ST JJ Abrams to direct Episode VII

Well one things' for sure, Lucas' latest endeavor is a complete flop. Strange Magic pulled in a whopping $5 million this weekend and will probably not last much more than 3 weeks in the theaters. He probably knew this was going to happen when the film got pretty much no exposure or marketing, leaving him a little affected by it. Would certainly explain some of the feeling behind his recent comments about the SW stories he gave Disney (which ironically distributed Strange Magic).

 

Well maybe if Strange Magic didn't suck so hard...


Though I haven't seen it yet.

 

The blood idea in Star Trek isn't JJ's idea though. Pin that on the screenwriter.

If you have a script full of poor ideas, you're going to have a movie full of them too, doesn't matter who the director is.

If he wrote the script then I would understand. Star Wars doesn't need a world builder at this stage, the world as is through canon is sufficiently huge and interesting enough.

We need to get back to the someone who really gets the characters and the tone. Not kiddy/child safe, and not too goofy/silly/wooden like the Flash Gordon movies are. I know George cited them as inspiration, but I always felt that aspect of the movies was always the weakest. The Western epic, Kurosawa samurai, Zen philosophy, Joesph Campbell mythic stuff always I felt elevated Star Wars from being a generic, silly/goofy sci-fi fantasy to something a lot bigger and something that could be taken seriously, at least IMO the OT did.

Both Star Trek scripts (written by the Transformers guys, lol) are actually fairly bad. JJ was able to make something half way decent out of them, the only thing the scripts do well is make Kirk/Spock/Bones etc. fun to watch and keep the energy level high. If JJ and Kasdan can make a better script for Episode VII, they will be far ahead of the curve than the Trek movies were.

Super 8 IMO is a better film than either of the Trek movies, though to be honest all three are entertaining to do some degree.

 

I told my sons we were going to see Strange Magic, the response "ughhh"...After the movie I told them it was from the guy who made SW and my oldest son Braxton called me a liar.

 

Yeah, it looks pretty bad. Is this one the "experimental films" he has been talking about?

 

Good points. I guess I have should have checked the official site that quite clearly shows it in the episode 7 slot.

 

Too be honest, I didn't think it was that bad for a kid's movie. Of course look at the quality of the movies even compared to when I was a kid...

 

So everything that is right about Star Trek is credits to JJ, but none of the problem is due to him? He was the one as the director that could approve of the script, especially when he is also the producer as well. If he can't spot problems with the script and sort it out, he deserve a fair amount of the blame.

I don't think JJ films actually showcase a good ability to understand zen philosophy and Campell mythical storytelling. I think he focus on the opposite, trading philosophical sub-text and themes for high-octaned, fast paced movies. It's partially why there are some amount of complaints by Star Trek fans saying it's too un-star trek like.

 

Anything "un-Star Trek like" is good enough for me...I actually disliked Star Trek before I even heard of SW...

 

The Zen philosophy I think is something that's a bit of lost art, even the newer Star Wars (to their detriment) movies kinda forgot about this. It's not so much just throwing random zen tidbits into the films its about making them applicable to the audience's own personal life ("that is why you fail"). The first Matrix movie did a good job of implementing it, part of the reason why I think it was so successful but the sequels bogged down into a philosophy class about what is choice (who cares, that doesn't grab the audience emotionally).

I'm not expecting all things from Episode VII. If it's about as good as Super 8 is, a fairly heartfelt imitation of a Speilberg film that was entertaining for 2 hours ... I'll be happy (replace Spielberg film with Star Wars). Obviously you can probably tell I wasn't a huge prequels fan, so I don't have sky high expectations here. If it's not cheesy/goofy with wooden acting and has a decent Star Wars-ey adventure feel, I'll take it. I'm not expecting anything as good as say Empire Strikes Back or even Return of the Jedi to be honest.

 

Return of the Jedi is by far the weakest SW film for me (well probably on par with TPM), and I'm hoping that TFA can be as good or better than that particular benchmark. I retain hope for TFA, and I'm trying to convince myself that Lucas' latest comments were not reflective of the reality. However, I don't think JJ does the 'philisophical' or 'Zen' philisophical... His films are quite surface, so I would set expectations accordingly.

 

I know many say that ROTJ is the weakest of the OT, but I disagree and it is still my favourite movie (also the first one I saw in a movie theater as a kid). So I hope TFA is a combination of ESB and ROTJ regarding the tone of the movie.

 

When I was a kid ROTJ was me fave too... and for many years I had a preference for TESB. So these things can be flexible. I also think that even when SW is weak, it's still usually better than the majority of other things out there (IMHO).

 

LOST was very much based on mythology. There's a lot of symbolism involved with LOST-particularly the first season. So as far as the spiritual/philosophical, I think Abrams is a fan of it and knows quite a bit about it. And from what I saw, Fringe also had a lot of that too.

It's when Abrams moved away from the writing that LOST got all kooky.

 

Jj didn't write Star Trek. So bringing up that he doesn't write with mythology makes no sense. Star Trek is a horrible example as it's not written by him. As someone sAid... Lost is a good example and it does have mythology in it's essence.

 

I said it before and I'll say it again, I don't think Gene Roddenberry would've approved of the Abrams' Star Trek movies. Roddenberry wanted the movies to be as close to the television series as possible. He didn't want the movies to compete with Star Wars in anyway- no swashbuckling action, no dogfights in space, no epic space battles, no cute, talking robots, etc. He wanted the ST movies to be situation driven and thought provoking and be less 'popcorn' entertainment. Abrams' Star Trek was fast-paced, action-packed, with tons of explosions, etc.

