Star Wars Episode Spinoff Writer Kinberg on What the Originals Offer

X-Men: First Class

co-writer Simon Kinberg, who is working with Lawrence Kasdan on developing Star Wars Universe films set outside of the upcoming Episode VII through IX trilogy, spoke with the Los Angeles Times over the weekend, sharing with them some of the things he wanted to hang onto from the old films (some of which Kasdan had a hand in) and what makes Star Wars different from other big franchises. He didn't give away much in the way of details, but certainliy communicated that he's a huge fan and, among other things, that he's got a very particualr sense of what it is that made George Lucas's creation special. "We're really at the early phases of figuring out the details, but the spirit of the original movie is the thing I fell in love with, so it's the spirit of that that I think will guide us," Kasdan said. "I think what worked so well in all of the Star Wars movies is the characters. I think the reason that they're different than other science fiction or other genre movies is because George [Lucas] created a universe of people that you wanted to go back and see over and over again, and that's why it's spanned and spawned so many different mediums, so many different generations, every different language. You want to go back and see those characters, like I did when I was a kid. Empire Strikes Back was the first movie I saw in a movie theater more than once. And I went back 10, 15 times in the theater, and I've seen it probably over a 100 times since. But I saw it that many times in the theater because I loved those characters. I loved Han, I loved Leia, I loved Luke, I was right at the age when I was old enough to start to understand the nuance of that movie. I think I was too young for New Hope when it came out in the theater, although I loved it and it was my favorite film until Empire. And then really, that changed my life, that movie."