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J.J Abrams on the set of 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens,' a movie which manages to be both a sure thing and a huge risk

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Believe me, director J.J Abrams has heard all the same internet rumors about the new "Star Wars" movie you have - that Luke Skywalker kills Han Solo, that Max Von Sydow plays Boba Fett, that Pussy Riot rocks out in the cantina scene. But there's one he really needs to straighten out.

No, "The Force Awakens" does not feature Jar Jar Binks as a super-villain.

"Right, 'Jar Jar is really a Sith Lord,'" Abrams says with a grin. "I so wish I was smart enough to come up with that one. I'm not kidding. That was on Reddit, I think, and it's this very long and brilliant theory and I commend whoever wrote it - it's crazy well thought-out. And if you read it - well, it's a little like most conspiracy theories, where if they're well-written and well-considered, you start to get convinced."

OK, but on the record, can he confirm that Jar Jar is not a Sith Lord?

"He's not," Abrams says firmly. "As far as I know."

It's not hard to understand how these rumors start, though. The cast and crew of the long-awaited seventh episode of the sci-fi franchise, opening next week, have been about as forthcoming as the Emperor Palpatine. Instead of answering questions, the film's trailers have only raised more.

The secrecy's been incredibly deliberate.

"There are a lot of things we haven't shown -- we haven't shown Luke at all - and we've had the support of the studio throughout," Abrams says. "Frankly, I'm kind of shocked. Stuff I thought they'd really want to put out there for some marketing purpose, they'd say, 'No, let's hold off.' They've been remarkably restrained. And I think people want that. People are looking forward to seeing this thing, not pre-seeing it."

This may be a new approach for a "Star Wars" movie, but it's one Abrams has held onto for most of his projects.

Yes, everyone guessed that "Cloverfield," which Abrams produced, was going to involve a Godzilla-style monster attacking Manhattan. Yes, the idea that Khan returned in "Star Trek Into Darkness" was probably the worst-kept secret in the franchise since William Shatner's toupees. Even before those movies opened, smart fans sort of knew what was coming.

But they couldn't be completely sure. And keeping them guessing was Abrams' idea.

"I see so many trailers that show too much, or articles that detail a movie's basic plot before it even comes out," he says. "Which is why we've always tried to keep things quiet. You want the story to stay as much of a surprise as possible so when you go to the theater, it's not an experience of confirming what you know, but an experience of laughter and surprise and adventure. And hopefully some excitement."

That's what Abrams, 49, still loves about movies, and has since he was just another geeky kid running around in a California backyard, with his dad's Super 8 camera and a copy of "Dick Smith's Do-It-Yourself Monster Makeup Handbook."

"That book was the best," he says. "With the big-eyed, drag-racing monster on the cover? So great. Except it was always telling you to use collodion, which you could never find, and I wanted so badly. Collodion was like the nectar of the gods, for makeup effects."

Abrams wanted to be a filmmaker right from the start - his parents were both TV producers - and started selling scripts while still in college. One early screenplay became "Regarding Henry," a 1991 Mike Nichols drama with Harrison Ford. ("If anyone had told me then I'd be directing him in a new 'Star Wars' movie one day," Abrams says, "I would have thought they were literally insane.")

A number of hits followed, from TV's "Felicity," "Alias" and "Lost" to the third installment of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. Abrams produced all of them, wrote most, directed some, but the real constant was that every project, no matter how fantastical it might be, was character-driven.

"I've always loved genre stories, although if you think back to 'The Twilight Zone,' which I loved as a kid, sometimes the most mystical and supernatural episodes had very subtle special effects," he says. "Sometimes none at all. It's really about the people. When I was asked to do 'Star Trek,' for example - well, you know, 'Trek' was never something I loved growing up; I got to fall in love with 'Trek' by doing it. But when we started, I thought, I'd love to sort of figure out what makes people love it so much. And it was the relationship between Kirk and Spock."

Of course, one of the reasons Abrams took on the chore of resurrecting that sci-fi franchise was, he says, "The feeling that, hey, when is anyone ever going to let me do a space adventure?" So he was as shocked as anyone when that opportunity presented itself again just a few years later - and with the sci-fi franchise he had truly loved growing up.

