George Nolfi, the latest writer working on the announced Rey film from director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, recently shared how he’s approaching writing the movie.
In an interview with Film Stories, Nolfi, who takes over writing duties from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and Damon Lindelof before him, said, “The way I approach it is, you look at what’s come before you, you look at the broad ideas of what they want to do.”
“Meaning: Lucasfilm, Disney, Sharmeen [Obaid-Chinoy], the director, and then you do what a writer does, and try to try and put beats of a story together,” he explained. “Try and imagine characters, and then you present that with an understanding that it needs to honour, obviously, a long, incredible tradition.”
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Nolfi then elaborated on what he sees as the Star Wars tradition, “If you think about George Lucas, the six movies that he did, and the universe that he created, it’s actually very steeped in broad notions of politics. It’s not talking about today, per se, but there’s the Empire’s Nazism slash Roman Empire. The democracy of the Roman Empire collapsing and becoming an empire and the perennial story of human beings organising themselves and against chaos, and then the tools that help human societies tamp down on chaos becomes oppression.”
“So that is really very core to what I think George Lucas was trying to talk about,” he said. “And one of the wonderful things about science fiction and Star Wars – which is more almost science fantasy or space opera – is that you can raise the deepest issues without it feeling like a philosophy class, or a political science class, or something I read in the newspaper today… It can be about real things, deep things.”
Back in 2023, a press release from Lucasfilm explained what the film was supposed to be about. It stated, “Kennedy then revealed that Star Wars will head into the future, with a new feature set 15 years after the last events of the Skywalker Saga. Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy will tell the story of rebuilding the New Jedi Order and the powers that rise to tear it down; the director then delighted fans by welcoming Daisy Ridley to stage, confirming she will be reprising her beloved role as Rey in the upcoming movie.
Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy also explained what the film was supposed to be about. She told IGN, “We’re 15 years out from Rise of Skywalker. So we’re kind of post-war, post-First Order and the Jedi are in disarray. And there’s a lot of discussion around who are the Jedi, what are they doing, what’s the state of the galaxy? And she’s attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order based on the books, based on what she promised Luke.”
Kennedy concluded, “So that’s where we’re going.”
Nolfi’s comments come as Star Wars appears to be at a significant low point in the franchise’s history. The Walt Disney Company recently revealed in financial documents that it added 800,000 subscribers to Disney+ in Canada and the United States in the last quarter.
However, Lucasfilm’s latest Star Wars television on Disney+ has failed to chart on any of the data tracking services of the most viewed shows including Nielsen and Luminate. It’s the only Star Wars show to not chart.
It means that those 800,000 new subscribers are clearly not subscribing to watch Star Wars.
What do you make of Nolfi’s comments regarding Star Wars?
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“Blah blah blah… Muh politics Muh Nazi empire!” Clearly this movie will be trash with this guy at the helm.
There's a serious problem though. Nobody really likes Rey or is interested in her story. She's not carrying the brand; the brand is dragging her.