Today’s The Force Awakens controversy, or whatever you would like to call it: In a Strange Magic interview, George Lucas says that the version of the sequel trilogy that we’re getting are not the ones he wrote. Or, to be precise, per Cinema Blend:
The ones that I sold to Disney, they came up to the decision that they didn’t really want to do those. So they made up their own. So it’s not the ones that I originally wrote.
As with anything involving Star Wars and George Lucas, the reactions have been mixed. Bryan at Big Shiny Robot breaks out a Simon Kinberg quote where he maintains that George’s blueprint is still very much a part of the development, and points out that changes have been a part of all the Star Wars films.
Either way, I have a hard time getting upset. Even without Kinberg weighing in, it’s pretty clear that nothing in this franchise ever truly gets thrown out. To paraphrase Eleven-ThirtyEight, every bit of the buffalo gets used. And we’ve seen over the years that it’s just as possible to do a good Star Wars story without George Lucas as it is to do an unsatisfactory one with him. But the internet’s gotta internet, so I expect we’ll be hearing plenty from all sides of the issue before the week is out.
→ In other news, add a new name (and woman!) to the cast list: Leanne Best of Woman In Black 2: Angel Of Death.
→ Shocking no one, LEGO confirms they will be making sets for The Force Awakens. The surprise is that they’re actually showing them off at the UK Toy Fair – along with a non-disclose agreement. But we can see the nifty tote bag that Jedi News got.
→ /Film maintains that we won’t be seeing the classic heroes in the second trailer, despite the Latino Review report.
“we’ve seen over the years that it’s just as possible to do a good Star Wars story without George Lucas as it is to do an unsatisfactory one with him.”
Absolutely right. No one should lose any sleep over this news.