Star Trek fans may not be as impressed... Some of the comments on the article indicate that not too many hardcore fans were pleased with this director.
I, however, was elated. And this gives me much more confidence in this new series.
Posts: 292 | Registered: Jun 2006
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J.J. Abrams is like having a hybrid of one of my favorite directors combined with a little bit of Michael Bay. His Star Trek movie was a really good movie, except for sometimes feeling like he was relying too much on flashiness. As far as him directing Star Wars, I am mostly happy with that. I actually think he is a better fit for Star Wars than Star Trek, probably because that "flashy" feeling fits better in Star Wars.
One thing I will say about Abrams is that I have never watched anything he made that I didn't like. Maybe mixed emotions, but I now have much less fear that Star Wars will end up being a flop. I feel more confident that it will at least be good to watch and have decent quality. Whether or not it will be really good, well, we will see. They could certainly have done worse in choosing a director.
On a related note, this article says the next 3 Star Wars movies will, in fact, be based off of Lucas' outlines that he wrote a long time ago. So, as far as continuity goes, looks like we will be seeing good source material. I think that is just the kind of role Lucas should have always played: write the outlines and come up with good ideas. But don't let him come within 100 yards of a script or have anything to do with directing or casting choices.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
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On the whole, I'd say good news, although at least at the moment, obviously having not seen the new Star Trek movie yet, I hope he makes one more new Star Trek before signing off.
Although now there'll be even more confusion among the non-obsessively-geeky about which Star... is which.
*Future conversation with my dad*
'JJ Abrams, isn't he that Star Wars guy?' 'Yes, and he's the Star Trek guy.' 'I thought that was the same thing.'
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Now the race is on amongst journalists everywhere to be the first to get both 'JJ' and 'Jar Jar' into a headline. Resistance is futile.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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My first thought was to cringe at the prospect of a lens-flarey lightsaber duel.
Seriously, J.J. Abrams has a good track record with everything not related to lens flare, but someone really needs to tell him to stop putting lens flare on everything. I have empirical evidence that a J.J. Abrams drinking game based on lens flare is liable to kill someone.
If this news is true, the first thing I'm doing when I get the DVD/Blu-Ray/legal digital copy/whatever format is standard by then is editing the movie scene by scene to remove every instance of lens flare. I expect the project to take me about 10 years, but it will be worth it.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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Abrams is a competent but dull director. He is a god-awful writer, though.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Blayne Bradley
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I feel a Star Wars movie with JJ would be fine, but it probably won't be great. I feel he 'got' a lot about what made Star Trek good character wise (just not quite 'got' star trek as a 'show/idea').
But with Star Wars, ideally I want something that's feels like a New Hope, even if its new plot material. Slow build up to set the stage for a new trilogy with an awesome finale as a send away for the next two movies and beyond.
I don't think JJ Abrams will do that, I have nothing other than a gut feeling but I suspect it'll be more like Star Trek in that it's fast paced action thriller the whole way, when we need to walk it back to the perfect pacing Lucas had for Ep4.
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I hope he paces the movie with a good sense of peak and valleys, because I feel like it's what his Trek movie lacked. I really like MI3 and his last movie though.
Posts: 1407 | Registered: Oct 2008
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Hi everybody you can stop worrying about this movie now, jj abrams is about as good a director you were going to get for this sort of thing and the movie will be fun but that's not going to stop people from kvetching about it forever so just calling it now: if movie is bad i will eat a hat
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They can't be any worse than the last three. Even then, bad Star Wars is still fun.
It's just a movie. But it'll be a movie with force powers and lightsabers. Certainly worth a few hours regardless. And maybe it'll get even more people into science fiction.
And as a bonus, we'll probably get a new Mr. Plinkett video from Red Letter Media. So, really, it's a win all around.
