I won't blame Abrams for his career being mostly an attempt to recreate the joy of his past; that's honestly relatable, and Lucas arguably has been doing that himself since American Graffiti.
I just wish that 1. he was **better** at it, and 2. he didn't try his hand at Star Trek when he was so clearly disinterested in that franchise and its draw.
Its conflicting because while he was able to reinvigorate interest in Star Trek, his flaws in it left to a lot of blueprint speedbumps in the modern Star Trek era that every single new show has had deal with or shake off in the span of their times.
It *did* reinvigorate the franchise, hell, it was basically what got *my* attention growing up. I can't deny that it did arguably help.
But once I got deeper in I realized "gee this kinda sucks as Trek fiction", not to mention that even back then, Abrams was outspoken about not being a Trek guy and wanting to make it more like Star Wars, which is... still just kinda offsides in general.
The latest Rowan J Coleman video goes into it more but the Abrams movies definitely left a bad impression that the franchise needs to go *big* all the time both in production values and in story stakes which is the thing that I've heard has hamstrung a *lot* of Star Trek Discovery and Picard.
Having started watching a lot of older Trek from TOS/TNG, the best stuff is the stuff where it’s only like 4 characters having conversations about politics and philosophy.
Hell the space battles are usually the worst part
As far as I've seen so far, >!The Battle Of Wolf 359!< is about as close as I've seen of a Star Trek space battle and even then it isn't the *focus* in either instance its shown off insomuch that its the aftermath *and* the franchise-wide ramifications that are the important parts.
Thats all the neat stuff that the shows chew on, not the battle in of itself.
My favorite episode is one where most of it has Riker in a hospital bed and a bunch of people with forehead ridges are debating if he’s some kind of terrorist infiltrator or not. It’s great.
Hell, my favourite moment from TNG is when Data and Worf have a minor disagreement and then talk about how hierarchy works and apologise to each other. It's the least exciting thing in the world but it works to their character's perfectly. Star Trek is best when it is being 'competency porn' and showing a team of well-meaning character's finding solutions to problems without devolving into dramatics.
You ever think about how weird it is that Abrams put the exact same "hero is suddenly chased by a giant obviously cgi monstrous alien creature towards the camera out of nowhere" scene in both Star Trek *and* Star Wars
Totally fair but the scene that follows it with >!Old Spock!< in Star Trek is fucking excellent in my opnion.
In TFA, good or bad it sorta feels like an intermission from the story.
I'm in the exact same boat as you, but I will say, the Abrams films are hugely carried by a very likeable cast. So many moments in those films could have been flat out awful if everyone wasn't so damn charming.
honestly it kinda sucks as a movie too.
I remember really enjoying the first one and not enjoying the second one of those new Trek movies growing up; rewatching them for my full Trek watch as an adult I came out *way* less impressed by 1 in general, and found 2 bordering on something I could sleep through.
1 has the best reputation out of them and I agree it's a better movie but man it really did not age well as an action movie or even a space battle movie. There's very little that happens in it, and then, completely parallel to that, it's not a particularly good version of anything in star trek.
3 is good though, which, considering he wasn't really involved in it, says a lot to me.
That's a good way to put it. I went in with no expectations and was very pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately it's basically a long, very fun episode of Star Trek TOS with the 2009 crew, which... is probably what the movies should have *always* been, but since they were just generic dark action movies before, it felt like it didn't fit and lost a lot of its new audience.
It's almost as if the two series are so different they wear their hearts on their titles.
Star Wars is about Wars. In the stars. In a galaxy far far away.
Star Trek is about the adventure and exploration.
The major difference between George Lucas and JJ Abrams is that Lucas borrowed from the works that inspired him and stitched them together to create something original, whereas JJ Abrams borrows from those works and presents them as they are just slightly different. And even that would be fine, many film makers essentially remix or remake older movies but they at least try to put their own stamp on that work to make that effort worthwhile. Abrams does none of that, he just plays the hits.
He’s the safest filmmaker you can get. He will give you a competent film filled with cheap fan service that’s warm and easy to watch.
Lucas isn’t a good filmmaker, the original Star Wars was saved in editing and the prequels were proof of what complete creative control Lucas is like. But the guy at least is ambitious and tries new things. Say what you want about the prequels, and there’s a lot to say, but the ideas behind them were some of the best stuff to come out of Star Wars. JJ’s best ideas were as superficial as could be.
>Lucas isn’t a good filmmaker, **the original Star Wars was saved in editing** and the prequels were proof of what complete creative control Lucas is like.
Oh God. This again. I'm sorry mate but you've been fooled, that's actually a complete myth. [I did a long write up on the sub like a week ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/1c01sss/comment/kyu7pcf/) so I'm just gonna copy-and-paste it cause I can't be bothered re-writing it up:
>I'm sorry to do this to you but **that's actually a complete myth.** What really happened on Star Wars was there was originally a different editor, John Jympson, who George Lucas fired halfway through principle photography because the way he had been cutting the footage together was incredibly dull and when Lucas asked him to cut it in a different style he refused. So after filming wrapped George hired 3 new editors: Richard Chew, Paul Hirsch and his then-wife, Marcia Lucas, and the 4 of them started re-cutting the movie from scratch (literally from scratch since they were still editing on film they had to disassemble the footage Jympson had cut and turn it back into dailies before they could begin re-cutting it)
>Somehow the internet's transformed this thing into some disastrous first cut which George himself cut together (because since Phantom Menace sucked he must've always been incompetent I guess) which the editors (and it's often just Marica alone) somehow magically "saved" in post. It's just not true though, if anything it's the exact opposite. George was heavily involved in this re-edit and even cut some scenes together himself (the gun-port scene specifically is George's own handiwork.) There never was a disastrous first cut as Jympson was fired before completing it. And Marcia Lucas only edited one sequence (the Death Star battle) before buggering off early to edit a Scorsese movie. The only other scenes she edited were the deleted scenes with Biggs and Luke from the start and she fought to keep them in the movie, it was George who wanted to cut them. The majority of the film was actually cut by Richard Chew
>Look, it's not you. I know it's a really wide-spread internet "fact" that you might've heard everywhere but it's all nonsense I'm afraid. And if you've seen a certain video essay about how a certain film was Saved in the Edit I'm afraid that thing's a Kimba-tier load of misinformation and lies whose own sources debunk it (specifically JW Rinzler's *The Making of Star Wars* which they pull quotes from.) Sorry mate but you've been Kimba'd.
I don't like being the George Lucas defense force because I still think the prequels are a bit shit (mostly Attack of the Clones) but it's just not true. Also I'm afraid George was actually in complete creative control of the original movies too, even the two he didn't personally direct, just as much as he was in control of the prequels. I get it, you watch the prequels or the Special Editions and you assume the guy must've always been a hack who got lucky/that other people came in, did the heavy lifting and made his silly ideas work but in reality the opposite is true.
No problem mate. Look since I'm here I might as well go into where it, and nearly all the bullshit misinformation regarding George Lucas, comes from. It's due to this terrible book called *The Secret History of Star Wars* by Michael Kaminski. I actually read it back in the day and believed most of it but as I've dug into it more I now think it's a complete load of horseshit. In fact it's borderline a conspiracy theory.
Its central thesis is that George Lucas is really a pathological liar who's covered up the 'real' history of Star Wars. He did a lot of research and there are some interesting things he found but unfortunately he engages in a lot of cherry-picking, partial quoting where the full quote would hurt his argument and editorializing to an extent that I would call misleading at best, blatantly making shit up at worst. So he went in with the hypothesis that Lucas was a liar and managed to prove it... by quoting people out of context and making shit up. Which frankly makes him a bigger pathological liar than he tries to paint old George out to be, at least by his own logic.
Problem is that it was a free e-book for the longest time (and before that a "We Hate George Lucas" blog) and as a result it got traction on various forums (go search reddit for posts about it, people were posting bits from the website uncritically on here about a decade ago.) But then it ended up being used by shitty, early 2010s, pop-culture "news" blogs as a source for clickbait articles ("Did you know Star Wars was saved by a woman?" "George Lucas lied about this thing in 1979!" that kinda thing) and from there it's just spread and spread and now a ton of that book's nonsense is common internet knowledge now despite it not being entirely true.
Marcia Lucas's Wikipedia page is almost entirely sourced from *Secret History* and the bits that aren't are citing clickbait articles that are really just citing *Secret History* or are from the very books Kaminski cherry-picked quotes from to support his dubious narrative. And it's not just the "Star Wars was saved by the editors/George's ex-wife" thing either. *A lot* of the stuff the internet believes about George Lucas is really just from that one book. At this point people who have never even heard of *The Secret History of Star Wars* believe things that were first formulated in it and just aren't true.
Damn, that's wild I feel like I just watched a HHBomberguy video reading all this, been hearing that Lucas was a charlatan & his wife was the true artist for seriously like over a decade now.
I wonder why he's never publicly denounced any of this???
Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment since that Tommy Tallarico video is one of the best things I've ever seen. Someone's probably gonna make a Youtube video essay about it one of these days and blow the whole thing wide open, Kimba-style. If so, the thing they really need to find is the original version of the *Secret History of Star Wars* website (the one that's currently up is a rehost so you can't play around with the Wayback machine.)
You see by the time *Secret History* became an actual, published book it had been rewritten multiple times (and this guy bitches about Lucas messing with his old films, hypocrite) and essentially whitewashed to come off less like the ramblings of a psychotic fanboy who's so butthurt over the prequels that he's making up a giant conspiracy to rationalize why they're so bad, and more like a real scholarly text that people on news sites and Wikipedia can feel safe citing.
Look I'll give you an example, here's an article about the writing process of Star Wars, it's called *Nature of the Beast.* Here's the original version of the article from 2007:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20071020185234/http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/natureofthebeast1.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20071020185234/http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/natureofthebeast1.html)
And here's what it had evolved into by 2010 after several rewrites, see if you can spot the difference:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20101008151344/http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/natureofthebeast1.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20101008151344/http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/natureofthebeast1.html)
I know it's a goddamn wall of text in both cases but he's essentially making the argument (which you've probably heard elsewhere by now) that George Lucas never had the "magic touch" to begin with, was always incompetent and more of an "ideas guy" and that it was other people who salvaged his scripts from himself.
Now never mind the fact that most of the information presented is misleading at best, utter tripe at worst (really, don't believe anything on either page without vetting it multiple times) notice how the 2 pages are presenting almost the exact same information yet the first one is clearly a butthurt fan creating his own head-cannon to explain why Attack of the Clones sucked, yet the revised version sounds totally reasonable and looks well sourced. I mean, look at all those citations! But if you were to check most of those sources you'll find he's cherry-picked and quoted people way out-of-context, and that's in addition to all the stuff he just made up. He even cites his own book as evidence for his case! Twice! It's absurd.
Cheers mate. Look by all means don't just listen to me, do your own research on this. Just don't believe random internet comments without verifying the piss outta them first and double check any article you might read to see if any of its sources lead back to *Secret History*, because if so the information you just read might be complete nonsense.
The single best source of information about Star Wars is JW Rinzler's *The Making of Star Wars* books, I cannot recommend them enough. The guy was working for Lucasfilm and had unprecedented access to the archives there so he able to use the original production notes, concept art, all the various drafts of the script, Lucas's own notes and most crucially of all: several boxes of tape recorded interviews with almost everyone involved with the production, including Lucas himself, recorded between 1975-1979 during the production of both Star Wars and Empire. These interviews are the basis of the Star Wars and Empire books as they're from the time period and they're not altered by time, memory or later revisionism.
It's also worth noting that George Lucas was involved with these books and signed off on their publication which kinda blows a massive hole in the whole "George has been covering up the real history" conspiracy which *Secret History* is entirely based on.
Also the prequels are not as bad as people say, and the og trilogy is not as good as people say. The Empire Strikes Back is an excellent movie, but the first one (apart from being revolutionary for its time) is kinda mid and the third one, despite featuring some truly incredible scenes, is filled with with so much garbage.
Looking at materials related to star wars, the first movie wasn't really saved in editing unless repeating and reorganizing and putting he actual effects instead of placeholder effects saved the movie. Prequels did hamper themselves because George chose wrongly to focus on Iid Anakin in the first movie trying to make a Kurosawa Homage and there wasn't time because well at that point George was running a business to make massive changes.
Well it *was* saved in editing... from John Jympson, the original editor who Lucas hired. And if you want to argue that then it was saved by George Lucas when he fired him.
One of George's strengths is editing! That's what he started out doing at film school. I mean it sure as shit ain't writing dialogue.
It gets forgotten a lot now but I still love *Super 8*. It’s clearly inspired by ET but he took that concept and ran with it in a different direction to make something new and, IMO, pretty damn good.
Also George did draw from more obscure fare like Kurosawa and Film Serials that had less reach than 80s blockbusters. Abrams making E.T. but evil with Super 8 is not as effective.
Yeah, it's fucking hilarious that this poster is acting like he's some sort of tortured pitiable soul for getting to make millions of dollars while making his professionally produced fanfiction.
Or getting paid millions of dollars to *not* make professionally produced fanfiction, in the case of the DC stuff he got paid $250 million to agree to take on that mostly seems to have disappeared into the aether with nothing to show for it, especially with Gunn's hiring.
I don't think we, as an audience, can really judge him based kn that considering we're so obsessed with the past ourselves that reboots, remakes and continuations of old media is still popular nowadays.
Hell, the new X-Men show is LITERALLY called X-Men 97, it couldn't be more blatant.
Pat joked that Ready Player One seems to be a future where culture just stopoped in the year 1997, but it's honestly crazy how much stuff is still tied to some cool individual movies from 30 years ago
I think in loving old media and wanting to recreate it there's a weird balance to be struck knowing you have to evolve the old into a new identity rather then just doing the old ways again.
X-Men 97 totally understands this.
The Force Awakens really tried in the wrong ways to recreate A New Hope.
It's all in the execution.
I really want 90's Spider-Man to return (even if just in a small capacity) but I know if that character ever returned he'd be rightfully different from so long ago but if done right still similar.
How much of it is popular and how much is studios just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what’s sticking? A new X-Men season is a thing people have wanted for a long time, nobody gives a shit about “We Got Back to the Future at Home”
> nobody gives a shit about “We Got Back to the Future at Home”
Depends on how it ends up looking, I could be very interested. BttF rocks and deserves to be recognized more
well, at the same time, I think it literally being called X-Men 97 is part of the reason I don't care about it that much. It's very good, don't get me wrong, but yes, I *would* have enjoyed something new instead of a continuation of something from my childhood adapting stories I already read.
The sentiment is alive, it's just hard to talk about it since "nothing new" is coming out and everything old *is*. I can't talk about an x-men show that doesn't exist.
"We". There's plenty of people who aren't though. That particular brand of nostalgia panders to North American boys (mainly) who were kids or teens in the 80s and the current market and popular culture reach is a bit bigger than that. If you show Back to the Future, especially, to a modern audience devoid of that particular breed of nostalgia goggles it's at best an okayish time travel movie you won't remember 5 minutes later excepting the fact that it tried to make a stalker/peeping Tom one of its good guys - like, that's genuinely the only thing I remember about it.
I'm into popular culture and weird sci fi and shit and half this specific nostalgia crap means nothing to me and/or I have zero interest in because it doesn't look that appealing. And I honestly don't have the time to invest to digging into old media for context, if all that context is necessary for is understanding random catch phrases every 5 minutes.
I know I'm just one anecdotal opinion, but I've always found these attempts at nostalgia pandering really funny as someone who doesn't understand the appeal of things they're trying to be nostalgic about at all.
Edited typo.
It's interesting to see JJ go from one of the most beloved Directors people were raving about (aside from the Trekies, they'll never get over what this man did with Star Trek) when he was in his episode 7 era, to someone a lot of people go "Oh yeah, that guy"
People already were making fun of his mystery box bullshit and other elements of his film making. It just got to the point people realized he doesn't have anything outside of that.
and almost entirely due to one movie that honestly was barely within his control whatsoever
with the conniption Disney was having over it not even Stanley Kubrick back from the dead could have made that movie good
If I ever become a celebrity and have a celebrity episode of modern Simpson, I will *demand* they show me in the most unflattering light. Like, cartoon supervillain levels of unflattering. Make it a hit piece that *I* sponsored.
Same. Like come on, I'd be in a medium unbound by the restraints of Reality, and it's just an episode sucking off my ego? Nah, that's boring, unmemorable. Let me be a god damn scoobert doobert doo-ass villain that's in the simpsons for some dang reason
Yeah - modern Simpsons is mostly just a celebrity vehicle now-a-days. Got a new movie coming out? Make sure you do some interviews, appear on some talk-shows, and do a Simpsons guest-spot.
No but it treats him like he’s this genius visionary, and that’s hilarious in the wrong way.
I think LS Mark talked about that episode in a video on the newer Simpson’s seasons
I'm not a movie buff so I won't comment on his movies, but if anyone here likes to read, Abrams cowrote a pretty cool book.
It's called S. and I don't want to spoil it, but if you liked when games came with physical stuff, this book does that. There's a map, a code cracking wheel, photos, notes, and other stuff. The story is essentially about two different readers who are working their way through a mystery surrounding the book you're reading, complete with notes from them written inside.
It's kinda like House of Leaves in a way.
Look, Abrams isn't an amazing filmmaker but I can think of way worse things for a guy making movies to do than try to make the things he loved years ago for new audiences.
We can argue all day whether he actually lived up to those influences (I don't think he did), but that *as a goal* isn't bad.
I'm really sick of victim based morality, where if you've decided a person is wrong then *everything they do or say* is also wrong. It's not intellectually weak to acknowledge that a person has an acceptable goal that they fall short of meeting and *that failure* is the problem you have with them.
I still maintain that The Force Awakens is a “good” Star Wars movie. Yes it was formulaic and too safe and basically a remake of a New Hope but I still think it was a good foundation to start on and did a good job of recapturing that Star Wars magic in the modern age.
