Three Outlaw Samurai

Rian Johnson convened his crew at Lucasfilm and screened Japanese samurai films, not as homage, but as architecture. Hideo Gosha's Three Outlaw Samurai taught him how to frame three characters moving through combat with absolute clarity. Kurosawa's Rashomon showed him how to take the same event and show it fractured through different perspectives, each revealing different truth. The Luke-Kylo flashback sequences are Rashomon remade as Star Wars. Both films are on Criterion Channel.