In a recent interview with Empire Magazine director J.J. Abrams finally talks about directing Star Wars: Episode VII, and he basically has more questions than answers. So for those of you hoping to get a little insight into what he's planning, he's still trying to figure it out himself! Here's what he had to say when he was asked about coming from Star Trek and tackling Star Wars:
I don’t know because we’re just getting started. So it’s a great question that I hope I’ll have a good answer to when I know what the answer is. There are infinitely more questions than answers right now, but to me, they’re not that dissimilar. Though I came at these both from very different places, where they both meet is a place of ‘Ooh, that’s really exciting.’ And even though I was never a Star Trek fan, I felt like there was a version of it that would make me excited, that I would think ‘that’s cool, that feels right, I actually would want to see that.
How we were going to get there, what the choices were going to be, who was going to be in it – all of those things I knew would have to be figured out, but it was all based on a foundation of this indescribable, guttural passion for something that could be. It’s a similar feeling that I have with Star Wars. I feel like I can identify a hunger for what I would want to see again and that is an incredibly exciting place to begin a project. The movies, the worlds could not be more different but that feeling that there’s something amazing here is the thing that they share.
He goes on to talk about his first initial reaction when he was asked to direct Star Wars, and how he eased into the director's chair,
My knee-jerk reaction was that I’m in the middle of working on the Star Trek movie and I can’t even consider it. But then time went by and I got further along working on the movie and getting to a place where I had done most of the heavy lifting. So when I met with Kathy Kennedy we just started discussing it and I was able to actually engage in the conversation. I went down to tell Katie, my wife and I said ‘I had just a very interesting conversation with Kathy.’ That was the beginning.
He then reveals that Steven Spielberg knew everything that was going on with the Star Wars franchise all along saying,
I will say that Steven [Spielberg] was very encouraging of Star Wars. It’s funny because I talked to him about it and it turned out he knew all about what was going on.
Al I know is that I'm happy and excited that Abrams is taking on the challenge of making this movie. There were a lot of directors that could have taken it on, but I think he's one of the best choices they could have made. It's going to be awesome to start seeing how this movie turns out.