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As for JJ, I think people just want to hate on him. I feel this way about his work in Star Trek and in Star Wars. The only complaint I can level against him is that he habitually drags around a pose of guys who just aren't very good at what they're doing, namely Damon Lindelof who I think is a slip shot writer. JJ is okay as a writer, but he's definitely a better director than writer.
Of course people "want to hate on him"(or, you know, make criticisms founded in basic principles of narrative and filmmaking that he consistently fails at), he's pretty rubbish. He's Michael Bay with an inexplicable cult following. His writing - and the people he brings in to write for/with him are typically no better - is sloppy, by-the-numbers shlock where characters are moved around like chess pieces to enable whatever scenes he wants to shoot with the minimal possible regard for the coherence and emotional weight of the plot, resulting in flat characters who don't earn any of the payoffs the film is telling you you're supposed to care about(the most egregious example in TFA was Poe & Fin's Excellent Adventure, and in the first Trek there were almost too many to choose from but Captain Cadet is probably the standout) and a version of fridge logic so extreme that half the time the scene doesn't even need to be over before your brain starts going "Wait, WHUT?!". His directing, meanwhile, is all flash and motion, with seemingly no capacity for implication and scale - he's so intent on creating SPECTACLE that he often manages to make things seem small - things just happen then happen then happen then happen and so on, almost never pausing for breath, almost never using editing or back & forth between different threads of the narrative to imply time passing, and whenever this throws up a problem he just says "feth it, throw the word "hyperlight" in there or summink, NEXT SPLOSION PLZ" - I mean, was the whole of TFA set in a single solar system? I don't think it was supposed to be, but people are hyperspacing around between locations in a matter of seconds and watching planets explode from other planets. The same issue came up in Trek - he wanted to do a scene of them watching Vulcan implode and he wanted to do scenes on an ice planet and he wanted to use the name "Delta Vega", so he just threw all those things together with no regard for whether they made any sense.
JJ Abrams is, at best, a competent no-thinking popcorn blockbuster director. Where the hell the idea he's some amazing auteur or even remotely capable of handling IPs like ST and SW has come from I have no idea.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/13 12:23:36
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
Yodhrin wrote: JJ Abrams is, at best, a competent no-thinking popcorn blockbuster director. Where the hell the idea he's some amazing auteur or even remotely capable of handling IPs like ST and SW has come from I have no idea.
You mean big, silly, sci-fi, pop culture IPs like Star Wars and Star Trek?
He's (correctly) making those films for general audiences, and not for adults who have chosen to take those IPs far too seriously. The Force Awakens was a fun, nostalgia-filled romp perfectly aimed at people like me who saw the original Star Wars in the theater and now had the chance to watch a new series with my children. Yes, it shoveled all kinds of fan service our way and played it safe to ensure BO.
But the original Star Wars was never high art in the first place. It was brain candy. Star Wars has always been brain candy...mostly for kids. You're obviously railing against this truth, but it is what it is. Star Wars is much closer to Thomas the Tank Engine than Shakespeare.
And Star Trek was only ever a step above Star Wars. It's POPULAR science fiction. Not one of the truly great works of the genre.
Yodhrin wrote: JJ Abrams is, at best, a competent no-thinking popcorn blockbuster director. Where the hell the idea he's some amazing auteur or even remotely capable of handling IPs like ST and SW has come from I have no idea.
You mean big, silly, sci-fi, pop culture IPs like Star Wars and Star Trek?
He's (correctly) making those films for general audiences, and not for adults who have chosen to take those IPs far too seriously. The Force Awakens was a fun, nostalgia-filled romp perfectly aimed at people like me who saw the original Star Wars in the theater and now had the chance to watch a new series with my children. Yes, it shoveled all kinds of fan service our way and played it safe to ensure BO.
But the original Star Wars was never high art in the first place. It was brain candy. Star Wars has always been brain candy...mostly for kids. You're obviously railing against this truth, but it is what it is. Star Wars is much closer to Thomas the Tank Engine than Shakespeare.
And Star Trek was only ever a step above Star Wars. It's POPULAR science fiction. Not one of the truly great works of the genre.
