ST JJ Abrams to direct Episode VII

As if hatred of TPM taught people not to build AOTC and ROTS up.

 

Not everyone, of course, but I do think some.

 

I personally view Picard's Ahab-ness in First Contact as, one thing, it works great in the context of the film and Lilly flat-out tells him. But, mostly, I view it works even in light of "I, Borg" simply because it's established that Picard has a leftover connection with the Borg. That is driving him batty. So his "THE LINE MUST BE DRAWN HEAGH!" histrionics work because the Bloody Borg are downright all up in his skull! This is first first face to face with The Collective since Best of Both Worlds (Hugh, in I Borg was very disconnected) and with them nattering around his head, I can buy that Picard would flip his lid a tad. As for the Star Trek-ian non-Borg stuff, while the bit with Cochenre seems almost disconnected from the narrative, it has a great "Star Trek: Origin" story and James Crowmell is downright fantastic. Also the music, boy howdy, it is ever great.

Forgot "Blink of an Eye", it might be one of the few Voyager eps that slipped me by / don't remember. There is a lot of Star Trek out there but and I've seen every series but I even got a few gaps (oddly, the only series I can say I've seen every episode top to bottom is Enterprise.) I do think both Voyager and Enterprise get respective bad raps, they both have great stuff in them and, like, the TNG-DS9 seasons, they take awhile to get there. (Enterprise's true finale I believe is the Demons/Terra Prime 2 parter, and it has Peter Weller in it!)

DS9 is an odd bird to try to pick "individual" episodes wherein you have to basically tapdance around the whole "Dominion War" arc because that's a huge aspect of the show. But even if "Pale Moonlight" lands dead centre in that story arc, it's still an unbelievably awesome standalone.

Heh, I also edited the post above for a last minute addition of "Spock's Brain" to TOS. I *love* that episode. I really do. It's so darn wacky.

 

"I think that the history of it, the tone of it, the approach of it, the feel, the themes of it, feel incredibly different to me"

 

Going to have to do a Star Trek marathon eventually.

 

Go with the list. Feel the list. Become the list. the thing about doing all of Trek izzat there's so much stuff and if someone wants to go from TOS ep 1 to Enterprise final ep it's a bit of an impossible task and you'll kind of breeze over the gold. Before both Abrams flicks I did a month-ish long random Trek episode binge (list is actually a tad longer than that!) and it does point out that for something to be "Star Trek", it really falls into any genre. Abrams Trek flicks are action/chase movies but Trek has done action/chase movies in the past, so it fits with the tone of the series on the macro level view. I think TCW in it's best moments replicated that Star Trek "any genre in the sci-fi series package".

 

I'll keep the list in mind. Sigh I'm so screwed. I keep upping my watching list. All of Classic Doctor Who, finish up the 11th Doctor, Batman the Animated Series and old movies.

 

You must CHOOSE!!!

 

I know the feeling. I've only just started Doctor Who and am still on the first Doctor. It's pretty daunting, but altogether I think there's actually about 200 hours less of Doctor Who than Star Trek, and I was able to devour all of Star Trek over a 3 month period several years back. Of course I gained about 50 pounds over those 3 months and I'm a lot busier now, but it's still doable.

 

I know the feeling. I've only just started Doctor Who and am still on the first Doctor. It's pretty daunting, but altogether I think there's actually about 200 hours less of Doctor Who than Star Trek, and I was able to devour all of Star Trek over a 3 month period several years back. Of course I gained about 50 pounds over those 3 months and I'm a lot busier now, but it's still doable.[/quote]

All of Star Trek in 3 months?? All series & films? Holy Shi'ite! Did you start hallucinating?

 

I don't think they are viewed as Lucas "wasting time", my point was that if JJ were to make those movies now, I'd expect those scenes to be exorcised in the name of pacing and brevity.

 

I'll happily sit here all day comparing the composition of shots in 'Classic' Star Trek movies to those of JJ's Star Trek. Heck - even Star Trek Generations is more sophisticated in terms of its lighting and shot composition... Films with little directorial imagination are films with little directorial imagination regardless of the genre. But I don't want to get too down on JJ so I'll leave it there. As you say, we'll be able to compare more relatively when Ep VII comes out.

Apologies for double post...

 

Star Wars was as much a product of its time as it was groundbreaking and game-changing. Long, pensive shots and periods of slow movement were common back in the seventies, when people had to have patience, before the world became so instantaneous. I don't think you can get away with pacing like that today.

In the seventies, if you were in an elevator, you had to wait, patiently, quietly...be alone in your head for a few minutes. Now, look around in the next elevator you enter: people have their head in their smartphones, constantly stimulating themselves. There's no way a "modern viewer" in the audience the Star Wars saga always targets could tolerate long, pensive shots and slow movement anymore.

