Studio disagreement led to this “unsatisfying” Force Awakens moment
By Daniel Roman
It’s no secret that the Star Wars sequel trilogy produced by Disney is a bit of a mixed bag, owing partially to the fact that there was no real overarching plan for the three films. Director J.J. Abrams has more or less admitted as much, but really, did we even need him to? It’s just kind of clear if you watch the films. We’ll just hold up the back-and-forth explanation of Rey’s lineage as an example.
It should come as no surprise that there were some creative disagreements during the process of making the sequel movies. And according to reports from ComicBook.com, one of those disagreements led to a pretty “unsatisfying” plot point in The Force Awakens.
Lucasfilm wouldn’t let J.J. Abrams blow up Coruscant
The scene in question is when Starkiller Base, the First Order’s spiffy new planet-sized Death Star, blows up the planets that represent the New Republic’s power, shattering the fledgling government’s infrastructure and plunging the galaxy back into chaos. The moment confused many fans, because Coruscant, the seat of both the Old Republic in the prequel films and Palpatine’s Empire in the original trilogy, was not among the afflicted planets. Instead, the main planet we saw get destroyed was Hosnian Prime, which just…felt kind of random.
In a series of now-deleted tweets from Star Wars creative executive Pablo Hidalgo, it was revealed that the choice to go with Hosnian Prime as the seat of the New Republic was the result of an “unsatisfying” studio compromise. Originally director J.J. Abrams planned for Coruscant to be destroyed in this scene, but studio execs intervened.
“Basically [J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot] wanted it blown up; [Lucasfilm Ltd.] didn’t. Hosnian Prime was the unsatisfying middle ground. It happens,” Hidalgo reportedly posted. He also later clarified that he was referring to some specific people who held these opinions, as opposed to the production companies themselves.
It’s just the latest example of the turmoil that followed the production of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. For all that, Star Wars does seem to be in good shape nowadays, with no less than 300 television shows in production at Disney+ and plans for future films from directors Taika Waititi and Patty Jenkins in the works.
The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker are all available to stream on Disney+. The Book of Boba Fett is also currently airing new episodes on the platform every Wednesday.
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