JJ Abrams apologises for his biggest mistake in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Wookies need some love too
- Huw Fullerton
Published: Wednesday, 9 March 2016 at 9:15 am
JJ Abrams is sorry about something he did in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and it’s not that he killed Han Solo and broke a million geek hearts.
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Rather, the producer and director says he regrets a scene towards the end of the film where Rey, Finn and Chewie return to the Resistance base and Rey (Daisy Ridley) meets Leia (Carrie Fisher) before hugging it out over their Han Solo sadness.
The problem? In hugging Rey, Leia seemed to completely ignore Chewie (Peter Mayhew), Han’s loyal companion for decades and who probably needed a consoling cuddle a bit more than a girl who’d known the smuggler for a glorified long weekend.
“That was probably one of the mistakes I made in that,” Abrams admitted to SlashFilm.
“My thinking at the time was that Chewbacca, despite the pain he was feeling, was focused on trying to save Finn and getting him taken care of. So I tried to have Chewbacca go off with him and focus on Rey, and then have Rey find Leia and Leia find Rey.
“The idea being that both of them being strong with the Force and never having met, would know about each other — that Leia would have been told about her beyond what we saw onscreen and Rey of course would have learned about Leia. And that reunion would be a meeting and a reunion all in one, and a sort of commiseration of their mutual loss.”
However, Abrams says that he now realises the particular blocking of the scene looked odd, and could have been avoided by not having Chewie pass by Leia.
“Had Chewbacca not been where he was, you probably wouldn’t have thought of it,” he said.
“But because he was right there, passed by Leia, it felt almost like a slight, which was definitely not the intention.”
First he didn’t get a medal in A New Hope, and now this – we’re betting Chewie is getting pretty sick of directors making such Wookie mistakes.
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens is still in selected cinemas now
Authors
Huw FullertonCommissioning editor
Huw Fullerton is a commissioning editor for Radio Times magazine handling comedy, entertainment and specialist drama. In a previous regeneration, he covered all things sci-fi and fantasy for RadioTimes.com.
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