JJ Abrams to direct Star Wars: Episode VII

[maid memories]

JJ Abrams to Direct Episode VII

The endings of the movies he's involved with don't seem to make me as angry as the TV series he creates.

[sonofabeach]

Cool! There are so many characters for whichever direction they go.
There are rumors of Mark Hamill returning.
I guess he'll play an old Luke Skywalker training a new Jedi Knight, much like Obi-Wan did with him.


My dream would be a darker tone with Tarantino directing...but hey, it's Disney.
I'm actually glad it's out of Lucas' hands now.

Yes, I'm a dork....

[surfpirate]

I'd like to see Hurley as a character. I mean, he did try to rewrite STAR WARS in a LOST time-travel episode ....
"In Empire, Luke found out Vader was his father, but instead of putting away his lightsaber and talking about it,
he overreacted and got his hand cut off. I mean, they worked it out eventually, but at what cost?
Another Death Star was destroyed, Boba Fett got eaten by the Sarlacc, and we got the Ewoks.
It all could've been avoided if they'd just, you know, communicated. And let's face it. The Ewoks sucked, dude."

Maybe that's just me.

[drunkpirate66]

He did an amazing job with Star Trek. As much of a sci fi nerd as I am I never really liked Star Trek - any of them . . . tv or movies. Abrams' Star Trek was awesome. I can't wait for the next one coming out sometime this year. A common theme in the majority of his work is creating some sort of time paradox. He did it in Star Trek (which outraged many of the die hard fans) which basically reset the entire plot for all the major characters (making all the prior tv episodes and movies irrelevant to the current story that he was trying to tell). I wonder if that will somehow come into to Star Wars.

[CaptainP]

I don't think he will involve time-travel. This is still Lucas' baby. The entirety of the Star Wars Galaxy is based around a singular plot that is spread out over several movies, and several generations. This should be a continuation of that battle.


Meanwhile, I'm wondering about what the "hard-core" fans think.
Star Wars junkies don't care for Star Trek.
Trekkies don't like Star Wars.

Up until now, the only person of signicance who has crossed over and worked in both has been George Takei. He was Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek, and he worked on the "Star Wars: Clone Wars" series, as Lok Durd.

Now Abrams, who has had success with Star Trek, is crossing over. What will the Trekkies think?

Meanwhile, I'm off to watch "King of the Nerds"...George Takei is a guest judge tonight!!!

[drunkpirate66]

If you go by the hundreds if not thousands of Lucas endorsed and official Star Wars books, Clone Wars plots and sub plots, and graphic novels (of which I have read like 2) it is not really a singular plot . . . unless you are really thinking universally and your statement, P, is just about Jedi's doing stuff. If it does continue from where the original 6 left off Han Solo and Leia have kids who are Jedi's. One of which, Jacen Solo, is quite the bad as$. Luke Skywalker eventually does turn bad and Jacen kicks the sh*t out of him. The Emperor comes back, somehow, and creates something called a Galaxy Gun.

[drunkpirate66]

If you go by the hundreds if not thousands of Lucas endorsed and official Star Wars books, Clone Wars plots and sub plots, and graphic novels (of which I have read like 2) it is not really a singular plot . . . unless you are really thinking universally and your statement, P, is just about Jedi's doing stuff. If it does continue from where the original 6 left off Han Solo and Leia have kids who are Jedi's. One of which, Jacen Solo, is quite the bad as$. Luke Skywalker eventually does turn bad and Jacen kicks the sh*t out of him. The Emperor comes back, somehow, and creates something called a Galaxy Gun.

