J.J. Abrams Yearns For Mystery In The Star Wars Universe

anonymity88

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RandV80 said:
You know it almost makes sense what he's saying, but then you just know that the end result is going to be something ridiculous.
Pretty much. Everything gets bogged down the longer it runs, but then this is J J Abrams so yeah...
 

FFHAuthor

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Great, I just can't help but feel that things are taking a bad turn.

There -isn't- any mystery in Star Wars anymore.

Sorry, but it's done and gone. There have been far too many writers doing what Lucasarts wanted in Books, comics, TV shows, games, RPG's and etc for there to be ANY aspects of the universe left up for grabs. If you're a Star Wars fan you have had some exposure to the extended universe. I don't give a damn what Lucasarts says about it being not cannon to the films, sorry...but George's people argued for distinct things to occur in every one of those expansions.

Perception is reality, and I can tell you that a lot of people were probably pissed about the Prequels because it contradicted what had been discussed and developed in the books that followed. IF you're a fan, you've been exposed to that extended world to one degree or another, it might be you only watched 'Droids' or played 'Rebellion' or you've read every single novel that has ever been put out with 'Star Wars' in the title including 'Death Troopers'. Fans perception of what Star Wars is has been defined by far more than the movies, and any fan with a passing interest in Star Wars knows more about it than what's in the Movies. Sure, your average fan might not be able to name all the women Luke Skywalker has had sex with, but I'm sure that you might be able to point out a Twi'lek or know who the last Imperial Grand Admiral is.

If you want 'mysterious' then don't do Star Wars. If you're saying 'skip it forward a thousand years' then what's the point of doing a Star Wars movie? Just do another Sci-Fi film. If you're going to do Star Wars then you can't blatantly ignore the fact that there is a universe which has been fully fleshed out and you need to accept and acknowledge that framework. Lucas didn't in his own writing and look what it got him, a fanbase that has defined 'divided nerdrage' far more than Mass Effect's ever will.
 

Callate

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Let me get out of the way that J.J. Abrams isn't the antichrist. I think he's done some decent work, though he's perhaps gotten more high-profile work than his modest and rather specialized talents would seem to warrant.

But I worry that with the scope of an entire new trilogy to work with, his love of "mystery" could lead us to another Lost in the worst way- obscurity for obscurity's sake, lots of hanging plot threads that are never tied off, melodrama dependent on motivations that we can't identify with or condemn because we never fully understand them or the characters who harbor them.

There's also the problem of scale. It's not the mystery or lack thereof that worries me so much as the need for one-upsmanship. Luke was the farmer-turned-apprentice-turned-knight, Han was the scoundrel turned rebel hero, and Leia- well, Leia was pretty much always awesome, to be honest, so her growth most had to do with her relationships with the other characters. The prequel trilogy started with Jedi, and, yeah, there were moments where watching Jedi do cool Jedi things was sort of neat, in a fanboy-ish sort of way. But every time the "Jedi are so awesome" characters did something dumb, or ran into some arbitrary limitation, or defeated an enemy only because they showed even less forethought and planning than the Jedi-- it served only to reduce the title of "Jedi" that we spent so much of the original movies learning to admire.

I think if the new movies are going to work, we need characters who can grow, and not in the arbitrary "inevitable" way that Annakin grew from a cypher to a punk to a jerk. We need people who might be recognizable archetypes, but make the roles their own and flesh them out. We need struggles that we understand and care about on a human scale.

I hope we'll get them.
 

KoudelkaMorgan

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I am excited to see some NEW Star Wars. I wasn't a big fan of the prequels, I actually really liked the clone wars cartoon (not the CG one) that aired on cartoon network before ep3 came out. You know, the series that they kind of swept under the rug and no one ever talks about.

The thing that keeps me from truly loving the clone wars, even though it is WAY better written with far more interesting characters than the prequels, is that I already know what happens. I mean, why should I get at all invested in anything going on when I already know that Palpatine is playing both sides in order to rise to Galactic Emperer? I already know what becomes of virtually every character, and can infer that Rex and Cody either die or kill Jedi in the end. Asoka dies, Obi-Wan dies, everything is already set in stone.

I know of, but haven never actually read (or even seen in a book store) the bajillion Star Wars books out there. I'm hoping that good, bad, or whatever the new movies turn out to be that they are at least ORIGINAL. Not "oh that is a nod to this, or that guy looks like this other guy in the books" etc.

