For The Last Jedi, writer / director Rian Johnson created the Star Wars casino world of Cantonica, and its city Canto Bight.
The planet is described by StarWars.com as a desert planet in the Cantonica system within the Corporate Sector of the galaxy’s Outer Rim Territories that was home to the casino city Canto Bight. The city was located on the shores of the Sea of Cantonica, an artificial ocean considered the largest in the galaxy.
Rian Johnson has spoken about how the planet and its casino were heavily inspired by the city of Monaco, the Monte Carlo Casino, and the Monaco Grand Prix Race.
To film the scenes for the movie, Johnson picked the town of Dubrovnik in Croatia which has previously seen major productions such as Game of Thrones use the cities remarkable landscapes for its own city of Kings Landing.
From 9th to 16th of March 2016, filming took place around Dubrovnik’s main street Stradun at a cost of 5 million euros per day, the most expensive shoot in Croatia to date. Other locations used in the shoot were Onofrio’s Fountain, the city walls, Rector’s Palace, Banje Beach, the old port, and several narrow streets in the Old Town.
If you can’t travel to Croatia, you can still get the experience and thrill of Canto Bight or other star wars locations online, you could try out a new casino site for example, or the latest VR experiences such as Star Wars Squadrons on PS4, and the upcoming Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge which releases on November 19.
The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson has previously given some details on the inspiration for Canto Bight:
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Johnson described Canto Bight as “a Star Wars Monte Carlo–type environment, a little James Bond–ish, a little To Catch a Thief”.
Naturally, the contrast between the rich people who go to Canto Bight and the far more ordinary backgrounds of characters like Finn and Rose was on Johnson’s mind too.
“It was an interesting challenge, portraying luxury and wealth in this universe,” he said. “I was thinking, OK, let’s go ultra-glamour. Let’s create a playground, basically, for rich assholes.”
“I didn’t want this to be a dirge, a heavy-osity movie,” Johnson told Vanity Fair. “So one thing I’ve tried really hard to do is keep the humor in there, to maintain the feeling, amid all the heavy operatic moments, that you’re on a fun ride.”
The vast majority of people who have seen The Last Jedi likely did not even notice. But Mark Hamill, who reprised his role as Luke Skywalker again, had a surprise cameo at Canto Bight.
Hamill provided the voice for Dobbu Scay, who was one of the gamblers shown on screen in Canto Bight. Dobbu Scay, in case you have forgotten, was the character who mistook BB-8 for a betting machine and started trying to insert coins into the droid as a result.
In an earlier version of The Last Jedi, Johnson had planned for Poe to be Finn’s companion on the mission to Canto Bight. However, the director later had a rethink, which led to the creation of Rose Tico as a character.
Johnson said he felt the combination between Finn and Poe was “boring” at Canto Bight, adding: “It was just these two dudes on an adventure. I knew something was wrong when I looked at their dialogue and realized that I could interchange any of the lines. There wasn’t conflict between them. I realized I had to come up with something else. Finn needed somebody else to go with who would actually challenge him and push him and contrast with him.”