[Tiki Torches]

This aired on Conan O'Brien's show a while back, "Wes Anderson's "Star Wars: Episode VII" Audition Tape":

[Nighthawk]

he has ONE CHANCE to prove himself. If he screws up, well he can pretty much tell himself he is 86'ed from the planet earth, and better take a good amount of drugs, and before he does let us know what he is taking..... So we can somewhat enjoy his ABORTION

[CaptainP]

If you go by the hundreds if not thousands of Lucas endorsed and official Star Wars books, Clone Wars plots and sub plots, and graphic novels (of which I have read like 2) it is not really a singular plot . . . unless you are really thinking universally and your statement, P, is just about Jedi's doing stuff. If it does continue from where the original 6 left off Han Solo and Leia have kids who are Jedi's. One of which, Jacen Solo, is quite the bad as$. Luke Skywalker eventually does turn bad and Jacen kicks the sh*t out of him. The Emperor comes back, somehow, and creates something called a Galaxy Gun.

If I'm remembering, it's Anakin Solo that turns out to be the best Jedi candidate of the Solo children. Jacen and Jaina are talented but Anakin is the scary one. But it's been a decade since I read any of that...

[Bicycle Bill]

Well, they could always go steampunk......


(and frankly, the fact that someone else also thinks this way, so far as to create these action figures, actually frightens me)

-"BB"-

[krusin1]

As a fan of both Star Trek and Star Wars, honestly, I'm pretty excited about this guy directing.

I always liked (loved?) the Star Trek franchise and was VERY concerned about the re-boot. JJ Abrams did it masterfully. Kept a lot of the iconic feel, but gave it a fresh look and with the timeline divergence, a fresh place to start.

I'm hoping he'll recapture some of the character-driven aspects of the original three Star Wars movies and move the story forward. IMNSHO, the newer Star Wars movies, while still good, seemed too caught up in making the scenery and visuals "grand" in scale and lost a lot of the interesting character nuances.

Crossing my fingers...

[CaptainP]

As a fan of both Star Trek and Star Wars, honestly, I'm pretty excited about this guy directing.

I always liked (loved?) the Star Trek franchise and was VERY concerned about the re-boot. JJ Abrams did it masterfully. Kept a lot of the iconic feel, but gave it a fresh look and with the timeline divergence, a fresh place to start.

I'm hoping he'll recapture some of the character-driven aspects of the original three Star Wars movies and move the story forward. IMNSHO, the newer Star Wars movies, while still good, seemed too caught up in making the scenery and visuals "grand" in scale and lost a lot of the interesting character nuances.

Crossing my fingers...

I think the biggest issues (other than Jar-Jar) with the newer trilogy was the acting. It pains me to criticize Natalie Portmann (who is one of the most talented actresses in Hollywood), but her chemistry with Heyden Christiansen was terrible. The love story, while neccessary, was horribly written and poorly executed.

The movies aren't given their fair shake, though. Yes, they didn't live up to SW, ESB, and ROTJ. What would? It's the same as when critics get on Pink Floyd's case because "The Division Bell" and "A Momentary Lapse Of Reason" were not as good as "Dark Side Of The Moon" or "The Wall". The bar was set so high. The expectations were so high. There was simply no way to live up to them. If you consider these movies WITHOUT episodes 4-6 as the standard, they are mostly pretty darned good. Take out Jar-Jar and the love story, they could be considered GREAT. But they aren't "The Empire Strikes Back". So critics say the movies s***. They don't. They just s*** in comparison.

[LIPH]

It's the same as when critics get on Pink Floyd's case because "The Division Bell" and "A Momentary Lapse Of Reason" were not as good as "Dark Side Of The Moon" or "The Wall".

Wait, are you saying there are people who think any Pink Floyd music is good and they listen to it on purpose? That's just crazy talk.

[maid memories]

Given that the screenplay has already been written by Michael Arndt, I'm not worried about the next few films deviating from Lucasfilms' endorsed universe. His work on the Star Trek reboot was amazing and even Ghost Protocol seems to have breathed new life into the Mission: Impossible series.

I like Conan O'Brien's take on it: "JJ Abrams directing Star Wars is acceptable, IF it's an alternate timeline where Jar-Jar is incinerated 30 seconds into Phantom Menace."

