Screenwriter Simon Kinberg wants to make fans fall in love with Star Wars again

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

I have an image in my head of all of the staffers at Lucasfilm running around the office with papers flying around their heads as they try to get all of the pieces in place for the launch of the new regime at Disney that will begin their Phase One with STAR WARS: EPISODE VII in 2015. I am sure there has been a plan in place for longer than any of us realize for the new STAR WARS movies to be made and released, well before we heard the big news last year. With J.J. Abrams shepherding EPISODE VII, work is ongoing with the additional movies set to debut in 2016 and 2017. One of the screenwriters associated with those standalone projects is Simon Kinberg who gave some interesting thoughts regarding his place in the STAR WARS universe.

In an interview with Hero Complex, Kinberg discussed his trepidation at venturing into the revered annals of STAR WARS history despite previous work on franchises such as X-MEN and SHERLOCK HOLMES. Here are some of his thoughts.

On where progress stands right now on his screenplays:

“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.”

On working alongside the other STAR WARS screenwriters:

“I’m not in the same category as Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt. It’s great to have a chance to work with those guys. Larry is really an idol of mine. He is, as much as anybody, the reason I wanted to get into screenwriting when I was a kid. “Raiders” and “Empire Strikes Back” were the two things that I saw when I was younger that I wanted to one day somehow emulate. So having the opportunity to be around him is as exciting as any aspect of the “Star Wars” process.”

On focusing the new films on characters and storytelling:

“[I agree completely]. I think 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.”

While I am a big fan of X-MEN: FIRST CLASS and SHERLOCK HOLMES, Kinberg also wrote X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, THIS MEANS WAR, JUMPER, and MR. AND MRS. SMITH which aren’t that great. I hope that Lawrence Kasdan‘s involvement will influence all of the other writers involved in the new movies, but it remains to be seen just what we can expect until the first footage appears of STAR WARS: EPISODE VII.