I agree that Star Trek and Star Wars aren't high art and never were. I also agree that JJ Abrams is a lackluster writer and director. Lost was awful, just really really inanely bad. Abrams doesn't write well, he can write movies that are ok so that good actors can make the movies watchable but when he has a cast of inexperienced or average actors it lays bare all of Abrams' shortcomings. If it wasn't for the talent in cast of the original trilogy SW wouldn't be nearly as good or venerated. The best parts of SW aren't the dialogue or the narrative, but actors like Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill were icing on the cake that made the movies much more fun.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: but it didn't need to render our childhood heroes into Neville Chamberlains, cowardly idiots with their heads n the sand, or pathetic has-beens failing to keep one step ahead of fifth-tier thugs.
?
Leia is the only Rebellion leader (shown thus far anyway) who recognizes that the remnants of the Empire are still an ongoing threat and works with an organization directly opposing them.
Han went back to do the same thing he was doing before, which is believable I guess. He's a better person, not a philanthropist. Personally I thought it was amusing that he lost the ship he won gambling while gambling EDIT: Suppose I'm a little disappointed that "good luck" is no longer a form of extremely minor force sensitivity. That was a cool bit.
And you'd be pretty depressed to if your attempt to breath new live in an order of mystics ended in horrible failure. The first trailer for the Last Jedi was a pretty self aware commentary on the state of the Jedi in the Star Wars universe, and I appreciate that they're going to take a stab at it in this timeline as opposed to the EU where the subject was always handwaved away. Well up until the post Cadecus bits of the old EU anyway, but by then everything had become so dumb
When the sequel fails to add anything new, it makes the heroes' previous efforts look Sysiphean and pointless.
This is the Star Wars universe. In every iteration the war between light and dark just goes on no matter what anyone does I don't like jolly endings where killing the evil wizard in his space castle means no one, especially the heroes, ever has to have problems ever again. That's silly, and it certainly seems to be a pivotal part of the Last Jedi if the trailers are accurate that things did not go smoothly just cause the Emperor bit the bucket. They won a war. They're not perfect people who will never ere.
I mean pretty much every Rebel Alliance character other than Leia. They let the Imperial Remnant fester and did nothing while it rebuilt. They disarmed to the point where destroying a mere 5 planets out of the millions of inhabited worlds was a crippling blow.
Han was a total schlemiel in TFA. I always had a problem with how Return had neutered his character and made him into more of a class clown than a scoundrel, but that was nothing compared to the broken wretch we see in TFA.
We didn't see enough of Luke to learn anything about him. The new characters were all wheezy, glib pastiches of better characters, whose actions flowed not from their innate personalities but from the necessities of the plot. Nowhere is this more obvious than with Captain Phasma.
Star Wars is essentially a fairy tale. It is the Hero's Journey inserted into a "borrowing" of a great film. There is a ton of mythology to mine and archives full of great movies to rip off, so there is no reason for the Star Wars formula to be so stale already.
How much did we know of Boba Fett before the comics and books fleshed him out?
How much about Jabba?
How much about Palpatine? We didn't even know his surname was Palpatine until much later, having only been referred to as The Emperor, Master, My Master etc.
Obi-Wan? Much the same.
How much did we know About Jabba before the books? Exactly enough. About Boba, Obiwan and Palpatine? About three prequels too much.
There is really no good reason to revisit these characters outside of the meaningful arcs of their lives in the hopes of panning some gold when we could invent new characters with their own arcs.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/13 16:26:55
Yodhrin wrote: (or, you know, make criticisms founded in basic principles of narrative and filmmaking that he consistently fails at)
I wouldn't make the claim that people just want to hate on him if criticism of his work ever amounted to such. Pretty much your entire bit boils down to nonsensical "I didn't like it statements."
most egregious example in TFA was Poe & Fin's Excellent Adventure
As opposed to Luke and Han's excellent adventure? If anything Poe and Fin's little romp carried a lot more weight emotionally at least on Finn's side. I will however agree that Ridley, Boyega, and Isaac are not as charismatic on screen as Hamil, Ford, and Fischer. IDK. The later three had some real chemistry going on that really helped the characters pop and that just wasn't there for the new actors. I can get it with a Poe a bit since he was originally supposed to be deadz, and then they changed that but Finn and Rey in particular I think did not command their scenes the same way their predecessors did.
things just happen then happen then happen then happen and so on
Narrative in a single phrase
almost never pausing for breath
The typical modern Block Buster.
I mean, was the whole of TFA set in a single solar system? I don't think it was supposed to be, but people are hyperspacing around between locations in a matter of seconds and watching planets explode from other planets. The same issue came up in Trek - he wanted to do a scene of them watching Vulcan implode and he wanted to do scenes on an ice planet and he wanted to use the name "Delta Vega", so he just threw all those things together with no regard for whether they made any sense.
