Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Pre-release)

Re: Star Wars Episode VII

For all the hype he gets, I have been mightily unimpressed with JJ's direction and production abilities in pretty much everything of his I've seen. Mission Impossible 3 was...meh. Nothing special. Same story with MI4. Trek '09 and Into Darkness were...entertaining, but again, nothing special. I didn't watch LOST, but given how it ended, I don't plan to. I heard similar things about Alias.

Honestly, I'm just not all that impressed with him on the whole. He seems pretty derivative in much of his work, and where he goes for "big ideas" he lacks the wherewithal to execute them effectively.


HOWEVER

From watching Trek, it seems that he is uniquely suited to directing a Star Wars film. I would say that JJ Abrams is about as close to a young George Lucas as we're gonna get. Provided he's surrounded by enough people who will collaborate with him, I think we stand a good chance at getting a good Star Wars film out of him, that will get about as close to capturing the feel of the original trilogy as is possible in this day and age.

If you want to get that feeling again, I think JJ is pretty much the only source for it. He apes Spielberg and Lucas, sure, but he apes them better than just about anyone else, including both of them nowadays. He's not what they were when they were the golden gods of 70s and 80s cinema, but he's as close as we'll get to that long-gone era.

I think the only other person I'd really trust with the franchise would be Joss Whedon. But then I'd spend the movie trying to predict who he was gonna kill, which would be a pointless effort, since he'd probably have an out-of-control cloud car decapitate someone out of the blue rather than give them a hero's death.
 
Star Wars Episode VII

Brent M said:
Thanks for bringing your wonderful attitude to this thread. :rolleyes
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You're very welcome, Brent. :)

And thank you for your continued blind devotion to a director like Abrams. I'm sure his films are just as important to the advancement of cinema like Michael Bay and Uwe Boll. :)
 
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII

Fear is the path to the dark side.

I'm ready for JJ's take. What else is there? Keep trying, or never stand in line for more Star Wars ever again?
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

rodneyfaile said:
Fear is the path to the dark side.

I'm ready for JJ's take. What else is there? Keep trying, or never stand in line for more Star Wars ever again?
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Sometimes, leaving well enough alone is the better option. Many great films ended at a point that shouldn't have continued (the "Terminator" franchise is a great example of that. Some even cite the fourth "Indiana Jones" film as another example).
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

CB2001 said:
Sometimes, leaving well enough alone is the better option. Many great films ended at a point that shouldn't have continued (the "Terminator" franchise is a great example of that. Some even cite the fourth "Indiana Jones" film as another example).
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Very good points.

But to me, Star Wars is different. It's something more. I was much older for The Phantom Menace in 1999 than I was for the debut of the original Star Wars. Over the years the totality surrounding the cultural phenomenon of the original trilogy has certainly brought me several orders of magnitude more joy than the prequels ever did, but it could also be said that all that hype in 1999 is a memory I wouldn't trade for anything. Some of my best individual Star Wars memories come from that time. I'm looking for more of that, and I'm fairly certain I will find it.

And just as they turn to each other in Fanboys and ask "What if it sucks?" When the Episode VII opening crawl starts, and I've already had a great time, I'll be thinking, "What if JJ actually did it? What if it's awesome?" I have confidence that it will be, but even if it's not, I'm going to have a blast.
I guess I'm like a Chicago Cubs or Cleveland Browns fan. Just bring me more Star Wars.
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

CB2001 is one of the guys who will hate it regardless of how good it is. It could be the most amazing film of all time, but some people just have bad attitudes.
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

Solo4114 said:
For all the hype he gets, I have been mightily unimpressed with JJ's direction and production abilities in pretty much everything of his I've seen. Mission Impossible 3 was...meh. Nothing special. Same story with MI4. Trek '09 and Into Darkness were...entertaining, but again, nothing special. I didn't watch LOST, but given how it ended, I don't plan to. I heard similar things about Alias.

Honestly, I'm just not all that impressed with him on the whole. He seems pretty derivative in much of his work, and where he goes for "big ideas" he lacks the wherewithal to execute them effectively.
Click to expand...

The way a friend of mines describes JJ is that he has creative ADD, he gets all hopped up on an idea, starts working on it for a while but then starts to lose interest as another idea hits, he then leaves the current project for others to finish while he moves on to his next project. You then rinse and repeat as he starts but never finishes any number of projects or, in the case of movies, loses steam and creative interest. It really makes a lot of sense when you look at just how many projects JJ seems to have going at any one time, at any one time he seems to be working on or at least overseeing 2 or 3 different TV shows, writing/directing a movie, and doing pre-production work for another movie.
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

The way a friend of mines describes JJ is that he has creative ADD, he gets all hopped up on an idea, starts working on it for a while but then starts to lose interest as another idea hits, he then leaves the current project for others to finish while he moves on to his next project. You then rinse and repeat as he starts but never finishes any number of projects or, in the case of movies, loses steam and creative interest. It really makes a lot of sense when you look at just how many projects JJ seems to have going at any one time, at any one time he seems to be working on or at least overseeing 2 or 3 different TV shows, writing/directing a movie, and doing pre-production work for another movie.
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Orson Welles was exactly the same way. It sounds like Yoda's description of Luke, never his mind on where he was, what he was doing. Something like that.
 
Star Wars Episode VII

joshvanrad said:
CB2001 is one of the guys who will hate it regardless of how good it is. It could be the most amazing film of all time, but some people just have bad attitudes.
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You never agreed with me on anything when it comes to past discussions, so I'm not surprised about your opinion of me. If having no hope for another SW film makes me seem to have a "bad attitude", then so be it.

Riceball said:
The way a friend of mines describes JJ is that he has creative ADD, he gets all hopped up on an idea, starts working on it for a while but then starts to lose interest as another idea hits, he then leaves the current project for others to finish while he moves on to his next project. You then rinse and repeat as he starts but never finishes any number of projects or, in the case of movies, loses steam and creative interest. It really makes a lot of sense when you look at just how many projects JJ seems to have going at any one time, at any one time he seems to be working on or at least overseeing 2 or 3 different TV shows, writing/directing a movie, and doing pre-production work for another movie.
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I agree.
 
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII

Super 8 is probably the closest anyone has gotten to capture the feel & style of an 80's Spielberg movie

J
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

I wish Spielberg would do movies again like back in the days of ET, Indiana Jones and JP. He's always been a great filmmaker, but just miss some of that cool factor of doing something more unique that audiences have always loved that explores adventure and imagination.
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

Probe Droid said:
Monkey see, monkey do, he copies them.
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The difference between what other film makers do and what JJ does is that other film makers will at least try to make their films their own thing. JJ Abrams' films like "Super 8" feel less like copying Spielberg and more like an over indulging love letter to the man himself. Cripes, he even brought Spielberg himself on as a producer.
 
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