I liked what JJ had to say in his interview with Simon Pegg posted above (see post 4975) -- thank you for posting that, Darth_Downunder -- and I can see he's really going to try. That doesn't mean there isn't a Greek chorus out there waiting to deride his final product. But George Lucas DID say that it's time to pass this saga along to other filmmakers. That necessarily means that there are going to be stylistic changes that are a product of the new filmmakers' preferences, which, in turn, will be in part a product of the times, and so on. The Maker says it's time for that, though, so it's time for that.

Also, Star Wars is so vast that people don't always necessarily AGREE on what makes Star Wars Star Wars. JJ hit on that in the interview when he said that because he's such a huge, original Star Wars fan, he's been trying to train himself to "start over" and look at the Saga anew so as not to assume that what resonates for him is necessarily what resonates for all. That's admirable, but frankly, an impossible task. I admire that he's going into it with that mindset, but he cannot and will not please everyone.

Personally, I'm looking to enjoy the ST, so I'm going to go into it focusing on having fun and enjoying what there is to enjoy. Invariably, I'll find enjoyment in most if not all of it. Like Qui-Gon said, your focus determines your reality.

 

Wise words... I think if Star Wars is to continue, the execs/producers have to allow the writers/directors to express themselves... Star Wars has to progress, even if it doesn't conform to our expectations or preferences. That was certainly one of the major reasons I liked the PT, it was progressive filmmaking, it wasn't a retread of the originals (and a 'retread' would have been a much easier/popular choice). Ultimately I'd rather have a filmmaker try something new/different and it fall short rather than something purely populist and, relatively, easy to manufacture. Both the OT and PT are, for me, closer to the achieving 'populist cinema as art' than JJ's films... but that's just my opinion.

As far as JJ is concerned, it's a span of control thing... I'd be much less worried if he was either a director only, a producer only, or writer only. The irony/dilemma for me is that JJ is probably the best choice to take Star Wars onwards and maintain/grow its poularity, but probably the worst choice in terms of artistry. But again that's obviously just my opinioin... My hope is that what the ST will achieve in terms of popularity (which I'm sure it will), it won't lose in terms of actual artistry and intelligence.

 

Great posts! Ultimately, I'm trying to go in with an open mind, insomuch as that's possible with something like this. Let the chips fall where they may and wait until it's all said and done before judging Abrams on what he did or didn't do right in my own point of view, which I'm absolutely certain will not be shared by everyone else anyway.

Everything but the Animated Seres, which wasn't out on DVD yet at that time. But everything else I dutifully collected and watched, although it helped that I was alternating between all of the shows at the same time. I've tried watching them all in order since then and only got to season 2 of Voyager before giving up.

 

Yes Voyager is tough until you get to S4. Probably better to start there, or the last ep of S3 to be exact.

 

Voyager is a tough one for me in general. There is some good stuff in there but a whole lot of crap. By far my least favorite Trek. I find J.J.'s movies a lot more palatable than Voyager at least. In fact I thought Into Darkness started out promising and had some very well-directed moments, but was seriously let down by the script (see me attempting to stay on topic? ).

 

I need to see it again but it didn't blow me away. I more impressed with the first one.

 

I think the first one is a much better story and just works better overall, but in terms of direction I thought ID really outshone it actually. Abrams toned down a lot of the visual excess of the first movie in terms of lens flares and camera movements, and actually produced some rather elegant work at times. It's too bad it turned out to be such a horrible rehash of WOK with a rather unsophisticated and untimely 9/11 allegory.

 

All of them!

Damn. Going to do it all!

 

You should teach a film class. youre that good Mystery Roach

 

Only one scene is a rehash of TWOK, unless we also count the "needs of the many" quote in the volcano. That's it. Hardly the entire film.

 

Really? That much? Well, I suppose there is a lot of Trek, but there's 800 episodes of Who (not counting minisodes, and things like Night of the Doctor really deserve to be counted), and not counting the official original-cast radio/audio productions, of which there are FAR more stories than on TV...
Four took me ages to get throu. But then, I'm still in season one of TOS and of TNG...

 

Yeah only the key dramatic scene being lifted directly from the same movie, having the same villain, multiple quotes, etc. Hardly anything.

The big difference is that all Trek shows except for TAS are an hour long, whereas the classic Who are half-hour episodes. And there's about 700 episodes of Trek altogether plus the movies. I'm not counting audio productions though. I haven't studied up on those, do they represent more stories within the same continuity?

 

Yeah, like I said, all of one whole scene, and then one quote tacked onto another scene. That's it. Not enough to make the film as a whole a "rehash" of another film which had an entirely different plot ( and was curiously lacking in 9/11 allegories ). The film also rips off The Search for Spock and The Undiscovered Country, yet it doesn't get accused of being a rehash of those films.

Well, you know what they say: if two films have the same villain, like Batman (1989) and The Dark Knight, one must be a "rehash" of the other.

Oh, they don't say that? Because that's ridiculous?