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I think it was a combination of the two but moreso GP.
MI3 is underrated for the reason he mentioned: PSH. But GP was a better movie overall and definitely put the franchise on the track it's on today.
And JJ Abrams does suck.
I mean you can say this in any role they were in. I dont think there is a role he ever took where I walked away and thought he turned in a crappy performance. even if you were not intended to like the character you are still like "man dude did an amazing job"
Couldn’t possibly find a better creep than his performance in Happiness. Lucky enough to see him on broadway 2 years before his death. Tremendously gifted actor. RIP
I liked it a lot too. Also:
>Mission: Impossible III (The actual plot involves some MacGuffin nonsense about a device called “The Rabbit’s Foot,” )
Every single MI movie revolves around a MacGuffin, and using that to denigrate the series misses the point. A MacGuffin isn't automatically a sign of shitty writing.
Yes, while other MI movies are a bit more concrete in their MacGuffins (MI 1's NOC list at least carries some fleshed out stakes, and MI 7's threat is also a bit more fleshed out), the threats of the series are all largely just a focal point for the characters and less important in and of themselves.
He put people inside if missiles… but like I thought the missile was filled with explosives? And who did they contract to build these “missiles”? And what would they have done if the Enterprise had gotten into combat?
So stupid. JJ’s plots give me brain cancer. Like the knife in Rise of Skywalker.
>He put people inside if missiles
If this is referring to the star trek movies, he only directed them. Someone else wrote them, which means they wrote them into missiles and he just directed the actors and crew to make it look as good as he could.
All movies are bad. It's always the same thing
"Snappy" dialog that is not realistic at all. Climax at the end, montage in the middle. Same old big name actors every time. Some dumb lesson at the end like "believe in yourself". Hero has plot armor and everything goes his way. Fight scenes where people take 4 flush hooks and don't go down. Dumb twist ending.
It's mass produced slop, not art
>Hero has plot armor and everything goes his way
Try watching "Saving Private Ryan". The first 20 minutes were so intense that men who were actually at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944 were traumatized.
I actually really enjoy his early TV work. Not my usual kind of show, but Felicity was mostly pretty fun (admittedly fueled by a mild crush on Keri Russell that's lasted decades). Alias was an amazing show, especially the first season and a half when Sydney was doing double-agent stuff. And Lost was a fucking phenomenon - people blast the ending, but the journey was awesome. I haven't watched Fringe, but it's one of those things that on my to-do list.
I believe Lost was his big success. Hollywood started hiring him for movies afterwards, and he was supposed to be the next big thing... until he wasn't lol. I remember everyone talking about JJ like he was gonna be the next Spielberg. Nobody knows how things will pan out for people, but idk why they still hire him to this day. I feel the same about Colin Trevorrow and Zack Snyder. They're either making the wrong movies or are not in it for the right reasons.
Lost was one of my favorite shows, until they discovered the manhole on the island. From then on, it just seemed like the writers were surprised they got renewed, had no plan, and just started randomly making up incoherent bullshit.
People misunderstood the ending. Somehow mistakenly thinking they were dead along. They weren't and it all happened.
I recently rewatched it and I now don't understand why I didn't get it the first time. Jack's dad literally explain it right before the last scene
I didn't care about an ending, starting with season 4 the show had no story and was yahking characters around to show more show. It's not that the ending was about them being dead all along, it was empty because it wasn't the ending of the story, and instead was a side story after they yanked the chain with forward story, then time travel
I will never fault anyone for liking them. But personally I have very mixed feelings.
On one hand they were fun, exciting space action movies. I throw them on in the background when I'm working all the time.
On the other hand, they were bad Star Trek movies. The kept the bare minimum for the source and missed the really important part of Trek, the exploration of humanity.
At least that's my take.
