Star Wars Creative Differences Led to Major Force Awakens Scene Change

Disney and J.J. Abrams brought Star Wars back to the big screen in 2015 with The Force Awakens. While the sequel/reboot was beloved by many, one particular plot point was under heavy contention during production.

Pablo Hidalgo, who oversees Star Wars cannon within the Lucasfilm Story Group, highlighted one of these issues. In a series of now-deleted tweets (via Comic Book), Abrams and Lucasfilm butted heads over which planet would suffer the wrath of the Starkiller Base.

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Star Wars Creative Differences Led to Major Force Awakens Scene Change

In The Force Awakens, the Starkiller Base obliterates Hosnian Prime, the supposed capital planet of the New Republic. Some fans thought this was an unusual choice, as Hosnian Prime has rarely shown up in Star Wars texts before.

In response to a fan's query, Pablo Hidalgo clarified that Abrams initially wanted Coruscant to suffer this fate.

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Basically BR [J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot] wanted it blown up; LFL [Lucasfilm Ltd.] didn't. Hosnian Prime was the unsatisfying middle ground. It happens.

Coruscant became the Imperial Center, with Palpatine controlling the basis of the Empire's operations from the planet. Abrams wanted to have the New Republic reclaim the planet, but eventually get blown up by the Starkiller Base.

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Credit: Star Wars website

Lucasfilm's contention towards Abrams' choice does shed some light on the production process of the new Star Wars trilogy - especially the lack of creative follow-through. It was evident with The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker that some of the narrative decisions taken were somewhat disconnected from one another.

It seems like the studio favoured neither Rian Johnson nor Abrams' visions, a problem that has been recognised by Lucasfilm and led to the absence of a new Star Wars movie for the last three years.

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In the meantime, Star Wars is cementing its home on Disney+. The Book of Boba Fett is halfway through its season, while both The Mandalorian Season 3 and Obi-Wan Kenobi are in production.

Patty Jenkins, Kevin Feige, and Taika Waititi are also attached to movies set within the Star Wars universe, but these films are still some years away.