Lawrence Kasdan Kind Of Sticks It to George Lucas When Talking About New ‘Star Wars’ Films

Talk about a Big Chill (get it? because that was the name of Kasdan's....eh, nevermind). While giving an interview to IGN about what his role as producer and writer of the new Star Wars movies will entail, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi co-writer Lawrence Kasdan kind of passive aggressively made sure to let everyone know that he thinks the prequels are garbage too.

I was pleased that there would be new ones, that there was a chance to capture some of the spirit of the original trilogy that I'd worked on. I thought there's an audience out there — my grandchildren, lots of original Star Wars people — and there always will be. It's only good that we try to do some more great ones.

Kasdan also gave his blessing to all the new collaborators he's going to be working with on both the sequel trilogy and the standalone character spin-off films:

They're going to be fun. J.J. (Abrams)'s a great director for the first sequel. Perfect. We're very happy to have him. The writers I've been working with — Michael Arndt, who's going to write the sequel, and Simon Kinberg, who has, like me, been sort of consulting — they're great. I've never really collaborated a lot, and I've never been a room with a bunch of writers thinking, "Well, what should this thing be?" It's fun. It's really fun. And J.J.'s a writer. Yeah, lovely guy. I'd met him but didn't know him. But now I'm totally enamored by him. He's really funny and so enthusiastic.

And while talking to Hero Complex, Frank Oz both elated and disappointed me by confirming that he'd love to return to be the voice of Yoda, but also that 'at this point you can't go back to the puppet.' Why can't you go back to the puppet? Look at what Guillermo Del Toro has done with puppets. Or why not a CGI/puppet hybrid like from Where the Wild Things Are. Eh? Ah? Meh.