Abrams: I wasn’t supposed to be there. I wasn’t the guy, ya' know? I was working on some other things, and I had something else that I was assuming would be the next project. The whole thing was a crazy leap of faith. And there was an actual moment when I nearly said, “No, I’m not going to do this.” With
Force Awakens, I feel like we managed to introduce these new characters and continue a story in a way that I thought had heart and humanity and humor and surprise. Though of course I’m aware that there are critics of that movie, it felt to me like we dodged a bullet. And I left loving
Star Wars as much as I did when I got there. And to ask to have that happen again, I felt a little bit like I was playing with fire. Like, why go back? We managed to make it work. What the hell am I thinking? And there was a moment when I literally said, "No," and Katie said, "You should do this." And then I thought, she’s usually right about stuff. And I could see that even though the last thing on my mind was going away and jumping back into that, especially with the time constraints that we were faced with...
Fast Company: What were the time constraints?
Abrams: Because they had announced release dates, and everything works backwards.
Fast Company: Was the schedule unusually fast?
Abrams: To have no script and to have a release date and have it be essentially a two-year window when you’re saying (to yourself), you’ve got two years from the decision to do it to release, and you have literally nothing... You don’t have the story, you don’t have the cast, you don’t have the designers, the sets. There was a crew, and there were things that will be worked on for the version that preceded ours, but this was starting over. And because this was such a mega job, I knew at the very least I needed a cowriter to work on this thing, but I didn’t know who that cowriter would be. There was nothing. So the first thing I did was reach out to a writer who I’ve admired for years, Chris Terrio. who I didn’t really know, to say, "Listen, would you want to write
Star Wars with me?" And he screamed.
____
To summarise:
Farce Awakens was Abrams' dream fan fic project, his New Hope.
He had to make it a story builder for future sequels but didn't care for the story.
Then he left, thinking that he's done.
Then "Kathy called" and demanded that he come back and help her save some face.
He had to agree, even tho he didn't care.
He had to come up with a script and produce the movie under two years.
. . .
I'm def not paying to watch this. But I will absolutely check out a camrip as soon as good ones are avalable. It's gonna be either an even bigger pile of shite than TLJ or just another stupid borefest like TFA.
