2016 Interview with writers of The Force Awakens

So this is my third time posting it. The first time I was logged out from the forums and the Second time the Topic just disappeared when I tried to edit it because I forgot a link. Not sure what is going on, but here is hoping third times a charm.

So I’ve been on a journey to learn as much about the development of the Sequel Trilogy and more specifically details of George Lucas’s outlines for the Sequels and I stumbled upon this Entertainment Weekly podcast where they interview the writers of The Force Awakens. Michael Arndt who left just months before the project was set to film, Lawrence Kasdan and J.J. Abrams who took over writing duties after Arndt left. A lot of things come up that I’m certain many fans have heard before like the reason R2-D2 inexplicably has the map to Luke Skywalker and why Luke pretty much got pushed out of the movie, but I noticed some things a lot of people don’t talk about especially in hindsight. Bellow are some links to the Interview.

https://www.starwarsunderworld.com/2016/01/michael-arndt-discusses-origins-of.html

Something I thought was interesting was a moment where J.J. Abrams is describing Rey as a character who goes on a journey and realizes they live in the Star Wars universe. When I watched The Force Awakens I very much got the impression from Rey that she was a Star Wars fan in the movie. That she wasn’t a genuine character who lives in this world. It really bothered me and I think this plays into the fact she is a Mary Sue. David Stewart on Youtube had a great video about how The Sequel Trilogy is a Fan Fantasy Dream Sequence and Rey is the audience Avatar for reliving their favorite Star Wars moments. I recommend people check it out.

Another moment around 31:30 that I feel has a lot of significance looking back on it is where the interviewer Anthony Breznican asks about the decision not to address a lot of the backstory of the movie like who is Rey and the State of the Galaxy and Lawrence Kasdan utters these words, “We’re hoping you know that Rian Johnson can figure that out… We were really stymied.” I think it is Michael Arndt who utters this right afterwards, “Screw it! Let Rian figure it out.” When you think about it The Force Awakens is such a selfish movie. In another way the movie is selfish is J.J. Abrams elaborates how we didn’t have all the answers to everything in Episode 4. The issue is Episode 4 was the beginning. We didn’t need to know about the old Republic, or the Clone Wars. There was no story before it. We later got an elaboration on it with the Prequels, but even then we didn’t need to know everything before Episode I. The issue that 7 has is it’s following 6 prior movies. It has to reestablish the story and connect us to where the story left off in Episode 6. J.J. Abrams wants to replicate Episode 4 so much it shirks it’s responsibility to continue the story. It wants to have all these moments, but with little consideration for what came before and is dumping all the important world building onto Episode 8. It makes you wonder if Rian Johnson made the movie he did as an FU to J.J. Abrams for leaving him with the task of filling the mystery boxes. After TFA came out I said it was big waste of time and Episode 8 would have to pick up the slack for 7 and Rian Johnson decided to screw that and waste even more time. Then that left Episode 9 a rushed mess.

I recommend people check out this interview. It brings a lot of interesting insights into the development of The Force Awakens and overall Sequel Trilogy and I’m curious to hear what people think about it and if they have any insights others might not have though of.

P.S. A bit of a shout out here, but Itchybacca has a petition to have George Lucas’s Outlines for the Sequel Trilogy released. Odds are it won’t succeed, but it can’t hurt to sign it and who knows maybe we can get enough people to sign it to get a consideration with the execs at Disney. As someone who is curious as to what George Lucas had planned these outlines are more, or less the Holy Grail.

https://www.change.org/p/star-wars-fans-release-george-lucas-sequel-trilogy-treatments