The city of Canto Bight was introduced in the Last Jedi as a popular tourist and gambling destination in the Star Wars universe. It is certainly an interesting addition as a world-building element and a great new destination for the characters and audience to experience. When asked about the location, Ryan Johnson, the movie director, said that he wanted the city to feel a bit different from the usual locations within the past Star Wars movies. He described it as a Monte Carlo in the Star Wars universe.
When designing the location, the movie-makers took inspiration from a well known coastal city on Croatia known as Dubrovnik. The city is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe and it is well known for its historical significance and the city became a UNESCO world heritage site in 1979. Looking back a Canto Bight, one can notice a resemblance with Dubrovnik. Like its real-world counterpart, Canto Bight is a coastal city which is located on the shores of another impressive feature in the Star Wars universe, the largest artificial ocean in the galaxy known as Cantonica.
The city’s main attraction for the residents of the galaxy is the plethora of gambling halls and race tracks. It has a reputation similar to that of Las Vegas and Macau, which in the real world, are two of the most reputable gambling destinations. Casinos were always a part of the Star Wars universe, however, the Last Jedi was the main movie in the franchise to fully feature a casino. It was a breath of fresh air as a location for the movie’s plot as well as for the audience to enjoy, giving the scenes a “James Bond” flair to them.
While the movie does not explore Canto Bight in detail, the city is prominently featured in the four-part book series Canto Bight. The book is a collection of four novellas and all of them takes place in the gambling city. The four stories are named Rules of the Game, Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing, The Wine in Dreams and The Ride.
The Canto casino had many games, similar to our real-world counterparts. Similar to many slots found on the web today, the city was home to many unusually designed machines such as the Canto Bight floating slot machines, which makes an appearance in the Last Jedi as well as the book. To prevent them from being tampered with, the floating slots have a quantum-layered carbonite shell as protection.
The Last Jedi has divided fans of the franchise who believe that the direction of the series has changed drastically. The same can be said for the Canto Bight sequence which many believe that it was a bit out of place compared to the rest of the movie. Others think that the director made a good decision to add this location but felt that the scenes focused too much on the inside without exploring the rest that the city or the impressive Cantonica ocean.
