The Big Picture: A Disturbance In The Force

[Urh]

That last movie showed me that we most likely won't get proper Star Trek movies or television again.

It definitely didn't feel like Abrams was shooting for quality with that last movie. It felt like a name grab cash in. Star Trek fans would come for the name, and they decided to go with young and inexperienced actors to draw in more of the young crowd.

One also has to consider that Abrams was teamed up with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the writers responsible for the first of the Michael Bay Transformers movies. Even if he wanted to shoot for quality (or even attempt to remain true to Rodenberry's vision), he was hobbled from the get-go by having hack writers who seem to have no fucking clue what Star Trek is about. It pains me to say this, but I'm almost willing to forgive Rick Berman for the damage he did to the Trek franchise if it means we can get it out of the hands of such philistines.

At least Episode VII has a writer who has cranked out at least one damn good script (Toy Story 3). While I'm not sure that's enough to create a new hope for Star Wars, it's all we've got at the moment.

 

[Markunator]

If you want to talk about movies with Ambition or getting to know a director, then The Avengers isn't really it either, and yet every nerd on the planet praises the hell out of that movie despite that the last half does exactly what a Michael Bay transformers movie does... just a really long battle where tons of stuff blows up and where tons of giant robots and other things destroy and nearly level a city. The only reason that Joss Wheddon escape criticism for that seems to be "Because he's a fellow nerd," where as if it were Michael Bay (and believe me I really hate Michael Bay) he'd be ripped to shreds.

Actually, it's because The Avengers is a movie where you actually give a shit about the characters, and you can tell them apart - not because Joss Whedon is a fellow nerd. Just to clarify things.

 

[Markunator]

If you want to talk about movies with Ambition or getting to know a director, then The Avengers isn't really it either, and yet every nerd on the planet praises the hell out of that movie despite that the last half does exactly what a Michael Bay transformers movie does... just a really long battle where tons of stuff blows up and where tons of giant robots and other things destroy and nearly level a city. The only reason that Joss Wheddon escape criticism for that seems to be "Because he's a fellow nerd," where as if it were Michael Bay (and believe me I really hate Michael Bay) he'd be ripped to shreds.

Actually, it's because The Avengers is a movie where you actually give a shit about the characters, and you can tell them apart - not because Joss Whedon is a fellow nerd. Just to clarify things.

 

[daibakuha]

Did it ever occur to you that he could just talk in his natural boston accent for the whole clip instead of bouncing in and out of his standardized accent instead of just being lazy?

You act like bouncing in and out is two different things. I live in New England, it's much more in and out, like it is here.

For bob bouncing in and out is pretty much just laziness and bad editing.

He has just had this problem a lot more lately, for the longest time he was purely speaking in a standardized accent so we know for a fact that he can choose one or the other to speak in. But now he is just bouncing back and forth, so yeah, lazy.

And for the record, I don't really care where you live, as it means less than nothing to me.

It's a point of reference and no, I still don't buy it. Most people here speak with a standard american accent and some of the time the regional one breaks out. It has nothing to do with laziness.

The fact of the matter is, you will just find any reason to shit on anything he does. Over some imagined slight that you feel he has against you. Honestly just shut up about it, we know you can hear his accent, no, it doesn't make you smarter or mentally superior for pointing it out.

 

[daibakuha]

If you want to talk about movies with Ambition or getting to know a director, then The Avengers isn't really it either, and yet every nerd on the planet praises the hell out of that movie despite that the last half does exactly what a Michael Bay transformers movie does... just a really long battle where tons of stuff blows up and where tons of giant robots and other things destroy and nearly level a city. The only reason that Joss Wheddon escape criticism for that seems to be "Because he's a fellow nerd," where as if it were Michael Bay (and believe me I really hate Michael Bay) he'd be ripped to shreds.

Actually, it's because The Avengers is a movie where you actually give a shit about the characters, and you can tell them apart - not because Joss Whedon is a fellow nerd. Just to clarify things.

I agree, you have to do some serious mental gymnastics to pull that comparison off. It's both incredibly generous to Bay and disingenuous to Whedon to even compare the two. It's almost like we didn't even watch the same movie.

 

[TheUnbeholden]

I suppose its because George Lucas says so, its his judgement. Can't you put your trust in him?

 

[TheUnbeholden]

Well bob, on that last part on fanboys, I agree with you.

But I think fanboys have not only affect the movie industy, they have affect the game industy too, just look at ME 3, just ugh.

Since when did fanboy become another word for hater.

But in that regards the ending of ME3 was nonsensical, and full of broken promises of how "your actions effect the ending providing hundreds of endings & finding out what happened to all the characters you have shared so much time with". Its a example of people banding together for the coming good & adding to something that felt unfinished.

So its kind of very different to whats happening here, to compare the movie industry with the gaming industry with this safe kind of no-risk taking, we should use a better example, the king of mediocrity: Call of Duty.
Or with Nintendo, the locking down of Mario so that we no longer get funny parody game versions of it like Mario RPGs of it or the Paper Mario series.

 

[Atmos Duality]

"Star Wars deserves better."

*bitter laughter*

It did Bob. Well over a decade ago.
Today, I don't give a fuck where Star Wars goes and I'm not going to see SW7 in theaters.
Why? Because I know it cannot go anywhere, it's just too valuable an IP to not exploit.

We all know it's going to make a pile of money no matter how lazy, stagnant and safe it becomes.
George Lucas proved it with the prequels.

The only thing they need to do with the films going forward, is avoid introducing something so heinous that it destroys the appeal of Star Wars to the general public and not just the nerd culture Lucas exploited to make his fortune before.
(because really, nobody gives a fuck about nerds when there's that much money on the table)

Given how Star Wars has developed, I realize now that JJ Abrams is the perfect director.
Because Star Wars isn't really a film series anymore. It's business property, and arguably the most recognizable Intellectual Property on the fucking planet.
It's too big, too important, too financially valuable to muddle up or mar with "childish things" like "artistic vision".
I suspect Disney (or Lucas) wouldn't let anyone with such vision anywhere near Star Wars for that very reason. Abrams will follow orders to the letter while still making a decent, inoffensive action film covered in nostalgia-exploitation.

And Bob, you give George Lucas far too much credit. The man who directed the original trilogy had vision or at least smarter people under him who knew what the fuck they were doing. The man who directed the prequel trilogy, had vision of naught but merchandise and enormous profits.

 

[darksakul]

Examples? Because, for instance, when we have TV shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, it's hard to argue that TV has gotten mediocre.

So Game of Thrones a show that is on a premium Cable channel that is known more for showing the same 5 movies each month than its actual programing. The Majority of its core demographic do not get HBO and has no choice but to torrent the series or just go back to the books. Its a great series, but I enjoy the actual books much more.

And Breaking Bad, I could not make it pass the horrible first episode. You can argue the later seasons are better where the mild mannered science teacher become a raging murdering maniac but in my mind all they managed to do is produce a Mary Sue.

If that the only 2 shows you have to prove your point then I think you failed.

When crap like Glee, Jersey Shore and Big Bang Theory are the highest rated shows, I rather skip out on TV all together.
Only actual TV I was watching the last few months was Football, you can't tell me that there something worth watching any more.

Lets see the TV shows I did like that were on some what recently are
House MD
Bones
Game of Thrones
Futurerama
Dr Who
and I catch flax for this one but fuck it My Little Pony: Friendship is magic

I can't sit though any of the CSI as I know what really goes on in crime scene investigations this show just insults my intelligence.

NCIS? Well since I was in the military the inaccuracies show up so fricking bad I can barely watch. Only 2 characters that would be plausible is Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Donald "Ducky" Mallard. Abby with her appearance could never get a civilian job with the military. All the other special agents are bull shit as you have to be in the service and not a civilian to be a field agent and most times there Marines not Navy personnel. Ziva David? Yeah like that would ever happen, the US Government will never allow a foreign national to work in a sector that could contain classified information, especially one that could but the US in a bad light. And how yes you have to have security clearance to be in NCIS, or just CIS as no one actually says the N in real life.

With the exception of The Ice and Fire series (Game of Thrones) all the other fictional books I read are decades old.
My current reading list includes Enders Game, The Neuromancer (the book both Shadow Run and especially the Matrix rip off), the Collected works of HP Lovecraft.

With the current state of TV, unless you got a service that offers DVR, you miss out on alot of TV shows and Hulu does a poor job of showing TV shows missed. I got a perfectly working VHS player but with out blank VHS tapes this is a useless endevor. With out netflix I wouldn't be caching passed episodes for anything ether.

 

[Markunator]

Examples? Because, for instance, when we have TV shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, it's hard to argue that TV has gotten mediocre.

So Game of Thrones a show that is on a premium Cable channel that is known more for showing the same 5 movies each month than its actual programing. The Majority of its core demographic do not get HBO and has no choice but to torrent the series or just go back to the books. Its a great series, but I enjoy the actual books much more.

