- [Voiceover] Star Wars the Force Awakens opens
in a couple weeks!
How excited are you to bring this movie to fans?
- It's been a long time carrying this baby for all of us,
and I think we're all ready to into labor.
So let's get this movie out.
- [Voiceover] When did it hit you
that you were actually directing this movie?
What was the moment?
- There were so many baby steps,
so it's hard to...
It's hard to figure out where, you know,
there wasn't one sort of threshold crossing.
It was a lot of...
Decisions and moments and stages along the way.
But I guess the...
The honest answer is when we were in Abu Dhabi,
and all the prep had come to this moment
when the crew was all there,
the cameras and the lights were all set up.
Daisy really was sitting down for her first take,
and I thought, "Oh, here we are."
We figured out what the set would look like,
what her speeder would be like,
what her hair design was gonna be,
how the wardrobe was gonna look.
Where, and when,
and how, and what lens we were gonna shoot this moment.
And all the prep brought us to this moment
where we were actually doing it,
and I guess it was that first day
of actually filming...
In 125 degree heat in the middle of this desert,
that really felt like we were making a movie.
- [Voiceover] As a lifelong fan,
what were the Star Wars elements that you needed
to make sure you had in this film to satisfy the fans?
- Well, Larry Kasdan and I, we started talking about
what we wanted to do in this movie.
It was more about a feeling
than any kind of list of things
that we wanted to include.
But among those things in that feeling
were elements of light versus dark,
elements of either action or certain specific things,
whether it's ships or locations,
that felt like the spirit of Star Wars.
People have been trying to copy what George Lucas created
since he created Star Wars.
And we were lucky enough to actually inherit Star Wars,
for this to be the next chapter of the saga.
Which meant that we were allowed to actually say,
"Well, I'd love to see light sabers," you know.
How can you make a Star Wars movie without light sabers?
What's a Star Wars movie without an X-Wing,
or a TIE fighter, or a Star Destroyer?
And you can sort of list these things.
And someone I worked with was saying
how Star Wars is a bit like a western
where there are certain tenants.
It's a different story, a different world,
a different moral, a different narrative,
but it's probably gonna have horses.
It's probably gonna have cowboys,
might be some Native Americans,
probably gonna be a saloon,
there might be a bank, there might be a stage coach.
There are just certain things,
good guys, bad guys, you know.
It was a little bit like needing to know
if we're telling a story in this genre,
in this Star Wars genre,
what are certain things that feel like essential elements?
But once we had those things,
everything was serving the story.
Who were these new characters?
Who were we meeting we've never met before?
What is their story? Why is it relevant?
Why are we telling a story at all in this universe?
And that was, I think, the most fun we had.
- [Voiceover] How did you go about ensuring
that the movie would be relateable
to a whole new generation of fans?
- Well, the key to this movie was
not any of the accouterments,
or props, or ships, or locales.
It was all about who is the story about.
And when Larry Kasdan and I began writing the script
that was the fundamental question.
We would make ourselves tell each other the story.
You know, this is the story about a young woman who,
the story about a young man who,
like tell the story.
And it's amazing how that is sort of a litmus test
for something that either works or not,
because you can't say
"It's a story about really cool gadgets."
"It's a story about space ships that fly."
None of that will work.
It's a story about someone who,
it's about the heart and soul of the characters.
So that was the thing that we focused on.
Trying to figure out what makes the story
compelling for us,
and hope that if we can look each other in the eye
and say, "I love that, that really works.
"That's getting me excited,"
then other people might feel it, too.
- [Voiceover] Talk about the importance
of music in this film.
- When I look at the list of things...
Oh, I'm sorry.
When I think of the things that George Lucas did
and got right, got perfectly,
in that first movie,
it is so long and stunning to think of those things,
but nothing on that list is more important than the music.
That's not to say there aren't things that are as important.
But there's nothing more important.
And what John Williams did,
his gift to Star Wars and to fans...
You can't oversell the importance of what he does.
And to know that he was coming back to create a score
for the Force Awakens was as exciting
as any other aspect of working on this movie,
from the very first discussion I had with Kathy Kennedy.
To be on the stage
when John Williams conducted the main titles,
which of course is familiar to everyone who knows Star Wars.
That was incredible.
But then, to watch him conduct,
and hear the orchestra play so beautifully the end titles,
the almost eight minute long end titles.
What was incredible about that was
it starts the way it always starts.
But then it goes into, it dovetails into these themes.
Rey's theme, the Resistance theme,
Kylo Ren's theme,
these incredible cues that we had become accustomed to
over the months of doing post production...
That were so beautiful, and soaring, and emotional,
and powerful,
and somehow perfectly integrated
with the score and the music that we know.
The Force theme, Leia's theme.
He just, like no one else,
is able to take what we know
and do something brand new,
and somehow allow them to coexist.
And I realized that's what we were trying to do all along.