J.J. Abrams has always been a huge ‘Star Wars‘ fan so it should be no surprise that he has stated that “Star Wars’ isn’t a movie, it’s a religion.” I mean this is a director that jumped and ran from his freshly rebooted ‘Star Trek’ universe with the Kelvin timeline to work on ‘Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens.’ To be honest, this claim isn’t too much of a stretch as there is a practicing Jedi Church which has based an entire real religion around the Jedi’s faith and views. The philosophy is generally called Jediism though that isn’t quite what Abrams was referring to here.
The conversation came up while sitting down with Milken Global Conference in Beverly Hills with Jon Favreau and Apple senior vice president of internet software and services Eddy Cue. They were talking about stewardship of properties and what can be affiliated with it.
The full quote:
“Star Wars’ isn’t a movie, it’s a religion. But this religion people have — they don’t always know how fungible these things are.”
While replacements via new casting can be annoying to many, some can be seen as an improvement. For example, when Harrison Ford took his seat in the Millennium Falcon for ‘The Force Awakens’ he pointed out that the dashboard had changed. The man who made Han Solo a lovable household name noticed that there were two yokes on the dash which weren’t in the original films, and it looks like the original design had wanted them but they weren’t in the budget.
A minor change but one that could be seen as an improvement. Of course, some improvements made by Lucas in the form of CGI are clearly ones that aren’t universally loved.
What are your thoughts on how films which become so iconic can change over time? Do you believe that ‘Star Wars’ and other loves of genres are the same as a religion? Share your thoughts below!
Source: The Wrap.
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
