J.J. Abrams is doing his best to keep obscure Star Wars references from the original trilogy out of the new Star Wars movie, Collider reports. Well, that's a relief for any significant others who are getting dragged to the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in December and don't know the difference between Jabba the Hut and Jamba Juice. But that the creative decision isn't just for those newcomers, it's for everyone.
Abrams explains that they want the plot of The Force Awakens (which takes place 30 years after the Return of the Jedi) to make sense on its own, and not confuse the audience with heavy allusions to the past:
“… we’ve obviously had a lot of time [during the development process] to talk about what’s happened outside of the borders of the story that you’re seeing. So there are, of course, references to things, and some are very oblique so that hopefully the audience can infer what the characters are referring to. We used to have more references to things that we pulled out because they almost felt like they were trying too hard to allude to something. I think that the key is—and whether we’ve accomplished that or not is, of course, up to the audience—but the key is that references be essential so that you don’t reference a lot of things that feel like, oh, we’re laying pipe for, you know, an animated series or further movies. It should feel like things are being referenced for a reason.”
You hear that? So now you don't have to study up before going to see The Force Awakens, Star Wars noobs.