 

Exactly and to those that felt that way that is up to them. To me I didn't feel that way at all.

So the real difference is that I'm fine with it either way. The story leads you to the best place to take thing to my mind. If you have a million troopers who are supposed to be this one many army then guys in suits doesn't work anywhere near as well as CGI clones anymore than now guys in suits would work for the Planet of the Apes. Guys in Wookiee suits was what worked best for ROTS and that was done.

These new troops are not going to be clones so having them all as CGI of one isn't needed. If they have massive battle scenes there will still be plenty of it for various shots along with digital doubles etc.

Honestly all I see from the teaser is that this movie is going to look a lot more like the prequels but that was a given. To compare the visuals of this movie to the OT would be like comparing STID to Wrath of Khan. It's just not going to look like that.

As for flash vs characterization to me flash is and always will be part of characterization in the movies. It's all one thing and inseparable.

From my own standpoint the pure character part of the PT is quite a bit stronger than the OT as per what I said before about how Leia and Han are really on the side and quite uninvolved in Luke's story while Padme and Obi-Wan are essential to Anakin's story.

If there is a new trio as such in these new films and let's say Rey and Poe are as uninvolved in Finn's story as Leia and Han were to Luke's story then I don't think some people will be very happy.

 

There are weak things about Jedi but there are also extremely strong things about it. The Emperor stuff, the Luke/Vader/Palpatine showdown is the one thing Jedi *had* to get right, and it does, it is a home run in that sense, those scenes are as powerful as anything in Empire or ANH.

My goodness do the Emperor and Vader absolutely peak in that movie

"Siiiiister .... so ... you have a twin sister ..." I mean if that doesn't encapsulate pure evil, the crazy thing is most movies can't even come up with a character 1/4th of what Darth Vader and the Emperor flat out steals the show from Vader. That's just a dream team of villainy, lol.

I would be over the moon if anything in Episode VII can have anywhere near the impact of Vader/Palpy in the pivotal third act of Jedi.

 

I say this with the upmost respect for ROTJ (and those scenes are some of my favourites too), but I think the power of the throne room scene is largely as a result of the narrative from ANH and TESB coming full circle... rather than anything imbued in the actual dialogue and acting per se. I think Hamill has better scenes in the other movies, and I think Ian McDiarmid is kind of walking through the part... I still love it though.

 

ROTJ was great except for

1. The Stormtroopers vs Ewoks battle....worst battle in the saga...not because I hate the Ewoks either. The battle just needed to be more brutal... Not R-rated materiel or anything....but the Ewoks should have been given a more fearocious side.

2. Fett going out like a punk and turned into cheap comedy.

.....and really that's one of the biggest traps the ST needs to avoid....the obvious cheap comedy.

 

But obvious comedy is a part of all the Star Wars movies. The two it`s the least in are of course III and V. That is what makes them `dark`

IV is probably overall the funniest film by far with the obvious screwball comedy repartee between the regulars in the Death Star escape but however it developed for deep-core fan-boys be it boy geniuses which are anathema to them as are cute little creatures. If they do more than behave weirdly in the background. If ANH had scenes where Jawas beat back the Stormtroopers with blasters no doubt they would have despised that much like they seem to be the only ones on the planet who didn`t like Yoda dueling.

 

Too bad he's

(puts on sunglasses)

Rot and buried




YEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHH

 

1:Well as bad as it is the Gungans vs droids is worse by far with all the Jar Jar "Mesa give up" /Boomer stuff culminating in the droid that got stuck to his leg and he accidently shoots 3 droidekas with it stuff. In ROTJ aside from Wicket hitting himself with a bola, there is no truly silly/goofy stuff and at least there are some ewoks that are dying front and center, whereas in TPM you only see generic CGI Gungans falling in the background...

2: Fett was a punk and he shouldn't have gotten involved in the sail barge battle for Bounty Hunters are supposed to be neutral if no bounty is involved, but lil Boba got all teary eyed when he saw that lightsaber and thought about his poppa...

 

I love that. Great moments.

Jango was a punk and his clone was a punk. Even without the backstory on the punkiness of Fett he still was one.

This idea he's some great bounty hunter is nonsensical when you see him in ROTJ.

Had he retired and become just another useless bodyguard albeit with a cool jet pack?

 

The problem with the Ewoks (I actually didn't mind them much overall, it was the "battle" scene that I specifically had a problem with) is that you have the film specifically tell us that these are not just ordinary Stormtroopers, but they're an entire LEGION of the Emperor's "best troops." And yet they lose to teddy bears wielding sticks and rocks. Some of it is not terrible (how they take out the Imperial Walkers is actually kind of clever), but then you have the Ewoks easily killing Stormtroopers with sticks, rocks, and arrows. No correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Stormtroopers wear armor and thick helmets, so those elements made me go "nope, not buying this." And another problem that I have with the movie is that the middle-part tends to drag imo. It has a great first act and a great final act, but the middle is kind of meh.

But the stuff that worked in that movie REALLY works. The space battle, the emotional stuff between the characters, the throne room scenes, the Emperor, the ending, etc. It's some great stuff and it's why I consider it to be one of the better "third acts" of a trilogy in film. Those are hard to do well.