I want it to be NEW.
 

Neverhoodian

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Owyn_Merrilin said:
So he wants to respect what came before without revering it, and he's talking about pretending nothing since the original friggin' Star Wars came out exists? I've got a bad feeling about this. And about what it means for the EU.
Eh, the EU's been a lost cause for a long time now. Yes, this probably means good stories like the Thrawn saga will be tossed out, but there's a ton of crap that will be gone as well (Dark Empire, the Jedi Academy books with that stupidly OP Sun Crusher, Darksaber, that Yuzzhan Vong crap, etc).

Or you could do what Star Trek fans do and treat EU sources as their own "alternate/divergent universe" that's separate from the "canonical" one. That way if there's any discrepancies you can just chalk them up to "different reality, different outcome."
 

Mycroft Holmes

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Therumancer said:
they do not want to be handed something different in the name of a mystery
Sorry midiclorians are a fucking stupid idea. A mystical force that is mostly unexplained is way better.

Also I demand 2 hours of dry political exposition about the intricacies of trading embargoes and tariffs. Leave nothing to the imagination I say.

Therumancer said:
The biggest problem with Star Wars is simply that finishing up the story told in the first six movies results in a real downer of an ending.
Yes the death of a tyrannical empire and their death weapon is totally a 'downer.'

Therumancer said:
Now, it's a testament to the horrible.. ..acting ability of some of the people doing the prequels that this is not more obvious.
The prequils were blanketed with great actors and actresses. It's hard to act when the dialogue is written by an idiot and all the scenes are you just standing there infront of a green screen while the camera cuts back and forth as you read your lines to an imaginary anthropomorphic dinosaur-rabbit.

Therumancer said:
but the universe was literally stepping all over his will and making it so he would do specific things.
So your interpretation of the star wars prequils is that all the space bacteria got together and planned to murder Anakin's mother because something something darkside?

And it is also your opinion that JJ Abrahms is a bad story teller? Right... ok...

Therumancer said:
While the game wasn't especially good due to problems with rushed development, "Knights Of The Old Republic 2" was apparently based on Lucas' writings and he allegedly ghost wrote parts of it for all intents and purposes.
Big fucking citation needed.

Therumancer said:
In KoToR2 the basic theme is free will
No it isn't. The most it even talks about free will is an offhanded comment by Kreia in the first 10 minutes of the game. If the basic theme of starwars was that you don't have any free will then it probably wouldn't be a pick your own dialogue, decide what happens at the end of missions kind of game.

Therumancer said:
The over all resolution of the story arc would be Luke's fall to the dark side
This makes zero sense, and is entirely unsupported by any cannon source whatsoever.

Therumancer said:
Sure, JJ is right, when it's all spelled out there in black and white it's a bit less mysterious, however that's fundamentally what Star Wars is, a sort of dark fairy tale with space ships and blasters, which is all about a prophecy and it's fulfillment.
The prophecy concerned Anakin and only Anakin. The prophecy is over.

Therumancer said:
In JJ's case it's his job to write now that the mystery is out of the bag without being able to use the unknown as a crutch like he did with "Lost".
JJ didn't write lost. He wrote and directed the pilot. And he co-wrote the first episode of season 3. That's two episodes total. Other than that he had next to nothing to do with lost except having his name stamped on it as the creator. So congratulations on knee-jerk blaming someone for something he had next to nothing to do with?

I mean man George Washington was such a shitty president. He shut the government down in October and he invaded Iraq in 2003. What's that you say? He had nothing to do with it and hasn't been running the US government for hundreds of years? Screw that I'm just going to pretend he did anyways to support my fallacious argument.
 

Monsterfurby

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You know what, I agree. Good stories let the reader/viewer/listener fill in the blanks. Star Wars (the original trilogy) understood this and "show, don't tell" perfectly. We knew the Empire was evil, not because we were told, but because of how they were presented. Even before Darth Vader even spoke, we knew fairly well what his role was.

