Agree to disagree, man. I feel it had absolutely nothing to do with hype. They were reviled because they were terrible movies. Jar-Jar and midichlorians are only surface issues. They're prime examples of poor direction and poor writing. Even talented actors can't do much when they have a bad script and a director who has no idea what he's doing. They had good soundtracks?Owyn_Merrilin said:
J.J. Abrams Signs Up To Direct Star Wars VII
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
I don't see the problem with J.J Abrams directing this one, seems one of the only problems people are bringing up is the Lens glare which J.J openly admitted to using too much of so what's the problem there? A director made a mistake and admitted to making the mistake. Feel free to continue making fun of something bad even when the person who went wrong openly admits it was bad, I can't see the Lens Flare jokes EVER getting old.
Personally I think J.J is a good fit, he's best when directing shows that have a science-fiction element with the relationships between the characters being the most important part, Lost didn't exactly explain a lot of what was going on and Fringe whilst it was about Pseudo-Science relayed heavily on the relationships between Peter and Olivia. To me that was a big part of Star Wars. Whether it was the Luke and Obi-Won, Han and Leila and so on. Or if you want they could get Tim Kring to direct this and Episode 7 can just be a giant plagiarizer of popular Sci-fi.
Also on the subject of Star Trek, it must have been difficult making a film that pleased both the mass audience and Trekkies at the same time. I liked the idea of Spock's actions causing this alternate timeline, what was great was the way Leonard Nimoy pulled off that role you could tell it was like Old Spock saw a little of he's version of Kirk in Chris Pine's version. But just to conclude this long speech, I'd say just wait and see what Star Wars Episode 7 and just don't expect the world from J.J Abrams and Disney. I still say that's part of what made people hate The Phantom Menace so much, it's not right to say it's a Star Wars film so enjoy what your given but still a person can do only so much to capture the magic of the first three (4-6 NOT 1-3)
P.S - The acting in the original three sucked. I say this as an ENORMOUS Star Wars fan
Personally I think J.J is a good fit, he's best when directing shows that have a science-fiction element with the relationships between the characters being the most important part, Lost didn't exactly explain a lot of what was going on and Fringe whilst it was about Pseudo-Science relayed heavily on the relationships between Peter and Olivia. To me that was a big part of Star Wars. Whether it was the Luke and Obi-Won, Han and Leila and so on. Or if you want they could get Tim Kring to direct this and Episode 7 can just be a giant plagiarizer of popular Sci-fi.
Also on the subject of Star Trek, it must have been difficult making a film that pleased both the mass audience and Trekkies at the same time. I liked the idea of Spock's actions causing this alternate timeline, what was great was the way Leonard Nimoy pulled off that role you could tell it was like Old Spock saw a little of he's version of Kirk in Chris Pine's version. But just to conclude this long speech, I'd say just wait and see what Star Wars Episode 7 and just don't expect the world from J.J Abrams and Disney. I still say that's part of what made people hate The Phantom Menace so much, it's not right to say it's a Star Wars film so enjoy what your given but still a person can do only so much to capture the magic of the first three (4-6 NOT 1-3)
P.S - The acting in the original three sucked. I say this as an ENORMOUS Star Wars fan
kajinking said:
Probably.
It's a case where he's all wrong for the source material. He has a very distinctive style of direction, sort of like Michael Bay does (and JJ isn't anywhere near as reviled). His style of doing things is pretty much the anti-thesis of what you'd expect from a Star Wars movie.
JJ is the kind of guy that likes to try and re-imagine everything he works on, and make things as "hip" and "current" as possible, which is fine when he's doing things like "Lost" or "Alias" or even "Cloverfield" but not so much when he's dealing with high fantasy, and playing with other people's worlds and universes that are closely defined. I like a LOT of JJ's work (unlike some other people) but don't think he works here.
Of course a lot of it comes down to how much creative input he's actually going to have, he has been tagged as a director, but apparently not as the writer as far as I can see. A lot of this is going to come down to the writing, and assuming it's decent (which is itself touchy) keeping JJ on a leash, and having him make someone else's vision as opposed to heavily personalizing it.
To put things into perspective, and explain them a bit since you don't know "Star Trek" very well, Trek is a series that was originally about this trio of main characters, a doctor "Bones" Mccoy, Captain James T. Kirk (the protaganist), and an Alien first officer named Spock who was driven almost entirely by logic. In a general sense they represent a triumverate of human nature with "Bones" being emotion and humanity, Spock representing logic and rationality, and Kirk being the middle ground between them. Kirk was your basic vintage, two-fisted action hero, who was also more than a bit arrogant and in command of a space ship. Most episodes revolved around some incredible problem he could only resolve with the help of the other two characters, with the debate revolving around logic vs. emotion in many cases and the end result being weighted in one side or another. It's a bit more involved than that, but that's the extreme basics of your "Star Trek" set up. While not without it's cotridictions (and lots of them) it was a carefully built and enduring universe and mythology which spawned numerous TV series sequels, movies, video games, and continued to this day.
