James Mangold talks about his STAR WARS film and why he wanted to set it in the distant past

James Mangold (Logan, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) is in the midst of developing a new wild Star Wars film project for Lucasfilm. His project is certainly one of the most interesting as it will take us back to the dawn of the Jedi.

The story is said to take place 25,000 years before the events of the original trilogy and will focus on the birth of the Force. There’s a great story to be told here and I’m quite excited to see what Mangold has planned!

During a recent interview with io9, Mangold spoke a little more about his project and how the film came to be. He also explained why it’s set in the distant past. He said:

“I spoke with [Lucasfilm] before and I’ve also worked on other projects a bit before, and I’m always interested in what’s going on there and I have friends who work on other Star Wars projects. But I realized that a lot of what they were doing was kind of pushing the saga forward.”

Mangold then went on to talk about the pitch he gave to Lucasfilm saying:

“So when I spoke to Kathy [Kennedy, Lucasfilm president] the idea that I had to go back – really far back – I was surprised that it thrilled her and the other wonderful people she works with at Lucasfilm. For me, it’s about wanting to be a part of the saga, but I also don’t want to keep so many lore up in the air that I can’t tell a story. And what I really wanted to do, what I told her, was we can do a kind of Ten Commandments of the Force, you know? A sort of origin story of how the Force was known, understood, wielded and harnessed.”

This is part of Star Wars tradition that has always fascinated me because not much is known about it. So, the fact that it’s actually going to be explored in a movie is great! When she previously spoke about the project to him, she described him as a Ben Hur OR The 10 commandments movies about The Force:

“It’s an opportunity to tell his whole story, the birth of strength. When I first talked about this with Kathy Kennedy, I just said, “I just see this opening to do some kind of Ben-Hur or The 10 Commandments about the birth of the Force.” The Force has become something of a religious legend that runs through all of these films. But where did it come from? How do you find? Who found it? Who was the first Jedi? And that’s what I’m writing right now.

In another interview, speaking about how the film would focus on the discovery of the Force, Mangold said:

“It occurred to me to think if I was doing one, it seemed to me that most of what they were thinking of doing with movies was in the Star Wars present or in the future, and what attracted me the most is been the distant past and how this galaxy was formed and how, more specifically, the Force was discovered.”

What we do know about the early history of the Force is that in “36,453 BBY, philosophers and scientists from different star systems gathered on Tython to share mystical knowledge. The Force has been ‘discovered’. Unfortunately, in 25,793 BBY, several Tythan scholars began using their knowledge of the Force to pursue power, leading to the start of the Force Wars. Peaceful monks who survived the destruction on Tython founded the Jedi Order in 25,783 BBY.

Are you excited about what James Mangold is planning for his Star Wars movie?