This is a real shame for Michael Arndt. There are online rumours that he was taken off this project several months ago and that they are only just announcing this now. Can't help wondering if JJ Abrams is basically just taking over - he's certainly used to getting his own way and was openly complaining about having to take his family to London for several months to shoot the movie (no doubt staying in some luxury hotel or house, with paid-for tutors for his kids, come back to Planet Earth, JJ). One of the main criticisms of the prequel trilogy was the poor characterisation. Exactly how removing Michael Arndt from the new project and allowing Abrams to co-write will help in this respect is difficult to comprehend (Abrams is a competent director but skilled screenwriter he certainly is not). Hopefully Michael got a nice paycheck and will move on to a project where the director appreciates his talent. As an unashamed "Star Wars" fan I really hope this doesn't become the next "JJ Abrams Film" rather than the next "Star Wars movie". George Lucas is a lot smarter than he's given credit for, and hiring Irving Kershner and Richard Marquand for Episodes V and VI - talented but not "superstar" directors - is now looking like a really, really smart strategy....

I think that Star Wars is an incredibly tough universe to work in and that it takes a great writer to work in, not necessarily a Science Fiction Guy like J.J (I'll mark things like Felicity, and Morning Glory as outliers). The Star Wars template is deceptively hard. I'm sure that it appears simple to a lot of folks who were interviewed because at its heart is a "knights and princess" tale. The only problem with that is once the writer gets the idea that its easy they focus on plot and spectacle instead of character. There are at least a dozen lines from Empire alone that are written as great looks into characters ("there is no try," "I am your father") but, the new trilogy has lines that are just infamous either in the reading or construction. The focus became a plot that nobody cared about (because we were already prepared to see the birth of Vader) spaced with action sequences that were paced jaggedly and tried to force urgency. What worries me about the new Star Wars is that Disney will want its product created in the most basic terms (i.e., don't make the audience think), which as a company makes perfect sense, and that they want the Abrams "brand." They want the Star Trek money, which means they'll accept that type of story (plot holes, pointless action sequences). All in all, money into the town is a good thing, but still it'd be great to see a take that could be a little further out of left field. But who knows, nobody has seen a page of the draft or a second of footage.