Was Michael Arndt's Scrapped Star Wars Story The Better Version?

       

      Long ago in a year far far away...existed a probably much better story than The Force Awakens. Not that J.J.'s movie was terrible. But there's always that part of a movie fan that studies development hell and always wonders: What if? What if David Fincher did Steve Jobs? What if Darren Aronofsky ruined Batman? What if George Miller succeeded in making Justice League: Mortal? Why was there ever a Justice League movie with the word Mortal in it? These are the questions that run through my mind constantly, keeping me awake at night along with my night light. So for the sake of my mental health, lets examine the Star Wars story that never was and come up with a theory that is probably a 100 percent wrong. Or will be when Disney reboots the whole fucking thing. Oh you know it's coming!

 Before we get to Star Wars let's talk about who Michael Arndt is. For everyone who is reading who might not know, Mr. Arndt is a well balanced screenwriter who broke onto the scene with his script Little Miss Sunshine. A heart-felt told story about a road trip to get a little girl to a dance competition. It won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and put Michael on the map baby!

It was this simple but lovable story that somehow by the grace of God and good agents reached the desks of Pixar. The Brain Trust over there loved the mixture of comedy and drama so much they hired him to tackle on the momentous task of ending the Toy Story franchise...I mean trilogy. Toy Story 3 was a huge hit (as expected) and universally loved by every fan. It currently sits at 99 percent on RT and puts a cap on a perfect story line, rarely seen in Hollywood. And most of that was due to Arndt's great script along with the story artists who helped along the way.

And that my invisible friends is where we get to our current story. Disney, already having a fruitful relationship with Michael, seeing how he was able to balance out family friendly cinema with complex character issues, hires him to tackle another momentous task. The rebirth of Star Wars. When casuals heard the news, they complained that it wasn't "animation dude! He's an animator!" No  not everyone who works on an animated movie is an animator. But when hardcore movie fans saw the news, the consensus was mild confusion but optimism. I mean the guy wrote Toy Story 3. He won an Oscar. This is a good start to this whole rebirth thing. That was November 9th 2012. Almost a year later he was out. What happened? As Rolling Stone put it

In a quote included with the statement, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy praised Arndt for doing a "terrific job" developing the story thus far. But she didn't offer any explanation why Arndt is no longer associated with the project.  

But we really don't need a full explanation do we? From statements and new stories we can fairly piece together why he was kicked off. THR reports

According to those close to the project, producer Kathleen Kennedy and most of the film's creative team have asked Disney to push the release to 2016, but studio CEO Robert Iger is adamant that Episode VII -- perhaps the franchise's most anticipated installment since 1999's The Phantom Menace -- not budge. That has created enormous pressure on all involved, with directorJ.J. Abrams stepping in to take over scripting duties with Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote 1980'sEpisode V: The Empire Strikes Back, considered the best film in the series.

Kathleen felt the movie needed more room to grow, maybe Arndt needed more time to finish the script and Disney was like "Nah fuck that. We need this NOW." And if we piece this with what J.J. Abrams said when Arndt was kicked off -

“It became clear that given the time frame and given the process and the way the thing was going that working with Larry in this way was going to get us where we need to be and when we needed to be,” he told Deadline. “Working with Larry Kasdan, especially on a 'Star Wars' movie is kind of unbeatable.”

Clearly the way Arndt was working wasn't fast enough. J.J. now the head honco on the film felt he could move at a quicker pace if it was just him and Kasdan typing away. So that begs the question. Was the story we saw in theaters the one we got only because CEOs rushed it? Did Arndt & Kathleen have a more complex and unique story they were tying to tell and we only got Force Awakens because it was the quickest story J.J. and Kasdan can spit out? This nonsense theory is backed when you read actual quotes from Arndt after the movie was released. Like this one from EW.

The story group’s thinking went back to the 1977 original movie, when R2-D2 accessed the Empire’s mainframe as the heroes searched for the captured Princess Leia. “We had the idea about R2 plugging into the information base of the Death Star, and that’s how he was able to get the full map and find where the Jedi temples are,” Arndt said.

It seems that Michael was still involved in the project after he was kicked off in a "story group" capacity. He was still peppering ideas to J.J. along the way. He even has a writing credit meaning that his foundation was so liked, so important the producers felt it was essential to keep his name on there. And mind you this foundation was reported to be a treatment only 50 to a 100 pages long. And they still kept him on as a writing credit. That treatment was basically the blueprint for the whole movie. So maybe Kathleen had to listen to her corporate bosses. She goes along with the idea that somehow J.J. (who spits story projects out his mind like a machine gun) can wrap this script up in time for 2015 but knew Arndt's version was far superior, the more thought out version and kept him along for the ride hoping he can clean up whatever rushed mess others made.