When JJ got a hold of this the first thing he did was decide it would be fun to start Kirk out as a cadet. Focusing on a minor aspect of the lore where he said he got in trouble in the academy, JJ spins it out into this huge thing where Kirk is in the process of being expelled from the academy when "Bones" helps him sneak on board with one of the most ridiculously contrived routines ever. Basically a dumb, over the top, situation compounded by an even dumber solution to just get it going. Then, despite basically being barely in Star Fleet on a bureaucratic technicality, namely having bordeline stowed away on a ship before they could officially expel him, The Captain decides that this is the guy that he wants to send on a special mission. The captain dies, Spock (one of the academy instructors serving as first officer) takes over, he hates Kirk to begin with and Kirk being a complete moron makes a huge scene on the bridge of all places (on a military ship, under his circumstances), instead of simply phasing the jackarse and calling it a day for whatever reason, they load Kirk into a shuttle pod and launch him out of the ship, where he lands on a planet where... well let's just say the less we say about the time travel dynamics from that point on the better.
The bottom line is that while Kirk was arrogant, they kind of turned him into a jerk, JJ figuring this would relate better to today's trouble youth. In the process creating a character who probably should have been breaking rocks in a military prison planet due to his behavior during the first part of the movie before. Add to it that despite being a badarse fighter as one of his defining traits, he manages to get his butt kicked pretty much every time he tries to do anything through the whole movie. Spock, one of the most popular characters in science fiction, is turned into a complete douchbag (except when Leonard Nimoy is playing Old Spock)... and well, let's just say that while I can see how this might appeal to a younger audience, it's not really Captain Kirk who has had hours, and hours, and hours of development behind him up until this point.... and it also doesn't make any logical sense, in the attempt to make him such a "maverick problem child", they removed every military aspect from the character, and created a situation where it defies belief that anyone would have tolerated him doing half the crap he pulled in that movie. No military organiztion would, the proper solution would have been to dump him out an airlock.
At any rate the point of this is that if JJ gets to turn Star Wars into his own little hip playpen, what is he going to do? Take our humble farmboy from Tatooine and re-envision him as an urban grav car thief? Turn Han Solo into an Emo, cutting himself over his past as a spicer runner? Shave Chewbacca to be bare except for a furry mohawk and have him play in an alternative punk band?
I guess unlike Star Trek this isn't supposed to be a total reboot attempt, but still they are supposed to be casting new actors and such, and I almost fear what they are going to do with the franchise with JJ at the helm.
In my mind an existing franchise is something you need to approach with constant respect, and prioritize consistincy even when you move it forward. People that show up to see something with a "name" attached do it because they want to see more of the same, not something only vaguely similar using some of the conventions.
JJ Abrams works best when he's doing his own stuff, in his own universes, of his own creation. I liked Alias, I liked Lost (in spite of the ending, but the less said about that the better), as well as other projects he's worked on. Cloverfield was just passable though. He's just the wrong guy for this material.
Who knows, maybe he'll prove me wrong. Personally I suspect they just want to plaster "JJ Abrams" on it since his name has draw.
I actually agree with you on all of those points... when looking at episode 2 and 3. /Especially/ 2, which has pretty much nothing going for it aside from the pretty colors and the awesome sound mix. Where I disagree with most people is that I think TPM was not only a good movie (you could argue that Episode 3, at least, would have been well received if it were called anything but Star Wars), but a good Star Wars movie. I like it more and dislike the other two more every time I re-watch the series, which is about once or twice a year.drummond13 said:
But yeah, I don't really expect to convince anyone. This is the internet, after all.
Hipster cred? Seriously? How recently have you sat down and watched all six movies? Because I did it just this Summer, and I'll be doing it again at some point in the near future. Episode I holds up, the actual movie is almost definitely better than your memories of it.invadergir said:
[youtube=DgZIYdFmZqc&feature=player_embedded
]
I HATE J.J. Abrams. He RUNIED Star trek by thinking " lens flare " was " story telling ". NO it's only story telling if the audience is higher than a damn kite. Hell I'm a gamer and I'll admit that movie hurt my damn eyes. It was like staring into the sun for two hours straight with science fiction sound effects. I"m surprised the " movie " didn't blind me. The funny thing is that the trailer had little to no lens flare check it out.
Yet if you see the real one you'd need sunglasses to watch the rest of it. If you didn't bring sunglasses for the " movie " you might need them plus a seeing eye dog after. Just for a little revenge I want every interview of him to look like this.
