Beaks here...

Lawrence Kasdan received a Hall of Fame honor at the Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Awards last night, and made himself available to the media - which, sadly, did not result in a spate of DREAMCATCHER questions. No, it was all about the new STAR WARS movies Kasdan is working on with fellow screenwriter Simon Kinberg. What's the nature of his involvement? Which characters are receiving standalone movies? Is there a place for Duddits in the STAR WARS universe?

IGN's Jim "Stax" Vejvoda put some of these questions to Kasdan, and while he was vague in his responses, Kasdan did shed a little bit of insight into the brainstorming process. Here's the most interesting bit:

They’re going to be fun. J.J. (Abrams)’s a great director for the first sequel. Perfect. We’re very happy to have him. The writers I’ve been working with -- Michael Arndt, who’s going to write the sequel, and Simon Kinberg, who has, like me, been sort of consulting -- they’re great. I’ve never really collaborated a lot, and I’ve never been a room with a bunch of writers thinking, “Well, what should this thing be?” It’s fun. It’s really fun. And J.J.’s a writer. Yeah, lovely guy. I’d met him but didn’t know him. But now I’m totally enamored by him. He’s really funny and so enthusiastic.

Vejvoda also caught up with Kinberg, who likened writing with Kasdan to playing basketball with Michael Jordan. Kinberg's like a lot of us: he grew up on STAR WARS, and credits George Lucas's saga with inspiring him to write movies of his own. Kinberg didn't give up much, but he did have this to say about the fans' desire to know as much as possible ahead of time:

This is what I would say: as a fan, I wouldn’t want to know too much. I know that’s impossible because it’s not the '70s or '80s anymore, but part of what was so exciting about A New Hope for me was I was entering into a universe I didn’t know. Even in Empire, I was surprised by a twist I never would have seen coming. But it’s different nowadays. I understand the excitement, and I’m happy that people are interested, obviously. But I’d rather people have something left to discover when they go in.