Nope, other than the fact that it's an original story and not based on the existing expanded universe. It's expected to include the original 3, but in what capacity is still unknown at this point. Speculation points to their children as the new protagonists.
I'm really hoping this isn't too cheesy or overdramatic or anything. I want it to be GOOD. I love Star Wars and I remember how much I was obsessed with it when I was a kid. I just really hope that this is gonna be good.
JJ Abrams is directing (he also directs my favorite show Revolution), so I know it's gonna be good entertainment-wise. The question is the content.
“I feel preposterously lucky,” said Abrams, a self-declared “Star Wars” fanboy.
“I do feel at the core this incredible disbelief that I’m actually even answering questions at all about my involvement in something that until fairly recently I didn’t even know was going to come back as a series. And now I get to be involved in it.”
Just how involved, he says, remains to be seen.
Abrams’ “Star Wars: Episode VII” is part of big plans for The Walt Disney Co., which bought George Lucas’ Lucasfilm empire last year for $4.05 billion. The company is planning three sequels and two stand-alone spinoff movies focusing on characters from the “Star Wars” universe.
Will Abrams direct the entire new trilogy? Will he be involved in any of the spinoffs? Will George Lucas play a mentoring role? He can’t say.
“I never see myself doing anything more than what’s in front of me,” Abrams said — one film, due for release in 2015 and scripted by “Little Miss Sunshine” screenwriter Michael Arndt.
“What the approach is going to be remains to be discussed, because it’s in process,” he said. “So it’s a weird thing to be talking about. If I’m charging down the court dribbling the ball, it’s hard to comment on the layup that’s about to take place.
“I feel like the ball is just getting passed to me now, to complete the annoying metaphor.”
For “Star Wars” — which he emphatically has loved since childhood — the stakes are even higher. Abrams knows he has to find a new way to approach material that has seeped into the global bloodstream. He also has to erase the tang of disappointment that clings to the inferior second trilogy, released between 1999 and 2005.
Abrams says his approach will be similar in some ways to the one he took on with “Star Trek.”
“No project can be or should be approached assuming that the audience has any investment,” he said. “If they do, that’s a bonus. But it doesn’t preclude the required steps of reintroduction.”
He is fairly certain about one thing — the worlds of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’ will never meet.
“One is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. And one is us in a few hundred years,” he said.