The prequels treated the viewer as much dumber than they actually were, relying too much on exposition to convey its story while bringing little in evocative elements to the table.
 

fractal_butterfly

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The main problem ist, that JJ Abrams doesn't seem to know what a mystery is. A good mystery is interesting and intriguing while it is a mystery and it becomes awesome once it is revealed. It should put everything in a new perspective. All Abrams can do is little secrets with no payoff.
I think it is totally possible to write interesting stories in the Star Wars Universe. It was done with the Jedi Knight Series (the Story of Kyle Katarn) and with the KotoR series. KotoR even had a twist, which was a pretty decent mystery! There, maybe JJ Abrams should take a look at those.
 

AldUK

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Lots of very angry nerds in this thread. Movie Bob's army must be out in force.

Personally, I can't wait for the new Star Wars films. JJ hasn't let me down yet. I was never interested in Lost and I loved the Trek reboots, so bring it on! My one and only concern is that it's all feeling a little rushed with constant mentions of deadlines and targets. I can't help but feel as though that isn't good for the films.
 

1337mokro

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JJ Abrams loves mystery so much he doesn't even bother to make a good pay off. He just likes mystery nothing else. It's really become his one trick pony. It has been in EVERY one of his movies and shows. He did an entire presentation about how he loved empty boxes because it got people interested and the contents really didn't matter. The dude has his head so far up his ass it's a mystery how he still can spout the same bullshit so consistently.

What he says is right though. Lucas went and tried to explain things that didn't need explaining. The fact he explained it incredibly horribly poorly also added to the problem. However I'd rather have no mystery than a JJ Abrams style mystery. I dread for anything this guy does now because it always has to have the stupid empty box where he tries to lure people in with mystery and completely forgets that build up needs pay off. He's the used car sales man of the movie industry.
 

F'Angus

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Not more mystery like Lost I hope . I don't think I could go through 3 films wondering why there are polar bears in space.
 

spartandude

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Theres actually a really easy way around this... do what Bioware did and have the setting thousands of years away from the film, that way you still have the star wars setting but almost complete freedom with characters and politics etc
 

DarthAcerbus

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It's like that Disney guy pushing for the 2015 release date is unaware of what happened to the last two Star Wars titles that were rushed. Maybe he'll think this one will be different because Disney has tons of money and it's a movie not a video game like the other two (more likely, he doesn't care about video games). I mean, it's not like EA didn't pour millions into SWTOR. And it's not like KotOR 2 wouldn't have been frelling amazing if Obsidian had had time to finish it and Lucasarts execs hadn't rushed it. And it's not like there aren't unexplored mysteries in Star Wars, Mr. Pretentious "Stories can't be good without mysteries except I can't write a resolution to mysteries without telegraphing them a parsec away or making it really dumb" Lens-Flare. There's a big swath of space called the "Unknown Regions", for Space-Christ's sake.

Let's just hope Kasdan is like "nuh-uh, that's dumb, Abrams. I will give you script, you will tell the actors where to move and the special-effects guys (and girls, I don't know) what to make pretty and where to stick the lens flare."
 

Ace Morologist

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Okay, so I'm looking back at the article and what Mister Abrams said, and now I'm thinking people are getting way too bent out of shape at the use of the word mystery. (No doubt the author of the article's intent.) It doesn't look like Mr. Abrams is saying he wants to add a mystery to the script of the next Star Wars or write it as a mystery. He's just lamenting that there are so many answers to the questions that most intrigued him when he first saw the Star Wars movies.

That implies that he doesn't like the answers he got. But lots of us felt the same way when Liam Neeson started going on about midichlorians for the first time. It also implies that he'd rather not have to abide by some of the dumbness that's been injected into Star Wars over the years. I'd feel the same way if I were writing it, as would many of you I suspect.

So settle down, people. The more you convince yourself the movie isn't going to be good in the two years of run-up before it even comes out, the less you're going to be ABLE to enjoy it no matter how good it turns out to be. There's no need to poison your own joy.

--Morology!
 

wetfart

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KoudelkaMorgan said:
I am excited to see some NEW Star Wars. I wasn't a big fan of the prequels, I actually really liked the clone wars cartoon (not the CG one) that aired on cartoon network before ep3 came out. You know, the series that they kind of swept under the rug and no one ever talks about.

The thing that keeps me from truly loving the clone wars, even though it is WAY better written with far more interesting characters than the prequels, is that I already know what happens. I mean, why should I get at all invested in anything going on when I already know that Palpatine is playing both sides in order to rise to Galactic Emperer? I already know what becomes of virtually every character, and can infer that Rex and Cody either die or kill Jedi in the end. Asoka dies, Obi-Wan dies, everything is already set in stone.

