Rian Johnson (LOOPER) talked at length recently on the TalkHouse podcast about modern movie-watching, social media, and more importantly working on STAR WARS EPISODE VIII. He talked with Terry Gilliam interestingly enough about the creative freedom he has been given working on STAR WARS and what the writing process has been like. Gilliam asks some great questions and Johnson was eager to please by answering him; although I suspect he answered more as a fan and not as someone who has a studio to please.
Read the exchange below from The Playlist via /Film:
RJ: "You know, I’m doing a new Star Wars movie, I’m doing the next Star Wars movie".
TG: "Wow!"
RJ: "Yeah, yeah, it’s crazy! I’m writing it and directing it — the next one after the one JJ is doing."
TG: "What does it feel like when you take over someone else’s world?"
RJ: "Well, I’m just starting into it so… but so far it’s been nothing but… honestly, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had writing. It’s just joyous. But also for me personally, I grew up, not just watching those movies but playing with those toys, so as a little kid the first movies I was making in my head were set in that world. So a big part of it is that sort of direct connection, it’s almost like an automatic jacking-in into childhood in a weird way I guess…. but I don’t know, ask me again in a few years, we’ll talk about it."
TG: Gilliam asks if George Lucas is "looking over his shoulder".
RJ: "He sold it to Disney, so he’s kind of stepped back and Kathy Kennedy is running LucasFilm".
TG: "Do you feel a different responsibility because it is Star Wars, or are you free?"
RJ: "You’ve got… its… again, I’m figuring it out as I go. I’m dancing on top of the avalanche a little bit. So I’ll have more perspective in a while but it’s a balance of remembering what inspires you about it [the original films], but you can probably go to the wrong place by feeling too responsible to it. You have to keep your head loose enough to tell a story you actually care about."
TG: Gilliam finds it interesting, the struggle between the responsibility of the franchise and the creative pull to make it your own.
RJ: "It’s a balance, yeah. … Well, that’s been the great thing about it — Kathleen and her whole creative team have been so insistent on all the filmmakers they’ve been hiring for these new movies: ‘We want you to take it and turn it into something that you really care about.’ And we’ll see how the process plays out, but so far, that’s a big part of the reason I’m in it. Because that just seems like their attitude towards it. It’s really exciting actually."
TG: Terry Gilliam has one request: "please bring Frank Oz back".
RJ: "You kidding? How could you not. How could you not!"
TG: Gilliam told a story about a conversation he had with George Lucas who insisted that the computer-generated Yoda was so much better than the puppet version: "I couldn’t get through to him, he couldn’t see how wrong he was!"
That's our George. So taking that all in it seems Johnson is over the moon working on one of the installment of the STAR WARS saga. He is defiantly jazzed about including Yoda in the franchise. The voice of Yoda, Frank Oz, said awhile back that he’d like to return, adding that it “depends on the story” and “at this point you can’t go back to the puppet.” Something tells me he’d come skipping back, puppet and all.
You can listen to The Talkhouse podcast, embedded below: