First up, “Episode VII” director J.J. Abrams spoke with his Star Trek Into Darkness star Simon Pegg about the filmmaker taking on the “Star Wars” franchise. You can watch the video below!
In a separate interview, the Los Angeles Times spoke to writer Simon Kinberg about the stand-alone films. In April, Walt Disney Pictures confirmed that Star Wars: Episode VII will hit theaters in the summer of 2015 and that every summer after that will offer a “Star Wars” film, alternating with one of the stand-alone films. Those stand-alone films are being worked on by Kinberg and “The Empire Strikes Back” writer Lawrence Kasdan.
“We’re really at the early phases of figuring out the details, but the spirit of the original movie is the thing I fell in love with, so it’s the spirit of that that I think will guide us,” Kinberg said.
He added that what “worked so well in all of the ‘Star Wars’ movies is the characters. I think the reason that they’re different than other science fiction or other genre movies is because George [Lucas] created a universe of people that you wanted to go back and see over and over again, and that’s why it’s spanned and spawned so many different mediums, so many different generations, every different language. You want to go back and see those characters, like I did when I was a kid. ‘Empire Strikes Back’ was the first movie I saw in a movie theater more than once. And I went back 10, 15 times in the theater, and I’ve seen it probably over a 100 times since. But I saw it that many times in the theater because I loved those characters. I loved Han, I loved Leia, I loved Luke, I was right at the age when I was old enough to start to understand the nuance of that movie. I think I was too young for ‘New Hope’ when it came out in the theater, although I loved it and it was my favorite film until ‘Empire.’ And then really, that changed my life, that movie.”
Kinberg was also asked which character is his favorite. “There’s so many that I love and for different reasons. I really love Han Solo. He does that thing that Larry does so well. He’s really human and real, but also really fun and banter-y and larger than life. And when I was a kid, I wanted to be Han Solo.”
