Great Geekspectations

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“George Hurt You” shirts for men and ladies.

I have tens, if not elevens of opinions about J.J. taking over Star Wars. Most of them are cautiously optimistic. I could so very easily write an essay about the pros and cons of this regime change, about J.J. obvious love for sci-fi, story telling and iconic geek franchises, his proven (though sometimes shaky) track record, and his NOT being George Lucas (a quality which immediately makes anyone more competent to direct a Star Wars movie that George)… I could fill this page and a dozen more with STRONG INTERNET-STYLE OPINIONS, but I won’t.

As luck would have it, the night the J.J./Star Wars rumor broke I was appearing on a podcast to do an interview about HijiNKS ENSUE. Instead I spent the first hour or so expelling those aforementioned strong opinions. It should be up Thursday. I will post a link [RIGHT HERE] when it’s available.

COMMENTERS: Will J.J. be judged harshly by Star Wars fans or will he get a free pass for simply making a competent, non-embarrassing movie? Should one man be allowed to shape the future of both Stars, Trek and Wars? What if he just combines them? What will we call the conjoined franchise? Star… Stars? Sky Laser Havers? Space Goings On?

Though I go on an OPINION FRENZY in that podcast interview, I will be happy to offer specific opinions to those of you with specific “J.J. Wars” questions.

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60 Comments

  1. I think J J Abrams fans will be pleased, and non-J J Abrams fans will be subjected to a J J Abrams movie. However any particular Star Wars fan fits into that Venn diagram, I'm sure they won't be swayed much.

    As a non-Abrams fan, I found STAR TREK to be competent, but soulless, and even upon seeing it twice have difficulty remembering what happens in it and can't quite believe it's over two hours long. I just hope the script is tight and doesn't give him room to do goofy crap he seems thrilled with himself for pulling off. /Opinion

    • I don't particularly care that they're making more Star Wars movies (the prequels were just too soul crushing, and the Extended Universe to large to keep up with), and I don't particularly care for JJ Abrams, but there is pretty much no way that Abrams' Star Wars could be worse than the prequels.

  2. I find it easier to just accept that any new Stars War (despite my love for J.J.) will suck harder than the collective sucking power of The Maw on a starship attempting a Kessel Run record.

    If they don't, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

      • "Live long, and may the Forcelicity be with you. This greeting will self-destruct after an uncertain amount of time has passed on an island that may or may not exist.

      • He should populate his corner of the Star Wars universe with nothing but inside jokes: Introduce a droid called SD-6. Ambassador Rambaldi of Sloane. Name all of the secondary protagonists Jack.

  3. I'm confident it will be fine. He probably won't do too much to hurt the franchise (in other words we PROBABLY won't be seeing a 'Show me on the reboot where JJ hurt you' shirt – I hope). My biggest worry is that it'll try to be too crowd-pleasing, shoe horning in unnecessary romances (Uhuru and Spock, anyone?) and merchandising opportunities. Then again, it's Disney now so I suppose we have to expect some of that, but hopefully it won't make me gag. There's just no way it can get worse than Padme & Anakin, right? RIGHT? Someone hug me.

  4. I'm with Joel, in that the sheer fact that Abrams isn't Lucas and doesn't openly and vocally despise Star Wars fans will make his films infinitely better than the Prequels were.

    Now I do have some worries about lens flares…

    Btw, a SW/ST cross over would be called Trek Wars. 😛

  5. Star Wars has to be the best gig to be given, ever. I mean, it's the most famous film franchise in history, guaranteed to make buckets of cash BUT has recent form so so terrible two hours of rotating dog shit in 48 FPS 3D will be an improvement. JJ must be creaming his pants just thinking about it.

    In any event, a good film is a good film however much it rapes the cannon and frankly I for one would me more than happy if it starts with the Ewoks disappearing down a closed loop in time. What I'd personally like is more Sith….loads more Sith. They seem so much more fun than those prissy Jedis.

  6. The 2 most important Sci-fi Franchises?

    Wot? He's doing Doctor Who, and Firefly ( and Andromeda and Farscape) too??

      • Farscape had so much potential.
        Andromeda was a perfect presentation of the value of good writers (in the beginning) and average writers (the next part) and OMG what were you thinking (the end, the things from the holes at seasons' end).

        I loved the way the humans didn't have to be the weakest nobodies to create drama and/or didn't need special powers (Vulcan super-ness, android super-ness, Bashir super-ness, Borg super-ness) or the classic patriarchial military complex (eg THE empire, THE rebels, THE banking clan, THE droids, THE sith, THE jedi).

        In Andromeda, Farscape and Firefly "The Man" exists but they're not everywhere in force (for A-Team style showdowns) so room for people to be people.
        SW has "super powers" but they're uncommon and both sides have them and people use them rather than serve them. (the SW movies, not the books).

        Oooh… and Baby5. (How could I forget!!)

  7. This will bring about a lasting peace between both nerd kinds. No longer shall Trekies and Jedi be forced to wage pointless war at conventions. J.J. has come to bring balance to the Federation. All hail our new Star Messiah!

  8. DIY chimney sweep: almost as reckless as DIY electrician. JJ would send a highly trained band of individuals with colourful personalities in a slick action sequence to get those damn birds.

  9. There are better choices, but there are many, many… _many_ worse ones, so I'm excited.

    J.J. did pull a neat have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too splintered universe trick with the Trek franchise re-boot that lets them change the classic characters without necessarily breaking old canon. I know it's a real long shot but if he did something similar to make the prequels go away that, in my book, would be awesome. He could re-create Darth Vadar's origin story, who wouldn't want to do that?

