unamochilla2 said:
I'm not familiar with Johnson or his work, yet. Do you think he'll continue using practical effects and real locations or rely more on CGI and green screens? Granted, we don't know how much CGI is in Episode VII and no doubt there will be, but the Abrams team has put a lot of emphasis on using more practical effects and real locations. Also wonder if the next two films will be shot digitally?
Definitely he'll go more practical/real than cgi/greenscreen. Looper has some cgi, but it's used sparingly. Hell, there's little difference between the "looping" effect itself and the jump cuts you see in the original Star Wars.
Everything he's directed was shot on film, including his Breaking Bad episodes (that entire show was shot on film). Also, Looper was shot in the anamorphic format of the OT/TPM and all of Abrams' movies (including Ep7), so Johnson will certainly push to have Ep8 shot that way as well. The only question is whether there will still be film to shoot on and well-maintained cameras to shoot it with by the time this goes into production.
Anyway, I've been excitedly following this news for the last several hours. I must've just happened to load up /Film mere moments after the story broke, 'cause all it said was "Rian Johnson is writing/directing 8 and 9, we'll have more later."
Yeah, definitely got the biggest reaction out of me since the day this whole Disney ball got rolling.
They quickly updated with a full article saying he was only writing a treatment for Ep9, not directing. This was good news to me as I want a different director on each film, like the OT.
I always knew Abrams wasn't gonna come back for VIII. Directing a Star Wars movie seems to be more of a bucket list thing for him. Apparently he's gonna stay on as a producer for the other films. Hopefully it won't be to their detriment.
Rian Johnson was definitely on many people's lists of dream directors for Ep7, so it seems fitting to see this happening.
Oh, and I love that second tweet regarding the SE. Spoken like a true celluloid-lover.