Packed with racetracks, casinos, and other luxurious distractions, it is evidently considered to be the casino city of the Star Wars world. Due to its lavish attractions, it is well-known as the “playground for the richest in the galaxy”.
“So, Canto Bight! Playground of the most glamorous beings of the galaxy! Big money card games and high stakes fathier races! The galaxy’s biggest artificial ocean! And the fanciest food this side of Coruscant”. – Kedpin Shoklop, a Wemal male who was also called Ked.
Gambling has been a form of community entertainment for centuries. From the Gentleman’s Club of the 17th century to a UK online casino of the 21st century, the gambling world has come a long way. So, it is only natural how a custom casino city in the Star Wars world has contributed in making this fictional galaxy more relatable to its human audience.
Canto Bight is a casino city located along the shores of the Sea Of Cantotica. It is an artificial ocean that is considered to be one of the largest artificial oceans of the galaxy. Since it consists mostly of large casinos, racetracks, and other lavish distractions, it is one of the most sought after tourist spots of the galaxy’s most wealthy people. If it had not been for Canto Bight’s casino attractions, Cantonica could have been a lonely desert planet with nothing much to offer.
The casino city had made its appearance in the film Star Wars: The Last Jedi, when Finn, Rose, Tico, and BB-8 had to go to the city in search of the Master Codebreaker in order to disable the First Order’s hyperspace tracker. But the mission was not with its own adventures, Finn and Rose had crashed their ship on the public beach, which in turn caused the Abednedo businessman, Slowen Lo, to alert the Canto Bight Police Department who were the primary law enforcement organization of the city.
The city was built with the vision of a grand and expensive environment for entertainment in mind. This city of luck and casinos have been an interesting part of plots. It has featured in a bunch of wars, such as the Battle Of Dalne, Galactic Civil War, and the First Order-Resistance War.
By the time of the Galactic Civil War, Canto Bight had grown to a point that it was being referred to as the home of the most luxurious casinos by some groups of people. During the First-Order resistance War, the resistance operatives, Finn, Rose Tico, and BB-8 had traveled to the city as a part of an important mission with the plan of enrolling the Master Codebreaker for disabling the First Order’s hyperspace tracker. However, as mentioned above, their ship had collided with the public beach and the police had been alerted. They tried to get in touch with the codebreaker, but their mission was cut short when the police arrested them for a traffic violation. There is much more to the plot, but the point remains that Canto Bight is an interesting city that has been the center of many adventures.
For the movie, Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi, Canto Bight had been created. The director, Rian Johnson, had described the makeshift city as “a Star Wars Monte Carlo-type environment, a little James Bond-ish, a little To Catch a Thief.” Due to its location on a desert and the vast number of casinos involved, the city’s theme had been built with Las Vegas as inspiration. However, the city of Dubrovnik in Croatia was the inspiration for the looks and aesthetics of the city, with even parts of the movie being shot in Dubrovnik. The chase scenes with Rose and Finn were shot on the historic street of the city, Stardun.
“It was an interesting challenge portraying luxury and wealth in this universe. I was thinking O.K., let’s go ultra-glamour.”, Johnson had commented. In the Star Wars world, where most of the themes and aesthetics are based on sandy barrenness, the creation of Canto Bight might have been an exciting part of the film.
Apart from the design and aesthetics of the city, costuming was also a major focus. To match the city’s grandeur, the people too must be dressed luxuriously. The stylish and stunning costumes of more than 200 actors were designed by the veteran costume designer, Michael Kaplan and his team.
Talking about his experience, he had said, “Rian Johnson took the opportunity to be playful, now that audiences know who the characters are…It was nice to add in elements of fun, and to break away from everyone in uniform – and to do that huge, huge fancy dress party was quite daunting.”
However, during the final design processes of The Last Jedi, the president of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy had disapproved of the city’s designs, commenting that it didn’t feel “Star Wars” enough to her. This had compelled the design team to abandon most of their initial creations and finally find inspiration from the early illustrations of Jabba The Hutt’s Palace that had been created by Ralph McQuarrie for Star Wars: Episode VI Return Of The Jedi in the 1980s.
Although the movie doesn’t feature the casino city much, it has held a significant part in the novella titled “Canto Bight”, which is a collection of four short stories. The stories included in the book are titled, Rules Of The Game, Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing, The Wine In Dreams and The Ride.
Canto Bight was a break away from the serious plot of the movie, The Last Jedi. The oddly shaped aliens and strange creatures of the city adds a certain sense of comical lightness to the scene, lifting off the intensity of the rest of the movie for a short while. Commenting on this aspect of the scene, director Rian Johnson had said, “I didn’t want this to be a dirge, a heavy-osity movie.” He added, “So one thing I’ve tried really hard to do is keep the humour in there, to maintain the feeling, amid all the heavy operatic moments, that you’re on a fun ride.”