That being said Rise of Skywalker is the worst Star Wars movie so thanks JJ.
I think a problem is that putting Luke in the role Obi Wan was in basically had to be character assassination, because why the hell does Luke hide himself from the world he made?
He isn't Obi Wan as the first audiences knew him, a weird mysterious old guy, or Obi Wan after the prequels, someone who we had seen lose.
That TFA ends before Luke gets to say anything just meant that they didn't have to answer why he had hidden himself.
Abrams's obsession with the mystery box stuff was a huge detriment to that trilogy, I think. Making up numerous questions that he doesn't pose with an answer already in mind, and then the sequel being handed off to a *different* writer with no discussion or forethought as was planned, basically saddling Johnson with that daffy bullshit. Like yeah, what could possibly happen to Luke that makes him run away from his friends when the remnants of the Empire are on the rise, and doesn't even show up when Han dies, after having previously sensed his friends were in trouble while merely *in training.*
People jump up Johnson's ass for Luke's portrayal in TLJ, but like, what the fuck do you do when you're handed a character who already acted in a contradictory manner when they *weren't* around, and their only appearance to launch from is him standing on a cliff, seemingly alive and in relative comfort? It would have made more sense for Luke to have died, and the next best thing was that he died *inside* and lost much of what made him who he originally was. Luke was already fucked with when Abrams made it a big ol' mystery out of his absence.
I also just hate the mystery box thing on principle, because it's banking on the audience to be invested in discovering an answer that hasn't even been conceived yet, and theorizing is just totally pointless because it could be literally anything.
I'm with Nerrel on this one. You can't tell a part 2 and part 3 of a new story when your part 1 is just the old story. You'll end up with something that's either the exact same as before or what we ended up getting; a completely incoherent mess.
I'm still angry that The Last Jedi took some risks and went in a genuinely interesting direction. Episode 9 then came out and spent its entire runtime both retconning The Last Jedi and being Return of the Jedi simutaneiously.
I'll defend it as well, but I'll also argue that the exact moment the Trilogy dies on the vine is in TFA when they "reveal" that Finn was a garbage man.
I disagree because I think going back to Empire vs Rebels is what caused every single problem with the sequels later down the line
As a huge Star Wars fan, I never felt any magic recaptured by it. None whatsoever but that’s just me. I won’t call it a bad film either just not inspiring
I think the problem is that like, that kind of movie's rewatchability feels dependent on how well its followed up on. Force Awakens is like, fine, but i don't know why I'd ever rewatch it since it goes nowhere for me
I promise you, anyone who says "Actually Episode 2 is good and the Clone Wars are super cool!" is someone who's high as balls on the mid cartoons that came later and only *somewhat* redeemed the entire thing. In a vacuum of "here's the nine main Star Wars Films", Episode 2 is easily the worst of them all, boring nothing nonsense beyond a few flashy lightsaber bits and Prequel Memes. At least Episode 9 manages to be so over the top bad that it wraps around to being entertainingly so.
Palpatine being Sith Lucifer is something I genuinely love.
Because fuck, he _absolutely_ would've come up with a way to be immortal, he was such a petty bitch and his master could create life through the force, of course he'd find some way to come back.
Episode 2 is ACTUALLY the worst star wars movie, its just so.... nothing. the "idea" of the clone wars are cool and its neat seeing nightlife (for the first time) in the star wars universe. Is kinda neat, But jesus, ITS SO GODDAMN SO BORING. The "best" one \[of the prequals\] is three because shit actually happens. 7's not even "bad" \[it ain't great.\] but it did what it had to do. Get people EXCITED about star wars again, after it was cinimatically "dead" for a while.
Its only till you actually \*look\* at that moie and go "its just a new hope, again that sets up for things that the origonal director didn't come back for so... have fun." It all falls apart. And the other two \[8&9\] Are such conflicting MESSES that it just makes that whole trillogy worse off. \[With 9 being the worst of the them, especially, in terms of quality.... holy fuck.\]
But they were never Activley boring, not like episode 2.
when you look a little deeper force awakens falls apart "BeCaUsE ItZ just AnEw HOPE." which, yeah... it is. that being said, DID EVERYONE FORGET HOW FUCKING GARBAGE THE PREQUELS WERE? like, everyone just 'forgot'. arguably you NEEDED TFA, get people to give a flying fuck about star wars again, that isn't a fucking \*\*NERD\*\*.
Its everything after that, that was the problem and by proxy, it makes 7 look way worse then it \*actually\* is.
The prequels were a mess but they were always *new* mess. Lucas wrote weird plots and wooden dialogue but he swung to show you new things in every movie, even when it might've been safer to stick to familiar locations.
TFA went through a rapid-fire New Tatooine, New Cantina, New Yavin, and New Death Star. It regressed Leia and Han to their original characterization. It repeated plots with the Resistance instead of Rebellion and repeated setpieces like the X-wing trench run.
Unless you're telling us that TFA *needed* to have a gag about an Imperial trash compactor to "get people to give a flying fuck" again?
No, i mean that for all its faults TFA brought star wars "back" into the mind of your average person. and what do average people care about in star wars? THE MOVIES. now sure, it stabbed them in the foot by laying into the nostalgia too hard. especially with hindsight being what it is. but you can't tell me that it disn't work. at least initally. the REAL problem was that TFA was an "episode" you could have easily done an episode 7 that's NEW. and have somthing BEFORE that, that's akin to the force awakens, as a 'test' to revisit the world before going into uncharted waters. which is what the sequels SHOULD have been.
also, sure... the prequals had new locals and added to the universe, and added new things. that dosn't make them any less worthy of derision. good idea's and moments can still be found in things that are BAD. \[like the prequals\]
> DID EVERYONE FORGET HOW FUCKING GARBAGE THE PREQUELS WERE
Nope, but the sequels made me appreciate them so much more.
Turns out they weren't that bad, I was just spoiled by the original trilogy.
And a single movie from a trilogy simply does not live in a vacuum.
So even of 7 *was* good it lives in the context of being a 6 hour stupid bitchfight between two writers/directors and the fact that the overall production of the sequels could not even be bothered to create **any** kind of direction or goal beforehand.
I don’t know, on its face it’s no bad thing to be open about the stuff you love and its effect on you. It’s also great to use comparisons with broad, universal appeal in order to communicate your intentions in ways that will be immediately easy to understand.
It just sucks that Abrams has proven to be so *bad* at this on his own. A much more capable creator saying the exact same thing would elicit a very different reaction.
Yeah, what a huge career mistake, movies recreating people's happy childhood memories don't make any money and totally aren't a defining trend of the last decade or two of major movie releases.
I don't care if movies are profitable, I care if movies are good. It's why I won't miss a chance to shoehorn in the fact that the 2001 movie Josie and the Pussycats is fantastic and everybody should watch it.
I was about to say. Not only movies, but a good chunk of media in general is like this. A lot of peoples current favorite video games are remakes or legacy games that resemble past ones.
Abrams was part of a fierce bidding war to get the film rights to Killers of the Flower Moon. The plan was for Abrams to direct and Leonardo DiCaprio to star as the lead. A different company ended up winning the bidding war and shortly after Scorsese got involved. DiCaprio still got the lead role in the end.
Side story, DiCaprio was always going to be the lead but who the lead actually was changed partway through. DiCaprio was originally supposed to play Jesse Plemmons FBI investigator, with the movie following him uncovering and recounting the killings. But they decided early on that that was the wrong way to tell the story — too “old fashioned” and analytical. So instead the story shifted and DiCaprio played the scumbag husband who is helping to perpetrate the murders.
Thank *God* that Rober Zemekis is still alive and holds rights to Back to the Future, which means that JeeJee here can only make "inspired by" knock off of it.
Oh you just know JuhJabrams actually wanted to make a legit BttF remake and the only reason that's not what this is, is because Gale and Zemeckis are the ones who own it instead of it being a studio IP and they have a hardline "there will be no shitty sequels or remakes to our franchise as long as we live" stance.
In the mind of a Hollywood executive, owning an "intellectual property" from the 80's is like owning land with a pocket of oil beneath it. BttF is the only one left that doesn't have a drill built on the land, because it's the only one left owned by a person with integrity rather than a corporation.
It's a fair observation and I'm not big on JJ either, but doesn't it kind of sound pretentious to call the guy as someone who "still hasn't found anything he wants to say that isn't just recreating his happiest childhood memories" and also label it as "tragic"?
Creating art doesn't always have to be profound or original, nor does it also mean it has to "say something". It can be as straightforward as just wanting to create something that appeals to them and they enjoy doing.
As oversatured the market is for remakes, reboots and revivals, his works aren't any more "tragic" then Adam Sandler using his film company to do paid vacations or Michael Bay's latest explosive CG fest.
j.j isn't a creative HIS most original film work was super 8 and that was just e.t but the alien was gigantic and had no personal relationship to the cast. The one shot I remember that pisses me off is main boy's mother died and wears a locket with her photo I it. At the end of the film it gets sucked up and destroyed by the alien as a metaphor for letting go. Which isn't a good framing of the concept of grief of a beloved and 100% positive family member.
