After all of the excitement of yesterday’s alleged concept art and plot rumours for Star Wars: Epsidoe VII [which you can see here, here and here – but beware of potential spoilers], Star Wars: Episode VIII writer-director Rian Johnson (Looper) has taken a moment to share his thoughts on joining the franchise, as well as discussing his visit to the set of the currently in production Episode VII and praising the use of practical effects on the eagerly-anticipated sequel.

“The most surprising thing [about working on Star Wars] is just how not scary and how much fun,” Johnson tells Girls in Hoodies (via SlashFilm). It’s boring to talk about because the only thing I can really say is I’m just happy. But I don’t have the terror that I kind of expected I would, at least not yet. I’m sure I will at some point… Coming at the time it does where we’ve – like if there’d been no Star Wars movies since Return of the Jedi, there’d be a lot more pressure, but the fact we’ve had them, we’ve had the prequels, we’ve had the TV shows, we’ve had Angry Birds Star Wars … I play it all the time!”

Johnson then went on to talk about J.J. Abrams’ Episode VII: “Right now they’re shooting in London, which is why actually I was in London, for reals… They’re doing so much practical building for this one. It’s awesome. They’re doing it all right, yeah … I think people are coming back around to [practical effects], yeah, it feels like there is sort of that gravity pulling us back towards it … I think that more and more people are hitting kind of a critical mass in terms of the CG-driven action scene lending itself to a very specific type of action scene, where physics go out the window and it becomes so big so quick. I probably sound like a grumpy old man talking about it, but the thing is, I do wonder because I think kids are growing up watching those and that’s the thing that they love now so I don’t know whether it is a generational thing, and it could be.”

Are you glad to see a return to practical effects for the Sequel Trilogy? Let us know your thoughts…