Gwendoline Christie Helped Develop Captain Phasma’s Backstory for ‘The Last Jedi’

If you needed any further proof that Disney rushed into production on these new Star Wars movies without really bothering to plan anything out, take this new story for example. Captain Phasma—that cool looking Stormtrooper commander with the shiny suit played by Brienne of Tarth—had absolutely zero backstory until actress Gwendoline Christie and The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson sat down and figure one out.

While speaking with IGN recently, Christie confirmed that the character hadn't been properly fleshed out prior to filming the sequel, so she and Johnson got to work on retrofitting her with a history...

"Rian and I did have long conversations about this character and who she was, and I was utterly delighted in how willing he was to listen to my ideas and really thrilled to exchange them with him and hear his," said Christie. "He really is a master writer and director, and I think we've seen that in the films that he's made but I think that we truly will see that in the depths to which he goes in The Last Jedi."

I get that this shouldn't be an issue as many, many, many Star Wars characters were merely ciphers until the writers of the various Expanded Universe comics and novels fleshed them out, but we've really gotta stop creating characters on the fly like this. It kinda cheapens the whole experience when a writer or writers will just create some character they think looks cool and then leave it up to somebody else to figure out who that character is. 

Having said that, not every Star Wars character needs a backstory...