Rian Johnson Talks ‘Star Wars Episode VIII’: Downplays Pressure


Rian Johnson has been talking about Star Wars Episode VIII, the film he will direct that will ultimately be the sequel to JJ Abrams’ seventh instalment to the beloved franchise.

Johnson was signed up to write and direct the blockbuster back in June 2014, which will be released in 2017, while it was also announced that he will scribe the treatment for the 9th film of the series too, which is set to be directed by Chronicle’s Josh Trank.

You would think that Johnson might be feeling a bit of pressure as he just about to begin working on possibly the most popular franchise in cinematic history.

However the director has now admitted to Grantland’s Girls in Hoodies podcast that the pressure isn’t as intense as he thought, in fact he’s certain that there would have been more pressure if he’d work on the prequels.

While Johnson didn’t provide any details on what will feature in his film he explained:“It’s boring to talk about because the only thing I can really say is I’m just happy. But I don’t have the terror that I kind of expected I would, at least not yet. I’m sure I will at some point.”

Johnson then declared that he thinks it is easier working in the Disney tenure as he doesn’t have to answer to George Lucas, who created the original Star Wars films. “Yeah, I think that’s true,” he declared when this was posed to him. “And coming at the time it does where we’ve – like if there’d been no Star Wars movies since Return of the Jedi, there’d be a lot more pressure, but the fact we’ve had them, we’ve had the prequels, we’ve had the TV shows, we’ve had Angry Birds Star Wars… I play it all the time!”

The Looper and Brick filmmaker also went on to discuss how both him and JJ Abrams plan to shoot the sequels, explaining that it will be shot with practical effects.

He added: “They’re doing so much practical building for this one. It’s awesome. They’re doing it all right, yeah. I think people are coming back around to [practical effects], yeah, it feels like there is sort of that gravity pulling us back towards it. I think that more and more people are hitting kind of a critical mass in terms of the CG-driven action scene lending itself to a very specific type of action scene, where physics go out the window and it becomes so big so quick.”

Johnson continued: “I probably sound like a grumpy old man talking about it, but the thing is, I do wonder because I think kids are growing up watching those and that’s the thing that they love now so I don’t know whether it is a generational thing, and it could be.”

[Image via Bing.com]

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