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

It was like created to the book’s publishing.

ie - after the movie’s release.

It happens. The movie was reshot up the wazoo, after all.

 

no I meant that it's a hot mess and not cathartic to me

 

I didn't find it strange at all... go back and watch the interviews leading up to the release of TROS and pay particular attention to how J.J. acted at the world premier. Compare those appearances to how J.J. behaved in the lead-up to TFA. J.J. Abrams was acting very nervous and uneasy during the promotion of TROS and was clearly NOT confident or happy with the final product when compared to his behavior surrounding TFA. Add this to the fact that his co-editors on TFA and TROS have outright stated that RJ made some major mistakes with TLJ and some of its story decisions and I don't think it's hard to imagine that J.J. didn't agree with some of the story choices and didn't have as much control of TROS as he did TFA.

 

Yeah- that was assumed at the time but pretty clear by now.

 

A JJ commentary track for TROS would be fascinating, if he got honest and frank about how he decided to tie off all the ST's disparate story threads.

 

I would absolutely love for that to happen but he's done with Star Wars. I think he was done with it before TROS but felt compelled to finish the Trilogy, for better or worse.

 

Perhaps the most overrated filmmaker (by the industry) of the 21st century.

For me he joins Peter Jackson in that category.

 

Peter Jackson at least delivered a great trilogy of films. The Hobbit was a mess and he never should have taken them on when Guillermo left. JJ hasn't delivered competently done series of films ever so he is in a category by himself now I think for the time being.

 

It's a shame he had to push out a film that he didn't believe in.

 

As much as I dislike TLJ, at least RJ had a vision. A flawed one, but a vision after all. TFA was a reasonably good start for the ST, but JJ was not able to bring anything new to the table. Everything was either a direct copy of the OT or a evolution so timid you could barely tell the difference.

If TLJ shook the franchise, TROS was like a Power Rangers version of SW. The entire movie feels cheap. Bringing back Palpatine was probably the biggest mistake in the franchise. How the handled Rey's parentage was probably the worst scenario they could have chosen. Finn, Poe, Jannah, neither had one ounce of charisma (Poe has always felt like a character that is under the effects of drugs to me, he is so exaggerated on his reactions).

What about the world building? JJ has not brought a single interesting new environment to the franchise. Not a single one!! Didn't he see RO? That movie just destroys TFA and TROS in terms of world building. Not a single new ship either. In the Star Destroyers in TFA were almost a copy of the OT one, the TROS SDs were simple the OT ones! No imagination at all.

When I read Duel of the Fates by Trevorrow, I found it a way more compelling story. If TLJ was bad, there was only one thing worse to do, which was ignoring the movie all together. What Trevorrow intended was merging both TFA and TLJ, while also bringing some interesting ideas from the PT and also new concepts we had never seen before. No Palpatine nonsense, no Rey Skywalker crap. He even had the decency of not hiding Rose!

After the two Star Trek movies and Super 8, I was excited in 2013 with JJ directing a sotry by Lucas and Arndt. But 8 years later it is quite clear what is behind Abrams is more PR than talent. He is a director I have no interest in anymore and surely someone I don't want anywhere near SW in the future.

 

JJ Abrams probably had to fit close to a year of development and pre-production in a matter because of a few months after they fired Trevorrow in 9/2017. We have seen claims by Terrio that there were constant rewrites for Rise of Skywalker. They just didn't have the time to develop a solid story to meet the December 2019 release schedule. Given the aborted schedule, it's undoubtedly he wasn't confident about this, TROS was a rush job and JJ was racing against the clock to crank out a movie.

 

I would buy this if I had ever seen JJ deliver anything at all, even without a time crunch. Star Trek 09 is an insult. Force Awakens was a disaster - and that similarily had a short writing time because, y'know, Maker forbid Hollywood ever worry about writing over anything else. JJ should be running a camera on the overnight shift at C-Span, and that's an insult to the people actually doing that (or the robots). We'd have lens flare on the floor of the House.

 

He's not the greatest filmmaker, but he makes serviceable and fun movies. Except for TROS, and to an extent, STID. Both of those are terrible.

 

I think JJ Abrams is underrated when it comes to transporting a feeling. There is something about his SW movies. They have flaws but I really like both of them. When it comes to TLJ, for me it's harder to forgive the flaws. Also TFA and TROS are way more rewatchable in my opinion. So, VII and IX are not perfect but even these “80%“-movies are pretty cool. I wonder what would have been if Abrams nailed the 100% once. Some more worldbuilding and explanations and TROS would be basically the perfect SW film.

