Director Denis Velleneuve’s Love-Hate Relationship With the Star Wars Franchise
Denis Velleneuve, the director of sci-fi films like Dune, says he isn’t interested in directing any movie from the Star Wars franchise.
He made the interesting revelation during The Town podcast with Matthew Belloni. According to Velleneuve, it all began when he was a kid who deeply loved the series. In the recent interview, he admitted, “I was the target audience. I was 10 years old. It went to my brain like a silver bullet. I became obsessed with Star Wars,” Belloni shared. “I mean, The Empire Strikes Back is the movie that I anticipated the most in my life. I saw the movie a billion times onscreen.”
Unfortunately, the third installment disappointed him—a reaction that resonates with many from the Star Wars fandom. While the first two movies—A New Hope and Return of the Jedi—cemented the trilogy’s place in the hearts of viewers, the 1980s release of The Empire Strikes Back left many fans wanting.
“I was traumatized by The Empire Strikes Back,” Velleneuve revealed. The director and his childhood best friend were so dissatisfied with the saga’s conclusion that they planned on visiting Star Wars Director George Lucas so they could tell him about their frustrations.
“The problem is that it all derailed in 1983 with Return of the Jedi,” he explained. “It’s a long story. I was 15 years old, and my best friend and I wanted to take a cab and go to LA and talk to George Lucas—we were so angry!”
The 57-year-old filmmaker added that the introduction of the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi made the story too juvenile for his tastes. “Still today, the Ewoks. It turned out to be a comedy for kids. … Star Wars became crystallized in its own mythology, very dogmatic, it seemed like a recipe, no more surprises. So I’m not dreaming to do a Star Wars because it feels like [the] code is very codified.”
But his lukewarm attitude isn’t reserved for Star Wars alone. Velleneuve confessed that he isn’t an admirer of another decades-old science fiction series, Star Trek. “I’m not a Trekkie,” he said bluntly.
During the conversation, the Oscar nominee also showed little interest in directing Dune 3 even though he was the director of its first two movies and is reportedly working on the screenplay of Dune 3.
Villeneuve said he prefers to work on stand-alone movies instead of films with several installments. Whether or not he’ll ever change his stance remains to be seen, but for now, he’s focused on projects like Cleopatra for Sony Pictures and a few book-to-movie film adaptations.
