J.J. Abrams: ‘History repeats itself’ in new ‘Star Wars’

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Abrams on Lucas' Legacy Director J.J. Abrams talks about George Lucas' input in 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' and discusses how the new movie feels 'brand new.' (Dec. 10)

NEW YORK — As director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams is at the center of potentially the biggest movie of all time, iconic characters known around the world, and a sci-fi saga that looms over pop culture like a fully armed and operational Death Star.

If all this is weighing on him, he doesn’t show it. Instead on this rainy December afternoon, while holiday pop tunes play overhead in a Manhattan hotel bar, he’s less a world-renowned filmmaker and more the 11-year-old kid who first saw George Lucas’ 1977 Star Wars in a cinema in Westwood, Calif. He is showing a video on his phone of Oscar-winning composer John Williams conducting a new brass-heavy theme from The Force Awakens (in theaters Friday) to a journalist, both of them nerding out mightily.

Wham!'s Last Christmas just doesn’t measure up.

“He’s 83 and he’s (expletive) incredible," says Abrams, 49, while sporting a boyish grin. “Dude, it was crazy.”

Since signing on for the beginning of a new Star Wars trilogy in January 2013, very few stages of the process have been free of the frequent freak-out for Abrams. Taking place about 30 years after the ending of 1983’s Return of the Jedi — which saw the heroic Rebel Alliance seemingly deliver a fatal blow to the evil Empire — The Force Awakens is just the first of a series of new movies taking place in the galaxy far, far away, and one that honors Lucas' work while also forging its own path.

The two biggest movies of all time, 2009's Avatar and 1997's Titanic, opened in the same mid-December release slot as Force Awakens. If the new Star Wars is a good film and hits the right nerve for the fandom, it has a chance to be the first movie to reach $3 billion worldwide, says Rentrak senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

But financials aside, "this is a monumental event," he says. "I've been doing this for over 20 years, and I've never seen this interest and passion in a single movie."

The Force Awakens also sets up "the long-term success of this reinvigorated franchise and the whole notion of Star Wars and the next installments yet to come," Dergarabedian adds.

'Star Wars': John Boyega's impressions of the cast "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" star John Boyega's impressions of the cast and crew

Episode VIII, written and directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper), will continue the story and begin filming in Europe in January for release on May 26, 2017, and Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World) has been tapped to helm Episode IX, set for 2019.

There are other stand-alone movies in the works that will be used to flesh out various aspects of the universe, including Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (out Dec. 16, 2016), which centers on a rebel mission to steal plans for the first Death Star, and a young Han Solo project (May 25, 2018), written by Force Awakens screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan and son Jon and directed by The Lego Movie filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

The Force Awakens introduces a new crop of characters such as Rey (Daisy Ridley), a scavenger who was left on the planet Jakku as a child and now waits to find her family; Finn (John Boyega), a Stormtrooper for the villainous First Order who leaves his service and embarks on an adventure when he meets Rey; and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), a lightsaber-wielding masked antagonist who has an unhealthy obsession with fallen Sith lord Darth Vader.

Kasdan, who was a writer on 1980’s Empire Strikes Back as well as Jedi, sees a direct line from the first Star Wars to The Force Awakens, and not just because the movie returns such legacy characters as Harrison Ford’s smuggler-turned-hero Han Solo and Carrie Fisher’s General Leia.

“As with all things, there’s deterioration, there are people trying to stay together and be good partners to each other and it not working out," says Kasdan, 66, who co-wrote the Force Awakens script with Abrams. “It’s just like real life, just in a different galaxy.”

'Star Wars' cast answers: Who's your favorite droid? We ask the cast of 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens': Who's your favorite droid?

As important as the Force, that mysterious energy wielded by Jedi that binds folks together, is the overriding theme of the Star Wars saga for Kasdan: How do people fulfill their potential and figure out who they are and what they’re capable of? The main characters of the original trilogy all dealt with it, from Solo to Princess Leia to Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker, the farm boy who went to space and became a Jedi knight. And now the new kids will, too.

Skywalker’s search for meaning is what made Force Awakens star Lupita Nyong’o, 32, a fan growing up in Kenya. “All children feel like this at some point, where you seek and you want belonging and you want a purpose and you want adventure," says the actress, who plays alien pirate Maz Kanata via motion capture.

Luke's quest seems to be reflected in Rey. She, too, seeks a bigger destiny and has heard the legends of what has happened in the past.

