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Post Posted: October 24th 2013 2:29 pm
 
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StarWars.com

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As Episode VII continues pre-production, Lawrence Kasdan and director J.J. Abrams have assumed screenwriting duties for the film. Kasdan, who has been serving as a consultant on the film, is a veteran of several classic Lucasfilm productions, writing the screenplay for Raiders of the Lost Ark and serving as co-screenwriter for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Acclaimed director and screenwriter Abrams' credits include Super 8, Mission: Impossible III, Fringe, and Lost.

"I am very excited about the story we have in place and thrilled to have Larry and J.J. working on the script," states Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy. "There are very few people who fundamentally understand the way a Star Wars story works like Larry, and it is nothing short of incredible to have him even more deeply involved in its return to the big screen. J.J. of course is an incredible storyteller in his own right. Michael Arndt has done a terrific job bringing us to this point and we have an amazing filmmaking and design team in place already prepping for production."

Location scouting, production design, casting, and costume design are already underway on Episode VII. A team of gifted artists are working to bring the latest installment of the Star Wars saga, including director of photography Dan Mindel (Mission: Impossible III, Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness), production designers Rick Carter (Lincoln, Avatar, Forrest Gump) and Darren Gilford (Oblivion, TRON: Legacy), costume designer Michael Kaplan (Star Trek Into Darkness, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Fight Club),special effects supervisor Chris Corbould (Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception), sound designer Ben Burtt (Lincoln, Wall-E, Star Wars: Episodes I-VI), re-recording mixer Gary Rydstrom (Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, Toy Story, Mission: Impossible -Ghost Protocol), supervising sound editor Matthew Wood (Star Trek Into Darkness, The Master, There Will Be Blood) of Skywalker Sound, and visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett (Star Trek Into Darkness, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith) of Industrial Light & Magic. Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk are producing, with Tommy Harper (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Jack Ryan, Star Trek Into Darkness) and Jason McGatlin (Tintin, War of the Worlds) serving as executive producers. John Williams is returning to score Star Wars: Episode VII.

Shooting is scheduled to begin Spring 2014 at Pinewood Studios for an expected 2015 release.




1. Seems like filming was delayed, from early 2014 to Spring, which means filming may not start until as late as June.

2. I wonder if they also scrapped the Lucas story treatment that Arndt was working from. If so, the return of the Big Three might not be a given anymore.


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 3:30 pm
 
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Current rumors:

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What's the big change? My sources tell me that the focus of the story has changed in a big way, that it's a whole new set of characters being followed than in the Arndt script. I don't want to say much more than that, because I just don't know how in flux things are and I'm sick of being misquoted on this stuff, but it seems like there's a complete overhaul. Top to bottom. This isn't a rewrite, this is a completely different movie with different main characters.


http://badassdigest.com/2013/10/24/arndt-off-star-wars-vii-kasdan-and-abrams-are-the-new-writers/


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 4:04 pm
 
OBGYN
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Wow! That's actually a very positive development. I think Arndt is great, but having Kasdan on board now as a co-screenwriter sounds even better.


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 4:14 pm
 
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Leads to many, many more questions than answers (in true Abrams style).

Does this mean no Luke, Han and Leia?

I think this certainly means a 2015 release date is a pipe dream.


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 4:19 pm
 

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Doesn't look very promising now at all.
My guess -- Ford doesn't want in now, he's changed his mind.


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 4:28 pm
 
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Seeing them take the time to do this right is fantastic. The Big D allowing production to be delayed for a rewrite is also great. So far my hopes have been kept positive!


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 6:14 pm
 

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I hope you are right Topeka, as this story makes me feel a little wary -- particularly the part about story change/direction.


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 6:48 pm
 

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It's gonna be fine; it's not the first time in Star Wars history that an entire draft was discarded/rewritten well into the pre-production process (Leigh Brackett's ESB draft). If you need a laugh, head over to :gb2tfn: , where the reaction is typically hysterical and extreme...occasionally peppered by a wannabe "insider" or two who post as if they're privy to information that can't be found by reading twitter feeds. Man, this is my favorite emoticon on the entire internet :gb2tfn:, still as perfect now as it was when it was first created.


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 7:52 pm
 
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Things will be fine; but this is still frustrating. If Abrams was her director all along, Kennedy should have known better. JJ is his own man who does things his own way. It was a waste of time and money to commission a screenplay before Abrams gave his okay to the story and the writer.

I going to guess that that the script hang-ups are some combination of the following:

a) Lucas’ story idea doesn’t take place directly after the OT, and Abrams wants his films to lean heavily on the OT characters and timeframe (it's a sequel after all)
b) Lucas’ story idea completely steamrolls the post-OT EU, and Abrams isn’t conformable with crushing this passionate and loyal portion of the fan base
c) Abrams has his own set of ideas about Star Wars, it’s better that he flesh things out directly rather than relay on someone else to translate them into a screenplay

I would say that all of these points are understandable. I just hope that Abrams isn’t trying to make “the perfect” Star Wars movie. You could spend a lifetime on that project.