And Breaking Bad, I could not make it pass the horrible first episode. You can argue the later seasons are better where the mild mannered science teacher become a raging murdering maniac but in my mind all they managed to do is produce a Mary Sue.

If that the only 2 shows you have to prove your point then I think you failed.

When crap like Glee, Jersey Shore and Big Bang Theory are the highest rated shows, I rather skip out on TV all together.
Only actual TV I was watching the last few months was Football, you can't tell me that there something worth watching any more.

Lets see the TV shows I did like that were on some what recently are
House MD
Bones
Game of Thrones
Futurerama
Dr Who
and I catch flax for this one but fuck it My Little Pony: Friendship is magic

I can't sit though any of the CSI as I know what really goes on in crime scene investigations this show just insults my intelligence.

NCIS? Well since I was in the military the inaccuracies show up so fricking bad I can barely watch. Only 2 characters that would be plausible is Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Donald "Ducky" Mallard. Abby with her appearance could never get a civilian job with the military. All the other special agents are bull shit as you have to be in the service and not a civilian to be a field agent and most times there Marines not Navy personnel. Ziva David? Yeah like that would ever happen, the US Government will never allow a foreign national to work in a sector that could contain classified information, especially one that could but the US in a bad light. And how yes you have to have security clearance to be in NCIS, or just CIS as no one actually says the N in real life.

With the exception of The Ice and Fire series (Game of Thrones) all the other fictional books I read are decades old.
My current reading list includes Enders Game, The Neuromancer (the book both Shadow Run and especially the Matrix rip off), the Collected works of HP Lovecraft.

With the current state of TV, unless you got a service that offers DVR, you miss out on alot of TV shows and Hulu does a poor job of showing TV shows missed. I got a perfectly working VHS player but with out blank VHS tapes this is a useless endevor. With out netflix I wouldn't be caching passed episodes for anything ether.

You said Breaking Bad's first episode was horrible. Breaking Bad does not have any horrible episodes. Breaking Bad does not even have any not good episodes. I'm not sure I can even bother trying to have a discussion with you after this, to be honest.

Also, are you saying that Glee, Jersey Shore (which isn't even on anymore) and The Big Bang Theory being the most watched shows somehow makes TV not worth watching? Are you an idiot or something? I don't get it. How are any of those shows stopping you from watching good shows?

Have you seriously not gotten a DVD player yet?! You do realize that we're living in the year 2013, right?

Here are some other shows currently on TV that are worth watching:
- Boardwalk Empire
- Dexter
- Mad Men
- South Park
- The Walking Dead

As far as books go, good books are still being written. You might just not have been looking hard enough.

 

[wolfyrik]

Well bob, on that last part on fanboys, I agree with you.

But I think fanboys have not only affect the movie industy, they have affect the game industy too, just look at ME 3, just ugh.

Since when did fanboy become another word for hater.

You're right. There's a section of our society, who go out and buy multiple copies of films, multiple copies of games and they affect the industries by shopping with their feet. The fanboi. These insidious creatures, I believe the hideous hybrid offspring of emerging geek culture and what we used to call in the nineties 'Trendies'. Fanbois rabidly defend games and films, not on the merit of the media but on some wierd obsessiveness that has popped up this last ten years or so.

God awful decisions that ruined potentially good games like Diablo 3 (RMAH, always online DRM etc), are defended outragously. Everything that's wrong with the spiderman film, ignored. You see it on forums all the time. People who genuinely enjoy a game, comic or film, voicing strong concerns over clearly poor decisions, shot down by fanbois with their reactionary, high strung, wierdness. Sensible voices are just not being heard.

What's more, these stories used to be for the few. When I was a teen most people would have shunned you, and especially adults for going to see a Spiderman film, reading an X-Men Comic or playing video games. They jsut didn't bring in money, and so big business, fashion and most people, had no interest in them. These things were made by a small minortiy by members of that small minority. Hell, when a big company did show interest in them, the things they produced were usually terrible (X-files movie anyone?).

Then something happened. I don't know if it was those amazing bastards that made the First X-men movie, that caught the attention or what, but big businesses cottened on to geek culture. As gaming and franchises got bigger and drew more attention, certain....people...started getting dollar signs in their eyes. Franchises were handed increasingly over to corporate hands and quality started slipping away. Quickly. Then, it seems to me, the new fanbois who had developed and attached themselves to our junk (ewww) kept the money flowing, defending the bad decisions, the half-assed jobs, the money-grubbing rip-offs and allowed perversions to flourish, when they once have would have withered and died.

