J.J. Abrams Met With George Lucas Before Developing The Story For STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker bringing a conclusion to the epic story that George Lucas started in 1977, it makes sense that director J.J. Abrams would want to meet with Lucas and talk to him before getting started on the film. After all, Lucas is the one who had a full vision for his story before selling Lucasfilm to Disney.
While talking to IGN, Abrams revealed that he met with Lucas before starting work on the script of The Rise of Skywalker to discuss the bigger picture of the story and how to bring it all to an end:
"This movie had a very, very specific challenge which was to take eight films and give an ending to three trilogies. We had to look at what was the bigger story. We had conversations amongst ourselves. We met with George Lucas before we started writing the script. These were things that were in real, not debate, but you look at the sort of vastness of the story and trying to figure out what is the way to conclude this. But it has to work on its own as a movie. It has to be its own thing. It has to be surprising and funny, and you have to understand it. You can't assume anyone has sat and watched eight movies before this one. And yet, I want a kid to be able to watch Episodes 1-9 and see that one story."
Abrams certainly had a difficult task ahead of him and Star Wars fans are really hoping that he will be able to pull it off. Hopefully Lucas offered Abrams some good insight and advice that he actually used in developing the story. Obviously, Emperor Palpatine is going to be a big part of closing out the saga and I can’t wait to see how exactly he will fit into the story.
When talking about Palpatine, Lucasfilm president, Kathleen Kennedy says that bringing the character back was always a part of the plan.
“This has been in the blueprint for a long time, yeah. We had not landed on exactly how we might do that, but yes, it was always [to be in Episode IX].”
How do you think Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will play out? What are you expecting to see happen? Do you think Abrams will use any of Lucas’ ideas?