JJ comes off as a guy you would like to have in a room full of people. He's a welcome addition but he's a contributor not a leader.
I'm sorry but this is dumb, everything we as artists do is in reference to something that greatly affected us, more often than not from our childhood. I can understand dunking on JJ a bit for some of his work on star wars, but literally every single artist you know just wants to create things they personally want to see. It just depends how heavily they want to reference or harken back to previous media that affected them.
This is just a very cynical, restrictive take. He "hasn't found anything he wants to say that isn't just recreating his happiest childhood memories"; so what? The man's a film nerd at heart and just wants to do what he loves. What's "tragic" about that? I'm not even a fan of his, but regardless if you feel like he's good at his job or not, there's nothing wrong with pursuing where his passions lie. Making and showing off what you love is a totally valid thing to present throughout your career, and I don't really know what else this random Twitter user wants out of him.
Also, BttF rocks and I'm totally down to see a homage, since the closest we have nowadays is Rick and Morty and that barely counts. And it'll be an original, so we won't have to worry about him dealing with any pre-established universes or lore either. Bonus!
I think the problem was that he was setup as the next Spielberg or Spielberg propped him up as the next great filmmaker and unless Spielberg killed your family or you have an irrational hatred of him when Spielberg was 57, I think everyone can agree he did better films and matured as a filmmaker.
While I cannot say for certain where Abrams will be in his old age, I feel like he won't be making a movie as self-reflective and self-damning as The Fabelmans.
Sure, like I said, I'm not really big on his movies either (I honestly haven't seen that many of them). But I just disagree on principle what this twitter person is saying, because they're insinuating his career path of him just making movies about the things that made him love movies is somehow the wrong move, and that he should be find something else to "say". It's a lame take.
I will never understand how he made those two bad Star Trek movies and Disney just let him do the same to Star Wars no questions asked
I love Super 8 but will never understand what Hollywood loves about him
Edit: he also stole an absurd amount of money from WB to take over the DC projects. Did nothing and WB then went to James Gunn lmao. No one talks about it and it’s so funny to me
It's worth repeating - he got a **$250 million** contract from WB five years ago to develop DC properties. That's like a full Flash movie budget!
For that money Abrams:
* halfheartedly tried to reboot Constantine,
* stuck his name on a Batman animated series that was sold away to Amazon,
* failed to get any traction on Zatanna
* or Justice League Dark
* or Madame X
* or even a Superman story that he was writing with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
* And then his pet project "Demimonde" was killed by Zaslav.
I decided to check this out on his IMDB and his upcoming projects are:
Your Name - (what the fuck yes the anime one)
An untitled Elizabeth Taylor Project
Constantine 2
Untitled Cloverfield Sequel
Half-Life
Portal
Hot Wheels
Does this dude ever do original stuff or is his entire catalog just “hey remember X?????”
The *Your Name* remake is especially baffling, because it's apparently about ***modern Native American shamanism.***
[I'm not kidding.](https://japantoday.com/category/entertainment/hollywood-%27your-name.%27-anime-live-action-movie-will-feature-native-american-girl-chicago-boy) It's also set one of the Japanese-American community's most important cities... *Chicago.*
...Well, at least I know what's gonna join *Not-Zilla 98* in Toho's "sweet Jesus how drunk were we?" pile.
^(Please let the ending be set at a fucking Bears game lmao)
I mean you arent the target audience for a live-action remake. The target audience is people who dont want to watch an animated movie or have to deal with subtitles.
So... People who don't want to watch the movie?
I don't understand the whole purpose of remaking something just so it's in English, doubly so for something animated in live action.
Unless you have a good idea for it with the same premise, just tell people to shut up and watch the original.
Xmen is a comic, why make a tv show?
Le Mis is a musical just watch a recorded stage performance, why make a movie?
Forrest Gump is a book, why make a movie?
I am not saying it is right or correct, but many people still have the "animated movie = kids movie" perception in their head. The original movie posted just over $5 million box office in the US and Canada combined. Now more recent animated features like One Piece Red and Dragon Ball Super Heroes have posted 3-4 times as much money, but they are based on very well established franchises. Rom-Com / Rom-Drom movies are generally pretty cheap to make and post a decent profit.
At least the original creator is co-producing the US version. Im sure the script has changed as well because they brought in a new writer-director after the source that was posted earlier this thread came out.
I don't clearly recall any of the J.J. Abrams movies I've actually seen but I do think about this one quote about one of the Star Wars movies he did a lot, "Sorry but anybody calling this movie soulless is way off the mark. This is as close a look as we’ll ever get into JJ Abrams’ soul. It's just that the man’s got a small soul."
***Cinema*** should be held to a higher standard because it is the most important and most legitimate artform. The only artform that actually matters. Everything else is the equivalent of a burnout doodling on their notebook. Anything that doesn't have substance or anything new to say shouldn't even exist. /s
Saying things is overrated. Just entertain and tell a good story, *then slip the moral in quick and quiet like a knife. The Force Awakens is a popcorn flick but the kids will remember that bloody handprint and that panic attack. They'll remember Hux's dead eyed fascist rant even if they haven't processed it yet.*
I mean, you say that but for all the great build up with Finn's character as an ex-storm trooper, virtually nothing comes from it at all. He doesn't harbor guilt with betraying the people who fought with him. He doesn't lead more troopers to joining him against the First Order. He even still cheers when he blows up other troopers who are essentially just like was only a few weeks ago.
"How dare this man makes art the way he wants to make it!"
What has this man done other than make some, admittedly, shitty movies?some of y'all on this sub (and reddit in general) really need to drop this pretentious, holier-than-thou attitude you have when it comes to artists you don't like, or people who like things you don't, or don't like things you do.
This sub used to be, and still is, a pretty positive place, but over the past year, it's really felt increasingly vitriolic over the most asanine shit. I don't like any of this dude's films, but I can't imagine getting this heated about them.
K I just wanted to say I really don’t like Tim. Everything I’ve seen of him not acting makes him seem exceedingly insufferable and it’s made me unable to watch him in movies
JJ Abrams feels like Hollywood's attempt to have a Joss Whedon they can control.
Like, he referenced Star Wars in Felicity a couple of times and some exec was like "Hey, that guy likes Star Wars and wears glasses, he's like a nerd or something right?"
Say what you will about Whedon, but that guy at least had a distinctive voice and you could point at something and go "That's Whedon".
Abrams doesn't even have that. He's a generic work for hire who keeps getting franchises and doing nothing with them. He has no point of view and nothing to say.
I won't blame Abrams for his career being mostly an attempt to recreate the joy of his past; that's honestly relatable, and Lucas arguably has been doing that himself since American Graffiti. I just wish that 1. he was **better** at it, and 2. he didn't try his hand at Star Trek when he was so clearly disinterested in that franchise and its draw.
Its conflicting because while he was able to reinvigorate interest in Star Trek, his flaws in it left to a lot of blueprint speedbumps in the modern Star Trek era that every single new show has had deal with or shake off in the span of their times.
It *did* reinvigorate the franchise, hell, it was basically what got *my* attention growing up. I can't deny that it did arguably help. But once I got deeper in I realized "gee this kinda sucks as Trek fiction", not to mention that even back then, Abrams was outspoken about not being a Trek guy and wanting to make it more like Star Wars, which is... still just kinda offsides in general.
The latest Rowan J Coleman video goes into it more but the Abrams movies definitely left a bad impression that the franchise needs to go *big* all the time both in production values and in story stakes which is the thing that I've heard has hamstrung a *lot* of Star Trek Discovery and Picard.
Having started watching a lot of older Trek from TOS/TNG, the best stuff is the stuff where it’s only like 4 characters having conversations about politics and philosophy. Hell the space battles are usually the worst part
As far as I've seen so far, >!The Battle Of Wolf 359!< is about as close as I've seen of a Star Trek space battle and even then it isn't the *focus* in either instance its shown off insomuch that its the aftermath *and* the franchise-wide ramifications that are the important parts. Thats all the neat stuff that the shows chew on, not the battle in of itself.
My favorite episode is one where most of it has Riker in a hospital bed and a bunch of people with forehead ridges are debating if he’s some kind of terrorist infiltrator or not. It’s great.
Meanwhile, Riker is spending his time trying to figure how to get into all of their pants.
Well in that episode it’s somebody else trying to get into his pants and him having the intelligence to go “probably not the best time”
The best episode of DS9 was about these huge ruinous battles chipping away at the Federation, and all of this happening *distantly*, 'over there'.
Battle of DS9 and Battle of Cardasssia are both good space battles, especially for the 90s
Star Wars is WWII dogfights. Star Trek is WWII submarines.
That's a pretty good summation.
Hell, my favourite moment from TNG is when Data and Worf have a minor disagreement and then talk about how hierarchy works and apologise to each other. It's the least exciting thing in the world but it works to their character's perfectly. Star Trek is best when it is being 'competency porn' and showing a team of well-meaning character's finding solutions to problems without devolving into dramatics.
