With all of the excitement around Star Wars: The Force Awakens finally starting to die down, you’d think the Star Wars rumors might calm for a minute or two as well. No such luck, as it turns out that 2017’s Episode VIII is still something very much worth talking about. While production was meant to get underway very soon, it looks like things may be slightly delayed as the script may be getting one final rewrite before it’s screen ready.
The purpose of the rewrite, interestingly, is reportedly to reduce two new character roles to be a smaller part of Star Wars: Episode VIII. Since there is still quite a bit that we don’t know about our main characters – Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) - it seems that the decision has been made that introducing major new parts to the new movie would simply get in the way of the leads that we just met. A reporter for The Wrap was speaking on the Meet the Movie Press podcast and explained:
I said before there were two young female roles, now I actually heard that the rewrite will make these roles smaller. They want to get to know better the characters they already have. So the new rewrite is shrinking the new roles in order to spend more time with Rey, Poe and so on.
While we don’t know much about exactly who these roles were, we did have information that Bel Powley was up for a new role in the saga. We’ve had basically no information about what these parts are or how they will fit into the plot events that unfold in Star Wars: Episode VIII, but now it matters less as it looks like they won’t end up being as important.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s probably the right move to focus on the existing characters. All three of our new leads have been accepted by the majority of fans, and there’s still a lot to learn about all of them. Neither of the previous trilogies have really added any major characters after the first film, the only real exception being Lando Calrissian’s introduction in The Empire Strikes Back. This trilogy certainly has more to tell us about who Rey and Finn are, and if we end up short on details because the new film spends too much time with new characters, there will certainly be some unhappy people. We’re also assuming that at least one role from Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be heavily expanded in Episode VIII: Luke Skywalker will probably have dialogue in the film. Maybe. Possibly.
Are you looking forward to another film starring Rey, Poe, and Finn, or would you like to see new characters introduced throughout the new trilogy? Hit the comments below!