Posts: 1204 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I'm delighted. I hope the movie is packed with lens flare, that was my favorite thing about Star Trek. Basically I want the whole screen to be one big lens flare.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Destineer: I'm delighted. I hope the movie is packed with lens flare, that was my favorite thing about Star Trek. Basically I want the whole screen to be one big lens flare.
You could always just have someone shine a flashlight in your eyes for two hours.
Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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As long as Abrams' frequent collaborators Orci, Kurtzman, and Lindeloff come nowhere near the script, I could see this working decently well. Abrams is a solid action director with a good handle on acting performances, but he doesn't have the best grasp of character motivation or protagonist agency-driven storylines. And the writers he usually works with are even worse, constantly mistaking obfuscation for "mystery" and character internal inconsistency for "growth." Hint: arcs require the audience to understand and care how/why a character is changing. Simply flipping a curveball of a plot twist and shouting "HAHA BET YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING" is not the same thing as character development or plot advancement.
In other words, I really, really hope Michael Arndt's script is filmed as is.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Tarrsk: As long as Abrams' frequent collaborators Orci, Kurtzman, and Lindeloff come nowhere near the script, I could see this working decently well. Abrams is a solid action director with a good handle on acting performances, but he doesn't have the best grasp of character motivation or protagonist agency-driven storylines. And the writers he usually works with are even worse, constantly mistaking obfuscation for "mystery" and character internal inconsistency for "growth." Hint: arcs require the audience to understand and care how/why a character is changing. Simply flipping a curveball of a plot twist and shouting "HAHA BET YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING" is not the same thing as character development or plot advancement.
In other words, I really, really hope Michael Arndt's script is filmed as is.
There are some opposing viewpoints on this. Bob and Alex can really spin a some REALLY good scripts -- especially looking at their tv stuff (Xena, Hercules, Alias, Fringe) -- but some of their projects have been compromised by the studios or their director (see Michael Bay, Transformers). Reading the interviews, it was pretty clear that they will do what the suits say (Transformers, Cowboys and Aliens). But with the right directors, such as Abrams or Favreau, they have some fairly impressive work (The Island, Eagle Eye, Mission Impossible III, Watchmen, Star Trek, People Like Us).
If you haven't seen People Like Us, I recommend it.
Lindelof is a different story. So . . . we need to talk Lost and Prometheus, right? His writing is great. He wrote some of the very best (and highly awarded) episodes of lost. That's not what you're talking about.
Lindelof is very notorious for building plots that introduce elements that are never explained. In Lost, there were many unexplained supernatural elements. A lot of nit picky viewers wanted to know the WHY of so many plot devices. I can understand that need.
Both OSC and Robert Jordan have spoken extensively about NOT including all of the details, not wrapping up all of the plot points. The point of soft science fiction, according to OSC, is character development. Hard sci fi explains how every star drive works, every planetary ecosystem, but soft sci fi is much more akin to fantasy. We just have to accept these plot elements. And as Robert Jordan said, we are just traveling through a living, breathing world. We don't need everything handed to us with a bow. The characters don't always know why or how things happen . . . so why should the reader???? This is very much akin to statements by both Abrams and Lindelof.
Prometheus is a different story. A lot of people really liked it (Ebert gave it the highest praise), but it was very convoluted and didn't explain a lot of plot elements. Lindeloff was in charge of rewrites, but much of this came from Scott and the original writer. I'm not sure how much Damon can be blamed.
So . . . Orci and Kurtzman have pounded out some awesome television and some killer scripts. The next Star Trek is in their hands, as well as Ender's Game.
Lindeloff has written some of the best lost episodes (Tabula Rasa, Flashes Before Your Eyes) and is working with Brad Bird on 1952.
You look into the reasons for their failures, and you can't really blame them. You look into their best successes (Xena, Lost, Fringe, MI3, Star Trek), and I would be happy for them to take the helm.