"I was 11 when I saw the first 'Star Wars' and my mind was blown," he says. "It was everything. It was funny, it was surprising, it was aesthetically gorgeous. It had designs and effects you'd never seen before. It had the most incredible sound effects and music you'd ever heard. It had amazing characters who grabbed you by the heart. It was spiritual. It was filled with adventure. On every level, it was just this incredible thing. If it had only looked that cool, or had that great script, people would still be talking about it. But it had all of it. It reminds me of the Beatles, the way, for any other band, any one of their songs would have been enough for a career. But they did it all -- the way George Lucas, somehow through his brilliance, did it all."

Even though Abrams - with "Star Trek," with "Mission: Impossible" - had joined ongoing franchises before, being the man responsible for the new "Star Wars" sequel carried a special risk. Many fans had criticized the last three films in the series, and those were directed by Lucas himself. How would they feel about Abrams now coming aboard, a filmmaker sometimes criticized for his overly tricky plotlines and love of lens flare?

Let's just say a lot of the internet comments haven't been pretty.

"Look, I'm grateful to be involved in anything that has meant so much to me since I was a kid, and that there's this level of scrutiny and expectation just means a lot of people care," Abrams says. "The only tough thing - and it's relatively tough, compared to people who have a real job, like teaching in a public school, or working in an E.R. -- is when people say the most inciting things about you and your family. It goes beyond the project and gets very personal, very quickly, and a little 'Lord of the Flies.' But that's a small price to pay for working on this."

And Abrams smartly minimized his own risk by getting as much old-school support as he could.

He asked the original cast to reprise their parts. He brought John Williams back, for most of the music. (The cantina tunes come courtesy, not of Pussy Riot, but of "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.) And for a writing partner, Abrams turned to Lawrence Kasdan, who'd co-written the beloved "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" episodes.

"Before we even started, we spent a whole lot of time talking about what mattered to us and who these characters were and why we were interested in them and we knew there were certain tenets," Abrams says. "'Star Wars' is a little like a Western, and like any Western, there's going to be a hero, there's going to be a bad guy, there's going to be a saloon and at some point there's going to be a showdown. So there are some things that should be repeated; if someone designs something and it works well, you don't automatically change it. But you don't have to just copy it, either... It's like, George built the sandbox, but now we get to play our games in it."

One thing Kasdan and Abrams very deliberately did was emphasize a new, more diverse cast of characters, with even stronger roles for women. One thing Abrams would like to apologize for now is implying that Leia hadn't been a kick-ass action hero to begin with - or that the franchise had previously been some kind of fanboys-only club where girls weren't allowed.

"My wife and daughter got mad at me because in an interview I said something like, 'This is not going to be just for the boys,'" he admits. "Believe me, having been in as many marketing meetings as I've been, I'm well aware of, and so grateful for, all the women and girls who love 'Star Wars.' We're not breaking new ground and making 'Star Wars' for women; it's always been for women. What I meant was that until recently, so much of the marketing has been geared towards boys; I mean, for a long time, the only action figure you could get of Leia was of her in her slave bikini. So I just want to see the marketing of this movie to be as inclusive as the movie is."

Whether or not he's pulled it all off is still an open question. Although Abrams said, at his November 21 fundraiser for the Montclair Film Festival, that he'd just finished the final soundtrack mix that morning, the movie still hasn't screened for critics. (Lucas, who reportedly gave a thumbs up, only saw it last week.)

While it's practically impossible that the movie won't be a hit, financially - it's already booked into every IMAX theater in America for a solid month - it is possible it may still disappoint. After all, the first prequel, "The Phantom Menace," ended up making over a billion dollars, and most "Star Wars" fans still hate it.

Does Abrams ever think of those films, and worry?

"I was 11 years old when the first 'Star Wars' came out," he says. "There was no way that those prequels were going to have the same effect on me when I was 30-something. I do think there's some amazing stuff in them... but yeah, I'm personally a bigger fan of the original trilogy. But you know what? If you ask 10 11-year-olds what's their favorite 'Star Wars' movie, nine of them are going to say one of the prequels, because those movies had the same effect on them that the original had on me. And - hopefully, fingers crossed - there's a whole new generation of 11-year-olds waiting to react to ours exactly the same way."

Stephen Whitty may be reached at stephenjwhitty@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @stephenwhitty. Find him on Facebook.

