Rian Johnson is quoted in a September 19, 2014, article by STV as saying:
“I’m figuring it out as I go. I’m dancing on top of the avalanche a little bit… it’s a challenge of remembering what inspires you about the original films, but I think you can probably go to the wrong place by feeling too responsible to it. You have to keep your head loose enough to tell a story you actually care about.”
Although there isn’t much discussion about Star Wars Episode VIII yet, I am very encouraged to hear this and I’ll tell you why.
Everyone is buzzing right now how JJ Abrams is going to take Star Wars and make it “feel” like it did in the 70s and 80s. We are all excited about the talk of less CGI and more practical effects in Episode VII. We’ve pointed to Abrams’s movie Super 8 as an example of his being able to capture, in stunning detail, the look and feel of a 1970s Speilberg film.
However, the problem with Abrams is that he can sometimes get so focused on look and feel that he neglects the story. He tends to go “back to the well” so to speak. The return of Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness is the perfect example of this. Instead of forging new ground, Abrams went with the known quantity. Not only with the return of the character Khan, but also revisiting classic scenes from Star Trek past (The Sacrifice). This is what concerns me with rumors like the return of Palpatine as the antagonist in Episode VII. As ludicrous as that sounds, I don’t put it past Abrams to give audiences what they already know.
This is why the comments by Johnson this week are encouraging to me. I think that he understands the look and feel that Abrams is attempting to establish. But it also sounds like he is going to be brave enough to step out and push the story in new directions. One can only hope! My confidence in Rian Johnson’s involvement in Star Wars VIII IX is growing.