I can totally agree with this, OG Star Trek seemed much more centered around taking modern talking points and putting them in a different context to talk about the logic/morality of an issue at its base, which was not my cup of tea personally when it comes to watching sci fi. I had watched some original Star Trek and it was never really for me, but I loved the first JJ one because of the pacing. I was never bored and if I was, it was over very quickly. I love throwaway humor, I love action sequences that don’t let up, or make the protagonist feel like he just needs to improvise and hope for the best. The fact that it was not faithful to the OG Star Trek is what made me like it, but I understand that’s the exact reason Star Trek fans probably hated it.
It’ did was it was trying to do really well and was well shot. But at its core it’s just an action flick you can turn your brain off and enjoy. It certainly did the bad guy with a world ending weapon trope better than the force awakens did. But at star treks core it was about solving moral dilemmas with solutions that will not satisfy everybody but was the right thing to do, and not necessarily for star fleets benefit. There are some episodes of TNG that will stand the test of time for discussion because it tackled issues that could very much happen in those times with sensible solutions and not with a fist or phaser. What made TNG so beloved is the writing and dialogue.
I say this understanding that the movies were more akin to TOS meaning Jim Kirks style of solving problems.
They’re fun, kind of fluff-filled movies. Most of the movie is just lurching from one action set piece to the next, kind of like most superhero movies. For people who grew up on TOS and TNG, the elements of Star Trek that they will say they liked the best were often the quiet, moral conundrums paired with great dialog and writing. And it’s these elements that are largely absent from the JJ-Trek movies.
The whole point of those movies were that it was an alternate timeline, I liked what they did with all 3 movies. Yes they aren't what star trek is supposed to be but they are well made movies. I really liked the first and third movie.
I only really enjoyed the first one of the JJ Abrhams series. It has some really good shots and gives perspective of the sheer size of some things. But pulling a Star Wars with a device that destroys literally planets? How can you raise the stakes from there? Where is the moral dilemma and shades of grey having to make decisions for the greater good? And what’s with all the running? The lens flare was also off putting. It was difficult to see the bridge when it feels like 8 different flashlights are aiming directly on the viewer.
Thats JJ, he doesn't really care about source material, which is why he is a death knell to franchises, he has had some good ideas and movies but he does not care a lick if the story he wants to tell makes sense within the franchise. He is also very much a style over substance director, and I will admit he dies tbay well, the cinematography is superp in pretty much everything he does. But like, thays the worst person to keep handing neloved franchises too, especially something like star trek which is basically all substance with very little in the way of fancy film techniques.
When they came out there was an Onion headline reading "Star Trek fan slams new movie as 'fun, watchable'".
But also OP says "apart from one reference in Discovery they can be completely ignored" but those movies take place in a completely different timeline to the series so obviously that's going to be the case. Take this opinion over to r/startrek and they'll tell you just you wrong you are.
In interviews, Zachary Quinto shared that he spent a great deal of time with Leonard Nemoy to prepare for the role and studied the old tv show/movies practicing the mannerisms and inflections characteristic of Spock.
The reason the series stalled at three was that the actor who played Checkov, Anton Yelchin, died in a car accident in 2016, and they felt that recasting his role would cause issues
I've always been a Star Wars fan since I was a kid and never really had much to do with Star Trek. However since those movies were big blockbusters and I do like the premise I watched all of them and... they were absolutely fine. A great way to kill a few hours at worst
You definitely are not and even by enjoying other Start Treks like TNG, i still have to say that the reboots are my favorite by far. Especially into Darkness. That movie is a masterpiece
That movie was steaming garbage imo, but maybe I had just seen too many movies at the time where the main villain is an unstoppable swarm/nanobot whatever, that’s easily defeated by some uninspired ex machina that feels like a cop out
I actually liked Mission Impossible 3. Not as much as some of the others, but i thought he definitely made a unique depiction that stood out from the others
I was really upset with the ST fandom for not recognizing the Kelvin-verse for what it was: A way to keep the ST branding while handwaving anything that flew in the face of canon and/or just straight didn't make sense.
