Is it gut? Where’s the balance?

You just have to kind of ask yourself at every turn, at every convention, at every opportunity, every promotion, “What feels right?” Of course, with this movie there are more licensing and merchandising balls to juggle than I’ve ever experienced. There are so many things, each one a little bit of a window into the story. It’s not just about what piece you put out for a talk show. This is also about: Well, what does that character say as a toy in that particular line of action figures, as opposed to that one? We want to preserve some of the rarefied air of the actual experience and not open all the windows so it all just gets depleted.

You can see how the universe gets so big so quickly, first toys and games and then Episode VIII and IX, with directors Rian Johnson and Colin Trevorrow coming aboard. I know VIII is Rian’s movie, but you’ve no doubt created story questions in Episode VII that have to be addressed. Do you know how the answers play out? Or are those moments still unspooling?

The script for VIII is written. I’m sure rewrites are going to be endless, like they always are. But what Larry and I did was set up certain key relationships, certain key questions, conflicts. And we knew where certain things were going. We had meetings with Rian and Ram Bergman, the producer of VIII. They were watching dailies when we were shooting our movie. We wanted them to be part of the process, to make the transition to their film as seamless as possible. I showed Rian an early cut of the movie, because I knew he was doing his rewrite and prepping. And as executive producer of VIII, I need that movie to be really good. Withholding serves no one and certainly not the fans. So we’ve been as transparent as possible.

Rian has asked for a couple of things here and there that he needs for his story. He is an incredibly accomplished filmmaker and an incredibly strong writer. So the story he told took what we were doing and went in the direction that he felt was best but that is very much in line with what we were thinking as well. But you’re right—that will be his movie; he’s going to do it in the way he sees fit. He’s neither asking for nor does he need me to oversee the process.

When you look back at the original trilogy, are there certain scenes that stand out to you?

It would be a much shorter conversation to talk about the scenes that didn’t stand out. As a fan of Star Wars, I can look at those movies and both respect and love what they’ve done. But working on The Force Awakens, we’ve had to consider them in a slightly different context. For example, it’s very easy to love “I am your father.” But when you think about how and when and where that came, I’m not sure that even Star Wars itself could have supported that story point had it existed in the first film, Episode IV. Meaning: It was a massively powerful, instantly classic moment in movie history, but it was only possible because it stood on the shoulders of the film that came before it. There had been a couple of years to allow the idea of Darth Vader to sink in, to let him emerge as one of the greatest movie villains ever. Time built up everyone’s expectations about the impending conflict between Luke and Vader. If “I am your father” had been in the first film, I don’t know if it would have had the resonance. I actually don’t know if it would have worked.

But with a universe that vast, you have to think about constraint, right? You clearly have enjoyed a healthy budget and have had a big world to go invent. Were there particular limitations you wanted to put on either the process or the story, something that would help you focus on those goals?

I find that I am most happy when I have boundaries. With Lost, when ABC chairman Lloyd Braun called to say he wanted me to come up with a show about people who survive a plane crash, I remember thinking, “Well, I will come up with that,” and I did—very, very quickly. What was great was he had given me a very specific assignment. So when I called him back and told him my thoughts, they were far weirder than what he would have ever expected. He was basically thinking about doing a kind of castaway show. But the constraint he imposed allowed the weirdness to kind of feel like fertile ground. Weirdness within limits, you know? If it had been un-limited—if he had called and said, come up with a weird show—I would have thought, I don’t know! What does that even mean?

Star Wars is so boundless in terms of the world, the characters, the conflicts. When we began working on this film, Larry and I started by making a list of things that we knew held interest for us, the things we wanted to see, the things we felt were important. There’s a very real issue with doing this movie: Every detail, whether it was the design of a costume or the music or a set-dressing choice, must be embraced as coming from Star Wars. You’re inheriting Star Wars! That’s not something you can do lightly. You have to really understand the design choices, because everything is important. At the same time, it’s just Star Wars, meaning: It doesn’t make it automatically interesting just because it’s in that galaxy.

I know everybody knows this, but when you actually think about what he’s composed, it is as important as any work ever done on any of those movies. When you think about Superman and Raiders and Jaws and Close Encounters—which came out the same year as Star Wars—and then the Harry Potter movies? He is just superhuman. It’s unbelievable that he is as brilliant and yet as modest as he is. It’s just an amazing thing to get to know that guy.

A lot of this cast wasn’t even born in 1977. How do you relay the legacy of what Star Wars means to people like you and me? Or is that a burden that you try to avoid?

It’s a really strange thing, when you think about being born into a world where it just exists. Despite their having been born horrifically recently, these kids knew about and understood Star Wars in a way we all do; they just were born into it as opposed to it happening during their lifetime. The key in casting them was finding people who were able to do everything. When you think about all that these characters go through, not just in this movie
but knowing their work would continue, these individuals needed to be worthy bearers of this burden and opportunity to continue to tell the story. I think about the Harry Potter movies—that’s unbelievable that they cast those films the way they did. And for what, eight movies?! That was a miracle. They needed to be able to do everything, and they all killed it.