]
I HATE J.J. Abrams. He RUNIED Star trek by thinking " lens flare " was " story telling ". NO it's only story telling if the audience is higher than a damn kite. Hell I'm a gamer and I'll admit that movie hurt my damn eyes. It was like staring into the sun for two hours straight with science fiction sound effects. I"m surprised the " movie " didn't blind me. The funny thing is that the trailer had little to no lens flare check it out.
Yet if you see the real one you'd need sunglasses to watch the rest of it. If you didn't bring sunglasses for the " movie " you might need them plus a seeing eye dog after. Just for a little revenge I want every interview of him to look like this.
Geez, you guys, you act as if they said they're giving Star Wars over to M. Night Shyamalan. Whatever, I for one really liked the new Star Trek (my dad who's a big Trekkie did as well) and think Mr. Abrams is perfectly capable of producing a perfectly adequate Star Wars movie. Nothing can be worse than Attack of the Clones, guys. He's competent enough to spare us from that.
[
Furthermore, you are literally in the minority when you say star trek 09 was stupid. 95% (literally) of professional critics liked it.
Was the plot perfect? nah, but it also isnt nearly as dumb or simple as you wrote out.
Super 8 was a dope movie. I just rewatched it and was struck by how well directed it is (in terms of camera placements used to update Spielberg's style from the 1980s and the performances of his actors and the alien attacks). We have nothing to worry about. Lucasfilm will keep him on a short leash
except even Abrams said he used too much lens flare. Hence why super 8 only used it when it realistically could have happened. Plus all of the lens flare was done naturally, not in post.Rogue 09 said:
Furthermore, you are literally in the minority when you say star trek 09 was stupid. 95% (literally) of professional critics liked it.
Was the plot perfect? nah, but it also isnt nearly as dumb or simple as you wrote out.
Super 8 was a dope movie. I just rewatched it and was struck by how well directed it is (in terms of camera placements used to update Spielberg's style from the 1980s and the performances of his actors and the alien attacks). We have nothing to worry about. Lucasfilm will keep him on a short leash
For the real problem with ST '09, I direct you to the following post:eljawa said:
Rogue 09 said:
Therumancer said:kajinking said:
Probably.
It's a case where he's all wrong for the source material. He has a very distinctive style of direction, sort of like Michael Bay does (and JJ isn't anywhere near as reviled). His style of doing things is pretty much the anti-thesis of what you'd expect from a Star Wars movie.
JJ is the kind of guy that likes to try and re-imagine everything he works on, and make things as "hip" and "current" as possible, which is fine when he's doing things like "Lost" or "Alias" or even "Cloverfield" but not so much when he's dealing with high fantasy, and playing with other people's worlds and universes that are closely defined. I like a LOT of JJ's work (unlike some other people) but don't think he works here.
Of course a lot of it comes down to how much creative input he's actually going to have, he has been tagged as a director, but apparently not as the writer as far as I can see. A lot of this is going to come down to the writing, and assuming it's decent (which is itself touchy) keeping JJ on a leash, and having him make someone else's vision as opposed to heavily personalizing it.
To put things into perspective, and explain them a bit since you don't know "Star Trek" very well, Trek is a series that was originally about this trio of main characters, a doctor "Bones" Mccoy, Captain James T. Kirk (the protaganist), and an Alien first officer named Spock who was driven almost entirely by logic. In a general sense they represent a triumverate of human nature with "Bones" being emotion and humanity, Spock representing logic and rationality, and Kirk being the middle ground between them. Kirk was your basic vintage, two-fisted action hero, who was also more than a bit arrogant and in command of a space ship. Most episodes revolved around some incredible problem he could only resolve with the help of the other two characters, with the debate revolving around logic vs. emotion in many cases and the end result being weighted in one side or another. It's a bit more involved than that, but that's the extreme basics of your "Star Trek" set up. While not without it's cotridictions (and lots of them) it was a carefully built and enduring universe and mythology which spawned numerous TV series sequels, movies, video games, and continued to this day.
When JJ got a hold of this the first thing he did was decide it would be fun to start Kirk out as a cadet. Focusing on a minor aspect of the lore where he said he got in trouble in the academy, JJ spins it out into this huge thing where Kirk is in the process of being expelled from the academy when "Bones" helps him sneak on board with one of the most ridiculously contrived routines ever. Basically a dumb, over the top, situation compounded by an even dumber solution to just get it going. Then, despite basically being barely in Star Fleet on a bureaucratic technicality, namely having bordeline stowed away on a ship before they could officially expel him, The Captain decides that this is the guy that he wants to send on a special mission. The captain dies, Spock (one of the academy instructors serving as first officer) takes over, he hates Kirk to begin with and Kirk being a complete moron makes a huge scene on the bridge of all places (on a military ship, under his circumstances), instead of simply phasing the jackarse and calling it a day for whatever reason, they load Kirk into a shuttle pod and launch him out of the ship, where he lands on a planet where... well let's just say the less we say about the time travel dynamics from that point on the better.