    • There's nothing wrong with Vader's origin story. It makes a hell of a lot of sense. It's just that it was presented SO badly.

  10. First rule of episode 7 – You do not talk about the prequels.

    Second rule of episode 7 – You do not talk about miticlorians.

    Third rule of episode 7 – never CGI what a puppet can do.

  11. I like JJ's other work, but I don't think his tone fits Star Wars. I am willing to wait and see it before passing final judgment, and I AM going to see it regardless, but I would much prefer someone like Joss Whedon had SW. I hope I'm wrong. Also, I'm not really comfortable with him having so much power. He basically holds the future of all nerdery in his hands.

  12. Honestly i'm kinda cool with JJ running star wars, so long as he doesn't make it look all overexposed and shiny like he did with star trek, and i would hope that he doesn't make a prequel or a sequel, in fact it would be kinda cool if he started laying the ground work for the yuuzhan vong war! But didn't they kinda hint at JJ's star wars future when they had r2d2 make a brief cameo in the first new star trek?

  13. First off: LOVE the alt text! 😀

    And I'm cautiously optimistic too. I've always been more of a Trekkie than a Jedi, but I had lost all interest in the Trek movies after Generations – until the JJ reboot came along. Yes, it had its flaws (too much hanging over abysses, the lens flare and "handheld" camera moves JJ clearly stole from Firefly, and Spock/Uhura? WTF), but I thoroughly enjoyed it nevertheless.

        • First Contact is really the only good TNG movie. Generations was obviously multiple scripts mashed together, Insurrection was a decent 2 part episode (which was nice after years without TNG) and Insurrection was… well, it was a thing.

          • Generations had the tough task of transitioning from TOS to TNG, so I tend to be rather forgiving where the script is concerned.

    • I'm enough of a Trek geek to remember some of the UST between Spock and Uhura in the Original Series. That bit didn't exactly come out of nowhere. (And the script was written by two other guys, even bigger geeks than I am, so even if you didn't like it you can't really blame JJ.)

  14. Aha, so Joss Whedon's secret is revealed too! There must be a Josh Whedon, a José Whedon…

    I think JJ managed to do something interesting with the original Star Trek while making sure canon was wasways nodded to. I think he has the iomagination and repsect to make further Star Wars feel fresh yet always link to the past.

  15. Star Wars is missing time travel. All SF should have time travel in it. Have you ever seen a bad time travel story? Of course, for every 12 Monkeys there's a Looper, but still, even Time Cop was fun.

  16. I'm in an odd position with this. I liked the Star Trek reboot for all it's lens flare and Chris Pine but I was never a massive Star Trek fan.

    Star Wars on the other hand *is* my childhood. When my wife bought me the original cinema releases on DVD I was so happy I squealed like a small child. I think there's a chance Abrams can do it well and do it in a way we haven't really seen before, but I'm worried if his worst instincts (*cough*Lost*cough) take over it could be awful…

  17. I just started watching LOST, so I have a total geek!crush on Abrams right now. SO GOOD!

    That aside, though, I really like the Star Trek reboot for what it is, so I'm looking forward to Abrams' take on another iconic scifi franchise. I worry, though, that Star Wars fandom will be less okay with a reinvention/reboot. I *love* Star Wars, but I'm not a massive, uber-invested fan, so I can't speak for Star Wars Fandom, per se. I'm just looking forward to seeing some new stories in this awesome universe.

    • I think it's time for the Warsians (or whatever variant name they have that's like Trekker) to enjoy bucketloads of nerdrage over their franchise getting all shook up…Eps I-III don't count. 😎

  18. I feel as though JJ is one of those directors who might create their best work when kept on a tighter leash by a good producer, rather than being given a blank cheque to run the show however he sees fit.

    With the Disney ownership having "endless cash" in it's Pro column, I'm not sure whether or not I'm meant to be worried.

  19. "Should one man be allowed to shape the future of both Stars, Trek and Wars? What if he just combines them?"

    It's so cute how you didn't notice that he did that already.

    The new Star Trek movie was clearly JJ's "Star Trek: Star Wars Edition". He admitted before making that movie that he "never really got Star Trek" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/07/jj-abrams-interview-star-trek) and the movie clearly shows it: it was a Star Wars wannabe. Maybe good sci-fi (I didn't think so but I'm willing to allow that others would) but certainly not Trek.

    Abrams going to Star Wars can only be a good thing. Star Wars is supposed to be mindless. Star Trek isn't but that's what we got so he's proved he can do it.

    • Heh, that explains a lot. Indeed, he didn't get Star Trek… I can't deny I had fun the first time I watched the reboot, but I can't really call it a true Star Trek either. And watching it again only pointed me out the rampant racism within the whole thing. J.J. twisted it in its most important values.

      I wouldn't call Star Wars "mindless", but it's quite a classical (dare I say, cliché ?) story. I guess it's what they used to say (something like 40 years ago): you can't be a fan of both franchises… And that could explain why old time Star Wars fans did appreciate the reboot…

  20. As a lovebot (I assume that's his pedo logo running through a field right?) for the J J Abrams Star Trek. With such a soul crushing mistake the prequels were I am excited to see new life in a scifi world that had as much baggage as Star Trek did.

    It can't be any worse, now can it?

  21. I would much rather have seen Whedon or Favreau direct than Abrams. Zach Snyder would have been an interesting choice too.

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