The weight of responsibility lying on the shoulders of Kathleen Kennedy and her Lucasfilm team is tremendous. Not only the task of bringing home a $200 million+ dollar blockbuster, but one that – hopefully – wraps up the story begun back in 1977 by the original, world-changing Star Wars.
It’s a job only an honorary Fantha Tracker could hope to take on, and speaking with io9 Kennedy discussed why the sequel trilogy didn’t have a fully defined roadmap, leading from episode 7 to 9.
Kathleen Kennedy: Well, first of all, when we sat down to do Force Awakens we spent a great deal of time working out all three movies and doing a real deep dive on the previous six and talking about that, understanding the mythology that George [Lucas] had created, bringing in people who had worked on those films, been a part of Lucasfilm. We brought in two or three different writers. There were, what? Eight of us usually sitting in that room and whiteboarding what the possibilities are and looking at character arcs, identifying. Because George had already gone to Harrison [Ford], Carrie [Fisher] and Mark [Hamill] to do the film. So we knew that was a given. That we were bringing them back into the trilogy and we’re introducing new characters. So we had a sense of where this was going.
But the important thing is, I like to look at the first three movies that George did where he had different directors. He was really serving as the producing role in that. And we were doing a similar kind of thing, which is identifying genre and really allowing a filmmaker, and in the case of J.J. and Rian, huge Star Wars fans, and allowing them to get immersed, to find the center of the story and then make it their own. It’s obviously important, as George has always said, to have meaning in these movies. And as a director, I think every director should have something to say in what it is they’re trying to do and they need to find what’s personal for them. In addition to something like Star Wars, which has this incredible fan base that cares so deeply, that wants to believe that we’re as immersed in that process as they are—that we’re looking at the nuances and the importance of the mythology as they are. And I can tell you that that is absolutely what goes on. It’s endless conversations along those lines.
- Hardcover Book
- Ratcliffe, Amy (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 232 Pages - 10/30/2018 (Publication Date) - Chronicle Books (Publisher)
