J.J. Abrams‘ STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is out in May and the director is already out making the rounds to promote the movie. But I feel like for every Star Trek question that he fields there’s going to be three more that are about STAR WARS: EPISODE VII, which I think could get repetitive very quickly. I know everyone wants the latest news on the sequels and how Abrams feels about directing a film in a franchise he loves, but come on can’t we wait until after STAR TREK comes out? It’s like a new mother showing off her baby girl and someone asking her, “Well that’s awesome but when are you going to squeeze out a boy?”
Empire has been releasing some of their conversations with J.J. Abrams from their newest issue and today’s comments are about his love for STAR WARS and how it may affect how he works on the new film. Empire specifically asked him that question and this is what he had to say:
“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.”
J.J. Abrams goes on to add:
“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.”
Abrams also talked about how he initially turned down directing Episode VII but then reached a point where he felt comfortable accepting the massive undertaking:
“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. 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.”
There are people that aren’t pleased that J.J. Abrams is directing STAR WARS: EPISODE VII but I think the man loves the original films so much it would literally kill him to make a bad movie in the series. He would absolutely hate to have his entry in the franchise looked down upon and I think Abrams isn’t a fool: he knows how high the stakes are. If he is willing to take this on knowing fully well the scorn and hatred that could be unleashed on him from unhappy STAR WARS fans then I have faith that he’s going to deliver the goods.