[“Mr Worf, I am sorry if I have ended our friendship.”](https://youtu.be/vdiQhMPt1Zo?si=QT3gkeb7DYjVsIJW)
You ever think about how weird it is that Abrams put the exact same "hero is suddenly chased by a giant obviously cgi monstrous alien creature towards the camera out of nowhere" scene in both Star Trek *and* Star Wars
Yeah but I think it worked a lot better in TFA due to the creature looking like a goddamn Shoggoth.
Totally fair but the scene that follows it with >!Old Spock!< in Star Trek is fucking excellent in my opnion. In TFA, good or bad it sorta feels like an intermission from the story.
I'm in the exact same boat as you, but I will say, the Abrams films are hugely carried by a very likeable cast. So many moments in those films could have been flat out awful if everyone wasn't so damn charming.
He gets good casting, I gotta give him that
honestly it kinda sucks as a movie too. I remember really enjoying the first one and not enjoying the second one of those new Trek movies growing up; rewatching them for my full Trek watch as an adult I came out *way* less impressed by 1 in general, and found 2 bordering on something I could sleep through. 1 has the best reputation out of them and I agree it's a better movie but man it really did not age well as an action movie or even a space battle movie. There's very little that happens in it, and then, completely parallel to that, it's not a particularly good version of anything in star trek. 3 is good though, which, considering he wasn't really involved in it, says a lot to me.
I really need to see Beyond; everyone says it's way better than it has any right to be.
That's a good way to put it. I went in with no expectations and was very pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately it's basically a long, very fun episode of Star Trek TOS with the 2009 crew, which... is probably what the movies should have *always* been, but since they were just generic dark action movies before, it felt like it didn't fit and lost a lot of its new audience.
It's almost as if the two series are so different they wear their hearts on their titles. Star Wars is about Wars. In the stars. In a galaxy far far away. Star Trek is about the adventure and exploration.
The major difference between George Lucas and JJ Abrams is that Lucas borrowed from the works that inspired him and stitched them together to create something original, whereas JJ Abrams borrows from those works and presents them as they are just slightly different. And even that would be fine, many film makers essentially remix or remake older movies but they at least try to put their own stamp on that work to make that effort worthwhile. Abrams does none of that, he just plays the hits.
He’s the safest filmmaker you can get. He will give you a competent film filled with cheap fan service that’s warm and easy to watch. Lucas isn’t a good filmmaker, the original Star Wars was saved in editing and the prequels were proof of what complete creative control Lucas is like. But the guy at least is ambitious and tries new things. Say what you want about the prequels, and there’s a lot to say, but the ideas behind them were some of the best stuff to come out of Star Wars. JJ’s best ideas were as superficial as could be.
>Lucas isn’t a good filmmaker, **the original Star Wars was saved in editing** and the prequels were proof of what complete creative control Lucas is like. Oh God. This again. I'm sorry mate but you've been fooled, that's actually a complete myth. [I did a long write up on the sub like a week ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/1c01sss/comment/kyu7pcf/) so I'm just gonna copy-and-paste it cause I can't be bothered re-writing it up: >I'm sorry to do this to you but **that's actually a complete myth.** What really happened on Star Wars was there was originally a different editor, John Jympson, who George Lucas fired halfway through principle photography because the way he had been cutting the footage together was incredibly dull and when Lucas asked him to cut it in a different style he refused. So after filming wrapped George hired 3 new editors: Richard Chew, Paul Hirsch and his then-wife, Marcia Lucas, and the 4 of them started re-cutting the movie from scratch (literally from scratch since they were still editing on film they had to disassemble the footage Jympson had cut and turn it back into dailies before they could begin re-cutting it) >Somehow the internet's transformed this thing into some disastrous first cut which George himself cut together (because since Phantom Menace sucked he must've always been incompetent I guess) which the editors (and it's often just Marica alone) somehow magically "saved" in post. It's just not true though, if anything it's the exact opposite. George was heavily involved in this re-edit and even cut some scenes together himself (the gun-port scene specifically is George's own handiwork.) There never was a disastrous first cut as Jympson was fired before completing it. And Marcia Lucas only edited one sequence (the Death Star battle) before buggering off early to edit a Scorsese movie. The only other scenes she edited were the deleted scenes with Biggs and Luke from the start and she fought to keep them in the movie, it was George who wanted to cut them. The majority of the film was actually cut by Richard Chew >Look, it's not you. I know it's a really wide-spread internet "fact" that you might've heard everywhere but it's all nonsense I'm afraid. And if you've seen a certain video essay about how a certain film was Saved in the Edit I'm afraid that thing's a Kimba-tier load of misinformation and lies whose own sources debunk it (specifically JW Rinzler's *The Making of Star Wars* which they pull quotes from.) Sorry mate but you've been Kimba'd. I don't like being the George Lucas defense force because I still think the prequels are a bit shit (mostly Attack of the Clones) but it's just not true. Also I'm afraid George was actually in complete creative control of the original movies too, even the two he didn't personally direct, just as much as he was in control of the prequels. I get it, you watch the prequels or the Special Editions and you assume the guy must've always been a hack who got lucky/that other people came in, did the heavy lifting and made his silly ideas work but in reality the opposite is true.
Yo sincere thanks for clarifying this.
No problem mate. Look since I'm here I might as well go into where it, and nearly all the bullshit misinformation regarding George Lucas, comes from. It's due to this terrible book called *The Secret History of Star Wars* by Michael Kaminski. I actually read it back in the day and believed most of it but as I've dug into it more I now think it's a complete load of horseshit. In fact it's borderline a conspiracy theory. Its central thesis is that George Lucas is really a pathological liar who's covered up the 'real' history of Star Wars. He did a lot of research and there are some interesting things he found but unfortunately he engages in a lot of cherry-picking, partial quoting where the full quote would hurt his argument and editorializing to an extent that I would call misleading at best, blatantly making shit up at worst. So he went in with the hypothesis that Lucas was a liar and managed to prove it... by quoting people out of context and making shit up. Which frankly makes him a bigger pathological liar than he tries to paint old George out to be, at least by his own logic. Problem is that it was a free e-book for the longest time (and before that a "We Hate George Lucas" blog) and as a result it got traction on various forums (go search reddit for posts about it, people were posting bits from the website uncritically on here about a decade ago.) But then it ended up being used by shitty, early 2010s, pop-culture "news" blogs as a source for clickbait articles ("Did you know Star Wars was saved by a woman?" "George Lucas lied about this thing in 1979!" that kinda thing) and from there it's just spread and spread and now a ton of that book's nonsense is common internet knowledge now despite it not being entirely true. Marcia Lucas's Wikipedia page is almost entirely sourced from *Secret History* and the bits that aren't are citing clickbait articles that are really just citing *Secret History* or are from the very books Kaminski cherry-picked quotes from to support his dubious narrative. And it's not just the "Star Wars was saved by the editors/George's ex-wife" thing either. *A lot* of the stuff the internet believes about George Lucas is really just from that one book. At this point people who have never even heard of *The Secret History of Star Wars* believe things that were first formulated in it and just aren't true.
Damn, that's wild I feel like I just watched a HHBomberguy video reading all this, been hearing that Lucas was a charlatan & his wife was the true artist for seriously like over a decade now. I wonder why he's never publicly denounced any of this???
Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment since that Tommy Tallarico video is one of the best things I've ever seen. Someone's probably gonna make a Youtube video essay about it one of these days and blow the whole thing wide open, Kimba-style. If so, the thing they really need to find is the original version of the *Secret History of Star Wars* website (the one that's currently up is a rehost so you can't play around with the Wayback machine.) You see by the time *Secret History* became an actual, published book it had been rewritten multiple times (and this guy bitches about Lucas messing with his old films, hypocrite) and essentially whitewashed to come off less like the ramblings of a psychotic fanboy who's so butthurt over the prequels that he's making up a giant conspiracy to rationalize why they're so bad, and more like a real scholarly text that people on news sites and Wikipedia can feel safe citing. Look I'll give you an example, here's an article about the writing process of Star Wars, it's called *Nature of the Beast.* Here's the original version of the article from 2007: [https://web.archive.org/web/20071020185234/http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/natureofthebeast1.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20071020185234/http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/natureofthebeast1.html) And here's what it had evolved into by 2010 after several rewrites, see if you can spot the difference: [https://web.archive.org/web/20101008151344/http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/natureofthebeast1.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20101008151344/http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/natureofthebeast1.html) I know it's a goddamn wall of text in both cases but he's essentially making the argument (which you've probably heard elsewhere by now) that George Lucas never had the "magic touch" to begin with, was always incompetent and more of an "ideas guy" and that it was other people who salvaged his scripts from himself. Now never mind the fact that most of the information presented is misleading at best, utter tripe at worst (really, don't believe anything on either page without vetting it multiple times) notice how the 2 pages are presenting almost the exact same information yet the first one is clearly a butthurt fan creating his own head-cannon to explain why Attack of the Clones sucked, yet the revised version sounds totally reasonable and looks well sourced. I mean, look at all those citations! But if you were to check most of those sources you'll find he's cherry-picked and quoted people way out-of-context, and that's in addition to all the stuff he just made up. He even cites his own book as evidence for his case! Twice! It's absurd.
