying in this galaxy, everyone is there and is welcome," Abrams added. "It doesn’t matter your sexual preference, your race, your species, whether you’re organic, whether you’re synthetic — Star Wars is for everyone."
"And knowing that there hadn’t been a representation like that, it doesn’t take away from anyone," he continued. "It just shows that Star Wars is for all of us."
While the galaxy far, far away has become more diverse with Disney's sequel trilogy, Star Wars has previously been accused of not fairly representing minorities. And even if the expanded Star Wars lore has included LGBT characters like The Last Jedi's Admiral Holdo and Star Wars Resistance featuring the gay couple of Orka and Flix, the movies have been slow on the uptake. Elsewhere, Ron Howard's Solo: A Star Wars Story established the fan-favorite Lando Calrissian is pansexual, although there's simply an implied relationship with the robotic L3-37.
The same-sex kiss, meanwhile, has received plenty of buzz, especially since being pulled of Dubai showings of the movie and just sneaking past censors in China. However, even if critics have called out Abrams for sweeping such a milestone moment under the carpet with two minor characters, at least The Rise of Skywalker takes it one step further to potentially usher in a new era of LGBT representation for the franchise.
Directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong'o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, Keri Russell, Matt Smith, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams and Carrie Fisher, with Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant. The film is now in theaters.