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 8:05 pm
 
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CoGro wrote:
Does this mean no Luke, Han and Leia?


Wasn't Lucas quoted somewhere where he stated that if Mark, Carrie or Harrison couldn't make it, the change to the treatments would be very small? At least I recall something along those lines.

E_CHU_TA! wrote:
Things will be fine; but this is still frustrating. If Abrams was her director all along, Kennedy should have known better. JJ is his own man who does things his own way. It was a waste of time and money to commission a screenplay before Abrams gave his okay to the story and the writer.

I going to guess that that the script hang-ups are some combination of the following:

a) Lucas’ story idea doesn’t take place directly after the OT, and Abrams wants his films to lean heavily on the OT characters and timeframe (it's a sequel after all)
b) Lucas’ story idea completely steamrolls the post-OT EU, and Abrams isn’t conformable with crushing this passionate and loyal portion of the fan base
c) Abrams has his own set of ideas about Star Wars, it’s better that he flesh things out directly rather than relay on someone else to translate them into a screenplay

I would say that all of these points are understandable.


I believe it has nothing to do with those options. They've stated before the importance of this being George's story, Abrams has accepted the job knowing that (therefore this wouldn't be a problem now all of a sudden), and the importance and relevance of the EU to the work they are doing is probably close to zero. The EU is being retconned and rewritten all the time by less important works (specially when compared to the sequel trilogy).


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 8:45 pm
 
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I think it has the most to do with Abrams having his own ideas about what he wants to see in Episode VII-IX and that vision aligned more with what Kasdan saw than Arndt.

It's really a shame because I'm a big fan of Arndt's work and I know how big of a Star Wars fan he is.

To E_CHU_TA!'s point, my hope is that they aren't paralyzing production trying to make the perfect film. Don't chase unicorns. Empire was, in a lot of ways, a happy accident. On the other side of the coin, George had plenty of time to "perfect" the narrative arc for the prequels and the opening crawl of Episode I included the sentence "the taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute."


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 9:52 pm
 
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Even though Abrams isn’t a Star Trek fan, he showed reverence to the franchise’s past achievements with his 2009 film. He could have easily steamrolled the Trekkie continuity (without a thought), but overtly choose not to do so. Since Abrams is a Star Wars fan, I would find it surprising if such things as the EU didn’t weigh on his mind. I’m not suggesting that he want to follow every EU plot point that has been established over the past 36 years. It’s that I don’t believe he will lightly sneeze away a lot of the bigger EU beats that are now a part of the nebulous Star Wars mythology. (i.e. Luke, Leia, and Han already have kids. Why establish new ones to take their place when Abrams can do his own thing and let the prior works stand as is?)

Regarding Empire, on paper the movie sounds like the antithesis of a blockbuster formula: biggest battle over in the first act, the main charters are apart for almost the entire movie, one character receives training from a Muppet for an entire sequence, the two love interests are merely hiding during the center of the film, the bad guys win, there is no resolution with the ending, etc.


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 11:13 pm
 
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I don't know how much of an EU fan Abrams is but my feeling is that if he does incorporate anything from the EU into the new trilogy it'll be slight nods akin to what Nolan did with his Batman movies, tipping his hat to previous incarnations but still telling his own story.

Even though I'm not the biggest Abrams fan I'd rather have VII, VIII and IX be a singular, cohesive vision than a patchwork, gun-for-hire studio affair; right or wrong that's something Star Wars has never been.


Post Posted: October 24th 2013 11:48 pm
 
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The screenwriting change is overshadowing the rest of the crew announcements. Joseph Kosinski's production designer is on board, hell to the yeah! Roger Guyett is VFX supervisor and, perhaps telling, notably supervised the big model shop/digital matte sequences in Sith.

http://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-epis ... announced/


Post Posted: October 25th 2013 6:12 am
 
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Topeka wrote:
The screenwriting change is overshadowing the rest of the crew announcements...

http://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-epis ... announced/


Indeed. Great to see Ben Burtt involved. Not that I'm surprised, but unless I missed it, I don't think we knew that for sure until now.


Post Posted: October 25th 2013 6:56 pm
 

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My best guess is that Ford is in, as long as they agree to kill off Han Solo like he wished for in ROTJ.

As far as Kasdan... he is a 64 year old man... Think about your fathers... how many of them are still coming up with innovative and new ideas at that age. I hope for the best but he hasn't really don't anything of worth since ROTJ.


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