Given that fans have been waiting with bated breath for J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" for years now, we thought what better time to shift our focus to Rian Johnson's "Star Wars: Episode VII?"
When Disney first purchased Lucasfilm and announced plans for a new trilogy, the idea was to have a connected series of movies that all had a distinct perspective (unlike George Lucas overseeing every last detail in the prequel movies). That meant Abrams got a crack at the first one while Johnson and Colin Trevorrow will have the opportunity to follow up. While this is a sound strategy from an artistic standpoint, it does make things complicated from a narrative perspective. Each film still has to connect to the other to form one coherent story told over three movies. So how does Lucasfilm plan on accomplishing that?
Well Abrams, who is an executive producer of "Episode 8" and "Episode 9," revealed that Johnson was kept in the loop every step of the way so that he knew exactly what he'd be working with when his time came.
"What Larry [Kasdan] and I did was set up certain key relationships, certainly key questions, conflicts," Abrams told Wired. "And we knew where certain things were going. We had meetings with Rian [Johnson] and Ram Bergman, the producer of VIII. They were watching dailies when we were shooting our movie. We wanted them to be part of the process, to make the transition to their film as seamless as possible."
Abrams went on to say that he's been "as transparent as possible," in order to guarantee a sense of continuity between the films. Abrams, of course, is infamous for the strict secrecy with which he makes his films. But for the new trilogy to make sense, he obviously had to let the other filmmakers in on the creative process. This approach has helped jumpstart production on "Episode 8" as there is already a completed script for the planned 2017 film.
Even with the collaborative nature of the "Star Wars" films, Abrams assured that Johnson and Trevorrow will have complete creative control to make their own unique marks on a galaxy far, far away. That sounds pretty great to us.
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" will hit theaters on Dec. 18.