“The crux of her story is that she begins alone and she goes on this journey, but she never acts like she’s been alone the whole time,” says Ridley, 23. “She’s so open to everything, and that was what was so glorious about playing it. She’s not emotionally stunted and trapped in this world she’s built of her own.”

Abrams explains that The Force Awakens has aspects “that feel like significant required Star Wars-ian necessity” — TIE Fighters, X-wing Starfighters, lightsabers. Star Wars also has always been generational, so the new film showcases different personalities like Rey and Finn, a man who’s not the chosen one but is instead an aspirational figure for the rest of us.

“The Han Solos and the Finns of the Star Wars universe are representations of human nature,” says Boyega, 23. “If a dude was coming toward you with a crossguard red lightsaber and he was about to swing that at you, you wouldn’t be like, ‘Let me look heroic.’ You’d be scared. That’s Finn. Finn is everybody.”

Creating this large fabric included wondering about the fates of core characters — What did Admiral Ackbar do after the Battle of Endor? Did Leia and Han live happily ever after? — and then figuring out whom to bring back.

The core original-trilogy trio was a no-brainer for Abrams and Lucasfilm, and Fisher recalls that she and Ford had a powwow when their cinematic return was proposed.

She was all for it. “I have been Princess Leia. I’m the custodian of her. Why not get paid a few dollars to do that anyway?” says Fisher, 59. “She’s me and I’m her, and it’s kind of a Möbius strip.”

As for Ford, “there is not an automatic yes in Harrison’s body, unless it’s for food or marijuana,” she quips. “And I’m not sure about the food thing either.”

Ask the 73-year-old actor, however, and there wasn’t much to ponder. “What am I doing? I’m sitting here on the porch of the Motion Picture Country Home in my rocker. Hell, yeah, give me some of that,” Ford says with a laugh.

Since Jedi, Solo has had experiences “we reveal that he has gone through in his life, which brings us a character who has aspects that he didn’t have 30 years ago, much like you and I,” Ford says. “We’re not necessarily any smarter, but we know more.

“The history they’ve developed for the character has got some real important emotional realities to it, and they aid in the telling of the story in a way that makes his contribution to the story significant.”

And when fans are reintroduced to Leia, the former face of the Rebel Alliance is in charge of the Resistance, “the company that she founded years ago that is in its own way still running,” Abrams teases. “It’s different in some ways, but it’s definitely of her making.”

She also has seen some serious stuff fighting the Dark Side, Fisher says. Plus, “I would imagine her job would probably get in the way of having relationships.”

As for Luke, well, no one’s really talking about Luke. Hamill is in The Force Awakens, but he hasn’t talked about his character much in interviews, and Luke has been missing from most of the movie’s huge marketing push. And Abrams is loath to spill anything about Leia’s twin bro.

If he was guilty of being coy about the secrets of his popular TV show Lost or villain reveals in his Star Trek Into Darkness film, Abrams has made it an art form in keeping most every plot point close to the vest in the rollout of The Force Awakens.

Will it begin, like the others have, with a spaceship? “It’s a different opening,” he allows with a polite curtness. Will there be emotional moments that tap into the history of the six previous episodes? “Sure, yeah,” Abrams says. “Nothing I’ll ruin for you.”

He’s much more open to talking about the bigger picture of The Force Awakens. “Part of the story of this movie is history repeats itself, and part of it is who is going to tell your history and what do people know about what has come before” — or recounting the many times he had to suppress freak-outs so he could make his movie.

Abrams didn’t tear up, but he recalls being surprisingly emotional the first time old droids C-3PO and R2-D2 shared a scene with the new robot on the block, BB-8. Or the first time Ford moseyed back onto the Millennium Falcon in Solo garb. “Look, you get used to it. But not really.”

Lucas may have been the innovator, but what’s special about Abrams doing a Star Wars movie is his "sheer enthusiasm," Fisher says. “You saw it every minute of the day," adds co-star Oscar Isaac, who plays Resistance X-wing pilot Poe Dameron. "He made it part of his mission to continuously infuse the set with a sense of wonder and excitement and awe.”

Having the keys and joyriding with the franchise is one thing, yet it’s another to balance honoring Star Wars past while also building its future.

“I wouldn’t believe that Leia would lose her strength of purpose and determination to do the right thing and defeat an enemy she saw growing,” Abrams concludes. “I wouldn’t believe that Han would settle down and become complacent. I don’t believe that Threepio would stop complaining or that light vs. dark would go away as a fundamental tenet of the series.

“There’s no template. It’s gut. When you’re working on the story, you go, ‘Oooooh. That feels so right.’ ”