A Star Wars Legend Didn’t Want To Bring Back Original Cast
When Disney and Lucasfilm announced they would be bringing screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan back into the fold for the Star Wars sequel trilogy films, many fans were extremely happy with the decision.
After all, Kasdan co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi in the early ’80s, and those two films are often cited as the best of the saga. With Star Wars returning to the big screen in a major way, many were wondering how Kasdan would help take us from Episode III to Episode VII?
In an interview at the time with Hero Complex, Kasdan talked about taking a new approach to the Star Wars saga. Having been away from the Star Wars universe for a while, Kasdan felt that the new movies should give the saga a fresh start. Kasdan explained, “I’m trying to start fresh. There are certain pleasures that we think the saga can bring to people that they’ve been missing, and we’re hoping to bring them that, and at the same time, have them feel that it’s all new.”
Kasdan continued, “The ones I worked on were a long time ago, and they had a slightly different feeling than the ones that followed. The first three, ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Empire’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’ are all sort of more about people than the ones that followed.
It was good to hear that Kasdan and the new team of filmmakers behind Star Wars were looking to put some distance between the new films and the disappointing prequel trilogy.
Whether or not this would alienate fans of the prequels remained to be seen, but keep in mind, original trilogy fans were completely alienated by the prequels already. So from that standpoint, there was kind of nowhere to go but up. Which is to say, many were rooting for minimal midi-chlorian talk and please no podracing.
As for working on Star Wars without George Lucas, Kasdan reveals that Lucas was actually responsible for bringing him back to Lucasfilm.
Kasdan said, “George sort of brought me into this part of it, and he’s stepping back from the company. He’s sort of given his blessing to everybody, and he’ll be there if you need him. I think everyone’s interested to see where this can go. It’s been some very different places over 30 years …. I think with J.J., we’ll get something entirely new.”
In the end, they basically split the difference between the young and the old. Sure, Daisy Ridley as Rey and Adam Driver as Kylo Ren (among others) offered those fresh new faces. But we also got Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, and Carrie Fisher as Leia to pay fan service (and timeline service) to the story.
