J.J. Abrams

While everyone waits for the title and trailer release, J.J. Abrams, in a new interview, offers that he hopes Star Wars: Episode IX will leave the fans satisfied. Speaking with ET Online, Abrams first remarks on the image he released featuring John Boyega, Daisy Ridley and Oscar Isaac following having completed filming on the movie. “It

There is more good news on the “soft reboot” that is Star Wars: Episode IX as J.J. Abrams continues fixing the franchise. Following it learned that Abrams will be fixing characters such as Rey and Finn, now it’s learned that Abrams will not be using certain characters that were a disaster in Rian Johnson’s The

As I stated on back in April, J.J. Abrams is set to fix Star Wars with Episode IX, as a recent report offers it’s a course correction for the franchise. In Variety‘s report how J.J. Abrams is seeking a mega deal, it’s noted that “he’s currently working on Star Wars: Episode IX, which has been

Following yesterday’s news that J.J. Abrams will be directing Star Wars: Episode IX, Disney announces a new release date. Star Wars Episode IX moves from a  May 24, 2019 release to a December 20, 2019 release date. Movies around the date include WB’s recently announced Wonder Woman 2 on December 13th, the He-Man Masters of the Universe movie

Following Star Wars: Episode IX losing director Colin Trevorrow, Disney has announced J.J. Abrams will now direct and write the movie. J.J. Abrams directed Star Wars: The Force Awakens which made over #2 billion at the box office, and Disney also announced Argo, Batman vs. Superman and Justice League screenwriter Chris Terrio will also co-write

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It’s learned the Star Wars: The Force Awakens Blu-Ray/DVD release will feature deleted scenes.

While promoting the Stephen King John F. Kennedy time travel series, 11.22.63, J.J. Abrams told EW.com deleted scenes will be part of The Force Awakens DVD, but not an extended edition. Abrams also let it be known the length of the first cut.

“I don’t know what the longest cut was,” Abrams said. “Probably, if it were with credits, close to two hours and 50 minutes was the first cut.” (Star Wars: The Force Awakens has a 2 hour 16 minute run-time)

Some of the deleted scenes included a shot where Kylo Ren turns on his lightsaber, and a shot of Maz Kanata placing the Skywalker lightsaber into the hand of Carrie Fisher’s General Leia.

Abrams also talked about completing the movie.

“I can’t believe that it’s done,” Abrams said. “It was three years of very tense work by a lot of people. I’m just so happy that all the work that everyone did. Even the people who you don’t see in the movie – the puppeteers who were painted out, I watched them in 125-degree heat in Abu Dhabi bringing BB-8 to life, and then we mercilessly painted them out in the movie. I’m just so glad that people get to see all the work that this amazing cast and crew did. Whatever the numbers are, honestly I’m just so grateful the movie is out there and has been well received.”

You can check out a cool video here going over some of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens deleted scenes and rejected concepts.

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It seems the more and more people I talk to about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the more people are coming to realize the movie wasn’t really all that good.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a very entertaining movie, and it was nice to see Star Wars back on the big screen, but as our movie reviewer told me, once you take your Star Wars fanboy/girl goggless off, the movie falls short of Phantom Menace.

A big gripe fans have with the movie is that — we’ve seen it all before; even the major death scene, and the movie didn’t progress any of the storyline.

Now J.J. Abrams responds to the criticisms.

Oh, and there is a petition to get George Lucas back on Star Wars.

Via THR:

“I knew that, whatever we did, there would be a group of people — and I was just hoping and praying that it would be smaller than not — that would take issue with any number of things,” Abrams says in the latest episode of THR’s Awards Chatter podcast, admitting that everything about the project initially scared him. “But I knew we weren’t making the movie for any other reason than we believed that it could be something meaningful and special and entertaining and worthy of people’s time.”

 “I can understand that someone might say, ‘Oh, it’s a complete rip-off!’ ” he says, adding, “What was important for me was introducing brand new characters using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new — to go backwards to go forwards.”

Regarding why he didn’t continue on with the second movie:

 “I realized when I was working on [The Force Awakens], the amount of energy that was required to tell the story, and do it justice, knowing when Episode VIII would start shooting, there was no way — if I wanted to still have my children talk to me in my old age — that doing that would make any sense,” he says. “If The Force Awakens worked, it was the perfect place to say, ‘I got to make a Star Wars movie,’ and not be a greedy bastard. If it didn’t work, no-one would want me doing it anyway.”

