J.J. Abrams Yearns For Mystery In The Star Wars Universe

[Karloff]

J.J. Abrams Yearns For Mystery In The Star Wars Universe

Gosh, it was a world of possibilities when A New Hope was the only Star Wars that ever was.

J.J. Abrams, director and now co-scriptwriter [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/129229-Star-Wars-Episode-VII-Its-2015-Or-Bust-Says-Disneys-CEO] of the latest Star Wars movie, yearns for mystery. Gone are the days, he laments, when we knew nothing about Star Wars; when the Empire was a name without a backstory, and Leia was just a Princess, not Luke's sister or Vader's daughter. The first Star Wars was great, but since then too many stories have provided too much detail.

"The beauty of that movie [A New Hope]," says Abrams, "was that it was an unfamiliar world, and yet you wanted to see it expand and to see where it went." But by implication, Abrams doesn't seem too happy at the prospect of having those potential plot threads closed off by the later movies. "I think the key to moving forward on something like this is honoring but not revering what came before," Abrams said a while ago [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jj-abrams-star-wars-plans-565077], in the bygone days when Michael Arndt, not Abrams, had scriptwriting duties.

Abrams is co-scripting with Lawrence Kasdan of The Empire Strikes Back fame, but you have to wonder who carries more weight in that team: Kasdan [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/6763-A-Disturbance-In-The-Force], whose last trip to the Star Wars universe was 1996's Shadows of the Empire video game. However it pans out, there's not much time left to write this thing, not if Disney CEO Bob Iger's 2015 deadline is to be met; and Iger's adamant that it will be.

Shooting is to start spring 2014. Cross your fingers; this one may need all the luck it can get. Always assuming that there is such a thing as luck, of course.

Source: Hollywood Reporter [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/jj-abrams-fondly-recalls-time-652787]


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[Scribblesense]

This guy is half a step away from going full Shyamalan.

Of course he's going to shoehorn in some useless mystery that everybody's going to see coming from a galaxy far, far away.

 

[Covarr]

He act as if The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were the big offenders in destroying mystery, even though the prequel trilogy was designed around explaining away everything that was mysterious about the classics. Everything from how Vader fell, to how the Empire came to be, to how the Force works was explained. Either way, moving away from being clear about everything is definitely a step in the right direction, and shows that he gets what made A New Hope so good to begin with.

P.S. Thanks

P.P.S. To an extent, it's reasonable and even necessary that more was explained in episodes V and VI, since they were largely told from Luke's point of view, and he himself was becoming more worldly and experienced. To keep him in the dark would've been a slap in the face of his growth as a character, and to keep audiences in the dark of things Luke was becoming aware of would've been shoddy storytelling.

 

[Daemascus]

J.J. Abrams, director and now co-scriptwriter [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/129229-Star-Wars-Episode-VII-Its-2015-Or-Bust-Says-Disneys-CEO] of the latest Star Wars movie, yearns for mystery. Gone are the days, he laments, when we knew nothing about Star Wars; when the Empire was a name without a backstory, and Leia was just a Princess, not Luke's sister or Vader's daughter. The first Star Wars was great, but since then too many stories have provided too much detail.

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No, just no. Or if you Luke Skywalker, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

The universe is what sets Star Wars apart and makes it cool and unique, not the straight out of "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" story that made up the original trilogy. Not to say the story was bad, but compared to the ships, planets and aliens its merely a framework.

 

[SpcyhknBC]

As moviebob has said before, Abrams is obsessed with his mystery box, and this quote only serves to reinforce that theory. I am not looking forward to this.

 

[RandV80]

You know it almost makes sense what he's saying, but then you just know that the end result is going to be something ridiculous.

 

[Parnage]

Love of god someone get him away from Star wars. This is the guy who thought ripping off Wrath of Khan made him creative and original. I do not want him throwing in stupid crap when we already have enough on screen stupid crap thanks to prequels.

"We need a mystery", no Star wars needs a court ordered do not come within 100 yards of me paper.

 

[tangoprime]

So in other words... he wants to make something different. He can do that, go create a new IP, leave Star Wars alone. Also- I really REALLY don't want to see a lightsaber fight full of lens flares. Lens flares can arguably work in speculative fiction / scifi if that's the aesthetic you're going for, but definitely not in a fantasy like Star Wars, it would be like having the battle of Helm's Deep full of lens flares.

 

[SilverUchiha]

If anything this sounds like Abrams is trying to build undue hype for a film that hasn't started filming nor has a finished script yet. That's like Newell coming out and saying how he wants Half-Life 3 to be more open world when we have no word on it's actual production yet. (lol).

What Abrams and Disney need to do to build up any sense of mystery is just shut the fuck up about the film and not talk about anything until it's time to bring out trailers. And, even then, only show us the stuff that matters that will make us want to see this beyond the "oh look, more star wars" reaction. Right now, I have no interest in this film because its progression seems rather... um... lacking in progression.

 

[teebeeohh]

stfu
Abrams stupid "mysteries" have never worked out because the resolution is always stupid or half-assed or pointless or boring or all of the above.
is it too late to fire him?

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

This guy is half a step away from going full Shyamalan.

Of course he's going to shoehorn in some useless mystery that everybody's going to see coming from a galaxy far, far away.

I think it's 50/50. Lack of mystery definitely hurt SW, but as stated above it wasn't Empire or Jedi. They filled in some gaps, but the fun mystery of the Clone Wars was still there, and all the bad guys were still ominous. The problem is when writers think that EVERYTHING has to be tightly tied together without any information being unknown. The best mysteries don't feel like they have to be explained. Fan speculation is what keeps some of the biggest franchises alive.

 

[Ace Morologist]

It seems like all you'd have to do to put the mystery back into Star Wars (leaving aside whether that's even a good idea) would be to set the story either well back in the past before the prequels or well ahead into the future after the original trilogy. Just disconnect it from anything having to do with Anakin or Luke Skywalker, and you're fine. That, and don't explain anything. Start fresh. Don't start OVER, just fresh.

--Morology!

PS: What it really sounds like, though, is that Mister Abrams is lamenting all the information out there in the various books and video games and comics, and trying to prepare people for the fact that he's not going to be using any of that expanded universe material to inform the scriptwriting.

 

[Uratoh]

I'm just gonna post some advance spoilers here...

The 'dark robed figure' in the trailers he says is totally not a sith and we're going to have to watch the movie to find out what his deal is turns out to be a sith.

 

[Mahorfeus]

I could definitely see where he's coming from. For the most part, we pretty much knew what was going to go down in the prequel trilogy. Anakin's fall, his romance with Padme, Palpatine's ascension to Emperor, yadda yadda yadda. Assuming that they are ditching EU material completely, as a sequel this movie is almost certainly going to need some kind of intrigue, especially if it's going to unfold into a full trilogy.

As far as franchises being "ruined," all I can say is that I wish I had more eyes to roll.

 

[JPArbiter]

Considering how he telegraphed Khan from a Galaxy Far Far away, I do not think J.J. even knows what the meaning of the word Mystery is.

That said he will create movies that will not ruin the franchise, they will just add little to nothing to it.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

Hey, the series has no where to go but up. I personally welcome Mr. Abrams vision, whatever it may be.