I know of, but haven never actually read (or even seen in a book store) the bajillion Star Wars books out there. I'm hoping that good, bad, or whatever the new movies turn out to be that they are at least ORIGINAL. Not "oh that is a nod to this, or that guy looks like this other guy in the books" etc.

I want it to be NEW.
QFT.

The biggest thing I want out of the new movies is new characters. Yea, Luke and Co. can have a cameo or whatever but I'd like to see new characters off doing something away from them.
 

bartholen_v1legacy

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Okay people, calm down. For starters, Abrams was only the director, not the writer on Star Trek: Into Darkness. Blaming that movie's (alleged, haven't seen it myself) crappiness entirely on him is blowing things out of proportion. Abrams himself only wrote less than 10 episodes of Lost, whose petering out seems to be also placed on him. As for this... I don't really care either way. It's been years since I saw any Star Wars movie and I just can't muster much giving a crap right now.

Damon Lindelof, on the other hand, now there's a hack if there ever was one! He was mostly responsible for Lost's story, ST: Into Darkness is credited to be written by him on IMDB and he was one of the main writers of Prometheus, whose script was a pile of absolute dogshit. As long as his name doesn't get near Star Wars (let's be serious, even if he did, I really wouldn't care), it has all the potential in the world.

I am sort of wondering what kind of mystery he might be talking about. We have the backstory of Darth Vader, the Clone Wars, the Force (as stupid as it might have been) all down, so what's there left to explore? Or is he going to make up new stuff of his own?
 

Nadia Castle

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The first new Star Wars film will be great, unbelievable, everything we could need for a fresh start. Once the second one gets here it will turn into a disaster. Abrams can write an amazing set up, the problem is he doesn't have a clue what to do afterwards. He's the opposite of a writer who comes up with a great ending and tries to write a story around it.

'Star Trek' was a great introduction to a series that could have take then franchise anywhere, but all Abrams could think to do was turn it into 'Ultimate Star Trek'. First series of 'Lost', amazing, great development, cool mystery.....oh wait he has no idea where he's going with this..... Even 'Mission Impossible 3', nice opening, solid plot, interesting mystery.....oh wait, he has no idea what the weapon is or what the bad guys motivations are.

If Disney wants this to go well then let Abrams do the first film then toss him out for someone who knows how to write a full story and not the first five chapters.

Actually I suppose that makes him the perfect heir to George Lucas, a man who comes up with cool ideas but then fails when he doesn't step aside and let other people hammer them into something cohesive.
 

Ishal

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Mycroft Holmes said:
Therumancer said:
but the universe was literally stepping all over his will and making it so he would do specific things.
So your interpretation of the star wars prequils is that all the space bacteria got together and planned to murder Anakin's mother because something something darkside?

And it is also your opinion that JJ Abrahms is a bad story teller? Right... ok...
JJ Abrams is a horrible writer and that is the explanation provided in the movies. You simply don't like it and neither do I, but it's the reality. The whole crux of the chosen one is in prophecy, which deals with destiny, which deals with the concept of free will. It's a stupid concept to think that the force is bacterial concentrations... but that's what's presented in the movies. Anakin was conceived by them. Space bacteria = the force, and the force created the chosen one. Free will is very much in question here.


Therumancer said:
In KoToR2 the basic theme is free will
No it isn't. The most it even talks about free will is an offhanded comment by Kreia in the first 10 minutes of the game. If the basic theme of starwars was that you don't have any free will then it probably wouldn't be a pick your own dialogue, decide what happens at the end of missions kind of game.
Kreia is essentially Nietzsche, though not based entirely on him, much of her views parallel with his own. The force is stated to be a mystical energy surrounding and controlling all living things. She states that she hates the force. She poses as your teacher throughout the game and is a companion, then betrays you. You end up hating her because she manipulated you all that time, yet she herself believes she is being manipulated by the force along with everything else. It is a central theme in the game.


At 2:14 in the video, she states it outright. The game has all the choices and dialogue options, you are correct. You can decide at the end of the missions, yet in the end it's all as the Force intended. Whatever you chose was part of your destiny. Get it?
 

Johnny Novgorod

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I'm not saying I don't GET what he's saying, I'm just saying he's a hack and should go back to television.