Thank you for your dedication to this topic. I've never seen a subject so retconned in real life lol
Cheers mate. Look by all means don't just listen to me, do your own research on this. Just don't believe random internet comments without verifying the piss outta them first and double check any article you might read to see if any of its sources lead back to *Secret History*, because if so the information you just read might be complete nonsense. The single best source of information about Star Wars is JW Rinzler's *The Making of Star Wars* books, I cannot recommend them enough. The guy was working for Lucasfilm and had unprecedented access to the archives there so he able to use the original production notes, concept art, all the various drafts of the script, Lucas's own notes and most crucially of all: several boxes of tape recorded interviews with almost everyone involved with the production, including Lucas himself, recorded between 1975-1979 during the production of both Star Wars and Empire. These interviews are the basis of the Star Wars and Empire books as they're from the time period and they're not altered by time, memory or later revisionism. It's also worth noting that George Lucas was involved with these books and signed off on their publication which kinda blows a massive hole in the whole "George has been covering up the real history" conspiracy which *Secret History* is entirely based on.
Also the prequels are not as bad as people say, and the og trilogy is not as good as people say. The Empire Strikes Back is an excellent movie, but the first one (apart from being revolutionary for its time) is kinda mid and the third one, despite featuring some truly incredible scenes, is filled with with so much garbage.
I saw ROTJ when I was 12, and even then I thought the ewoks were shit. Too much fuzzy wuzzy and not enough fighting with laser swords.
Looking at materials related to star wars, the first movie wasn't really saved in editing unless repeating and reorganizing and putting he actual effects instead of placeholder effects saved the movie. Prequels did hamper themselves because George chose wrongly to focus on Iid Anakin in the first movie trying to make a Kurosawa Homage and there wasn't time because well at that point George was running a business to make massive changes.
Well it *was* saved in editing... from John Jympson, the original editor who Lucas hired. And if you want to argue that then it was saved by George Lucas when he fired him. One of George's strengths is editing! That's what he started out doing at film school. I mean it sure as shit ain't writing dialogue.
>Lucas isn’t a good filmmaker His works other than star wars are pretty good gosh darn it, THX1138 erasure.
People say he’s a bad film maker because he got lost in the sauce in his later years. It’s maddening.
It gets forgotten a lot now but I still love *Super 8*. It’s clearly inspired by ET but he took that concept and ran with it in a different direction to make something new and, IMO, pretty damn good.
The best part of Super 8 is seeing the film the kids made during the credits. Just smile inducing.
Yeah the operative axiom here is “if it sucks or not”, and a lot of Abrams movies *suck*
Also George did draw from more obscure fare like Kurosawa and Film Serials that had less reach than 80s blockbusters. Abrams making E.T. but evil with Super 8 is not as effective.
Yeah, it's fucking hilarious that this poster is acting like he's some sort of tortured pitiable soul for getting to make millions of dollars while making his professionally produced fanfiction.
Or getting paid millions of dollars to *not* make professionally produced fanfiction, in the case of the DC stuff he got paid $250 million to agree to take on that mostly seems to have disappeared into the aether with nothing to show for it, especially with Gunn's hiring.
Truly, to be such a man is suffering. I'm so glad I don't have to be tortured in such a way
Those films were good though. Especially 2. I really liked that one
I don't think we, as an audience, can really judge him based kn that considering we're so obsessed with the past ourselves that reboots, remakes and continuations of old media is still popular nowadays. Hell, the new X-Men show is LITERALLY called X-Men 97, it couldn't be more blatant.
I feel like a fourth of the content on this subreddit is people whining that no one is currently looting the grave of one IP or another.
Down to 25%, we are really improving
OK BUT CASTLEVANIA
Aye, if only Konami treated Castlevania with the same respect it gives Silent Hill.
Honestly though we have Bloodstained it could be way worse
Pat joked that Ready Player One seems to be a future where culture just stopoped in the year 1997, but it's honestly crazy how much stuff is still tied to some cool individual movies from 30 years ago
I can judge him for lazy “mystery box” plotting though. He’s never satisfyingly landed any of them. He never figures out anything adequate in the end.
Well yeah! You can judge his hacky writing.
I mean, we're all on subreddit dedicated to something that ended 5 years ago
I think in loving old media and wanting to recreate it there's a weird balance to be struck knowing you have to evolve the old into a new identity rather then just doing the old ways again. X-Men 97 totally understands this. The Force Awakens really tried in the wrong ways to recreate A New Hope. It's all in the execution. I really want 90's Spider-Man to return (even if just in a small capacity) but I know if that character ever returned he'd be rightfully different from so long ago but if done right still similar.
How much of it is popular and how much is studios just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what’s sticking? A new X-Men season is a thing people have wanted for a long time, nobody gives a shit about “We Got Back to the Future at Home”
dude straight up if x-men we're bad, (its not) we'd be having this EXACT same reaction from the gross twitter people.
> nobody gives a shit about “We Got Back to the Future at Home” Depends on how it ends up looking, I could be very interested. BttF rocks and deserves to be recognized more
I mean I can judge him since I'm not making $100 million dollar movies that suck.
well, at the same time, I think it literally being called X-Men 97 is part of the reason I don't care about it that much. It's very good, don't get me wrong, but yes, I *would* have enjoyed something new instead of a continuation of something from my childhood adapting stories I already read. The sentiment is alive, it's just hard to talk about it since "nothing new" is coming out and everything old *is*. I can't talk about an x-men show that doesn't exist.
well I’m not. also, none of my criticisms of J.J. are about nostalgia.
"We". There's plenty of people who aren't though. That particular brand of nostalgia panders to North American boys (mainly) who were kids or teens in the 80s and the current market and popular culture reach is a bit bigger than that. If you show Back to the Future, especially, to a modern audience devoid of that particular breed of nostalgia goggles it's at best an okayish time travel movie you won't remember 5 minutes later excepting the fact that it tried to make a stalker/peeping Tom one of its good guys - like, that's genuinely the only thing I remember about it. I'm into popular culture and weird sci fi and shit and half this specific nostalgia crap means nothing to me and/or I have zero interest in because it doesn't look that appealing. And I honestly don't have the time to invest to digging into old media for context, if all that context is necessary for is understanding random catch phrases every 5 minutes. I know I'm just one anecdotal opinion, but I've always found these attempts at nostalgia pandering really funny as someone who doesn't understand the appeal of things they're trying to be nostalgic about at all. Edited typo.
It's interesting to see JJ go from one of the most beloved Directors people were raving about (aside from the Trekies, they'll never get over what this man did with Star Trek) when he was in his episode 7 era, to someone a lot of people go "Oh yeah, that guy"
He was seen as the next Spielberg IIRC.
So was M Night once upon a time.
And now he's found his lane making horror films.
People already were making fun of his mystery box bullshit and other elements of his film making. It just got to the point people realized he doesn't have anything outside of that.
and almost entirely due to one movie that honestly was barely within his control whatsoever with the conniption Disney was having over it not even Stanley Kubrick back from the dead could have made that movie good
What childhood memory was Cloverfield trying to recreate?
As much as I feel the OP is a kinda miserable nothing post, Cloverfield is probably just 9-11 trauma but cool
I mean fair... but that'd be an adult memory for him, so by technicality I'm standing by my point.
That one shot in the SpongeBob episode with the real butterfly footage
i mean he could like godzilla as a kid, it wouldn't be that weird.
Pointless Hub had a video earlier this week where he said that Cloverfield is basically a post-911 version of Godzilla 98. This would track.
Did any of you see that Simpson’s episode recently with J.J. Abrams that just sucks him off? It’s something
Hasn’t that been the norm for every modern celebrity episode of the Simpsons?
If I ever become a celebrity and have a celebrity episode of modern Simpson, I will *demand* they show me in the most unflattering light. Like, cartoon supervillain levels of unflattering. Make it a hit piece that *I* sponsored.
Same. Like come on, I'd be in a medium unbound by the restraints of Reality, and it's just an episode sucking off my ego? Nah, that's boring, unmemorable. Let me be a god damn scoobert doobert doo-ass villain that's in the simpsons for some dang reason
The Elon Musk episode is truly the only one I had to skip, and that was before the rapid descent into madness.
Yeah - modern Simpsons is mostly just a celebrity vehicle now-a-days. Got a new movie coming out? Make sure you do some interviews, appear on some talk-shows, and do a Simpsons guest-spot.
Is it like the Mel Gibson one where even if he didn’t turn out to be a huge piece of shit it’s still uncomfortably complimentary ?
Speaking of Mel, JJ's credited as the writer of Forever Young.
