George Nolfi, tapped to write Daisy Ridley’s New Jedi Order film, has spoken (in general terms) to Film Stories about his involvement in the upcoming Star Wars film, set to be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.
Although he’s written for some major studio films – including Ocean’s 12 and The Bourne Ultimatum – Nolfi hasn’t tended to get too involved in major franchises. As a writer-director, he’s best known for The Adjustment Bureau, a light and surprisingly philosophical adaptation of a Philip K Dick story, and The Banker, a period drama starring Anthony Mackie. Elevation, again starring Mackie, is a sci-fi monster movie, but one in which its heroes use their intelligence and wit to survive rather than brute strength.
With that in mind, we couldn’t help wondering: how does a writer bring their own interests and personality to a series as lore-heavy as Star Wars?
“The way I approach it is, you look at what’s come before you, you look at the broad ideas of what they want to do,” Nolfi said. “Meaning: Lucasfilm, Disney, Sharmeen [Obaid-Chinoy], the director, and then you do what a writer does, and try to try and put beats of a story together. Try and imagine characters, and then you present that with an understanding that it needs to honour, obviously, a long, incredible tradition.”
Nolfi studied philosophy and politics before he became a screenwriter – subjects that might, we suggested, find their way into his Star Wars script.
“If you think about George Lucas, the six movies that he did, and the universe that he created, it’s actually very steeped in broad notions of politics,” Nolfi said. “It’s not talking about today, per se, but there’s the Empire’s Nazism slash Roman Empire. The democracy of the Roman Empire collapsing and becoming an empire and the perennial story of human beings organising themselves and against chaos, and then the tools that help human societies tamp down on chaos becomes oppression.
“So that is really very core to what I think George Lucas was trying to talk about. And one of the wonderful things about science fiction and Star Wars – which is more almost science fantasy or space opera – is that you can raise the deepest issues without it feeling like a philosophy class, or a political science class, or something I read in the newspaper today…
“It can be about real things, deep things.”
We’ll be sure to bring you more as we hear it.
Image: Getty Images
The post George Nolfi on his Star Wars New Jedi Order Screenplay appeared first on Jedi News.
