J.J. Abrams On Connecting STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS to EPISODE VIII
There's a lot of Star Wars hype building right now, and I imagine it's never going to end, especially with all the new films that are in various stages of development. There's always going to be something new to learn and something fun to speculate about. It's a great time to be a Star Wars fan!
During a recent interview with Wired, director J.J. Abrams opens up about several different topics concerning his upcoming film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I also included a few new behind the scenes photos from the making of the film for you to check out.
One of the more interesting things he discussed in the interview involved the way that The Force Awakens will connect to Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII. This is what he had to say regarding that and how Johnson is handling Episode VII:
“The script for VIII is written. I’m sure rewrites are going to be endless, like they always are. But what Larry (Kasdan) and I did was set up certain key relationships, certain key questions, conflicts. And we knew where certain things were going. We had meetings with Rian and Ram Bergman, the producer of VIII. They were watching dailies when we were shooting our movie. We wanted them to be part of the process, to make the transition to their film as seamless as possible. I showed Rian an early cut of the movie, because I knew he was doing his rewrite and prepping. And as executive producer of VIII, I need that movie to be really good. Withholding serves no one and certainly not the fans. So we’ve been as transparent as possible.’
“Rian has asked for a couple of things here and there that he needs for his story. He is an incredibly accomplished filmmaker and an incredibly strong writer. So the story he told took what we were doing and went in the direction that he felt was best but that is very much in line with what we were thinking as well. But you’re right—that will be his movie; he’s going to do it in the way he sees fit. He’s neither asking for nor does he need me to oversee the process.”
For the amount of footage that has been released for The Force Awakens in the trailers, we still know very little about the story or where it is going (at least officially). But I'm ridiculously excited to see where this new trilogy is going to lead us. I'm happy that Johnson is one of the directors who will get to tell this story. I have no doubt he'll give us something awesome with Episode VIII.
The Force Awakens is set to be released on December 18th, 2015, and Episode VIII is currently shooting and set for release on May 26th, 2017.