Posts: 1204 | Registered: Mar 2003
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With all this talk of Star Wars I have been watching the movies again. I even managed to fit the first seaon of clone wars between parts 2 and 3. I have not seen part 3 since I saw in in the theater. Wow did clone wars give me a new perspective on it. . The whole deep respect between the Jedi and the clones dramatically changed the impact of Order 66. Looking forward to the other seasons.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Sam also ended up taking a hat bet that that TV show with the dinosaurs would not get a second season but I don't think it was mentioned here.
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
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Blayne Bradley
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Movies Bob's take Sums up my opinion, and this time I had my opinion BEFORE watching.
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quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: I have empirical evidence that a J.J. Abrams drinking game based on lens flare is liable to kill someone.
Empirical... or IMPERIAL??
The lens flares... will contribute... to your lack of vision. Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Bob had very interesting things to say...but how was was Star Trek the same plot as Top Gun? Maybe it's just 4 am and I'm not thinking straight, but I'm not seeing it.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Good stories present a "mystery box" to the audience, which intrigues and hooks them, then it moves forward to the end of that mystery, then presents a new one. It progresses the overall plot in pretty much every major story. Look at the older scifi movies.
Star Trek 2 is all about reveals. It's a continuous cycle of them. Look at how many there are:
-Kirk says at the beginning that he passed the Kobyashi Maru test, but won't reveal how.
-There's all this talk about Genesis, but we don't know what it is yet.
-When we find out what Genesis is later, we're told it could destroy or create. Which will it be? What's going to happen when Khan gets it?
-Kirk had a relationship with the scientist lady?
-The scientist lady has a son...and it's Kirk's?!
-Kirk and friends beam down to the inside of the moon and...now what are they going to do?
-Oh ho! Kirk had a plan all along!
-Genesis is going to go off, but what's going to happen? What does it all mean?
-Will Spock survive whatever's happening in that scary glass room?
All of these things (and more) bring us to the final conclusion. We're hooked from start to finish, led along by bread crumbs of little mysteries so that we keep wanting more. Yes, we love the characters and we care about them, but general audiences also need the bread crumbs. There's even a mystery at the end of the freaking movie that sets up for the NEXT movie, which is that Spock is dead but *gasp* his coffin landed on the new Genesis planet....what does it mean?!
Say what you will about JJ Abrams, but he certainly understands movies.
For other examples of the mystery box working, look at films like Moon, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, The Matrix, Blade Runner, Serenity, Inception, Gattaca, Dark City, Minority Report, The Dark Knight, Close Encounters, and many, many countless others that present tiny little mysteries throughout their stories.
Posts: 1324 | Registered: Feb 2011
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I don't think people object to a mystery box...I think they object to a mystery box that never gets opened...or twelve.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I don't think people object to a mystery box...I think they object to a mystery box that never gets opened...or twelve.
I agree, but I think they're shifting the blame in the wrong direction, as well as focusing way too much on one particular project. Other than Lost, what of Abram's work do people think didn't have a proper resolution? Star Trek certainly worked. So did all the other studio movies he made. Fringe concluded just fine, too, despite the fact that the studio decided to cut its final season in half.
And even if all you're talking about is Lost, you have to look at Damon Lindelof, one of the main guys who worked on it. He also wrote Prometheus, which is full of unanswered questions.
I think Abrams understands this is a studio movie and also that it isn't a TV show where you have to keep people's interest going for years at a time, week after week. Movies need conclusions, even if they're part of a series, and if you look at the last Star Trek movie, you'll see that it adheres to that.
Furthermore, the story has already been written. Abrams isn't going in with an idea in his head and pitching it to a studio. The studio came to him and convinced him to sign up based on their own story. There's only so much he can do with the story. Remember: he isn't writing it, just directing.
Directors are hired for studio projects because of their ability to visually express what has already been written. If you're worried about Abrams, it shouldn't be because of a mystery box, but rather his ability to direct actors and seamlessly blend visuals with the story he has been given. In my opinion, Abrams can do all of this quite well, which makes him the ideal choice for a project like this.
Posts: 1324 | Registered: Feb 2011
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