We may never know the full plot of the Star Wars movie that was being planned by Colin Trevorrow before he was replaced with J.J. Abrams. We know that he came up with the idea of the red troopers, but for a different reason, and that he had no intention of bringing back Emperor Palpatine, but other than that, nada. There were some rumors last week of where his movie would have gone, but the director shot those down immediately as being incorrect.
Now Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has given an account of why Trevorrow was replaced on the final Star Wars movie of the sequel trilogy. Kennedy doesn’t give any story specifics, but it does sound as if the direction Trevorrow was going was not what the studio wanted for this movie. Kennedy spoke with io9 recently and here is what she said with regards to Trevorrow when asked why his version didn’t work.
“Well, I wouldn’t say it didn’t work. Colin was at a huge disadvantage not having been a part of Force Awakens and in part of those early conversations because we had a general sense of where the story was going. Like any development process, it was only in the development that we’re looking at a first draft and realizing that it was perhaps heading in a direction that many of us didn’t feel was really quite where we wanted it to go. And we were on a schedule, as we often are with these movies, and had to make a tough decision as to whether or not we thought we could get there in the time or not. And as I said, Colin was at a disadvantage because he hadn’t been immersed in everything that we all had starting out with Episode VII.”
I have issues with two points here. Firstly, why was Trevorrow chosen if his lack of involvement with The Force Awakens was a factor to begin with? Again for me, not having an overall outline of where the story should go was a little bit of an issue on this trilogy from the start, something I’ve said many times before. The second part is the schedule and again, this is something I think has hindered the sequel trilogy, it was all too rushed. It feels like getting the movies out there on the agreed dates was more important than the story itself. Abrams himself asked for more time on The Force Awakens and didn’t really get it, Rian Johnson seems to have just filmed the first draft he came up with (joking, but hey I didn’t like it), and now Abrams again was tight for time being brought in after they had already begun the story with Trevorrow.
Can we really say this was all well planned when looking at the evidence? It doesn’t feel that way to me and the Trevorrow situation along with the tight schedule are evidence of that.
RELATED: Star Wars: Rumors About Colin Trevorrow’s Version Of Episode 9 Vehemently Denied By The Director
Here is what Trevorrow himself said way back in May last year when speaking with Empire about his removal.
“I don’t want to talk too much about it because I don’t want to affect the way that fans get to see these films. When we were kids, these movies came to us from far away. They were a gift. And the more we talk about how they’re made, the more it reveals that they’re just movies. But they’re not just movies, they’re more than that. Beyond that, I got the opportunity to tell a story that is a celebration of everything I believe in, I got to tell it to George Lucas and I got to tell it to Luke Skywalker, and those are experiences I will cherish for the rest of my life.”
I would pay money to read that draft of Trevorrow’s movie, but not quite as much as I would pay to read Lucas’ outline for the sequel trilogy that J.J. Abrams didn’t want to use. What do you think of Kennedy’s comments about Trevorrow and why they had to move on? Share what you have in the usual spot below as always.
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SOURCE: Io9
