Don’t Expect To Read J.W. Rinzler’s ‘The Making Of Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ This Year
By Peter Sciretta/Aug. 16, 2016 2:00 pm EST
While appearing on the GeedDad Podcast, author J.W. Rinzler gave an update on the much anticipated announced and delayed The Making of Star Wars: The Force Awakens book.
In fact, if you look at Rinzler’s Twitter account he is still telling people that the book was canceled:
Yes, am asked this often, but book was canceled. You’ll have to ask Lucasfilm/Disney/publisher why…
— J. W. Rinzler (@jwrinzler) August 4, 2016
As for why the book was delayed (or canceled), Rinzler certainly can’t speak about that. It seems to me that it might have too much information that Disney, Lucasfilm and JJ Abrams don’t want out there at this point.
Asked if the book will reveal some of George Lucas’ original idea for the sequel trilogy story, which was notoriously abandoned by JJ Abrams, the author said:
Rinzler had previously said that Lucas talked with him about his original vision for the trilogy for the book:
You will get a few hints in this book, but you don’t get the whole thing. I think that something that big will come out eventually. I don’t know when or where but I just don’t see how it could not.
Rinzler theorizes that Lucas would include the story idea in an autobiography if he ever writes one or has someone write one for him. Rinzler wrote The Making of Star Wars: The Force Awakens alongside Mark Cotta Vaz, who was on the set of the production for five weeks. Rinzler started on the book once George Lucas revealed he was selling the company.
He did, but given how he’s said they didn’t really follow his ideas, it’s for him to say. Because the book has been delayed, I really don’t think I can talk about it–except to say that when the book does come out, if it’s as originally written, fans will learn a lot more.
Rinzler admits that The Making of Star Wars: The Force Awakens book will be closer in scope to the Episode III book he wrote than the original trilogy making of books. The main reason is that this one was written at the time of production while those had the benefit of 30 years of hindsight, and people willing to talk more honestly about controversies that they may not have been ready to talk about during the release.
So I had a journal and interviewed 20 people early on just when they were starting the job before JJ [Abrams] was even hired as director. I was there at the first meeting at Skywalker Ranch when JJ came and officially started. … And I was there until the movie was released. And then afterwards, I shouldn’t say too much, but I interviewed people connected to the film.
The official synopsis for the 368-page book follows:
A must-have for Star Wars fans, this authorized, all-access book—perhaps the most comprehensive documentation of an in-progress production ever written—will be an indispensable work for all movie fans and devotees of popular culture.
The Making of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the ultimate eyewitness account of the film’s complete production history—the fantastic work of the conceptual art team, the commitment to creating a new story in a saga that is loved around the world, J. J. Abrams’s helming of the massive production, and the post-production finesse of Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound—with exclusive reflections from George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher, as well as Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, and many others.