Now these things were a bit silly I think, but I overlook them because the alternative is burning time catching up a character on something the audience already knows happened.
JJ Abrams is, at best, a competent no-thinking popcorn blockbuster director.
Seems accurate. Perfect for Star Trek and Star Wars, especially since the later is one of the great daddies of "block busters."
Where the hell the idea he's some amazing auteur
Not in this thread?
or even remotely capable of handling IPs like ST and SW has come from I have no idea.
If you think Star Trek and Star Wars are grand art, you haven't experienced enough art. Popcorn has always been the name of the game for Star Wars, and while Star Trek on television delves a little deeper, its not that much deeper and the films have generally been more shallow than the show since the end of the TOS era films (and honestly only three of those actually qualify as good movies and all three were the most "popcorn" of the bunch).
I think the real issue is that fans have invested way too much emotional and mental effort into certain IPs.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/09/13 20:19:07
It might not be popular in these parts, but Boba Fett has to be one of the most overrated and useless characters in the history of film and pop culture.
I think you are discounting him too easily.
Figured out the Falcon was heading to Bespin, allowing Vader to set the trap before they got there. Check.
Closed out the issue with Han owing Jabba money? Check
Is responsible for the first act of RoTJ? You bet.
Thats not even accounting for his exchanges with Vader. Vader calls him out specifically about no disintegrations, marking him as someone with a reputation. On Bespin, it's Fett who stands beside Vader during the scene where everyone is captured. Not a Stormtrooper, not Admiral Piett, hell not even Vader on his own. Its Vader and Fett. Then while it could seem minor he's one of the few characters that isnt one of the Heroes or Palpatine to talk back to him and not get choked.
Mind you, Im not really fond of much of his Legends stuff and people do tend to over sell him. But Fett had a point and was cool while doing it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/13 20:23:40
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The new characters were all wheezy, glib pastiches of better characters, whose actions flowed not from their innate personalities but from the necessities of the plot.
This exact same criticism can be leveled against A New Hope.
Nowhere is this more obvious than with Captain Phasma.
But here I'm gonna agree. I felt a bit cheated by Phasma who was advertised as being dangerous, and made out to be an important secondary villain like a new Boba Fett to Kylo's Vader. Then she gets all of a few minutes on screen, is captured obscenely easily, and gets tossed down a trash compactor, which will mildly amusing (trash compactor, hehe) doesn't really make up for her not remotely living up to the advertisement.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The new characters were all wheezy, glib pastiches of better characters, whose actions flowed not from their innate personalities but from the necessities of the plot.
This exact same criticism can be leveled against A New Hope.
Nowhere is this more obvious than with Captain Phasma.
But here I'm gonna agree. I felt a bit cheated by Phasma who was advertised as being dangerous, and made out to be an important secondary villain like a new Boba Fett to Kylo's Vader. Then she gets all of a few minutes on screen, is captured obscenely easily, and gets tossed down a trash compactor, which will mildly amusing (trash compactor, hehe) doesn't really make up for her not remotely living up to the advertisement.
Not to mention for being someone who's supposed to be steadfast in her dedication to the First Order, she rolls on them pretty quick. Good job getting a bunch of your own people killed Phasma.
Oh and as to Boba Fett; Boba Fett in the films is an excellent example of a character really standing out despite only being in a few scenes with almost all of his character and background existed more as an implication than reality.
I think the EU was unfortunately horribly hit and miss with him. The Mandalorians in general ended up being a lot more interesting that Fett ever was, until they too ended up being horribly hit and miss.
Not to mention for being someone who's supposed to be steadfast in her dedication to the First Order, she rolls on them pretty quick. Good job getting a bunch of your own people killed Phasma.
I felt the same way about the Knights of Ren too. They were played up leading to release like they were going to be important background villains for the new films, but all TFA gave us was a cool group shot of some guys who look pretty bad ass;
And then... nothing.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/13 20:31:56
LordofHats wrote: I felt the same way about the Knights of Ren too. They were played up leading to release like they were going to be important background villains for the new films, but all TFA gave us was a cool group shot of some guys who look pretty bad ass;
And then... nothing.
Actually, I'm going to disagree with you on this. Everything doesn't have to have an immediate payoff. It may be the trend just because audiences are more obsessive than ever, yet in a weirdly contradictory way also possessing less patience and attention span than ever. But I think it's fine for something to be in a film to look cool, or evoke a certain feeling or mood and go no deeper than that.
