Are you a Star Wars fan? I'm beginning to question if I am... - Page 4 - OG Myth-Weavers

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Are you a Star Wars fan? I'm beginning to question if I am...

   
The problem with JJA I have is that I have yet to see him produce anything good. As for reviving the Trek and Wars franchises: Trek was contaminated by Kurtzman&Orci, and I would have preferred that trek stay dead forever than revived as that excrement sandwich that K&O specialize in serving to fans of franchises.
Lost reminded me a lot of Twin Peaks, in that it seems like a show that everyone watched and praised to the stars, but which ultimately will become unmemorable and badly dated after a decade. The show actually lost me after 10 minutes, as it failed my 10 minute test.
JJA stikes me as trying desperately to be the next Spielberg, aping his styles and ideas, but without the originality or substance.

Harsh? Yes.
But then, his TED Talk about film making showed me that he was so completely far off the mark that there was no way he & I would ever agree on anything film-related.

There is one way that you can say that JJ Abrams is the slayer of scifi franchises: in both his Star Trek and Star Wars movies, the first step in making the movie was retconning away the vast majority of the franchise that had existed before he got involved. With Star Trek, it was an in-universe retcon using time travel to wipe out all of TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, leaving only Enterprise (yay...). In Star Wars it was a sweep of the hand to purge the entirety of the EU from existence.

I mostly make that observation in good fun, though. I actually liked the first and third Star Trek reboots for what they are, and had a lot of fun (the second one can go jump in a black hole). Episode VII, as I've already said, was great fun for me, and imo a shot of energy and fun that the franchise desperately needed. If you want to bring in a new generation of fans, sometimes it helps to wipe clean the slate and let the new people come to love the new version on their own terms.

But it's not hard to see why people who didn't like those movies might see JJ as some sort of scifi franchise Galactus, moving from continuity to continuity and consuming all that the fans hold dear.

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Originally Posted by Raistlinmc View Post
That's what 1977 will do to a droid.

There are a lot of people who have a hard time remembering what they were doing during the 70's, precisely because they were doing it.

" I've heard someone call JJ Abrams - surely the most successful geek in modern history; the Theo Epstine of sci-fi, if you will - a destroyer of franchises, which seems like an interestingly hyperbolic statement, considering Star Trek and Star Wars were largely dormant, given-up-for-dead franchises before he took their collective reins."

Yep, that would be me. The Star Trek movies are mediocre, at best, and made some really silly mistakes. The only good thing I can say about them is that at least they didn't hit the cosmic re-set button and save Vulcan in the end.

As was mentioned above, RotJ was an excellent way to end the series. TFA did absolutely nothing to advance the story, it had weak villains, and a weak...well, let's just say everything was weak. If TFA is the way of things to come for the original saga, then yeah, I'm abandoning it as fan of that particular aspect of the universe. Because it was a terrible movie and ruined the whole experience for me. Why would I waste my money watching a movie(s) that I think sucks? Nostalgia only goes so far with me. This is why I have such high hopes for the Anthology series.

I will say this about JJ Abrams. He is an excellent Producer (for the most part), a director he is not. He needs to stay where his talents are.

Quote:
Originally Posted by NiceHat View Post
But it's not hard to see why people who didn't like those movies might see JJ as some sort of scifi franchise Galactus, moving from continuity to continuity and consuming all that the fans hold dear.
That's more of a Kurtzman&Orci thing: they take beloved franchises from people's childhoods, take a great big steaming dump on them, put it in a bun and serve it to the fans. They started be destroying new shows (Jack of All Trades) and working their way up to destroying Trek, Transformers, Enders Game, Garfield Spider-Man, and more.

I loved the original trilogy and also enjoyed the prequel trilogy for its actual plot and action, but not its dialogue or acting (stilted, wooden and ridiculous). The actual plot of the prequels (taken as a single story arc stretched over three films) appealed more to me than the plot of the original trilogy.

I also have to keep in mind that I saw the original trilogy as a little kid. I saw the prequel trilogy as a teenager. And I saw Episode VII as an adult. Really enjoyed Episode VII not because of the nostalgia but *in spite* of it. Yes, I think it would have been a better movie with *less* Han and Leia and *more* Rey, Finn and Po.

Watching the original trilogy as an adult, I can see that the acting was mostly terrible and the plot arc of the trilogy as a whole was kind of lame and derivative. But I still love it because nostalgia. Childhood was great! I firmly believe that if I would have watched the original trilogy for the first time as an adult, I would not have understood what all the fuss was about or even worse, not liked them much at all. What time of life you experience something matters for how you view it at the time and for your life later...

I still consider myself a Star Wars fan overall, but as I've gotten older the fandom for me has shifted away from the movies and to the EU material: the board games and video games, the comics, and the various novels. (even if they aren't official "canon," which TBH to me doesn't and has never mattered even a little bit). At this point to me the movies are secondary, TBH.

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Originally Posted by WhisperMagellan View Post
That's more of a Kurtzman&Orci thing: they take beloved franchises from people's childhoods, take a great big steaming dump on them, put it in a bun and serve it to the fans. They started be destroying new shows (Jack of All Trades) and working their way up to destroying Trek, Transformers, Enders Game, Garfield Spider-Man, and more.
Not really sure where you are going here? TFA was directed by JJ Abrams and he was also a (senior) writer for the movie. It seems that most of the fault can be laid right a JJ's feet here. I'm not really sure where Kurtzman & Orci come into the equation?

Though I do see they have a hand in the upcoming Universal Monster movie reboots coming up. That may not bode well.

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Originally Posted by Legate71 View Post
Not really sure where you are going here? TFA was directed by JJ Abrams and he was also a (senior) writer for the movie. It seems that most of the fault can be laid right a JJ's feet here. I'm not really sure where Kurtzman & Orci come into the equation?

Though I do see they have a hand in the upcoming Universal Monster movie reboots coming up. That may not bode well.
I was referring to the "Killers of Franchises" label that's been tagged to JJA. I consider K&O to be far more guilty of that than JJA.

Quote:
Originally Posted by WhisperMagellan View Post
I was referring to the "Killers of Franchises" label that's been tagged to JJA. I consider K&O to be far more guilty of that than JJA.
I have a hard time grokking how making new content is killing a franchise, as opposed to no new content at all. The original content still exists and no one forces anyone to watch new movies. Mind you, that's the issue with the Fandom Menace, not only do they not like stuff, they don't want other people to like stuff either. I just hope they stay away from the kids who are having a good time pretending to be Finn and Rey.





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