Michael Arndt, J.J. Abrams, and Lawrence Kasdan talked about their time working on the Star Wars saga at a Writer’s Guild of America panel a while back. They talked about how they developed the plot and characters and revealed some of their initial thoughts and plans for The Force Awakens. Here’s a little of what Arndt had to say:
“From the very beginning we sort of settled on very quickly that we wanted the girl, Rey, to be a scavenger. We always wanted her to be the ultimate outsider and the ultimate disenfranchised person, because that person has the longest journey… And then we were struggling to figure out who the male lead was going to be. I remember we talked about pirates and merchant marines and all this stuff, and finally Larry [Kasdan] got pissed at all of us and he’s just like, ‘You guys, you’re not thinking big. What if he’s a Stormtrooper that ran away?'”
The Star Wars Underworld posted the audio from the interview which you can listen to after the jump.
Enjoy the panel below. There’s some profanity in parts, so be warned.