And did JJ Abrams come out and say the Knights were key figures in the story? Or was it merchandising that showed them off, after which people latched onto them? Even if they were in a trailer, it still doesn't mean that they're important. Like with Boba Fett.
Yodhrin wrote: JJ Abrams is, at best, a competent no-thinking popcorn blockbuster director. Where the hell the idea he's some amazing auteur or even remotely capable of handling IPs like ST and SW has come from I have no idea.
You mean big, silly, sci-fi, pop culture IPs like Star Wars and Star Trek?
He's (correctly) making those films for general audiences, and not for adults who have chosen to take those IPs far too seriously. The Force Awakens was a fun, nostalgia-filled romp perfectly aimed at people like me who saw the original Star Wars in the theater and now had the chance to watch a new series with my children. Yes, it shoveled all kinds of fan service our way and played it safe to ensure BO.
But the original Star Wars was never high art in the first place. It was brain candy. Star Wars has always been brain candy...mostly for kids. You're obviously railing against this truth, but it is what it is. Star Wars is much closer to Thomas the Tank Engine than Shakespeare.
And Star Trek was only ever a step above Star Wars. It's POPULAR science fiction. Not one of the truly great works of the genre.
LOL, whatever pal. If you can't tell the difference between pulp(a style) and bad writing/directing(a failure to execute the style properly), there's not much point continuing to discuss things is there.
EDIT: And this applies to other folk as well - if you're only response to a criticism is "oh em gee stop, like, taking stuff so super-serial, it's just like a story lulz" then maybe just dinnae bother hey.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/09/14 13:49:11
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
Yodhrin wrote: JJ Abrams is, at best, a competent no-thinking popcorn blockbuster director. Where the hell the idea he's some amazing auteur or even remotely capable of handling IPs like ST and SW has come from I have no idea.
You mean big, silly, sci-fi, pop culture IPs like Star Wars and Star Trek?
He's (correctly) making those films for general audiences, and not for adults who have chosen to take those IPs far too seriously. The Force Awakens was a fun, nostalgia-filled romp perfectly aimed at people like me who saw the original Star Wars in the theater and now had the chance to watch a new series with my children. Yes, it shoveled all kinds of fan service our way and played it safe to ensure BO.
But the original Star Wars was never high art in the first place. It was brain candy. Star Wars has always been brain candy...mostly for kids. You're obviously railing against this truth, but it is what it is. Star Wars is much closer to Thomas the Tank Engine than Shakespeare.
And Star Trek was only ever a step above Star Wars. It's POPULAR science fiction. Not one of the truly great works of the genre.
LOL, whatever pal. If you can't tell the difference between pulp(a style) and bad writing/directing(a failure to execute the style properly), there's not much point continuing to discuss things is there.
EDIT: And this applies to other folk as well - if you're only response to a criticism is "oh em gee stop, like, taking stuff so super-serial, it's just like a story lulz" then maybe just dinnae bother hey.
I agree there's nothing to discuss, buddy. Because no one in the movie making business thinks that JJ Abrams is an inept filmmaker like you do with all your hyperbole. Moreover, pointing out silly, dumb writing in Star Wars and Star Trek franchises is like shooting fish in a barrel. JJ Abrams wasn't the one who made those franchises brain candy for kids...that was there from the beginning in both cases.
LOL, whatever pal. If you can't tell the difference between pulp(a style) and bad writing/directing(a failure to execute the style properly), there's not much point continuing to discuss things is there.
The funny part is that "pulp fiction" is often used as a synonym for "bad writing" because pulp magazines were named for cheap paper and associated with mediocre writing.
I'm also curious when "pulp" became a style. Pulp's were just a continuation of the Exploitation fiction, which actually is a style ironically also called "trash fiction," following after Penny Dreadfuls and Dime Stores. Pulp was a publication medium. Not a style.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/09/14 16:39:38
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
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LordofHats wrote: I felt the same way about the Knights of Ren too. They were played up leading to release like they were going to be important background villains for the new films, but all TFA gave us was a cool group shot of some guys who look pretty bad ass;
And then... nothing.
Actually, I'm going to disagree with you on this. Everything doesn't have to have an immediate payoff. It may be the trend just because audiences are more obsessive than ever, yet in a weirdly contradictory way also possessing less patience and attention span than ever. But I think it's fine for something to be in a film to look cool, or evoke a certain feeling or mood and go no deeper than that.