I'm a little perturbed at the moment due to a recent and unfulfilling series finale that left me crying for an hour, provided little to no payoff for the storyline the fans had been following for years, and have come to blame Abrams for that and several other series endings that have left me with cinematic blue balls. However, his movies don't seem to suffer the same fate.

I'm officially excited about this.

[sonofabeach]

Personally, I'd rather have episode 3.5, taking place right after Anakin becomes Vader. I like to see Vader in his prime, hunting down remaining Jedi Knights and the newly formed Empire wreaking havoc throughout the galaxy. But that's just a nerd dream of mine

[Tiki Torches]

I'm not some kind of Star Wars nerd but if I remember right, Lucas' original idea was for there to be 11 films all told. Other than the most recent prequels I'm not sure whatever became of that or if that outline is something that's going to be followed by the folks at Disney. I do know that Lucas will still have a hand in it to some degree.

As for Abrams, I've never seen a single episode of Lost but I have seen some of his other work including Super 8, Cloverfield and the recent Star Trek reboot. It was obvious that Super 8 was an homage to Spielberg. Considering that Lucas' and Spielberg's artistic vision isn't that far apart, I think Abrams could do a lot with the franchise. It'll definitely be interesting to see where he takes it.

[tigzoe]

I watched Fanboys tonight. The worlds of SW and ST should not collide. It is just wrong.

[drunkpirate66]

As a fan of both Star Trek and Star Wars, honestly, I'm pretty excited about this guy directing.

I always liked (loved?) the Star Trek franchise and was VERY concerned about the re-boot. JJ Abrams did it masterfully. Kept a lot of the iconic feel, but gave it a fresh look and with the timeline divergence, a fresh place to start.

I'm hoping he'll recapture some of the character-driven aspects of the original three Star Wars movies and move the story forward. IMNSHO, the newer Star Wars movies, while still good, seemed too caught up in making the scenery and visuals "grand" in scale and lost a lot of the interesting character nuances.

Crossing my fingers...

I think the biggest issues (other than Jar-Jar) with the newer trilogy was the acting. It pains me to criticize Natalie Portmann (who is one of the most talented actresses in Hollywood), but her chemistry with Heyden Christiansen was terrible. The love story, while neccessary, was horribly written and poorly executed.

The movies aren't given their fair shake, though. Yes, they didn't live up to SW, ESB, and ROTJ. What would? It's the same as when critics get on Pink Floyd's case because "The Division Bell" and "A Momentary Lapse Of Reason" were not as good as "Dark Side Of The Moon" or "The Wall". The bar was set so high. The expectations were so high. There was simply no way to live up to them. If you consider these movies WITHOUT episodes 4-6 as the standard, they are mostly pretty darned good. Take out Jar-Jar and the love story, they could be considered GREAT. But they aren't "The Empire Strikes Back". So critics say the movies s***. They don't. They just s*** in comparison.

I actually rank the Revenge of the Sith (Episode III) over Return of the Jedi (Episode VII).

My rankings in order:

1. Empire Strikes Back (V) Perfection.
2. A New Hope (IV) Perfection.
3. Revenge of the Sith (III) Pretty darn good flick. The ending was a little cheesey and rushed. But overall - awesome!!!!! Yoda v. Emperor. Anakin v. Obi Wan. The opening 20 minutes were epic.
4. Return of the Jedi (VI) Too Many Ewoks and the Emperor getting thrown over the railing is lame sh*t. Vader. v. Emperor light saber fight would've been legendary. Why Luca, why didn't you give the fans the greatest fight scene ever imaginable!!!???
5. Attack of the Clones (II) - only because I waited my entire life to see Yoda fight otherwise this piece of s*** would be ranked beneath Howard the Duck and Troll II.
6. Phantom Menace (1). Jar Jar. Pod Racing. Horrible CGI. Everything about it except the Obi Wan/Qui Gon v. Maul light saber fight.

[tigzoe]

I agree with Jon for once. I feel so dirty.