ST The Development Of The Sequel Trilogy

I think it's too hard to guess what Lucas would do. If I had to though I'd imagine that any good story writer would keep Chewie around. Killing Han off is the big event within the narrative. He's who the main characters will grieve for. If you kill Chewie at the same time his loss will be buried under the weight of Han's death. That would be waste of "emotional currency", as it's sometimes called. If the decision came for Chewie to die at some point, better to have that moment to himself & die as a major character in his own right. Not as Han's sidekick. Looking ahead, I think it's great that Chewie's still around. Being his own Wookie & not bound to anyone is his most interesting development in the Saga so far.

 

He doesn't have to die to disappear from the narrative...

You're right that Chewie standing on his own has potential, though!

 

Chewie being there is nice but it seems that he'll get overshadowed by the new cast unless he's pushed to be apart of the main cast. Or just have him telegraph emotions and screams as usual to give the audience some feelings or whatever.

Hans death was something most of us knew yes? We've debated that aspect 2 years ago.

 

I want a heroic death for Chewie at some point. Or just a walk into the forest/ sunset. A metaphorical death.

 

I had wondered if Luke was going to die like OWK and QGJ in GL's treatment and MA's drafts. Then LS became the McG when JJ and LK replaced MA. Then HS replaced LS as the main secondary character and died. Guess I was wrong.

At one point GL said the only characters who are in all 9 are C3PO and R2D2. Of course, Leia was supposed to come back for IX. I wonder if LS will die in VIII.

In TFA wasn't a character supposed to be the prequels? Well, there were Chewie, the twins, and the droids.

 

At what point was Jar Jar replaced with Lor San Tekka?

 

I can't say for certain what officially happened, but it sounds to me that the main bone of contention between Lucas and everyone else was aesthetics: Lucas wanted something that looked radically different from the rest of the saga but Kathleen Kennedy and everyone else thought it went too far and wanted something more visually in-line with the OT, which ultimately won out. Either way, TFA was always going to be divisive because SW is such a big phenomenon that everyone and their mother has their two cents on what it "should" be, and people tend to get angry when they don't get their way.

 

Possibly, I suppose it depends on what a 'radically different' asthetic means in practice. The notion that a Lucas ST would not have been shock-full of callbacks and recycled designs is speculative wishful thinking (Lucas' sequels, prequels and TV series all demonstrated that he was not above doing such things). Besides, asthetically, TFA does feel very different to all the others in the way it's put together (eg, compositions, camera blocking, transitions). Simply having an X-wing flying around and shooting a TIE doesn't mean that something is visually in line with the OT. I don't think anyone would say that Fistful of Dollars and Unforgiven are visually similar just because they both have Clint Eastwood shooting guys with a six-shooter.

 

Nothing can ever replace Jar Jar.

 

Good bye.

 

Except that Lucas made Empire Strikes Back primarily to fund his development of Skywalker Ranch. He's never been this 'pure' artist. But he doesn't have to be.

 

We're in completely hyper-speculation mode at this point but I would figure Lucas killing off Han Solo would have been a first mentioned "Hey, Harrison, how ya doing?" sort of thing that dates to Lucas' original idea for the ST, so that I buy.

But killing off Chewie? Nah, c'mon, Chewie was based on Lucas' dog who used to ride with him in the front seat. As the man in the hat said, "I got a lot of fond memories of that dog."

 

This is all very interesting, and greatly surprising if it’s accurate. Everything I’ve ever read or heard from Lucas would indicate that his involvement was brief and minimal. So this suggestion that he was an influential part of some development team for half a year doesn’t really coincide with what he’s ever said. At least from what I’ve read, and interviews that I’ve heard, which I’m sure wasn’t everything.

To me, it sounds like they started off using a good chunk of his treatments, and he was kind of a consultant to that end. Arndt had been writing the screenplay before the sale to Disney, and continued in that role after the sale, so that would lead me to think that Disney didn’t object to continue using Lucas’s ideas, since that’s what he’d been working on. Otherwise, I think they would have replaced Arndt at that point and started fresh with a writer of their choosing.

After that starting point, I think that there was a growing difference of opinion of how the movie should go from there. Aesthetically, and story-wise. It had been reported that Abrams was working with Arndt on the story for 8-12 months, but they couldn’t get anywhere with it. It brings to mind the tale of how Arndt wanted the story to focus on the next generation, while Abrams wanted the old generation to be much more prominent. Sounds like there was some butting of heads.

So Arndt was let go, and apparently like-minded Kasdan was brought it, where he and Abrams hammered out the rough draft in a number of weeks to hit an inflexible deadline.

Sure, the treatments probably evolved quite a bit since the beginning, but nothing Lucas has said gave me the impression that he was part of that evolution. All I read from him was how they didn’t use his treatments, and how they weren’t too keen to have him involved anyway, and how he was letting them go their way, and he was going his way. (shrug)

It doesn't matter that much to me anyway. I never had much of an issue with the evolved concepts, per se. My issue from day 1 was the story and the story telling, which I feel this film handled as an insignificant and irrelevant afterthought.

I still very much would love to learn the mystery of Arndt's screenplay. He spent a whole lot of time working on it, far, far longer than Abrams and Kasdan took. That was maybe another difference of opinion. Arndt seemed to want to write a story, while Abrams seemed to just want to write dialog that would bridge all the action scenes.

 

When did Arndts screenplay become a mystery? He told LFL he was about a year from completing it to his satisfaction and that kind of schedule was just not on the cards.

What is the source for your information on what Arndt wanted to do as opposed to Abrams just wanted to do?

