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JJ Abrams to direct new Star Wars movie?

I feel like it's a logical enough choice, even as odd as it is to have him take the helm of both the Star Wars & Star Trek series. He seems comfortable enough with sci-fi and a well-framed dramatic scene.

Edited, Jan 24th 2013 4:57pm by Eske

Star Wars: Episode IX - Directed by Paul Verhoeven

The Star Trek movie is exactly the film that bothered me the most. It was awful. And not just the plot (which was "ok" if not for the massive holes), but the visuals were obnoxious. Oddly, when I watched it on TV, it looked just fine. It was just too busy and hard to watch when on the big screen (especially Imax which is what I saw it on).



Ok. You win! I stand corrected.

I'm honestly fine with this. Star Wars seems like the kind of movie he should be doing. Maybe this means he'll relinquish Star Trek to someone better suited to it after the upcoming movie(and maybe that person will go with a script option that doesn't further legitimize this alt-timeline **********

Exactly. I'm saying that the Powers that Be are going to grab the director they think is a safe bet, the one with a track record. If the film is good, that's a bonus, but Abrams' name carries weight, and he will sell tickets, even if the actual movie is terrible.

I think we can all safely say that my iteration is the best of the recent offerings.

Watched this just for some Kunis on Portman action. A friend of mine's wife wanted to watch it, and tried to convince him to watch it with her by using that as a lure. He didn't go for it and refused to watch it.

Ewoks were worse.

I have a cousin who will simply refuse to watch Return of the Jedi because of the Ewoks. His hate for them burns like a thousand suns (or something like that). He could just never get around the idea that a mighty galaxy spanning empire, run by the baddest bad guys ever, who utterly defeated the most powerful of good guys, and who seemed to always be 5 steps ahead of everyone else, could be brought down by a group of teddy bears with rocks and sticks. Me, I get the message there, so it doesn't bother me that much, but honestly, he's got a point. Only in a screenplay does that sort of thing actually happen.

He annoys me on a personal level. I can't really explain what it is about him, just that I don't like him.

I'm right there with your cousin. Ewoks ruin Return of the Jedi for me. Even setting aside the improbability of the whole thing, they really harm the rest of the films through way that they make the Empire look like Scooby Doo villains. It's a rough contrast. The comedic relief that the Ewoks are supposed to provide is awful, and it's awkwardly crammed in right alongside the "drama" of the battle scene where they're all getting killed. Also, they age so much worse than everything else in those films, too - they look like something out of a lower budget (and generally speaking, dumber) movie.

Yeah. Like I said, I "get it" in that they're playing up the empires arrogance factor. They were trying to recapture the same concept as in the first movie (episode 4) where the weakness of the Death Star was because the Empire didn't consider small fighters a threat. But what made that work was that Luke had the force on his side, turning a nearly impossible attack (which everyone fails at until Luke comes along) that the Empire didn't worry about into a believable outcome. You could get why the Empire didn't take efforts to prevent that attack because they'd already made it as close to impossible to exploit as possible.

In episode 6 though, the empire was defending that building. They had intentionally put sufficient force there to prevent the rebel assault (which they knew was coming) from succeeding. There's no special reason for the Ewoks to be able to tip the balance except that they wanted to do the whole "They weren't expecting it, so it worked" kind of deal. It's the David vs Goliath kind of thing, except that when David was Luke, it made sense and worked. But when David was a band of little bears with spears and rocks, it didn't so much. I suppose it also blunted the whole victory over evil thing because it wasn't the "heroes" who won. It was dumb luck (and not force related either).

To be fair though, the point of the whole thing was that the real battle was taking place between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor. That was the good triumphing over evil part, so the battle on the planet could be left to that dumb luck I suppose. Again, I got what they were doing, but I also totally see why that resolution was supremely unsatisfying for a whole lot of fans.