And did JJ Abrams come out and say the Knights were key figures in the story? Or was it merchandising that showed them off, after which people latched onto them? Even if they were in a trailer, it still doesn't mean that they're important. Like with Boba Fett.
Except Boba Fett's role (not him per say as any of the Bounty Hunters could have done what he did) was important to the plot.
Except Boba Fett's role (not him per say as any of the Bounty Hunters could have done what he did) was important to the plot.
This can also be said for the Knights of Ren, as presumably they helped Kylo tear Luke's new Jedi Order apart if the flashback Rey had in TFA is accurate.
I assume we'll see a bit more of them in future movies, but it was just weird for me that they received no real mention even though Kylo Ren takes his name from them and if they wiped out Luke's Jedi, they presumably went through Luke to do it which makes them seem like some badasses which I would think makes them important figures in the First Order, or at least important operatives that would be known throughout the rest of the organization.
I'm not asking for immediate payoff, but come on. Give me more than one screenie XD Foreshadow a little bit damn it
Except Boba Fett's role (not him per say as any of the Bounty Hunters could have done what he did) was important to the plot.
This can also be said for the Knights of Ren, as presumably they helped Kylo tear Luke's new Jedi Order apart if the flashback Rey had in TFA is accurate.
No it can't, because that's not the plot. That's the backstory. Boba Fett actually did things in The Empire Strikes Back - we see that he's the one who saw through the Millennium Falcon's ruse to escape the blockade, and his objectives separate to the Empire's are the reason why Han Solo is on his way to Jabba's palace at the end of the movie instead of escaping with the rest of the good guys.
"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
-C.S. Lewis
Breotan wrote: JJ has taken up the torch. He's also writing again. I wonder which previous Star Wars stories he'll plagiarize for this one? Don't forget his Mary Sue. I'm sure she'll be even more over the top in order to one-up TFA. She'll still have the same facial expression the whole movie, I'm sure.
Not understanding the basics of time and distance made a mess of TFA. Much more so than silly aliens, which are a constant of all the SW films.
Lordof Hats wrote:It's a sequel, and honestly I think I appreciate Solo dying the way he did a lot more than having him ride off the set. That's the Han who existed before Episode IV. The one who didn't give a gak about anyone but himself. The Han we saw die is the Han who walked out of those first three films a better human being and a better hero. He died trying to save someone he loved, something he didn't seem capable of in his younger years.
No, the Han we saw die was even more of scumbag than the one we saw in the original films. The original was a rogue and smuggler with a dash of charm. The new Han was just a deadbeat who abandoned his family to go back and fail at his former career (while apparently violating several taboos of smuggling by hauling murderous tentacle-rape beasts). If Evil Mask McNoSonofMine had managed to project even an ounce of charisma or appeal, new-Han's death would have felt a little like justice instead of an overly predictable plot point.
It didn't validate any growth. It tossed the growth out offscreen and remade the character as a lowlife.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:To me, The Force Awakens just makes narrative sense. Leia was raised in the rebellion, and can never quite rest. Han was a rogue before he met Leia. Without the same need for his derring-do, he becomes listless and goes back to what he knows. Luke clearly bites off more than he can chew in attempting to refound the Jedi order. He wasn't exactly a proper Jedi Knight at the end, let alone a Master capable of taking on one Padawan learner.
Eh. I'll agree on Luke (and it fits in with his doubts as a character in the first place)... but he wasn't in the film.
But Leia was raised a politico- there isn't any reason she wouldn't know how to work with the system to have a proper defense fleet and spy network to keep track of an actual Imperial remnant (particularly one spending money and material on something as silly and unworkable as a interstellar planetary cannon). But we didn't get an imperial remnant. We got a bunch of whackjobs spouting crazy nonsense at children promoted into the roles of admirals and generals and janitors with no training as foot soldiers. Lord Literal Crackhead apparently spent millions of credits so the Hitler Youth could cosplay as the Empire.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/20 04:34:36
There's a lot in that about what the New Republic should be. Mon Mothma was very keen that it shouldn't simply inherit the Imperial War Machine - otherwise, what were the fighting for?
There's a lot of political machinations going on, including by those that would become the First Order. The Rebellion was about regaining freedom and independence for each system. That's why the Republic Fleet, taken out in TFA, was only a few dozen ships at most. They were peacekeepers. Big enough to prevent a given planet going rogue, but not big enough to be a threat to systems in itself.
