J.J. Abrams was never supposed to direct more than one film in the Star Wars franchise. When he was first approached about tackling Episode VII, he turned it down. It took some convincing on then-new Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy’s part to get Abrams to agree to sign on, and in doing so Abrams said at the time he was excited about the idea of creating a foundation from the ground-up, from which other stories might grow. Indeed, The Force Awakens had the unenviable task of introducing brand new characters that fans would want to follow while also servicing fans’ desires to see old favorites back on the screen. Abrams – co-writing the script with Lawrence Kasdan after Michael Arndt wrote the initial drafts – pulled it off, not only providing a satisfying conclusion to Han Solo’s arc, but also making the world fall in love with Rey, Finn, Poe, BB-8, etc.

As Abrams was working on The Force Awakens, Lucasfilm wanted to get the next two films in the sequel trilogy off the ground and thus hired Rian Johnson to write and direct Episode VIII and Colin Trevorrow to co-write and direct Episode IX. The idea being that each director would build on what the previous filmmaker had crafted, leading to a sort of creative hand-off from one director to the next. In Johnson’s case, that meant following certain threads that Abrams built (like Rey’s confrontation with Luke Skywalker) and dropping others (like Snoke). The Last Jedi was a critical success, but was divisive among some diehard fans owing to some of these decisions to veer left when it looked like Abrams was plotting a course to the right.

So when Abrams signed on to take over Episode IX after Trevorrow left the project, he had yet another unenviable task – albeit a completely different one. He had to finish a story he started, but one that had taken some alternate routes in its middle chapter – routes that Abrams wouldn’t have necessarily gone down. The resulting film, The Rise of Skywalker, was similarly divisive, as Abrams brought the story back around to some ideas he had percolating while making The Force Awakens – specifically owing to Rey’s parentage.

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Image via Lucasfilm

Personally, I enjoyed the creative hand-off between Abrams and Johnson. I like that The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi feel like distinct films, each following themes and threads that these two different filmmakers sparked to. But others blame this “creative hand-off” for perceived problems with the sequel trilogy, and claim that it would have been better had Abrams and/or Lucasfilm planned out the three-movie arc from the very beginning.

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So when I spoke to Abrams recently for a press day celebrating the 10th anniversary of his film Super 8 (which is now available on 4K UHD Blu-ray), I asked him about this creative hand-off – specifically, does he feel the Star Wars trilogy would have benefitted from having a plan from the very beginning? In answering, Abrams drew from his wealth of experience in television:

“I’ve been involved in a number of projects that have been – in most cases, series – that have ideas that begin the thing where you feel like you know where it’s gonna go, and sometimes it’s an actor who comes in, other times it’s a relationship that as-written doesn’t quite work, and things that you think are gonna just be so well-received just crash and burn and other things that you think like, ‘Oh that’s a small moment’ or ‘That’s a one-episode character’ suddenly become a hugely important part of the story. I feel like what I’ve learned as a lesson a few times now, and it’s something that especially in this pandemic year working with writers [has become clear], the lesson is that you have to plan things as best you can, and you always need to be able to respond to the unexpected. And the unexpected can come in all sorts of forms, and I do think that there’s nothing more important than knowing where you’re going.”

Abrams acknowledged that sometimes the plan is the thing that gets in the way:

“There are projects that I’ve worked on where we had some ideas but we hadn’t worked through them enough, sometimes we had some ideas but then we weren’t allowed to do them the way we wanted to. I’ve had all sorts of situations where you plan things in a certain way and you suddenly find yourself doing something that’s 180 degrees different, and then sometimes it works really well and you feel like, ‘Wow that really came together,’ and other times you think, ‘Oh my God I can’t believe this is where we are,’ and sometimes when it’s not working out it’s because it’s what you planned, and other times when it’s not working out it’s because you didn’t [have a plan].”

But ultimately, the filmmaker said that he’s “learned the hard way” that it’s better to have a plan and be willing or able to change it than not have one at all:

“You just never really know, but having a plan I have learned – in some cases the hard way – is the most critical thing, because otherwise you don’t know what you’re setting up. You don’t know what to emphasize. Because if you don’t know the inevitable of the story, you’re just as good as your last sequence or effect or joke or whatever, but you want to be leading to something inevitable.”

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Image via Lucasfilm

He’s not wrong, and his examples of working in TV are especially relevant. Breaking Bad had the overarching plan of taking a character “from Mr. Chips to Scarface” over the course of the series, but creator Vince Gilligan also planned on killing off Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman at the end of Season 1. It was only after he saw Paul’s chemistry with Bryan Cranston that he changed his mind, and Jesse became an integral part of one of the best TV shows ever made. And on Lost (which Abrams worked on as an executive producer, sometimes writer, and pilot director), showrunner Damon Lindelof revealed that ABC kind of forced their hand in making them extend the story beyond what they felt would be right for the series.

So Abrams’ thoughts here check out, and they come from years of experience working both with and without overarching plans.

Look for my full interview with Abrams about Super 8 and much more on Collider soon. Super 8 is now available on 4K UHD Blu-ray.

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