On Episode VIII:

 “Larry [Kasdan] and I had a bunch of thoughts of where certain things could go and we shared those things with Rian Johnson, who’s directing VIII,” he says. “He had things that he came up with where he asked if it was possible if we could make some adjustments with what we were doing at the end, most of which we did — there were just a couple that didn’t feel right, so he made adjustments — but it was just collaboration.”

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Obvious spoilers follow for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

We just learned Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda had an appearance in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, now check out early story details as well as an explanation of what was going on with R2-D2 and Luke Skywalker.

Regarding the early story details that were part of an older draft of the script, screenwriter Michael Ardnt offered the following (via EW):

• R2 and C-3PO were originally written as showing up together, but Lawrence Kasdan said they should be kept separate from each other.

• Back in a version of the script from 2012, Rey met Luke Skywalker on Jakku following her home having been destroyed. Rey then went on to kick the “bad guy’s ass.”

• One story had the movie going in the direction of searching for Darth Vader’s remains.

• Another version had them on a quest to the underwater wreckage of the second Death Star to recover a key piece of history about sacred Jedi sites in the galaxy.

Why wasn’t Luke featured heavily?

• The reason why Luke wasn’t featured in The Force Awakens is because they thought any time they wrote him into the movie, Luke took it over, and then it was thought no one would care about the other (new) characters.

There has been question online surrounding what happened to R2-D2 and why he woke up the way he did. Here is the text from a post-credit screening Q&A that touches upon the subject:

•  R2-D2’s arrival had to be presented as a kind of delayed gratification, building up the audience’s expectation before the droid rolls out and starts beep-blooping.

•  “We had the idea about R2 plugging into the information base of the Death Star, and that’s how he was able to get the full map and find where the Jedi temples are,” Arndt said.

•  “But the idea was that in that scene where R2 plugged in, he downloaded the archives of the Empire, which was referenced by Kylo Ren,” Abrams said. Thirty-eight years later, in both our own and galactic time, that data becomes useful in The Force Awakens when a new droid approaches the dormant R2.

• “BB-8 comes up and says something to him, which is basically, ‘I’ve got this piece of a map, do you happen to have the rest?’” Abrams said. “The idea was, R2 who has been all over the galaxy, is still in his coma, but he hears this. And it triggers something that would ultimately wake him up.”

•  “While it may seem, you know, completely lucky and an easy way out, at that point in the movie, when you’ve lost a person, desperately, and somebody you hopefully care about is unconscious, you want someone to return.”

• So for those let wondering: BB-8’s earlier question rattles around inside R2’s dome for a while. Those old astromechs must just take a while to boot up again.

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has a December 18, 2015 release directed by J.J. Abrams from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and Abrams. Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk are producing, and John Williams returns as the composer.

Actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Max von Sydow, Lupita Nyong’o and Gwendoline Christie will join the original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker in the new film.

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Earlier tonight, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was featured on 60 Minutes, which not only included a behind-the-scenes look at the movie, but also footage of Daisy Ridley’s Rey meeting BB-8 for the firs time as well as a listen to the John Williams music score. Check out video below.

YouTube video is also included below just in case the CBS feed isn’t working.

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has a December 18, 2015 release directed by J.J. Abrams from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and Abrams. Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk are producing, and John Williams returns as the composer.

Actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Max von Sydow, Lupita Nyong’o and Gwendoline Christie will join the original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker in the new film.

Harrison Ford recently revealed the winners of the previous Star Wars: The Force Awakens charitable campaign as well as announced a second initiative, now check out video above of J.J. Abrams and the rest of the cast adding their own charities for the Omaze campaign.

Two winners will be selected for the grand prize to attend the Star Wars: The Force Awakens world premiere.

You can donate and enter at Omaze.com/starwarspremiere.

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has a December 18, 2015 release directed by J.J. Abrams from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and Abrams. Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk are producing, and John Williams returns as the composer.

Actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Max von Sydow, Lupita Nyong’o and Gwendoline Christie will join the original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker in the new film.