How do you define the difference between wanting to tell a story and what Abrams wanted to do?

 

I was referring more to what I thought were Arndt's initial ideas in the screenplay he was originally writing; the offspring, Luke being more involved, Death Star II wreckage, etc.. I would love to hear that story. However, in looking for the below quote, I stumbled on other information that suggests that those ideas, or some of them, might have come later, after Abrams was signed on. It's hard to follow.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-wars-rumors-who-is-669997
The project has changed significantly since Oscar winner Michael Arndt split as writer on Episode VII in the fall, with duties taken up by Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan .... According to multiple insiders, the reason for the parting of ways was not due to a timeframe issue, as has been reported, but rather due to a difference of opinion of which characters to emphasize.

Arndt is said to have focused on the offspring of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), with the original trilogy's heroes taking on supporting roles. Abrams, however, wanted Episode VII to focus on the classic trio of characters, so audiences could have one more chance to enjoy them before a fitting send-off.

Star Wars creator George Lucas was also involved in the debate, according to insiders. But Lucas, who sold his Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, acquiesced to Abrams and producer Kathleen Kennedy, who now runs Lucasfilm.

In the end, I think we got a mix of those preferences. But at the time, at least allegedly according to "insiders," it was a point of contention.

I think that Abrams wanted to make a fun, fast, action movie. And there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a profitable formula. In my view, telling a story involves less action and more character development, more organic-feeling progression, more storytelling. Like the previous 6. It’s subjective, obviously, but that’s how I see it.

Abrams/Kasdan did admit to being rushed in hashing a story out, due to time constraints, and I feel like it comes off that way on-screen. Many things to me didn’t feel very thought out, and maybe they weren't, I don’t know. I am a little more optimistic about IX, though, just because it shouldn’t be a rush job... like he makes VII out to be.

Maybe they kept a lot of his work, maybe not.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/05/star-wars-the-force-awakens-vanity-fair-cover
With pre-production chores already well under way in London, where much of the film would be shot at Pinewood Studios, Abrams and Kasdan took over the screenwriting process, starting more or less from scratch. “We said, Blank page. Page one. What do we desperately want to see?” Abrams told me. Though Abrams said both men had pet ideas from the development process they wanted to incorporate, and did, Kasdan made the process sound like more of a teardown: “We didn’t have anything,” Kasdan said. “There were a thousand people waiting for answers on things, and you couldn’t tell them anything except ‘Yeah, that guy’s in it.’ That was about it. That was really all we knew.”

 

Arndt himself discovered that involving Luke at this stage, no matter what he tried, took away from the introduction of new characters. Abrams says that when he came on he was dismayed at the Luke's limited invovlement but accepted that it was better for the saga as a whole if he was not obscuring the new character introductions

It's well known that the movie developed from Lucas's proposals and changed when Arndt came on and then again when Abrams was hired to write (with Kasdan) and direct.

I have a hard time accepting the vague "insiders" reports of a significant creative split when Lucasfilm go on record describing the creative process, the time limits, and especially how Arndt continued working with Abrams and Kasdan during and after production of the movie. It's not really information that confirms the differences in what kind of film ( especially not in terms of "a thought out story/action scenes bridged by dialogue") each of them wanted. The crucial difference, based on the actual turn of events and the continued involvement of certain personnel, is apparently in the methods of working. Rather than opposing values and objectives.

Oh ok then. I thought you were actually referring to the respective film-maker's actual expressed desires, attitudes and objectives and not speculating what their objectives or thoughts were. Having already made two Star Wars movies since 2015, it is inevitable that Episode VIII and beyond will benefit from the experience of those two productions.

Kasdan and Abram's admit that there was a lot of pressure from the time they came on because they couldn't use Arndt's unfinished script and needed to restart. Not that they turned out a rushed movie.

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The rewrote the script from scratch (not the story), using ideas already discussed and developed over the previous two years with Lucas, Arndt et all. And then continued to consult with Arndt on them right through post production.

 

For me it was a mistake not to have created a New Jedi Order they could have made many interesting stories with Jedi involved

It would have been interesting to see the Jedi serving the New Republic trying to fight the Resistance and the First Order

But of course Rebels vs Empire 2 sells more tickets in the cinema

 

Completely disagree. A formal Jedi Order is quite boring. We've seen that before. It's hard to avoid the trappings of being a stoic, dull, monastic group. Very glad that they skipped past that.

 

Who said it would be formal? I just said that at some point they should have served to the new republic

Imagine if the battle between Resistance and First Order had major disasters and the Jedi and the new republic form an agreement to intervene in the war

That would be more interesting

 

To me what's far more interesting is having 1 or 2 Jedi, which places the Order on the verge of extinction. Thereby raising the tension & the stakes. Personally I'm not keen on ever seeing large groups of Jedi running into battle again.

 

No one is a pure artist. Not Kubrick, not Welles. But cinema is pure-- it is pure capitalism.

 

Was it established that there was an aristocratic collector of Sith artifacts? Or rumor?

Ren is of royal blood--Queen Amidala by bloodline and Princess Leia by blood and adoption. And he has a Sith Lord's helmet and is after the sword this lord killed the Separatist leaders with and faught his Jedi Master with.

 

Rumor I think. And you're right, technically Ren does fit the description, it's just that on paper that idea sounded a lot cooler to me than the execution. That was my point with TFA. There's an underlying framework of great ideas that sometimes pokes through, but the overall surface reality of the film is just incredibly bland to me.

 

Now imagine if that aristocratic collector had been Mas Amedda...