ST J.J. Abrams (Director Of TFA & TROS) Discussion Thread—Now Finally Discussing: JJ Abrams

Of course. That's exactly it. JJ's not looking for the least resistant path. Otherwise, he'd just just Luke's green saber because that doesn't need any explanation.

He's looking for whatever path gets him out of the movie, with the audience feeling what he wants from them, even if he has to run through a mine field to get there. JJ used the blue saber, because that saber was in ANH, and he's copying ANH, and relying on audience feelings from ANH to get him thru TFA.

JJ cares more about emotions, than logic. He's betting that the audience's brains won't care about something making sense or not, as long as the heart is doing the leg work. He's betting that their hearts will forgive lapse of logic and sense. Unfortunately, he's also assuming he can't have both, or that the audience doesn't care about story logic or things making sense in order for their hearts to give a ****.

 

The path of least resistance is Abrams using Anakin's/Luke's lightsaber without any explanation or rationale. Just having Luke's old lightsaber turn up in a store room of a bar has all the internal logic of a Donald Trump tweet. It didn't even have to be Luke's lightsaber. It's all designed specifically so Rey can hand it to Luke for a 10 second shot at the end of the film.

 

Which honestly, as silly as it was, still could have worked if she was actually connected to Luke and the Skywalker family in some meaningful way. Oh well.

 

Luke Skywller ran of scared. Bigly sad.

 

JJ is in this one twice, but this description of TROS is pretty good (although I'm sure this person is a TLJ partisan - I've never seen someone blame JJ for Rian's choices??)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/the-25-worst-blockbusters-of-all-time/ss-AALN1eG#image=8

 

People are saying COWARD LUKE is hiding from Kylo Ren who is a FINE YOUNG MAN. SAD

 

What's he supposed to do? Force project across the galaxy from physically safe space so that he faces no direct threat to his well-being, to inspire other people - who can't force project - to put their lives directly on the line while he doesn't, in order to enrage and troll his nephew?

 

When Luke Force projected I was like "cool, they are setting up a big Luke/Rey/Kylo showdown in the next film. But then he died. The theater reaction; it was like the air coming out of a balloon. Some lady behind me incredulously asked "did he just DIE?"

 

I...was posting a parody tweet. I love TLJ more than anything in the world.

 

Ah yes, much like TLJ itself; a parody in disguise.

Still though. Luke is pretty cowardly.

 

LUKE. GON MISSING. Probably on an island somwhere surounded by a see of his own tears.

That "lady" was me!

 

I’m telling ur mom.

 

Rey, I am your mom - The Last Jedi, probably

 

I have to say, after last viewing of the ST, Abrams' two movies are just plainly bad. TFA is still the worst in the saga, but TROS lost a lot in my eyes. They returned Palpatine just to avoid dealing with Kylo and the FO in general and Rey's regression to TFA style abysmal. And it's hard to believe that Kasdan, who made TESB script, made also TFA. It's like he hasn't seen, let alone wrote, another SW movie.

 

I’d say with confidence that people like Kasdan, Abrams and Johnson are far more disconnected from Star Wars than we’d imagine. Part of this is that we, as fans, still consume SW, whilst they are on the inside looking out… but also a big part of this is the cynical DLF spin machine, which tried to shape the narrative that they knew what made Star Wars work better than George Lucas.

 

I don't even want to watch ROS again because I was able to at least enjoy it as dumb fun after my one and only viewing of it. I'm afraid to go back and discover it's TFA bad.

 

I think TROS is worse. At least with TFA, JJ was trying. TROS was just like ... the last day of school before summer.

 

They have related but different issues IMO. TFA's issues are more structural, in terms of how it established characters, concepts, situations, a story worthy of being a follow up to the PT/OT etc. whereas TROS is more the cumulation of those things not being established/developed well. The 3rd film was always going to suffer the most... and I've been banging on about that risk since 2015...

 

TFA is at least competent in its pacing and as a mindless feel good blockbuster. It is, by far, the least creative film in the saga and spin-offs, and as a PT fan, it certainly offended me in how much it relished on pretending the PT didn't exist in JJ's "homage to ANH" sandbox.

That being said, TROS is, by far, a worse movie. The pacing is atrocious, the characters are as bland as ever, the finale is the least satisfying final battle in all the films. Some say its about fan service, but when the fan service is so niche (did we really need a "give Chewie a medal" scene?), like who gives a ****. They may have gotten a great YouTube clip with all the Force Ghosts, but it couldn't even deliver that.

 

Oh yeah you could really tell at the TROS premier that JJ was just as happy and relieved as a graduating senior. Yeap.

 

The biggest disaster in TFA is not the destruction of the Hosnian Prime System. It’s the film itself. I think JJ doomed the ST, from the beginning, to being a pale imitation of Star Wars. He did it to Star Trek and he did it to Star Wars. Congratulations.

 

This is the second person to point out that Abrams’ last minute changes to TFA forces Rian Johnson to have to overhaul his script for TLJ. Interesting…

 

Absolutely yes. And whilst something like Star Trek 09 may, on the face of it, appear a fun and exciting ride for casual audiences, it has pretty much nothing going on under the surface. It's vapidness is only matched by Abrams' relentless camera movement and lens flare. Pretty much every possibility afforded it (other than perhaps Vulcan and Spock Prime) by being a story set in an alternate timeline is resolved by the end of the film, with every original character being in their original positions on the Enterprise. It's function isn't to do anything new, creative or imaginative.... it's purpose is to simply reboot... which leaves very little to explore for any sequels.

 

Do TFA and TRoS have commentary tracks by Abrams? I thought they didn't, but I just now learned that TLJ has one with Johnson, so why not the other two?

 

JJ was also trying with TROS. Lets be honest, episode 9 was a large responsibility and he couldn't half ass it. Unless he went in with the perception he didn't care if fans hated the film and he was known as the guy that ruined the last film in the skywalker saga.

Both films were JJ "trying". TFA didn't quite have the same weight to carry as TROS did though. setting up is easy. paying off is harder.