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

I think based on them, individually, taking the poison as well, to me.

 

I will say former CBS chairman Les Moonves had Abrams figured out from the start. JJ wanted the type of contract he has now with WB ten years ago and he wanted it from both CBS and Paramount because he wanted to control the entire Star Trek franchise which was split in two at the time.

He asked for an enormous amount of money and Moonves showed him the door.

 

I've only watched the first nine minutes so far, but this is very interesting. I'm learning some things I did not know about how the final ST film came together. It appears that Abrams basically used more of Trevorrow's ideas than I thought. So, I took a break and actually read the summary of Trevorrow's story. Frankly, I don't think I would have liked Duel of the Fates, but something tells me that I would have disliked it less than TROS. There are good many interesting concepts in Duel of the Fates that I already knew about (Coruscant, Mortis, Hux actually being interesting, and so on). If anything, whether it was a bad or average story, it sounds like it would be visually amazing. I'll finish watching the video and form my own opinion about this. Finn had stuff to do in this draft.

Anyhow, from what the commenters on this Youtube video have said, it seems like Abrams and Terrio took an interesting script and dumbed it down and made it worse.

 

Either way, I think it's a variation on similar things, though I think, in theory, DOTF is more polished about them. In my opinion, both of these are faced with similar issues: Both versions are left with basically very little to go on and essentially have to soft reboot the story and characters to have some form of forward momentum, to my memory. Introducing new information, new character drives, new relationships, new character emotional states, all with the purpose to have some form of story happen that actually has weight for the characters, for the most part.

For example:

Kylo Ren: Both movies are faced with the question of Kylo isn't a real villain with anything that has weight, in my opinion. DOTF way of going about this is to have him remain the villain, but introduce as new motive, drive and emotional state for him as a character, while also sending him on his own little villain journey. TROS's take is, to me, basically pulling his character back to where he was in the throne room scene from an emotional standpoint, and, I think, in theory having his character be in a Vader esque type of role, so he's not soft rebooted, so much as pulled back a solid amount, to me. Gone are the emotional rampant fits, so he's still a little emotionally soft rebooted, he's more stoic and emotionally reserved. Palpatine is placed in the main villain role, maybe, to make up for Kylo not being entirely soft rebooted to seem to be more competent as a villain.

Rey: Both movies are forced to introduce a whole new structure for this character, because the last movie defused her rivalry with Kylo, and had her stand around listening to Kylo and Luke whine and complain all movie about their stupid problems, without much input or say in regards to the situation. In theory, DOTF is trying harder to do this, from what I remember. Rey is given some type of viewpoint on the situation, some type of say, and has her motive against Kylo soft rebooted to be that he killed her parents, though it also randomly inserts her into a romance with Poe, another pretty stark soft reboot of either relationship prospects from before. While TROS has Palpatine be the catch all for all the trilogy's issues: He's Rey's grandPalpy! And while I feel this gives Rey a more personal stake in the story than I think she was allowed to have in TLJ, I still think it's messily constructed and is still just not giving her a lot of personal input in this story.

Finn: We're left with Finn in TLJ having basically, to me, re-achieved his arc from TFA in being against the first order, I guess. In theory, I think Finn gains more from this concept in DOTF, to my memory, in being given a more personal story, and, from what I remember seeing, leading a stormtrooper rebellion, at least, in concept. While I think TROS seems unsure how to handle him, and I think there's a mish mash hodge podge of ideas for the character in it, and none of them are really fully realized, from potentially being force sensitive to leading other stormtroopers into battle.

Poe: Poe was left with having basically gone through an arc of, I guess, humility(?) or something, and was basically placed, kinda, back where he was at before, to me, from what I remember. It's suggested he may be leader. Honestly, to my memory, funny enough, while the handling of it may seem questionable to some, I think Poe benefits the most in that, to my memory, he has more of a character arc in TROS than he does in DOFT. Where, I think Poe may more be a love interest to Rey.

Hux: In both cases, I think he's kinda given a little soft booting, but not a lot. I think DOTF variation is a bit more showy about it, while TROS is more kinda trying to find a use for him and simultaneously replace him with a new character, rather than try and salvage him that much. Though I do think he's more akin to a combination of his character versions in TFA/TLJ. Though, in theory, to my memory, he is given more of a thing in DOTF, as a character, as far as personality wise, maybe?

Luke: This is distinct change, probably moreso than any of them, and one I'm conflicted on. I like seeing Luke take a more personal active role in DOTF after his character being punked out in TLJ and I think it'd help ease the feelings about that movie's use of Luke to have him be more heroic, actually seeing the change that TLJ kinda, I think, handwaved into happening at the end, in theory, but at the same time, I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of a force ghost doing this and being so involved, in this way, training Rey, actually showing some form of connection with her, allowing him to push back against Kylo more. So, I don't know...

 

I'm so dumbfounded watching so much of that video, their 'intentions', and how they viewed SW. And especially how all of it was eventually removed or washed out so completely that it became invisible in the final product.

 

Im also someone who doesn't think Duel of the Fates would have been that great. Some of the ideas i think would have gone abit far in trying to expand star wars lore. But then the recent Jurassic Park movie kinda shows the director is quite ambitious with some of his ideas.