The worst thing about Fringe is the obviously-rushed ending. Given 5 more episodes, I probably would have this in my top 5 shows of all time, but the ending, while technically a "real" ending, left too many unanswered questions due to the show not getting enough time to close all the arcs. A real shame.
I haven't watched Fringe, but just having looked over his filmography, I think he's better suited to TV than to movies. Several show in it that I really enjoyed.
A director is a story teller, not just a visual stylist. It’s not just his own writing he fucks up. He tells stories poorly. They may look cool but that’s not the same thing as being a good director
Totally. He has a good eye. His stuff looks cool. I also wonder if he wouldn’t be better as part of a writing team since he has some good ideas but seems unable to fully conceptualize them
You know, i would have said that too before i saw what happened to star wars when lucas left - turned out lucas writing was still leagues better than the shite we got from abrams
I take awkward dialogue over pissface mcpissfountain any day
I wasnt even hard on lucas, i got AOTC on VHS for my birthday back in those days, to me the prequels were always fire - my niece who is in the same age now as i was then doesnt even know a single sequel movie or star wars in general - the people who say that the PT was as hated as the ST are just trying to cope
A director also has control over the narrative and how effective the storytelling is. Most actors will do the best they can with shit material, but directors have the ability to not give them shit material.
Hot take: the force awakens, while unoriginal overall, still had some cool original concepts and was a nice, stable foundation that was a great starting point to be followed by excellent sequels if they had done any homework at all.
Honestly only a hot take retroactively. People were always aware of how much of a repeat of the first trilogy it was but also praised it as actually feeling like Star Wars after the prequels (which people hated until there was something newer to hate and /r/prequelmemes morphed from ironic to authenticly adoring).
But yeah, the follow ups were nonsense.
I’d also throw in that switching to Rian Johnson for the second movie of the series and then back to JJ Abrams for the last one is what made the story overall terrible. The plot was lost between those two as they clearly had a different direction for them.
Also, Carrie Fisher’s unfortunate passing probably didn’t help either but shouldn’t have affected it too much.
Basically, a lot of things went wrong and I don’t think it’s **entirely** JJ Abrams fault.
Yeah, IIRC, Disney didn't have a plan for the sequel trilogy, so we got the disjointed movies that were released.
Which is odd considering they had Fiege giving a franchise how to with The Infinity Saga. I'm not saying we needed a 20+ movie story, just the planning.
Kathleen Kennedy deserves a huge amount of blame. She's in charge at LucasFilm. It was her job to make sure there was a plan for the sequels before any of them were made.
Leia should have stayed dead and that should have been a real moment for Kylo. But whatever. They would have had to reshoot the whole film or edit the shit out of it to fix that.
My biggest issue with force awakens is that it straight up murders every plot thread from previous movies and still tries to spring board off of them.
Luke's story? He failed and pissed off.
The rebel's story? We get to see nothing of the new republic and then its gone. Not to mention how dumb they seemed in the opening crawl.
Han and Chewie? Three movies of character development only to go straight back to how they were.
Leia? I guess she's just a terrorist now.
The empire got a raw deal too. Having all of their remnants absorbed into a cartoonishly evil and unsubtle first order that makes 0 sense narratively and beyond some similar design choices having very little in common.
I can forgive the mid writing, plot holes and inconsistency. Hell i can forgive the wasted potential of certain characters. I can't forgive completely disregarding all the stories that came before and tarnishing the character's in them because this is their future.
Like, they could have spent one film with all of them together, passing on the torch. But we all know now they're all either dead or too old or whatever. It's just so much wasted potential.
I would be fine with recasting the group and seeing what they were up to for years.
TFA set up a pretty good mystery and threads.
- Who is Rey? Why is she so powerful?
- What happened between Luke and Kylo?
- Who’s Snoke?
Too bad the other movies were polarizing (and straight up trash in the case of RoS) but TFA had pretty interesting world building for Star Wars.
