‘Star Wars Episode VII’ Cast Update: J.J. Abrams And Lawrence Kasdan Tease Upcoming Announcements [Video]
The Star Wars Episode VII cast announcements apparently aren’t complete yet, according to director J.J. Abrams and writer Lawrence Kasdan.
Yesterday being Star Wars Day (“May the fourth be with you”), the two in charge of the next episode of the saga in a galaxy far, far away made an announcement that might elicit a new hope to fans let down by the released cast picture.
Initially we saw the odd absence of female and ethnic cast members, making us wonder if they were planning once again for a lack of diversity among them. In the original trilogy, we had three women who weren’t basically Jabba’s dancers, and two African-Americans in major roles (Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones), while the rest were all Caucasian men. The prequels improved on the number of women, but not by much, and gave us some of the most racist alien characters in movie history.
The diversity in the Star Wars Episode VII cast might yet restore balance to the Force after all, since it’s now apparent that the cast we saw in the photo of the initial reading wasn’t everybody. Billy Dee Williams might be in the film, as well as the possible Force ghost of Mace Windu. We might even see representatives of other nations involved as well.
Very curious about some of these new bounty hunters that JJ Abrams is adding to Star Wars VII. pic.twitter.com/PkmsO0Hmnr
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) May 5, 2014
As the excitement of Star Wars Day 2014 winds down, the anticipation over the details of the newest Star Wars shows no sign of fading. Production has only begun, and if the movie will be any quality at all, we can expect it to be in development for around a year. This time there reportedly won’t be as many CG cities and backgrounds, as actual locations are being said to be used, so computer imagery won’t contribute as much to production time.
Sadly, the canon built up by the games and novels has apparently been thrown out. Knights of the Old Republic and practically everything that the movies and TV shows haven’t revealed is no longer relevant. That was probably done so they have more freedom to tell a story we haven’t read or seen yet.
At least we can still look forward to possible new announcements of the Star Wars Episode VII cast as J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan continue to work on the film and perhaps bring some familiar canon back.
