JJ Abrams Talks His Biggest Mistake In “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”

(Spoilers for the three people who haven't seen The Force Awakens)

Last December I, like a lot of you I'm sure, eagerly and with trepidation, awaited the familiar Star Wars crawl at the beginning of the highly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I thought the movie was pretty good. I watched it two more times in the theater. It wasn't a perfect movie, however. Did we really need a THIRD Death Star? I don't think so. But generally, it was great. But there was one thing that really bothered me. After Kylo Ren kills Han Solo, Chewbacca, Rey, and an injured Finn return to the rebel base. Chewie exits the Millennium Falcon and walks right past Leia who doesn't stop to give poor Chewie a hug. Instead, she approaches Rey and takes her into her arms. So, she doesn't console Han Solo's best friend who she's known for forty years but instead embraces a girl she's known for like two days. Abrams admits that he messed up. He said,

"Had Chewbacca not been where he was, you probably wouldn’t have thought of it. But because he was right there, passed by Leia, it felt almost like a slight, which was definitely not the intention."

Instead he explains why Leia hugs the girl she just met,

"The idea being that both of them being strong with the Force and never having met, would know about each other -- that Leia would have been told about her beyond what we saw on screen and Rey of course would have learned about Leia. And that reunion would be a meeting and a reunion all in one, and a sort of commiseration of their mutual loss."

Poor Chewie. First, he doesn't get a medal for piloting the Falcon during the attack on the first Death Star and now this.