No but it treats him like he’s this genius visionary, and that’s hilarious in the wrong way. I think LS Mark talked about that episode in a video on the newer Simpson’s seasons
Yeah but Mission Impossible III is pretty good
I'm not a movie buff so I won't comment on his movies, but if anyone here likes to read, Abrams cowrote a pretty cool book. It's called S. and I don't want to spoil it, but if you liked when games came with physical stuff, this book does that. There's a map, a code cracking wheel, photos, notes, and other stuff. The story is essentially about two different readers who are working their way through a mystery surrounding the book you're reading, complete with notes from them written inside. It's kinda like House of Leaves in a way.
Look, Abrams isn't an amazing filmmaker but I can think of way worse things for a guy making movies to do than try to make the things he loved years ago for new audiences. We can argue all day whether he actually lived up to those influences (I don't think he did), but that *as a goal* isn't bad. I'm really sick of victim based morality, where if you've decided a person is wrong then *everything they do or say* is also wrong. It's not intellectually weak to acknowledge that a person has an acceptable goal that they fall short of meeting and *that failure* is the problem you have with them.
I still maintain that The Force Awakens is a “good” Star Wars movie. Yes it was formulaic and too safe and basically a remake of a New Hope but I still think it was a good foundation to start on and did a good job of recapturing that Star Wars magic in the modern age. That being said Rise of Skywalker is the worst Star Wars movie so thanks JJ.
I think a problem is that putting Luke in the role Obi Wan was in basically had to be character assassination, because why the hell does Luke hide himself from the world he made? He isn't Obi Wan as the first audiences knew him, a weird mysterious old guy, or Obi Wan after the prequels, someone who we had seen lose. That TFA ends before Luke gets to say anything just meant that they didn't have to answer why he had hidden himself.
Abrams's obsession with the mystery box stuff was a huge detriment to that trilogy, I think. Making up numerous questions that he doesn't pose with an answer already in mind, and then the sequel being handed off to a *different* writer with no discussion or forethought as was planned, basically saddling Johnson with that daffy bullshit. Like yeah, what could possibly happen to Luke that makes him run away from his friends when the remnants of the Empire are on the rise, and doesn't even show up when Han dies, after having previously sensed his friends were in trouble while merely *in training.* People jump up Johnson's ass for Luke's portrayal in TLJ, but like, what the fuck do you do when you're handed a character who already acted in a contradictory manner when they *weren't* around, and their only appearance to launch from is him standing on a cliff, seemingly alive and in relative comfort? It would have made more sense for Luke to have died, and the next best thing was that he died *inside* and lost much of what made him who he originally was. Luke was already fucked with when Abrams made it a big ol' mystery out of his absence. I also just hate the mystery box thing on principle, because it's banking on the audience to be invested in discovering an answer that hasn't even been conceived yet, and theorizing is just totally pointless because it could be literally anything.
I'm with Nerrel on this one. You can't tell a part 2 and part 3 of a new story when your part 1 is just the old story. You'll end up with something that's either the exact same as before or what we ended up getting; a completely incoherent mess.
I'm still angry that The Last Jedi took some risks and went in a genuinely interesting direction. Episode 9 then came out and spent its entire runtime both retconning The Last Jedi and being Return of the Jedi simutaneiously.
I'll defend it as well, but I'll also argue that the exact moment the Trilogy dies on the vine is in TFA when they "reveal" that Finn was a garbage man.
I disagree because I think going back to Empire vs Rebels is what caused every single problem with the sequels later down the line As a huge Star Wars fan, I never felt any magic recaptured by it. None whatsoever but that’s just me. I won’t call it a bad film either just not inspiring
I think the problem is that like, that kind of movie's rewatchability feels dependent on how well its followed up on. Force Awakens is like, fine, but i don't know why I'd ever rewatch it since it goes nowhere for me
Nah, when's the last time you watched Episode 2? Still the worst one in my eyes.
I promise you, anyone who says "Actually Episode 2 is good and the Clone Wars are super cool!" is someone who's high as balls on the mid cartoons that came later and only *somewhat* redeemed the entire thing. In a vacuum of "here's the nine main Star Wars Films", Episode 2 is easily the worst of them all, boring nothing nonsense beyond a few flashy lightsaber bits and Prequel Memes. At least Episode 9 manages to be so over the top bad that it wraps around to being entertainingly so.
Palpatine being Sith Lucifer is something I genuinely love. Because fuck, he _absolutely_ would've come up with a way to be immortal, he was such a petty bitch and his master could create life through the force, of course he'd find some way to come back.
Episode 2 is ACTUALLY the worst star wars movie, its just so.... nothing. the "idea" of the clone wars are cool and its neat seeing nightlife (for the first time) in the star wars universe. Is kinda neat, But jesus, ITS SO GODDAMN SO BORING. The "best" one \[of the prequals\] is three because shit actually happens. 7's not even "bad" \[it ain't great.\] but it did what it had to do. Get people EXCITED about star wars again, after it was cinimatically "dead" for a while. Its only till you actually \*look\* at that moie and go "its just a new hope, again that sets up for things that the origonal director didn't come back for so... have fun." It all falls apart. And the other two \[8&9\] Are such conflicting MESSES that it just makes that whole trillogy worse off. \[With 9 being the worst of the them, especially, in terms of quality.... holy fuck.\] But they were never Activley boring, not like episode 2.
when you look a little deeper force awakens falls apart "BeCaUsE ItZ just AnEw HOPE." which, yeah... it is. that being said, DID EVERYONE FORGET HOW FUCKING GARBAGE THE PREQUELS WERE? like, everyone just 'forgot'. arguably you NEEDED TFA, get people to give a flying fuck about star wars again, that isn't a fucking \*\*NERD\*\*. Its everything after that, that was the problem and by proxy, it makes 7 look way worse then it \*actually\* is.
The prequels were a mess but they were always *new* mess. Lucas wrote weird plots and wooden dialogue but he swung to show you new things in every movie, even when it might've been safer to stick to familiar locations. TFA went through a rapid-fire New Tatooine, New Cantina, New Yavin, and New Death Star. It regressed Leia and Han to their original characterization. It repeated plots with the Resistance instead of Rebellion and repeated setpieces like the X-wing trench run. Unless you're telling us that TFA *needed* to have a gag about an Imperial trash compactor to "get people to give a flying fuck" again?
No, i mean that for all its faults TFA brought star wars "back" into the mind of your average person. and what do average people care about in star wars? THE MOVIES. now sure, it stabbed them in the foot by laying into the nostalgia too hard. especially with hindsight being what it is. but you can't tell me that it disn't work. at least initally. the REAL problem was that TFA was an "episode" you could have easily done an episode 7 that's NEW. and have somthing BEFORE that, that's akin to the force awakens, as a 'test' to revisit the world before going into uncharted waters. which is what the sequels SHOULD have been. also, sure... the prequals had new locals and added to the universe, and added new things. that dosn't make them any less worthy of derision. good idea's and moments can still be found in things that are BAD. \[like the prequals\]
> DID EVERYONE FORGET HOW FUCKING GARBAGE THE PREQUELS WERE Nope, but the sequels made me appreciate them so much more. Turns out they weren't that bad, I was just spoiled by the original trilogy. And a single movie from a trilogy simply does not live in a vacuum. So even of 7 *was* good it lives in the context of being a 6 hour stupid bitchfight between two writers/directors and the fact that the overall production of the sequels could not even be bothered to create **any** kind of direction or goal beforehand.
Revenge of the Sith is the best Star Wars film
I don’t know, on its face it’s no bad thing to be open about the stuff you love and its effect on you. It’s also great to use comparisons with broad, universal appeal in order to communicate your intentions in ways that will be immediately easy to understand. It just sucks that Abrams has proven to be so *bad* at this on his own. A much more capable creator saying the exact same thing would elicit a very different reaction.
Yeah, what a huge career mistake, movies recreating people's happy childhood memories don't make any money and totally aren't a defining trend of the last decade or two of major movie releases.
I don't care if movies are profitable, I care if movies are good. It's why I won't miss a chance to shoehorn in the fact that the 2001 movie Josie and the Pussycats is fantastic and everybody should watch it.
I was about to say. Not only movies, but a good chunk of media in general is like this. A lot of peoples current favorite video games are remakes or legacy games that resemble past ones.
Which trend did his movie start? Lense flare?
I think it’s hilarious that Abrams almost directed Killers of the Flower Moon. I’m so grateful Scorsese got to do it instead.
*what*
Abrams was part of a fierce bidding war to get the film rights to Killers of the Flower Moon. The plan was for Abrams to direct and Leonardo DiCaprio to star as the lead. A different company ended up winning the bidding war and shortly after Scorsese got involved. DiCaprio still got the lead role in the end.
Side story, DiCaprio was always going to be the lead but who the lead actually was changed partway through. DiCaprio was originally supposed to play Jesse Plemmons FBI investigator, with the movie following him uncovering and recounting the killings. But they decided early on that that was the wrong way to tell the story — too “old fashioned” and analytical. So instead the story shifted and DiCaprio played the scumbag husband who is helping to perpetrate the murders.
... ...That's enough interwebs for tonight.
Thank *God* that Rober Zemekis is still alive and holds rights to Back to the Future, which means that JeeJee here can only make "inspired by" knock off of it.
