Guys like Leo can afford to do this stuff. You ever read stories about Hugh Hefner? He’d pop a dick pill, lie down, and have a dozen ladies cheer for him to get stiff. They’d do all the work. He’d fall asleep during and they’d quietly sneak away. Leo can continue the lifestyle for another 30 years if he wants to.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/rian-johnson-is-%E2%80%98even-more-proud%E2%80%99-of-star-wars-the-last-jedi-five-years-on-holy-it%E2%80%99s-been-half-a-decade.626029/
"I'm even more proud of it five years on," he says. "When I was up at bat, I really swung at the ball." The film, he says, is not just a Star Wars movie – it's a movie about Star Wars, and what it means to fans (himself included). "I think it's impossible for any of us to approach Star Wars without thinking about it as a myth that we were raised with, and how that myth, that story, baked itself into us and affected us," Johnson explains. "The ultimate intent was not to strip away – the intent was to get to the basic, fundamental power of myth. And ultimately I hope the film is an affirmation of the power of the myth of Star Wars in our lives."
The final images of the movie, to me, are not deconstructing the myth of Luke Skywalker, they're building it, and they're him embracing it," the director explains. "They're him absolutely defying the notion of, 'Throw away the past,' and embracing what actually matters about his myth and what's going to inspire the next generation. So for me, the process of stripping away is always in the interest of getting to something

He really sounds in heavy denial. Not even art house directors are this kind of Divas.
Ignoring my feelings about it, that movie’s three plus years of his life under heavy stress. Having pride in your work to the point or defensive is normal without that weight.
But also in 2017, you had Logan, War for the Planet of the Apes, and Blade Runner 2049 hitting similar notes on myth. Not all that out there for Star Wars either. Somehow years of the same discussion made it this bold important movie or whatever.