 

The Rise of Skywalker is anything but rewatchable to me. And it isn't just the ideas that I don't like, but on a more fundamental level, it's the actual filmmaking of the thing. Where I find The Force Awakens an almost obnoxiously safe movie, it is also a very well made one. Heck, I saw TFA three times in the theater (to compare, I only saw TLJ twice on the big screen) and bought it on Blu-ray immediately to watch a bunch more times at home. The Rise of Skywalker, on the other hand, I haven't bothered watching since opening night in the theater and I honestly probably never will watch again.

And it isn't just because the fundamental stuff I disagree with - bringing back Palpatine, Rey's lineage, and the like. The film is so awfully constructed, with editing that honestly started giving me a headache. I don't think I even remember any single shot holding still for more than five seconds without the camera immediately zipping around or cutting to the next shot. TFA's pacing was fast, but deliberate; there was nothing even remotely focused about the way TRoS was constructed. I felt like I was watching a two hour trailer, or a movie on fast forward.

I riff on JJ a lot for his narrative approach, but I think he's a fine filmmaker in that regard - I went into TRoS expecting to hate the ideas, but come out with a pleasant enough movie a la TFA. What I found instead was just frustrating and maddening on even the most basic levels.

 

That's subjective, of course.

Then you should rewatch it. It's really not as rushed as people often say. It has calm moments. Sure, it's a fast movie with 'final atmosphere' but I just want to remember of Kylo and Sidious, Poe and Lando, Rey and Ben on Kef-Bir, Ben and Han, Finn and Jannah. Or do you mean 30-second-shots like in a low-paced japanese movie? Sorry but SW was never like this.

 

Well yeah, of course my take on the actual content is subjective.

Lucas' films, even the Prequels where the effects themselves were wild and new and all over the place, never really had overtly flashy cinematography or editing. He shot them almost like documentaries, with very deliberate camera movement (when the camera wasn't in a fixed position, that is) in contrast to the ways that his contemporaries around him were shooting action.

Abrams changing that formula for his own movies is fine, though. They're Abrams' movies after all, not Lucas', and I was cool with Abrams doing just that in TFA; but TRoS, on the other hand, just felt to me like a much, much sloppier version of what he did in TFA, without any style or grace to it.

Also, as for long shots and slow paced Japanese films, The Mandalorian Chapter 13: "The Jedi" is very much that in Star Wars' modern era, and I was relishing in all of it for its entire runtime.

 

Lot of hot takes floating around so I'll drop my own: Abrams used to be overrated, but he's not anymore, neither is Jackson, and Rian Johnson is way more overrated than both. The best LOTR movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey by a mile, because it best captures the vibes of its source material, as well as having the most organized and developed character arc for its protagonist. Abrams *could* have directed some good Star Wars movies because he at least understands the importance of landscapes and production design, but neither he, nor Kasdan, Terrio or Johnson were equipped to write one because none of them are actually interested enough in Star Wars. Aside from scattershot writing, TFA and TROS' biggest problems are the high-energy performances Abrams wanted from the cast, which are probably there to compensate for the writing. In any case, Abrams is more of a producer than a director at this point.

 

I believe the original plant, a trilogy based on GL's ideas, written by Arndt and directed by JJ, with each movie coming 3 years after the previous one, could have been the winning formula.

But as someone said once, "life is what happens while we are expecting other things to happen".

 

I don't necessarily think TLJ brought much more new than TFA did.

 

Co-signed. I read over and over about all the new but I’m still waiting for an explanation of what actually was new.

 

I saw TROS once and that was more than enough for me. I have better movies that I can rewatch or just plain other things to do with my time. Rewatching the ST is something that I have no intention of doing again.

100% agree on the first Hobbit film, I get why people didn't love it but it was pretty much the book on film and I could not have asked for a better adaptation. TFA was fun and had some potential but left the franchise on shaky ground that TLJ then knocked over. TROS is the worst Star Wars movie ever made. I understand why people enjoy it I like some terrible Fast and Furious films but the movie is just awful....

 

I agree. In Mando that was nice. They can establish this for series. Or spinoffs. But the very final to the saga should be energized and fast in my opinion. And it was. And I am personally fine with it. But yeah, opinions are different also (editing, pacing, etc).