The bottom line is that while Kirk was arrogant, they kind of turned him into a jerk, JJ figuring this would relate better to today's trouble youth. In the process creating a character who probably should have been breaking rocks in a military prison planet due to his behavior during the first part of the movie before. Add to it that despite being a badarse fighter as one of his defining traits, he manages to get his butt kicked pretty much every time he tries to do anything through the whole movie. Spock, one of the most popular characters in science fiction, is turned into a complete douchbag (except when Leonard Nimoy is playing Old Spock)... and well, let's just say that while I can see how this might appeal to a younger audience, it's not really Captain Kirk who has had hours, and hours, and hours of development behind him up until this point.... and it also doesn't make any logical sense, in the attempt to make him such a "maverick problem child", they removed every military aspect from the character, and created a situation where it defies belief that anyone would have tolerated him doing half the crap he pulled in that movie. No military organiztion would, the proper solution would have been to dump him out an airlock.
At any rate the point of this is that if JJ gets to turn Star Wars into his own little hip playpen, what is he going to do? Take our humble farmboy from Tatooine and re-envision him as an urban grav car thief? Turn Han Solo into an Emo, cutting himself over his past as a spicer runner? Shave Chewbacca to be bare except for a furry mohawk and have him play in an alternative punk band?
I guess unlike Star Trek this isn't supposed to be a total reboot attempt, but still they are supposed to be casting new actors and such, and I almost fear what they are going to do with the franchise with JJ at the helm.
In my mind an existing franchise is something you need to approach with constant respect, and prioritize consistincy even when you move it forward. People that show up to see something with a "name" attached do it because they want to see more of the same, not something only vaguely similar using some of the conventions.
JJ Abrams works best when he's doing his own stuff, in his own universes, of his own creation. I liked Alias, I liked Lost (in spite of the ending, but the less said about that the better), as well as other projects he's worked on. Cloverfield was just passable though. He's just the wrong guy for this material.
Who knows, maybe he'll prove me wrong. Personally I suspect they just want to plaster "JJ Abrams" on it since his name has draw.
It was a truly enjoyable popcorn flick. It just managed to completely miss the point of Star Trek.
Wow. Just.. wow.
Five pages in, and you people took a relatively funny joke and drove it so far into the ground it went right through the center of the earth, was launched out the other side, and is now speeding at warp 10 to a galaxy far, far away.
Five pages in, and you people took a relatively funny joke and drove it so far into the ground it went right through the center of the earth, was launched out the other side, and is now speeding at warp 10 to a galaxy far, far away.
To quote Plinkett in his Star Trek: the Star Trek review.
"In fact, JJ Abrams should have directed the Star Wars Prequels and George Lucas should have directed people to their seats."
"In fact, JJ Abrams should have directed the Star Wars Prequels and George Lucas should have directed people to their seats."
Well this thread sure made the lens flare jokes completely unfunny real quick.
As far as Star Wars VII goes... It's so far off I really couldn't care less about it right now. But nobody could make it any worse than Lucas has.
As far as Star Wars VII goes... It's so far off I really couldn't care less about it right now. But nobody could make it any worse than Lucas has.
Our sunglasses can't repel lens flare of that magnitude!Remus said:Those new model lightsabers are going to burn our retinas right out of our skulls.Azex said:
Dear Disney,
Every single director in hollywood would of loved to do this film. Most of them must of been begging for it. You could of gotten any director, any of the oscar winning, epic making geniuses who have untouched track records that should of made you, as a studio, absolutely been drooling. WHY DID YOU GO WITH CAPTAIN LENS FLARE?
Every single director in hollywood would of loved to do this film. Most of them must of been begging for it. You could of gotten any director, any of the oscar winning, epic making geniuses who have untouched track records that should of made you, as a studio, absolutely been drooling. WHY DID YOU GO WITH CAPTAIN LENS FLARE?
To me it's less Captain Lens flare and more the guy who turned Star Trek into Star Wars already so why not let him actually do Star Wars.Not G. Ivingname said:
Pu-leeze. I've been a Star Trek fan for over 20 years now, watched nearly every episode of TNG as it aired. Watched all of Deep Space Nine and Voyager as it aired and even gave Enterprise a chance.Dexter111 said:
The Abrams film didn't kill Star Trek: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga did. If anything Abrams at least saved the IP from dying completely.
EDIT:
I take it you've never watched that, because I love those reviews and yeah, Plinkett is saying that the Star Trek movie was enjoyable.Dexter111 said: