Joey Paur
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Director James Mangold is offering additional insight into his Star Wars movie that will be set in ancient times of the universe. The movie is said to take place 25,000 years before the events of Episode I and it will focus on the birth of The Force, but it may not actually be called “The Force” in the film. It also may not use the word “Jedi,” which makes complete sense for the time period that the movie is set in.
During a recent interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, when Mangold was asked if those terms would be used, he said:
“I don’t wanna make any guarantees one way or another, but it will be before Jedi, meaning you might be experiencing something that might become Jedi. Despite the fact that other people make movies other ways, I don’t tend to think people brand themselves before they’ve actually found themselves. So you don’t come up with a name for your organization … ‘Let’s put this big thing on our chests.’ I think that the branding tends to happen later.”
Mangold went on to talk about how he decided to go so far back into Star Wars history to tell his story:
“When I talk to some of the Star Wars clerics who keep track of all these timelines, I was like, ‘So when would this have happened?’ and they were like, ‘25,000 years before Episode I.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I was looking for some distance, but that’s distance.’ The reality, for me, was that feeling of space, pun not intended but apropos, was something that I felt was really important. Not to get away from — again, fan service or the intricacies of what George [Lucas] has set up and dreamed of, but to just have the space to tell a story and not be instantly encumbered by the bases you have to hit. Which, honestly, there’s no way to explain it to folks other than to say it’s like that game we played as kids, Twister, that at a certain point, you’re in a tangle because you just are trying to find a way to tell a story with so many constraints that you can’t.”
As for whether or not the filmmaker has had the opportunity to talk to George Lucas about this film concept, he said:
“I have not had a chance to talk to him at all about what I’m thinking. He was involved and read the script and was a Ford v Ferrari fan, I’m told, but it would be very interesting to talk to him. I’m very protective of myself, in the sense of … Even describing meeting Bob Dylan in relation to the Dylan film, I like to have my sh-t together before I get into those kinds of situations. Because every good idea skates at the very edge of being precipitously awful. And every safe idea never gets towards that edge. So the trick is always to develop your idea enough that you’re compatriates and consultants and mentor can understand how you’re avoiding going over the edge, not just daring it.”
When previously talking about his project, he described it as a Ben-Hur or The 10 Commandments film about The Force:
“It’s a chance to tell the entire story of its own, the birth of the force. When I first talked to Kathy Kennedy about it, I just said, ‘I just see this opening to make kind of a Ben-Hur or The 10 Commandments about the birth of the Force.’ The Force has become a kind of religious legend that spans through all these movies. But where did it come from? How is it found? Who found it? Who was the first Jedi? And that’s what I’m writing right now.”
In another interview, when talking about how the movie would center on the discovery of The Force, Mangold said:
“It just came from me thinking about if I were doing one, it seemed to me that most of what they were thinking about doing with movies were either in the present of Star Wars or the future, and what attracted me most was the distant past and how this galaxy formed and how, more specifically, the Force was discovered.”
The Star Wars franchise is going to take an incredibly interesting turn with this movie! I so excited to see what Mangold delivers because this is an era of the universe that I’m very excited about seeing explored!