Or maybe I'm just getting old.

 

[daxterx2005]

JJ is the Monopoly of the Stars.

 

[YodaUnleashed]

I personally wasn't sure what to think of Abrams helming the next installment of my all time favourite thing ever.....I just don't know enough about the guy or his work and have only seen the new Star Trek film, which was entertaining and good but certainly not a standout film which is what I really, really want the next trilogy of films to encapsulate once more. I thought Matthew Vaughn would have been great or Del Toro especially but we'll wait and see, I'm more concerned/eager to know what the content of the story will consist of as this is the most important element to making these films the best they can be.

 

[shadowstriker86]

The bottom line is money. Plain and simple. Spend the least amount of money to create a "safe" product that is acceptable to all targets to generate the most amount of profit. Gotta remind people that Star Wars is owned by Disney, one of the big grandaddies of being able to play it safe/mediocre and still make a crapton of cash

 

[James5mith]

Woof. Get control of your accent Bob. Other than that, I agree with you.

 

[CK76]

I like Whedon, and I liked The Avengers, but it was a safer work by him. I didn't see a film that took any chances or challenged me, I saw a big fun summer blockbuster. I do not see how that could be held up as an ideal when it is what is being bemoaned for the whole video. Honestly, Nolan's Batman Begins was one of the boldest re-tellings I have witnessed that injected new life into a near dead world. That is a model, not to directly copy, but to dry inspiration of breathing life into something from a new angle.

On Star Wars? Meh. I'll always have the old ones from my child hood, that universe on film died years ago for me.

 

[longboardfan]

A Disturbance In The Force

MovieBob give us some insight concerning the choice of J.J. Abrams to direct the next film in the Star Wars franchise.

Watch Video

He's DIRECTING the movie, not writing the script. The same guy that wrote the script for Toy Story 3 is writing this movie's script. I think we're going to be okay. Wooo, we got ourselves a director that can shoot good action scenes, and a writer that knows how to write good drama.

Now if only I could manage a to dredge up some care from GaFB. I'll pay attention to the goings on, but until I see the reviews of the results from this new direction, I'm not going to give Star Wars any more money.

 

[SurfPenguin]

As one of the seven people on earth who didn't like LOST I would probably be upset by this little announcement if not for one thing: I don't give a jet-propelled atomic f**k about STAR WARS any more.

In the interest of complete disclosure let me say something radical: I actually ENJOYED Chapters 1-3. I went into them expecting to see cool fight scenes, massive battles, and weird monsters. And you know what? That's exactly what I got. One of my favorite life memories is of me and my friend Becky squirming in our seats during the last ten minutes of Chapter 2, doing the 'I gotta use the potty dance' but not wanting to miss anything.

The only reason that I don't give a f**k about Star Wars anymore isn't because of the quality of the various films, it's about the quality of it's fans. Star Wars fans are some of the most selfish, self-entitled, whiny individuals that I have ever run across. Abrams could direct one of the best films in recent memory, but you know what will happen? Two generations of man-children will throw a tantrum, loudly declaring that the film wasn't the mind-blowing experience they had when they were nine years old. They will yell it from the rooftops and on every forum nonstop, to the point that their opinion becomes an act of consensus terrorism where anyone who holds a dissenting opinion keeps their mouth shut for fear of being shouted down by the bloated, cheeto-encrusted proletariat. I'm tired of the endless tantrums. The discussions about 'How can we take Star Wars back from the kids'. The 'There were more than three Star Wars films?' jokes that come up EVERY SINGLE TIME someone goes anywhere near the topic. Say what you will about The prequels, at least they had SOME sort of vision. Was it a GOOD vision? Maybe not, but it WAS a vision.

I predict that MovieBob will be right. Abrams' Star Wars movie will be safe, unrisky and mostly forgettable. And quite frankly, that's all Star Wars fanboys deserve.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

He is ok as a director. He just needs to ensure the mode and directing is similiar to the originals. Film in real places, proper built sets and a new story with new characters and very little link the other movies. If Peter Jackson can film all the LoTR movies in real enviroments, then i sure JJ can do the same with one movie.

 

[TaboriHK]

After thinking about it, I really can't disagree with anything Bob said. Abrams has never struck me as a guy with great vision. He just makes a serviceable emulation of the same formulas. Which is fine for an action movie, that doesn't aspire to be more or challenging. He can ape iconic to a limited degree, but I don't think he's the guy who can generate something new that's on the same level. Or if he can, he hasn't yet.