When Disney announced plans for the new “Star Wars” trilogy way back when, it was assumed that filmmaker J.J. Abrams would work on the first film and hand the baton off to new filmmakers to finish the story. Of course, Rian Johnson picked up the baton and turned in ‘The Last Jedi’ and Colin Trevorrow was supposed to complete the end of the race with ‘Episode IX.’ But after Trevorrow’s departure from the franchise, and Johnson’s polarizing second film, Lucasfilm found itself in a bind. There was a release date for ‘Episode IX,’ but no script and no director. Enter J.J. Abrams to save the day.
Now, with ‘Episode IX’ mere months away, Abrams is opening up about the process of coming back to “Star Wars” to finish the story he began in 2015 and why he initially turned down the opportunity.
“I wasn’t supposed to be there,” said Abrams, in a new interview with Fast Company. “I wasn’t the guy, ya’ know? I was working on some other things, and I had something else that I was assuming would be the next project, if we’d be so lucky. And then Kathy Kennedy called and said, ‘Would you really, seriously, consider coming aboard?’”
He continued, “And once that started, it all happened pretty quickly. The whole thing was a crazy leap of faith. And there was an actual moment when I nearly said, ‘No, I’m not going to do this.’”
Abrams actually goes on to talk about how he was even considering turning down “The Force Awakens” because the franchise was too close to his heart. But alas, he did the first film and it ended up being pretty well received.
“I was trepidatious to begin with, getting involved, because I love ‘Star Wars’ so much and felt like it was . . . . It was almost, on a personal level, a dangerous thing to get too close to something that you care that much about,” he revealed. “And yet, with ‘Force Awakens,’ I feel like we managed to introduce these new characters—for some people, new actors—and continue a story in a way that I thought had heart and humanity and humor and surprise. Though of course I’m aware that there are critics of that movie, it felt to me like we dodged a bullet.”
Having “dodged a bullet” with ‘TFA,’ the idea of tempting fate yet again with the upcoming ‘Episode IX’ was a concern for the filmmaker. Should he go back to the well and attempt to close out the story that began over 40 years ago?
“And to ask to have that happen again, I felt a little bit like I was playing with fire,” said Abrams. “Like, why go back? We managed to make it work. What the hell am I thinking? And there was a moment when I literally said, ‘No,’ and Katie said, ‘You should do this.’”
He added, “And my first thought was, has she met someone? And then I thought, she’s usually right about stuff. And when she said it, I think that she felt like it was an opportunity to bring to a close this story that we had begun and had continued, of course.”
The only question that fans care about now is how well Abrams finishes off the decades-long story that began in 1977 and will finally wrap up December 20. Then we’ll know for sure if the filmmaker should have stayed away from the franchise and gone out on top or if he was smart to finish the Skywalker Saga on his own terms.