A whole lot has gone down since late last year, primarily George Lucas selling Lucasfilm which includes but not limited to the rights to Indiana Jones and of course Star Wars to the Disney Empire who paid an incredible $4.05 billion dollars. Immediately Disney announced the making of the long speculated and continually denied Episode VII which if everything goes well will be released in 2015 with J.J. Abrams directing.
Soon after the rumor mill cranked up and has been churning ever since. J.J. Abrams was asked to direct and he respectfully declined only to come back early this year and accept the task while making history as a director who will soon have both Star Trek and Star Wars movies in his already impressive resume. If years ago someone would have told me that the same guy would one day direct Star Trek and Star Wars movies I would still be chuckling to this day as I’m sure many of you would as well.
Anyway in a recent interview, Playboy asked Abrams some questions fans have been a little more than curious about. First was why he had turned down the offer to direct Episode VII in which he talked about how different the two universes are and how his loyalty was to Star Trek in which he was finishing up. “It was like being on the most beautiful beach in the world and someone saying, “There’s this amazing mountain over here. Come take a look.” I couldn’t balance the two , so I passed on Star Wars.”
Everyone that is curious whether doing Star Wars will keep him away from doing another Trek, you can relax because I don’t think it will have any bearing at all on that. J.J. says it’s a possibility and like anything it begins with the story.
As far as Abrams finally taking on the job to direct Episode VII, I think we have Kathleen Kennedy and J.J.’s wife Katie to thank for that. Kennedy who is now the overseer of Lucasfilm, called Abrams, whom she has known for years, and during the conversation the realization of how great this could be slowly came to him. Finally it was his wife Katie that seemed to give him that final push and the rest will be history in the making.
J.J. Abrams also states that he will be looking to the original creator of the Star Wars universe for advice and guidance through the filmmaking process as Lucas will be staying on as a creative consultant. He says that this will be advantageous in making this film. This is an edge he didn’t have going into Star Trek because he of course did not have Gene Roddenberry to turn to when making what I consider to be two great Trek films. Needless to say, I can hardly wait to see how Episode VII turns out as I am a huge Star Wars fan and have been waiting for another great one since The Empire Strikes Back as I’m sure many other fans feel the same way.
I mentioned earlier in this article the many rumors flying around. Of course we can’t put stock into any of these until we get confirmation from a reliable source. Among these rumors of course are the returning cast members from the original trilogy and as far as I know nothing is totally confirmed yet. I can tell you that it won’t surprise me if Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill make an appearance and not too long ago I would have said impossible to the chance of Harrison Ford being in this next installment, but seeing a couple of his recent interviews on how he skated around the subject instead of shooting it down like he has so many times in the past, I can say that this too is a good possibility, but I’ve been wrong before and I’m sure I will be again. As far as John Williams coming back to do the score, this is not yet confirmed but I feel it’s almost a given because it just wouldn’t be Star Wars without him conducting.
We have plenty of time to speculate between now and 2015. Until that time when we are all gathered in the theatre once more to see the next of what is said to be many installments of the now iconic saga, I have finally to say May The Force Be With You and more importantly may The Force Be With J.J. Abrams.
