In an absolutely fantastic interview with Wired magazine, Star Wars The Force Awakens director (and co-writer) J.J. Abrams spoke candidly, passionately and honestly about his next movie which is released in just a few weeks. Maybe I'm biased, but there is really no marketing spin in this interview whatsoever. It's always been quite apparent to many Star Wars fans, that J.J. genuinely gives a fuck about what he's done and what he's about to unleash a week before Christmas.
On the mystery box Abrams said
On the mystery box Abrams said
I give credit to, and frankly surprisingly so, the incredible people at Disney, especially Alan Horn [chair of Walt Disney Studios] and Bob Iger [Disney CEO]. Bob’s been unbelievably collaborative and supportive of this entire process. When it came to marketing, I was expecting Disney to want to put out an overabundance of material. But they’ve been incredibly reluctant to do that. They want this thing to be an experience for people when they go to see the film. And I’m grateful for that.
There’s a really positive side to keeping quiet. You can protect the audience from spoilers or certain moments that, in a way, obviate the movie experience. But on the other hand, you risk being seen as coy or as a withholding shithead. That’s never my intent. Because Lucasfilm has been so engaged with the fans and so forthcoming about what they’re doing, it would have felt oddly inconsistent to not show anything until just before the movie came out. I actually personally pushed to have a teaser come out a year before, just because it felt like, as a fan of Star Wars, if I could see even the littlest thing I’d be psyched a year out. Why not? So we did.
But I don’t want to destroy too many illusions. We’re walking a tightrope. If you fall on one side it’s no good, because we’re showing too much. If you fall on the other side it’s no good, because we’re not showing anything and we look like arrogant jerks.
He also spoke about Episode VIII and Rian Johnson
The script for VIII is written. I’m sure rewrites are going to be endless, like they always are. But what Larry 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.
On future movies, and how he knew what they had was something awesome
We knew we weren’t just casting one movie—we were casting at least three. That, to me, was the biggest challenge. When we met Daisy Ridley, when we found John Boyega, and then Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver came aboard, we got really excited. And yes, Daisy and John could work together, but what happens when Harrison’s in the mix? What will that feel like? If it doesn’t spark, it’s a fucking disaster. Yes, BB-8 is a great character, amazingly puppeteered, but what will happen when he’s suddenly in a scene with C-3P0 or R2-D2? Will it feel bizarre? Will it feel wrong? Somehow it didn’t. When Anthony Daniels told me, “Oh my God, I love BB-8!” I said, “We’re going to be OK.” Because if he’s OK, it’s working.
Or seeing the sweetness between Han and Rey or the tension and comedy between Han and Finn. It was really exciting to say, “These scenes are working!” We worked really hard to cast and to write and to put it all together, but you just don’t know until you start shooting. Then all of a sudden, you’re on-set watching it and you know. It’s a little bit like having a party and having friends from your new school meet friends from your old school, and you think, “What’s going to happen?” And all of a sudden they’re getting along famously and this party’s really fun! It was a lot of work, but it ended up being great.
The full interview over on Wired is definitely worth a read. I'm a huge fan of Abrams, not necessarily because of what he's done movie wise but what he and Bad Robot represents. The world needs a few more guys like Abrams!
Special thanks to Disney for providing the hi-res images.
