Writing “Star Wars” with ‘Michael Arndt’

You may have heard that Michael Arndt is no longer writing Star Wars: Episode VII:

As Episode VII continues pre-production, Lawrence Kasdan and director J.J. Abrams have assumed screenwriting duties for the film. Kasdan, who has been serving as a consultant on the film, is a veteran of several classic Lucasfilm productions, writing the screenplay for Raiders of the Lost Ark and serving as co-screenwriter for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Acclaimed director and screenwriter Abrams’ credits include Super 8, Mission: Impossible III, Fringe, and Lost.

Perhaps it has something to do with this:

Or not. This Huff Po article reminds us there have been SW script shake-ups in the past:

After the success of Star Wars, George Lucas tapped Leigh Brackett, best known for co-writing the Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall classic, The Big Sleep, to write the script for the sequel. Brackett was also an acclaimed science-fiction writer. Unfortunately, what she turned in was not what Lucas wanted.

To be fair, unlike Arndt’s situation, Brackett would have most likely been allowed to revise her own draft. Sadly, Brackett died from cancer before she was given a chance. This left Lucas with an almost unusable script and no writer.

Lucas doesn’t get near enough credit for turning Empire into the movie we know today. It’s become the norm to blame Lucas for writing the sterile prequels (and, yes, he deserves his share of blame for that), but Lucas is mostly responsible for writing Empire as well, even though Lucas did not award himself a writing credit. It was only after Lucas finished his draft that Lawrence Kasdan was brought in to polish up some dialogue. (Kasdan played a much larger role on Return of the Jedi than he did Empire.)

Probably no great disturbance in the Force here, just the usual chaos in the creative process.

By the way, you can download the original Brackett script here.

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