If the lack of information regarding Star Wars: The Force Awakens has caused you any sort of distress, don’t fret; you are not alone. Anthony Daniels, the actor responsible for portraying timorous droid C-3PO in all seven Star Wars films has spoken out about the level of discretion associated with the film—referring to it as "ludicrous."
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor even went so far as to liken the Disney’s attitude towards withholding information to tactics employed the Russian government, stating:
I said that I’d met so-and-so. An actor who plays a … thing in the film. A character… Immediately I received a message from Disney: ‘Remove the tweet! You’re not allowed to say that!’ Honestly. It’s a kind of Kremlin attitude. Look, I know perfectly well not to tell you now what I’m giving you for a Christmas present because it would spoil the surprise. And these films are all about opening the box on Christmas Day.
Of course, "the box," has potential to become one of the highest grossing films of all time, so in the end, it makes at least a little sense that Disney would be eager to play things close to the vest. In the very same article from THR, Daniels revealed that when he received his copy of The Force Awakens’ script, J.J. Abrams had provided it to him in black ink printed on red paper so no one who got their hands on it would be able to photocopy and distribute it to the public. Daniels’ standard for what constitutes an important facet of the story, and what does not, obviously differs from that of the Disney executives, who appear unwilling to take any sort of chances.
Such high levels of caution make more sense when we remember that numerous other highly anticipated films have had equal measures of scrutiny on their productions, leading to outcry that too much information had leaked. Suicide Squad’s director David Ayer even had to take to Twitter to assure fans that they had not seen everything, and that the film’s secrets remained intact.
It’s a catch-22 for filmmakers, because fans want to know so much about a film before it comes out, but they damn any information that they receive that could inevitably compromise the movie’s integrity and lead to spoilers. Star Wars: The Force Awakens has become the model for how to withhold a film from the public eye, and generate questions among fans; with roughly three months until the film hits theaters for Christmas, we still know very little beyond what we can glean from the trailers and marketing materials. That doesn’t mean we won’t stop carefully dissecting every single thing we can get our hands on.
We will all get a chance to open the "Christmas present" that is Star Wars: The Force Awakens when it hits theaters on December 18.