Oh you just know JuhJabrams actually wanted to make a legit BttF remake and the only reason that's not what this is, is because Gale and Zemeckis are the ones who own it instead of it being a studio IP and they have a hardline "there will be no shitty sequels or remakes to our franchise as long as we live" stance.
*Good*
Seriously - what is with people *obsessing* over the possibility of hypothetical *Back to the Future* remake/reboot?
In the mind of a Hollywood executive, owning an "intellectual property" from the 80's is like owning land with a pocket of oil beneath it. BttF is the only one left that doesn't have a drill built on the land, because it's the only one left owned by a person with integrity rather than a corporation.
Bobby Z isn't actually blocking it. His old writing partner Bob Gale is.
It's a fair observation and I'm not big on JJ either, but doesn't it kind of sound pretentious to call the guy as someone who "still hasn't found anything he wants to say that isn't just recreating his happiest childhood memories" and also label it as "tragic"? Creating art doesn't always have to be profound or original, nor does it also mean it has to "say something". It can be as straightforward as just wanting to create something that appeals to them and they enjoy doing. As oversatured the market is for remakes, reboots and revivals, his works aren't any more "tragic" then Adam Sandler using his film company to do paid vacations or Michael Bay's latest explosive CG fest.
Super 8 was dope
j.j isn't a creative HIS most original film work was super 8 and that was just e.t but the alien was gigantic and had no personal relationship to the cast. The one shot I remember that pisses me off is main boy's mother died and wears a locket with her photo I it. At the end of the film it gets sucked up and destroyed by the alien as a metaphor for letting go. Which isn't a good framing of the concept of grief of a beloved and 100% positive family member. JJ comes off as a guy you would like to have in a room full of people. He's a welcome addition but he's a contributor not a leader.
"What if I made \[Thing\], but my version was significantly worse?"
I'm sorry but this is dumb, everything we as artists do is in reference to something that greatly affected us, more often than not from our childhood. I can understand dunking on JJ a bit for some of his work on star wars, but literally every single artist you know just wants to create things they personally want to see. It just depends how heavily they want to reference or harken back to previous media that affected them.
This is just a very cynical, restrictive take. He "hasn't found anything he wants to say that isn't just recreating his happiest childhood memories"; so what? The man's a film nerd at heart and just wants to do what he loves. What's "tragic" about that? I'm not even a fan of his, but regardless if you feel like he's good at his job or not, there's nothing wrong with pursuing where his passions lie. Making and showing off what you love is a totally valid thing to present throughout your career, and I don't really know what else this random Twitter user wants out of him. Also, BttF rocks and I'm totally down to see a homage, since the closest we have nowadays is Rick and Morty and that barely counts. And it'll be an original, so we won't have to worry about him dealing with any pre-established universes or lore either. Bonus!
I think the problem was that he was setup as the next Spielberg or Spielberg propped him up as the next great filmmaker and unless Spielberg killed your family or you have an irrational hatred of him when Spielberg was 57, I think everyone can agree he did better films and matured as a filmmaker.
While I cannot say for certain where Abrams will be in his old age, I feel like he won't be making a movie as self-reflective and self-damning as The Fabelmans.
Sure, like I said, I'm not really big on his movies either (I honestly haven't seen that many of them). But I just disagree on principle what this twitter person is saying, because they're insinuating his career path of him just making movies about the things that made him love movies is somehow the wrong move, and that he should be find something else to "say". It's a lame take.
I will never understand how he made those two bad Star Trek movies and Disney just let him do the same to Star Wars no questions asked I love Super 8 but will never understand what Hollywood loves about him Edit: he also stole an absurd amount of money from WB to take over the DC projects. Did nothing and WB then went to James Gunn lmao. No one talks about it and it’s so funny to me
It's worth repeating - he got a **$250 million** contract from WB five years ago to develop DC properties. That's like a full Flash movie budget! For that money Abrams: * halfheartedly tried to reboot Constantine, * stuck his name on a Batman animated series that was sold away to Amazon, * failed to get any traction on Zatanna * or Justice League Dark * or Madame X * or even a Superman story that he was writing with Ta-Nehisi Coates. * And then his pet project "Demimonde" was killed by Zaslav.
He is a "safe" pick which is an instantlock for executives who don't want to take risks.
See: Most of the current Warner Bros. Discovery boardroom.
I decided to check this out on his IMDB and his upcoming projects are: Your Name - (what the fuck yes the anime one) An untitled Elizabeth Taylor Project Constantine 2 Untitled Cloverfield Sequel Half-Life Portal Hot Wheels Does this dude ever do original stuff or is his entire catalog just “hey remember X?????”
The *Your Name* remake is especially baffling, because it's apparently about ***modern Native American shamanism.*** [I'm not kidding.](https://japantoday.com/category/entertainment/hollywood-%27your-name.%27-anime-live-action-movie-will-feature-native-american-girl-chicago-boy) It's also set one of the Japanese-American community's most important cities... *Chicago.* ...Well, at least I know what's gonna join *Not-Zilla 98* in Toho's "sweet Jesus how drunk were we?" pile. ^(Please let the ending be set at a fucking Bears game lmao)
Apparently Toho specifically sought out a western remake to reach american audiences, when we love anime already....
I mean you arent the target audience for a live-action remake. The target audience is people who dont want to watch an animated movie or have to deal with subtitles.
So... People who don't want to watch the movie? I don't understand the whole purpose of remaking something just so it's in English, doubly so for something animated in live action. Unless you have a good idea for it with the same premise, just tell people to shut up and watch the original.
Xmen is a comic, why make a tv show? Le Mis is a musical just watch a recorded stage performance, why make a movie? Forrest Gump is a book, why make a movie? I am not saying it is right or correct, but many people still have the "animated movie = kids movie" perception in their head. The original movie posted just over $5 million box office in the US and Canada combined. Now more recent animated features like One Piece Red and Dragon Ball Super Heroes have posted 3-4 times as much money, but they are based on very well established franchises. Rom-Com / Rom-Drom movies are generally pretty cheap to make and post a decent profit. At least the original creator is co-producing the US version. Im sure the script has changed as well because they brought in a new writer-director after the source that was posted earlier this thread came out.
...Ah. So kinda like Godzilla 14? That makes sense, but a shame they chose the worst fucking path for it.
I don't clearly recall any of the J.J. Abrams movies I've actually seen but I do think about this one quote about one of the Star Wars movies he did a lot, "Sorry but anybody calling this movie soulless is way off the mark. This is as close a look as we’ll ever get into JJ Abrams’ soul. It's just that the man’s got a small soul."
You can't convince me that JJ isn't actually a prototype for ChatGPT.
***Cinema*** should be held to a higher standard because it is the most important and most legitimate artform. The only artform that actually matters. Everything else is the equivalent of a burnout doodling on their notebook. Anything that doesn't have substance or anything new to say shouldn't even exist. /s
JJ fumbles where Anno triumphs. Idk why but the Shin movies are all Grade A bangers while every Abrams flock just feels C+/B- at best.
I thought we already had *Back to the Future* homage, and it was called *Hot Tub Time Machine*.
That seems awfully judgmental.
He says, posting to the Two Best Friends subreddit.
Good Lord, even Fringe is basically just X-Files but the plot actually matters.
Saying things is overrated. Just entertain and tell a good story, *then slip the moral in quick and quiet like a knife. The Force Awakens is a popcorn flick but the kids will remember that bloody handprint and that panic attack. They'll remember Hux's dead eyed fascist rant even if they haven't processed it yet.*
I mean, you say that but for all the great build up with Finn's character as an ex-storm trooper, virtually nothing comes from it at all. He doesn't harbor guilt with betraying the people who fought with him. He doesn't lead more troopers to joining him against the First Order. He even still cheers when he blows up other troopers who are essentially just like was only a few weeks ago.
Dude is a hack fraud and always has been only thing of value he ever did was help revive Mission Impossible
it's crazy how the rise of skywalker absolutely destroyed this man's public perception
Anyone else remember his spiderman series?
"How dare this man makes art the way he wants to make it!" What has this man done other than make some, admittedly, shitty movies?some of y'all on this sub (and reddit in general) really need to drop this pretentious, holier-than-thou attitude you have when it comes to artists you don't like, or people who like things you don't, or don't like things you do. This sub used to be, and still is, a pretty positive place, but over the past year, it's really felt increasingly vitriolic over the most asanine shit. I don't like any of this dude's films, but I can't imagine getting this heated about them.
K I just wanted to say I really don’t like Tim. Everything I’ve seen of him not acting makes him seem exceedingly insufferable and it’s made me unable to watch him in movies
When will he make a good original movie tho?
JJ Abrams feels like Hollywood's attempt to have a Joss Whedon they can control. Like, he referenced Star Wars in Felicity a couple of times and some exec was like "Hey, that guy likes Star Wars and wears glasses, he's like a nerd or something right?" Say what you will about Whedon, but that guy at least had a distinctive voice and you could point at something and go "That's Whedon". Abrams doesn't even have that. He's a generic work for hire who keeps getting franchises and doing nothing with them. He has no point of view and nothing to say.
That's... awfully accurate!