So what was Michael Arndt's version anyway? The version Kathleen Kennedy and co. probably would of went with if the release date was pushed back?

O.G. Trilogy

While The Force Awakens deals with new characters such as Rey & Finn, it always had lots of screen time for the originals of the story. Leia was back in a big way as a general and Han Solo was 100 percent the emotional crux of the film. Kylo Ren was his son, the main villain of the movie. So we can say without a doubt the originals were a heavy cog in the movie even if Luke was shown for like a spilt second. But even then that makes Skywalker's role carry on an even bigger arc in the sequel to make up for lost time. This was J.J. and Kasdan's story. Arndt's was the complete opposite. It focused more on the youth of the film. The offspring of Luke, Leia & Solo. The new characters were being written to hold the story mantle front and center and have the O.G. trinity play in the background.  It was all about the new generation of characters. He recognized early on that it made sense to bring in new blood and start this trilogy off fresh. There is a whole generation of kids who don't really know Star Wars. So if you can give them new heroes with the old ones playing supporting everyone is happy. But it seems Arndt ran into some problems (via EW)

Early on I tried to write versions of the story where [Rey] is at home, her home is destroyed, and then she goes on the road and meets Luke. And then she goes and kicks the bad guy’s ass,” Arndt said. “It just never worked and I struggled with this. This was back in 2012.” Apparently the issue was Luke’s presence was always upstaging everyone in the script. “It just felt like every time Luke came in and entered the movie, he just took it over,” Arndt continued. “Suddenly you didn’t care about your main character anymore because, ‘Oh f–k, Luke Skywalker’s here. I want to see what he’s going to do.’

Which is funny because The Force Awakens now has NO Luke in it except for the end. With him saying this back in 2012 it seems like Arndt didn't have enough time to work out this idea before the movie was amped up to hyper speed. The year Arndt supposedly got the ax. It would take a considerable amount of time to figure out how to incorporate Luke into that story. And Disney couldn't wait...until the sequel came along. 

So how do you make up for that HUGE Luke gap? You force him to the back and play with the characters that don't disrupt the script. You bring forth Leia and Han Solo in a big way. Now you don't have to worry about fleshing out new characters if you're trying to work really fucking quick against a deadline. Everyone likes those characters already. They know them. You don't need to tell their stories because the world has seen them hundreds of times. And you cause another scene. Something quick, something people will be talking about in the absence of Luke.

That's why Force Awakens feels like a remix doesn't it? It's a story already told in A New Hope. And a quick one at that. It kind of feels like it was rushed on a deadline. But there was another version hidden in the depths. As Indiewire explains

EW also says there were other big plot ideas dropped: “a search for Darth Vader’s remains, or a quest to the underwater wreckage of the second Death Star to recover a key piece of history about sacred Jedi sites in the galaxy.” These of course, totally different movies and one could argue fairly different from the remake and remix-ness of ‘The Force Awakens.’

Now I know the EW article talks about Arndt as one of the "writers" making Luke the "MacGuffin" but do you honestly think that was what he was originally going for? I don't think so. All signs point to Arndt's version being way different and if he had time, we would of had a way different movie, not a sort of New Hopey 2.0. But like a mature screenwriter he accepted the studio's decision and still played ball. 

New Kids On The Block

Now the question that remains is would Rey, Finn and Poe been in the movie at all? Where there different younger versions in Arndt's draft? For that we turn our attention to the book "The Art of The Force Awakens." Filled with concept art and story ideas, we can get some clues as to what the beginning stages were about.

Rey was originally Kira and Finn was a Solo look-a-like named Sam. As the art book lays out:

Screenwriter Michael Arndt would later describe these early versions of Episode VII's young heroes, Kira and Sam, as a "loner, hothead, gear-head badass" and "pure charisma," respectively. 

So it seems like Kira's look and feel was kept intact for Rey. As for the others not so much.  From the first concept art it feels as if one of the scrapped drafts were focusing on the Solo Twins. Jacen & Jaina, the children of Han Solo.  But with Kylo Ren being Solo's son, it seems like they took more than just Kira.

The Last Paragraph

At this conclusion I must reiterate this: The Force Awakens was a good movie. I liked it. The fans liked it (well most of them), critics liked it, the box office liked it. J.J. and co. created a moving adventure that I am excited to continue to watch. Yeah it might feel like a remix but I'm a Puff Daddy fan so there. But with so much history on this franchise and so many stories being scrapped one always has to wonder. What if? Arndt clearly had interesting ideas that would of taken this franchise in widely new directions. And for all we know those ideas still exist in one way or another. We won't know if this particular story J.J. told will pay off in the end, hell in the sequel but I am interested in finding out. Until then enjoy this video of Mark Hamill shitting on the new Star Wars movies.