Star Wars is more than a movie, it’s a vessel that instantly transports you back to a specific time period in your life. When people speak of a romanticism for film they’re often speaking about the movies they grew up with that helped transform them into who they are today. Star Wars is exactly that for a multitude of people across the globe. So much so that it’s now taken on a culture of its own. Which is why when fans (including myself) first heard the rumblings of a new trilogy being made we couldn’t help but feel a little skeptical. We’ve been burned by George Lucas before with his ill-fated attempt to launch a prequel series that was mostly met with distaste. Gone were characters with heart, gorgeous art direction. awe-inspiring sets and the sense of magic that kept those first three movies alive. Instead they were replaced with wooden acting, a script centered around trade disputes, green screens and an abundance of cartoonish CGI. It’s a trilogy that’s garnered more and more hatred as the years pass and we look back on them without rose colored glasses. So it’s hard to hear “we’re making a new Star Wars movie” and not immediately jump back to thoughts of those very same prequels. Except there was something else brewing here. Lucas sold the rights to Disney (and donated his ENTIRE massive sum of money to charity so good on him) and was stepping away from the franchise for the first time in its existence. JJ Abrams of Lost, Star Trek and Super 8 fame decided to step behind the director’s chair and give us a clear vision of what he wanted. And in the infamous words of Jack Shepard what he wanted to do was “to go back”.
Except don’t just take my word for it – watch this behind the scenes featurette below and see for yourself.
It’s hard not to get a little emotional about The Force Awakens now isn’t it? Real sets, location shooting, practical effects, make-up over CGI, animatronics, robotics, the original cast, massive recreations of entire ships and star fighters – IT’S STAR WARS! It’s real and you can touch it. There’s been a very heavy emphasis on the franchise going back to its roots with The Force Awakens and so far every bit of footage we’ve seen from the feature has shown that. Much of the original trilogy cast is back along with a lot of the behind the scenes wizards and famed screenwriter Lawrence Karsdan who co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back. In order to relaunch a new story for a new generation Star Wars is going back to its roots, and that’s exactly where it always needed to be. Of course we still have no idea if the movie will be good or if it’ll be a steaming pile of garbage. We won’t actually know that until the lights dim on us in December and that infamous opening title crawl starts to hit the screen. It’ll be at that moment where we’ll find out if Star Wars will be met with overwhelming love again, and at the very least we know that Abrams and co. set out to do exactly that.