 

I got 40 minutes of listening to it before I got to the Yaquina lighthouse. But, yeah. We understand this mythology better than they do. Star Wars may have different styles or interpretations, but we all know what it is not. And this was not it.

from what I read, DOTF sounds like it would be a pretty good elseworlds or alternative universe story. Maybe I’m saying that because TLJ and TROS set the bar so low. I mean, if I were charitable, I would say they are not as bad as Season 8 of Game of Thrones. Even if they made something I didn’t agree with, I would have appreciated it if it were actually logical and consistent. I hate to say this. since Kathleen Kennedy was the one to force Palpatine being in the final film…I gotta say she’s one of those careless producers. There was nothing wrong with Batman 1989 being wacky and dark and absurd. Why the producers and Jack Nicholson decided to include a fight in a church tower because they mistakenly believed that the Phantom of the Opera took place in a tower I’ll never know. But as flawed as that film is, it’s better than these two. At least Jurassic World Director read some of the EU. Deborah Chow did that for Kenobi, and Hayden watched Rebels and TCW. That’s good homework. Abrams did not do his homework. And Johnson did the opposite of homework. He butchered Luke Skywalker’s character, regressed Rey and became fixated on Kylo Ren. I’m not trying to say that Jurassic World Director’s story would have been much better. But at least it attempted to be mystical, included worlds like Coruscant, etc. The main thing I appreciated was that Ren was depicted as the one who killed Rey’s parents and Rey came back to make a new Jedi Order. It sounded like those ancient Jedi who used both sides of the Force. I can see why some people would consider this anti-Yoda or something, but at least some Grey Jedi fans could find something appealing in it. As it is, the only post-ROTJ story I prefer as of now is The Mandalorian, and that’s mainly due to Pedro Pascal and the western-ness. But I can also see why people would be upset with DOTF because Vergere and some Sith would like a Jedi Order that was open to the dark side. Anyhoo, can any of you imagine JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson attempting to adapt complicated, philosophical characters like Vergere or Darth Plagueis? Exactly. I can’t, either. I wouldn’t trust them to adapt Nomi Sunrider or Exar Kun properly. They set the bar so low that I wouldn’t trust them to adapt Satele Shan or Darth Malgus.

 

Some fans just dont they tought DODT was any good or Treverrow making anything good. And JJ might not be good at stories be his filmaking is good. RJ would do something intresting with all those characters but fans would upset.

 

Whenever someone says JJ is good at the “filming” part I recall George Lucas saying if you can’t write a story you can’t direct it either.

 

Well We all have our flaws and GL had his. Its why you have writers and directors.

 

My point is pretty lense flares and “technical cinematography” is still ****** directing if the story is bad

 

Is why its good to have a writer on your team. A good writer might be **** at directing and filmaking. JJ is popular at making your movies look good. He is not good storyteller.

 

More, I think he'd do something interesting, in idea, with one character or so, but the rest would be, for the most part, shafted, one way or another.

 

Depends on how intrested he be in those characters. Like Plagueis might be a totally new character. And they woundt be shafted more like in other roles he though would be good for them.

 

I think JJ's filmmaking 'talents' are held up by his talent for working with actors and getting good performances out of them. He knows how to line up a shot or two, and occasionally mixes that with some uptempo music, when he cares. But...everything else, especially when he doesn't care, is just copying. He's not an original. He copy-master. And copies other beloved artist's talents, spits it through a meat grinder of 'style' over substance, and hits the 4x speed button so that no one notices how empty his films actually are.

And that's not even talking about his 'story-telling' talents, which are nonexistent and mystery-boxed so that he doesn't have to do the really hard work of figuring stuff out that goes inside. That video above proves that. TROS is just a mishmash of scenes and half-baked ideas, that ultimately could be swapped, deleted, put back in, traded, cut, moved around, warped, and fiddled with until opening day, and it didn't even matter to the 'story'.

And RJ couldn't even do something interesting with any character not called Kylo in the one movie he got. Why would anyone think he'd care about them in EP 9 is beyond me.

 

It's wrongheaded for DOTF to suggest that the path forward for the Jedi should be to become more grey, or equivalently that the Jedi as we saw them in the PT/OT were too light-side.

 

That seems to be a thing though with some people. Some people want to see all that light and dark logic thrown out and just have characters who can do both as its more interesting. But i do think Lucas's logic really does require understanding as to what he is trying to say. So when you do try and understand what a grey jedi actually is, it wouldn't actually be that simple.

 

The concept art of Finn from Duel of the Fates is already better than Finn in TROS, don’t know what you mean that him getting a very poorly done plot about having the Force is better than leading the rebellion on Coruscant.

A lot of Finn fans were disappointed after seeing that this was cut from TROS in favour of “Reeey!!”

 

Finn didn’t even have a poorly done force plot. He had a “Reyyyyyyy I need to tell you something important!” and a needless bicker with Poe about stupid stuff plot,

 

my bad, he had a plot about having “a feeling”

 

Anyone who ever said “I have a bad feeling about this” had a secret force plot

 

i mean... it’s kinda true. In the phantom menace, the first bad feeling is Obi-Wan’s force intuition.

And that means ... BB8 is force-sensitive!

 

BB8 and Finn rebuild the Jedi Order while Rey Palpatine Skywalker builds a monument to Ben Solo

 

I don't feel like Rey is terribly particularly sad about Kylo's death enough to do that.