‘EPISODE VII’ Rumor: ABRAMS is now WRITING because he is THROWING OUT LUCAS’ PLOT OUTLINE

—wa—wait. The reason that J.J. Abrams is jumping aboard Episode VII writing duties with Larry Kasdan is because they’re throwing out Uncle George’s shitty outline? Well, why didn’t you fucking say so? If that’s true, I’m all aboard. In fact, I’m the conductor of that fucking train.

Earlier today Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy released this statement on StarWars.comabout new work being done on Episode VII:

I am very excited about the story we have in place and thrilled to have Larry and J.J. working on the script. There are very few people who fundamentally understand the way a ‘Star Wars’ story works like Larry, and it is nothing short of incredible to have him even more deeply involved in its return to the big screen. J.J. of course is an incredible storyteller in his own right. Michael Arndt has done a terrific job bringing us to this point and we have an amazing filmmaking and design team in place already prepping for production.

So what does that mean? Well Badass Digest is speculating that it’s one of two things. First, this could mean Episode VII will be pushed from 2015 to 2016 (which seems likely). And two, the swapping of writers from Arndt to J.J. Abrams and Larry Kasdan could mean that Geoge Lucas’ original Episode VII outline has been tossed out.

Badass has been hearing rumblings of an unhappy Abrams who threatened to walk out, over the state of the current script. And it looks like his threats were heard, but what does that mean for the new script? “My sources tell me that the focus of the story has changed in a big way, that it’s a whole new set of characters being followed than in the Arndt script,” writes Devin Faraci. And that there’s going to be a completely “overhaul” on the script top to bottom. He doesn’t say if this means they’re throwing out the original Lucas outline, but it certainly sounds like it.

[io9]