Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Post-release)
- Thread starter Vivek
- Start date
Solo4114
Master Member
I'm expecting my first kid -- a daughter -- in early March. I always looked forward to showing her the (original) Original Trilogy, but I'm really excited to show her this new film, too, whenever she's old enough to handle it. I love the notion that there's a character like Rey for her to relate to.
JD
Master Member
Obviously a typo on my part - if you checked the link, it does have the correct date.
I actually get the impression JJ and Kasdan did a major re-write of what Lucas and Aerndt had cone up with. A few elements such as the Finn and Rey characters carried forward but they really formed this story themselves and Aerndt had to drop out when he couldn't make the 18 month deadline.
JD
Master Member
Solo4114
Master Member
Strong flower theme. I like it.
Yeah, from what I recall about the development (and, admittedly, I followed very little), Lucas had some idea about doing a story about the Skywalker/Solo kids and what happens in the next generation. I gather we're getting some very broad strokes of that, but the film and subsequent trilogy are very different from what Lucas envisioned.
A separate observation:
The acting in this film was so much more...passionate and resonant than what I saw in the prequels. It's really remarkable. Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, and Oscar Isaac all just seemed so much more invested in their roles and their characters than most of the prequel actors. It actually makes the prequels look even more wooden by comparison. It's really jarring.
I've seen this a thousand times already, and it just keeps getting dumber. I appreciate the effort, but the joke just fell flat. It didn't even elicit a push of air through the nostrils.
Reading the timeline in the Art of TFA the concept team were well formed in Jan 2013 and lead charcters such as Kira and Sam (later called Rey and Finn) were first realized then, even the junkyard planet Jakku. Between then and August vitually all the main characters and many key concepts and themes were mapped and approved for production.
Given that Arndt started in late 2012 and returned his outline in August 2013 a staggering amount of work on the film had already been completed. Then two months later in the October he had gone and JJ and Kasdan decided to step in.Do you honestly believe that in six weeks they produced a first draft that was so radically new the whole production had to start again? So many of the designs and story sequences had been approved by then, just so that all the props could be built in time for the start of Abu Dhabi shoot and shift into full production, along with storyboard and effects sequences.
So they may have "rewritten" the script but they didn't redo it not totally from scratch.No way, they just couldn't. JJ as director had already approved so much and so many of the concepts and key sequences which were already being built and they couldn't restart , not with that much invested in it. Way back in the TFA thread people expressed surprise that a "new" script had been written so quickly, after Arndt departed. Nearly one whole year gone and suddenly six weeks later theres a completly new story? Unlikely. A new screenplay with dialogue and character changes then possibly yes. I'd wager some of the more uneven parts of the writing are the result of what they had to keep and what they tried to bring in late in the production.
Eventually we will get the exact facts but, having read the Art of SWTFA which reads more like a making of, I've got to conclude the screenplay that Arndt submitted based on Georges outlines was simply refined by JJ and Kasdan. There is just no way its a completely original rewrite. Too much had already been done.
Given that Arndt started in late 2012 and returned his outline in August 2013 a staggering amount of work on the film had already been completed. Then two months later in the October he had gone and JJ and Kasdan decided to step in.Do you honestly believe that in six weeks they produced a first draft that was so radically new the whole production had to start again? So many of the designs and story sequences had been approved by then, just so that all the props could be built in time for the start of Abu Dhabi shoot and shift into full production, along with storyboard and effects sequences.
So they may have "rewritten" the script but they didn't redo it not totally from scratch.No way, they just couldn't. JJ as director had already approved so much and so many of the concepts and key sequences which were already being built and they couldn't restart , not with that much invested in it. Way back in the TFA thread people expressed surprise that a "new" script had been written so quickly, after Arndt departed. Nearly one whole year gone and suddenly six weeks later theres a completly new story? Unlikely. A new screenplay with dialogue and character changes then possibly yes. I'd wager some of the more uneven parts of the writing are the result of what they had to keep and what they tried to bring in late in the production.
Eventually we will get the exact facts but, having read the Art of SWTFA which reads more like a making of, I've got to conclude the screenplay that Arndt submitted based on Georges outlines was simply refined by JJ and Kasdan. There is just no way its a completely original rewrite. Too much had already been done.
I remember some rumors that Florence Welch was considered/talked to about a supposedly small role in the sequels.
Make of that what you will...
Make of that what you will...
If you read the more recent articles with Kasdan and JJ about their collaboration, it comes across much different then that. Read the Rolling Stone piece in particular. They spent weeks breaking out the entire story while taking walks together. Kasdan in particular has said they sort of started from scratch but JJ pointed out they didn't have enough time and they kept those core characters and locations. All of this is in these interviews, FWI. There also was an unsubstiated rumor that JJ almost left the project early and it may have been his unhappiness with the GL/Arendt treatment. But as you say, the eventual making of book will be very interesting!
Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy says that while the Force Awakens doesn't follow George Lucas' original treatments for a sequel trilogy, they were an inspiration
"We had discussions based off of George's treatments," she says, "and then when J.J. and Larry came into the process, there were new ideas being discussed, which is normally what would happen in a development process. We didn't have a script, we didn't have an extensive treatment of any kind, so we were still trying to find the story for the movie, so it's not as though something was just read and then set aside, and everybody said, 'Oh, we don't want to do that, we're going to start on this new thing.' Everything emanated from what George had created with the original movies, and then some of the things he was talking about in this brief synopsis. We carried on from there."
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JD
Master Member
Most of those reports/rumors are pretty old, about Episode 7, and talk about the casting of others that didn't seem to make the cut. Along with the idea that they're trying to move away from the EU (including Mara Jade) I'd guess this isn't going to happen.
One small bit that was hard to swallow was that, supposedly, BB8's map couldn't be interpreted because it was a small fragment of the larger map that R2D2 had. I bought that at first until they later showed that the fragment was maybe a whopping 10% of the galaxy. They couldn't figure out where that was? Really?
(Film was still awesome.)
(Film was still awesome.)
Judging by the location, it may have been off in the Uncharted Regions, or little was known about the area. Plus, I think they said that they (the Resistance and the Republic) didn't have a map of the whole galaxy. The First order did, though, as it was recovered from Imperial archives, but it's not like Snoke would just share that information with the people he wants to kill off.
But he had the actual location on his map, no? What does R2D2's larger map actually contribute?
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Ok. I can buy the "uncharted regions" argument. That does make sense.
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