And the First Order very much are the Imperial Remnant Turns out, Palpatine had a plan...
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
I was just reading some funnies on Cracked, and check number one. Apparently there's theory running around the Treverrow was removed from IX because of the aftermath of his recent passion project film, which I have never heard of until this article, was so atrociously bad it made everyone really scared to have him directing anything.
The theory is two sided. One) he's terrible and no one realized it until The Book of Henry became "a movie so bad you have to see it to disbelieve it," and two) he's an egomaniac and no one wants to work with him or let him lead any major projects, particularly the woman who is heading the development of the Star Wars franchise for Lucasfilm/Disney.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/09/21 06:55:12
gorgon wrote: You mean big, silly, sci-fi, pop culture IPs like Star Wars and Star Trek?
(snip)
And Star Trek was only ever a step above Star Wars. It's POPULAR science fiction. Not one of the truly great works of the genre.
I completely agree with you on Star Wars, and think Abrams is a perfect fit for it for just that purpose.
Star Trek not so much. Not because Star Trek is high art, because it isn't, but because there's different kinds of big budget popcorn movies, and Trek is very a different kind to Star Wars. I still liked the original Trek (sort of) reboot, because they got the characters right, but it did feel very much like Star Trek through a Star Wars filter.
But I did say after watching it that Abrams would be far a far better fit for Star Wars, and when that happened I think I was proven right.
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LordofHats wrote: As opposed to Luke and Han's excellent adventure? If anything Poe and Fin's little romp carried a lot more weight emotionally at least on Finn's side. I will however agree that Ridley, Boyega, and Isaac are not as charismatic on screen as Hamil, Ford, and Fischer. IDK. The later three had some real chemistry going on that really helped the characters pop and that just wasn't there for the new actors. I can get it with a Poe a bit since he was originally supposed to be deadz, and then they changed that but Finn and Rey in particular I think did not command their scenes the same way their predecessors did.
I really liked Ridley and Boyega. I think Ridley in particular gave the film an emotional basis that a lesser actor might have struggled with. To each their own, I guess.
I think the real issue is that fans have invested way too much emotional and mental effort into certain IPs.
I don't know, I don't think there's anything wrong with getting really engaged in an IP. I had a blast playing endless WEG Star Wars games with mates back in the day, and I regret none of that time.
Thing is though, when you do invest that kind of time and energy, its natural to feel you have some measure of ownership of thing, which of course you just don't have. When that IP is handed over to someone else to remake or continue, there's a resentment that comes when they do it their own way. And I also understand that resentment, who wants to watch someone else play with your favourite toys?
The problem comes when people can't seperate that kind of fan resentment from an objective viewing.
I was just reading some funnies on Cracked, and check number one. Apparently there's theory running around the Treverrow was removed from IX because of the aftermath of his recent passion project film, which I have never heard of until this article, was so atrociously bad it made everyone really scared to have him directing anything.
The theory is two sided. One) he's terrible and no one realized it until The Book of Henry became "a movie so bad you have to see it to disbelieve it," and two) he's an egomaniac and no one wants to work with him or let him lead any major projects, particularly the woman who is heading the development of the Star Wars franchise for Lucasfilm/Disney.
I doubt the failure of Trevorrow's film is that much of the story. There's a long history in Hollywood of directors making big blockbusters, and being allowed to change to pet projects on niche subjects that make no money. There films aren't generally expected to make much money, they're generally seen as part of the cost of doing business, keeping talented directors in your stable, and developing relationships with talented actors and crew.
But if the guy is difficult, or is pushing back against the studio too hard, then yeah they're gonna cut him. The franchise is bigger than its director, even bigger than its star. That's the model Marvel has pushed to huge success, that everyone is working to copy. From the sound of things Trevorrow didn't want to take studio direction, wanted to make his own vision of Star Wars. That'll do it.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/09/21 08:36:45
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
EDIT: Suppose I'm a little disappointed that "good luck" is no longer a form of extremely minor force sensitivity. That was a cool bit.
I don't like jolly endings where killing the evil wizard in his space castle means no one, especially the heroes, ever has to have problems ever again. That's silly, and it certainly seems to be a pivotal part of the Last Jedi if the trailers are accurate that things did not go smoothly just cause the Emperor bit the bucket. They won a war. They're not perfect people who will never ere. 
Turns out, Palpatine had a plan...