JJ Abrams on Star Wars: "Having a plan is the most important thing"

JJ Abrams spoke recently in an interview about his nostalgia and desire to return to directing his own original projects. Spielberg’s natural heir is currently working on the project of the new black Superman for DC, having already successfully passed through relevant franchises such as Mission Impossible, Star Trek and series such as Lost. However, the director has a saga that acts like a thorn in his mind every time he thinks about it: Star Wars. The person in charge of the resurgence of Star Wars in the cinema (already at the hand of Disney) directed the first film with some expectation, which acted as a veritable tribute to the original trilogy and marked the beginning of a new story. The project started like this exciting, with many possibilities: A new villain, charismatic protagonists and the return of Luke Skywalker. JJ Abrams would continue to oversee the project, but the second installment would be directed by Rian Johnson, who did absolutely what he wanted with his delivery, tearing down and building his own version of the story. The third part was to be directed by Colin Trevorrow, however the producer assumed the direction to try to redirect the trilogy without success. The result? Three films that did not follow any clear plot lines, like a class work in which each student does their part and when putting the pieces together nothing makes sense. In a recent interview for Collider, the outlet asked Abrams about those “creative transfers” of the last galactic trilogy and if they would have benefited from having a concrete narrative plan. For that part he is clear:“There is nothing more important than knowing where you are going”, but he clarified that there are always transfers in the narrative that must be taken into account. Remember that Abrams comes from the world of television where he stood out with Alias, so his work methodology is , an adventure in the open sea where narratively he finds paths, without really knowing the end point. As could be seen with Rey’s adventure, this strategy has the risk of being shipwrecked on more than one occasion, but the director seems to have changed his work methodology so that this does not happen again: “I feel that what I have learned as a lesson multiple times now, and it’s something especially in this pandemic year working with writers. The lesson is that you have to plan things the best you can, and you always need to be able to respond to the unexpected. And the unexpected can come in all kinds of ways, and I think there is nothing more important than knowing where you are going. “