Official Info J.J. Abrams to Write and Direct Episode IX

http://www.starwars.com/news/j-j-abrams-to-write-and-direct-star-wars-episode-ix

Welp. Time to do things at lightspeed for no dang reason and find implausible answers to mystery box questions.

***Mods, can you change to official info?

 

Yes, changed tag to Official.

 

This time, he better put the Bad Robot in the background somewhere.

 

Hot dang- that is good news!

 

I would've preferred a new director, or potentially Rian Johnson continuing from The Last Jedi. I suppose we'll just have to see what JJ brings.

 

Welp...

 

I love me some Force Awakens, I totally approve of this message! Although, I will only be annoyed if the climax is Starkiller Base Snoke Throne Room versus Rey and Kylo Ren. Too bad the release date got moved, JJ has locked us forevermore into December Star Wars release dates.

Hey, at least this time people won't be complaining about lens flares for years.

As for Chris Terrio, the plot of Batman V Superman is pretty weaksauce, but that was mostly Synder's story (take aside the "Martha" patch of dialogue, which Synder also came up with) but I do like some of the dialogue banter in BvS, especially the Lex ramblings. And Argo is a pretty fantastic script top to bottom.

I will say, he does seem the most left field pick, I'm shocked they didn't go for the Kassadan / Abrams duo again.

 

Oh, great. I hope Abrams actually tries to tell a plausible and interesting story this time, instead of simply hitting all the 'generic action movie' check boxes. I'm not expecting much. What horrible news.

 

I've been out of the loop for a while, between my usual hiding from spoilers mode & some really nasty health issues. What happened to Rian Johnson writing Episode 9? I could've sworn he was writing & directing TLJ and writing Episode 9. Then again, the past 3 months have been really bad, so maybe I'm not remembering correctly.

Not sure how accurate it is, but IMDB has JJ Abrams as director for Episode 9, with JJ Abrams, Derek Connolley, Jack Thorne, & Colin Trevorrow as writers, with a character creation credit to George Lucas. With Callum Greene as executive producer & JJ Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy & Michelle Rejwan as producers.

Not sure how I feel about this. I'll have to wait until I see TLJ.

 

Agreed. Wanted to say something along these lines in the TLJ threads, but I'm not sure how kindly it'd be taken. I am really not thrilled about this since I don't consider TFA as impressive as most people do for reasons I'm sure everyone's tired of hearing.

As far as I know, Trevorrow has absolutely no involvement with Episode IX at this point. A screenwriter from Batman v. Superman, Chris Terrio, has also joined the film so make of that what you will...

 

Rian allegedly refused the offer.

Lucasfilm also announced Chris Terrio (Argo, Batman vs Superman) will co-write the movie with JJ. I think Connolly and Throne are gone, but IMDB hasn’t updated the info.

They also announced Rejwan as a producer (well, she kinda comes with the Bad Robot package anyway), but I don't think they said anything about Greene.

 

I have no problems with JJ, he directed a fine film and I'll be more than happy to watch another of his Star Wars films! I'm of the opinion that December is completely owned by Star Wars now, and I expect that Ron Howard will be peer-pressured into changing his release date as well.

I think Kasdan is still keeping his options open. I'd guess he's still a producer?

I respect Rian's refusal to direct IX, only because he wants to be a fan watching the movie rather than being the one making it. The fact that they asked him should say a lot about how good TLJ is gonna be...!!!

 

All the best to JJ.

He did say after seeing what Rian was going to be doing in VIII that he wished he was able to take further part in it.

 

I can't believe Lucasfilm Marquanded themselves twice.

 

Out of curiosity, what does it mean to Marquand oneself?

 

It's funny. Every time someone just blurts out "mystery box" without defining what it is, how it affects Star Wars and what's inherently bad about it, I become more and more intrigued as to why they keep mentioning the "mystery box", as if it means something obvious.

 

It's especially intriguing in light of his TED Talk, where he used ANH as the perfect example of the mystery box mentality. A mystery is presented and when the answer to it is revealed, that answer brings another mystery which is then resolved with yet another mystery and so, you go deeper and deeper into the box until finally, you know all that you need to know, although there may still be an element of mystery hanging in the air.
This may not have been GL's intention, but it is what captivated JJ and it's what he's been trying to incorporate in everything that he does.
With TFA, he did it from a wider perspective because he knew that this trilogy would be finished, so he didn't have to resolve everything as TFA is the opening chapter.
I think we can expect a proper ending in EpIX.

 

That's just the problem though - JJ loves setting up the mystery box, but as he shows so eloquently in that TED talk, he is not great at opening it. LOST, Fringe, and Alias all had really... just dumb endings. "But JJ didn't write the endings!" Exactly. Because he doesn't know how. He puts down the box and runs. I don't know that I've ever seen him set up a mystery and then give it a satisfying conclusion. They are ideas from an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

 

Don't forget Mission: Impossible III. That one was nicely wrapped up at the end.
Look, he knows what's expected of him and if he feels that he doesn't have a clear view of how EpIX should end, he'll turn to his cowriter for assistance. This is probably one of the reasons why he usually doesn't (never?) write solo.

 

Yeah, MI:III was a total miss for me. And turning to his co-writer, in the case of Terrio, isn't comforting to me.

 

JJA again? Well... could be better, could be worse.

 

I think it means one got stuck with a poorer option than what could have been. Like when Richard Marquand got chosen to direct ROTJ because Spielberg couldn’t.

There is nothing wrong with mystery boxes if you like it.

But for those you don’t like mystery boxes as a storytelling device, there are reasons why we wish they were avoided:

1 – It puts too much focus on the mystery and not on whether the answer to that mystery is worth the amount of focus put on the mystery. If the answer is unsatisfying, then the mystery box feels like a complete waste of time for people invested in it. Case in point: Lost. Another case in point about to be made in the future: the answer to Ray's parents, whatever that will be.
2 – It hinges on the assumption that everyone who watches a movie/TV series is in just for the journey and not necessarily for the ending. Which can be true to some audiences, but not all, and there is a reason why JJ Abrams gained a reputation as someone who can’t stick the landing.
3 – The point of a mystery is the reveal, not the “maybes”. JJ doesn’t get that point, because he never comes up with the answers before he decides to make mysteries.
4 - In the specific case of TFA where Rey became a walking mystery box, the focus on the mystery detracts from the characterization and it’s a reason why Rey is barely a shell of a character. She has no goal, no opinions, no personal motivations in the main conflict, and no reason to do anything or to be in the first place other than “Omg who is this girl??!! Mystery!! Find your pertinent questions about the main character in the next movie!!”.
Luckily for Rey, she was played by Daisy Ridley, who managed to fill her with some charisma and personality.

So yeah, that's the problem I have with "mystery boxes". There has yet to be a JJ creation that finishes as strongly as it started, and probably there will be, in the future, once he stops obsessing about using mystery boxes as a storytelling device.

 

From what I've read, Abrams departed before the end of the series that he created, using the mystery box device.

Since Abrams didn't create Star Wars, and there's a whole existing backstory from which to draw clues about why/what/how Rey is, the same anxiety over the way that those series, "finished" by people who didn't create them, needn't apply.

 

I mean, I was quoting Macbeth for allusory effect.