Star Wars luminary and long-time franchise scribe Lawrence Kasdan claims that Star Wars: Episode VIII will be “so different” compared to J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens.
Kasdan believes that director Rian Johnson (Looper, Brick) is cooking up “some weird thing” with the 2017 sequel, and the esteemed writer hints that some of Johnson’s filmmaking style will bleed into the final vision to create a Star Wars film like we’ve never seen before.
While speaking to the LA Times, Kasdan was full of praise for Disney’s current slate – both the episodic releases and the spinoff Anthology films between them. That largely comes down to the talent appointed behind the camera, with the scribe signalling out Rian Johnson and Jurassic World‘s Colin Trevorrow in particular.
“These movies will all be so different,” he said. “Rian Johnson [the director of Episode 8] is a friend of mine–he’s going to make some weird thing. If you’ve seen Rian’s work, you know it’s not going be like anything that’s ever been in Star Wars. You couldn’t have three more different people than JJ, Rian, and Colin [Trevorrow, director of Episode 9]. Those movies will have the Star Wars saga as their basis, but everything else will be different.”
Finding himself among the cinematic big leagues after his breakout with The Brothers Bloom in 2009, Star Wars: Episode VIII is the first true blockbuster of Johnson’s career. It’s interesting to hear Kasdan talk of the director’s stylistic tendencies, and we hope that he’s given the right amount of creative freedom when venturing to a galaxy far, far away. Heck, perhaps we’ll see some of that “cool, sci-fi realism” that was teased not too long ago.
Star Wars: Episode VIII is on course for a release on May 26, 2017, while Colin Trevorrow will take the reins of Lucasfilm’s crown jewel when Episode IX lands in 2019.
