What's in Taika Waititi's 'Star Wars' Movie?
Taika Waititi has been working toward this for a long time.
It might seem like Taika Waititi came out of obscurity, but as he told Wired in a recent interview, “People are like, ‘Oh you just popped out of nowhere.’ Yeah, but I worked for 10 years straight before Marvel gave me a call. I was not just fucking around. I have evolved as a storyteller.”
Waititi is the mind behind shows like Flight of the Conchords, What We Do in the Shadows, movies like Jojo Rabbit, Thor: Ragnarok, and The Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
He's been working and working, making his craft better and better, so he can capitalize on a moment like this. That moment is huge. He has a Flash Gordon movie he's working on, an Akira movie he's trying to drag back from development hell, and, oh yeah... he's making his own Star Wars movie.
Waititi is no stranger to the Star Wars universe. He worked on The Mandalorian and has been a fan. But what will his Star Wars movie actually be like?
In that Wired interview, he says, "It’s still in the ‘EXT. SPACE’ stage. But we’ve got a story. I’m really excited by it because it feels very me.”
But how will he balance the tone of Star Wars with the previous outlandish humor and irreverence he's channeled?
“I tend to go down that little sincerity alleyway in my films,” he says. “I like to fool the viewer into thinking ‘ha it’s this’ and then them going, ‘Damn it, you made me feel something!’”
When it comes to the technology he'll use, look no further than what he's used in the past. We know The Mandalorian revolutionized the use of StageCraft, and that Waititi is using it on Thor: Love and Thunder right now. It's safe to assume he will continue the strand in his Star Wars.
As he says, the benefits are clear: “The actors can be in the environment; they can see what everyone else can see.”
As Waititi prepares for this next film, I think we should relish his success. He's worked so hard for so long, and because he was willing to get better, he was able to create the things that got him noticed.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
