Looking at the The Force Awakens. And just when you think you already know what will happen next, it goes in a totally different direction. One of the bigger gripes that naysayers cite is Johnson's introduction of new elements to how the Force actually works. For instance, Luke's ability to project himself is deemed as a controversial move since that's never been seen onscreen before.

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Sitting down with the LA Times, Johnson addressed this criticism by establishing that looking back in the previous movies, there is actually no set guidelines as to how the Force works. In fact, the saga installment reveals something new about it as we go along:

The truth is, because “Star Wars” until “The Force Awakens” has been set in amber and we hadn’t had a new “Star Wars” movie in 10 years, you forget that they were introducing new Force stuff with each movie, based on the requirements of the story. Force-grabbing didn’t come around until “Empire,” it wasn’t in “A New Hope.” Same with Force ghosts. They’d introduce new ideas of what could happen with the Force each time.

The one point where we do introduce a bit of a twist in of Force ghosts is where Yoda calls down the lightning onto the tree. That, I think, is a tantalizing hint of the potential of someone who is a Force ghost interacting with the real world.

Considering both the Jedi and Sith can tap into the Force and use it to their advantage, Johnson was asked whether the dead dark side s can also return via Force Ghost much like the Jedi can. The director's answer rounds back to his earlier comment about Force abilities continue to develop and we learn more about it in every Star Wars movie.

I think that would be interesting. We haven’t seen them in the movies as far as I can . But that would be really interesting considering the dark side is about self-preservation, trying to find immortality, and the notion that the light side actually got to it through selflessness — what would the dark side version of that look like? There’s so much cool [stuff] to think about if you’re willing to open your head a little bit!

There were a lot of lore and narrative elements that Johnson introduced in The Last Jedi. This has disquieted a lot of fans who have concocted a specific way on how these movies should go based on what we have seen before. But as like Episode VIII's recurring theme, the movie is a point where we leave everything that we thought we know about Star Wars behind to make room for new adventures. Only this way will we be able to progress the story and sustain the franchise without retreading the same story over and over.

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Source: LA Times