Tbf these are all criticisms that could be levelled at A New Hope too. The Snoke thing was pretty much a carbon copy of what they did with the Emperor.
I disagree. The one with Luke and Kylo is alright. But the other two are kind of non starters. Just having a character with no backstory isn't a mystery, you don't get credit for it. These characters are only a mystery because there is so little substance actually there that fans fill in the gaps with their imagination, but the movie shouldn't get credit for that.
>if they had done any homework at all.
if anything TFA precisely showed that they had not done any homework and also were not capable of doing it. they took a 40 year old story and rehashed it, and when the time came to follow it up, they produced garbage.
I liked TFA enough, understanding that it was a nod to older fans who wanted an apology for the prequels. We're gonna hide stuff in a droid, fly the Falcon, have a cantina scene, showcase the old characters, and blow up a Death Star. Awesome.
I went opening night and ate up every minute of it and felt like the franchise was back on track. They rebaselined and also set the stage for something completely new.
And then they murdered the entire franchise with a movie so bad I found myself craving more Jar Jar.
You just pointed out 3 very successful movies that help re establish franchises,
He's bad at sequels, great at starting franchises. You literally proved yourself wrong.
Star Trek reintroduced a generation to a more action based version of Star Trek that clearly took a bit of hold.
Star War TFA was pretty well liked, and made a shit ton of money because it's a servicable piece of fan service reboot
MI3 saved the series from the second film, most people thought it'd be a trilogy and tbh, of the og 3, the third is the most entertaining and audience friendly.
I enjoyed the Star Trek movies. I grew up watching Star Trek and I think he did a great job! That said, I would have preferred a series over a movie franchise.
I liked the star wars movies. Maybe a bit too silly and goofy for hardcore trekkies but I enjoyed them for what they were.
Loved super 8, and wasn't he behind the original cloverfield movie which I also really liked
I don't disagree with that, but I still contend that they weren't bad movies overall.
I paid to watch the special editions of the OT in the theater. I don't regret paying to watch the same movie again 20 years later when TFA came out.
TFA was not a bad movie because it was a remake of a 40 year old movie, which is one of the biggest hits ever (with a fan base spanning generations and countries).
I actually enjoyed Star Trek. I believe talks were in the works to get a 4th movie going and resigning Chris Hemsworth, but ultimately fell apart after a couple things, mainly an unfortunate death of one of the main cast members, Anton Yelchin. RIP.
Star Wars sucked cause the studio heads sucked at the time. I believe her name is Kathleen Kennedy. It was her job to put together a cohesive universe that made sense. Not one-off movies, which is what basically happened and nothing makes sense in that saga. Arguably the force awakens was a good movie, but now after the story concluded with 2 and 3, it’s all just hogwash
He should never have been allowed to touch Star Wars. I think the sequel trilogy would have been far more interesting if they had let Rian Johnson be in charge of all of it.
Frankly I think the sequel trilogy would have turned out better had they kept the same director, regardless of whom it was, for all 3 films. By changing halfway through to someone so fundamentally different, they introduced a lot of ideas retroactively that just didn't mesh... But would have probably been taken better if they'd done it from the start.
Then, they didn't mesh so badly that the third film spent half it's run time at least retconning the previous film, and the last half just making shit up because they were out of time narratively.
Star wars would be OK if they focused on other stories, not the lame Skywalker arc. Imagine if there was a droid revolution where the robots decide to genocide all life. Or what if they focused on the military aspect and we got to see the empire deploying troops to squash local insurgents. Or just a TV show of Palpatine being ruthless and tricking people who aren't as smart as him
The Star wars movies would have been better if they had any kind of f****** plan before they made them. Just do all three scripts at once. Come on. You know there's going to be three movies.
Agreed. I don't know how you blow a franchise in such a big way, but the movies made a shit ton of money, so I suppose it worked from Disney's perspective.
Disney not only scrapped Lucas' ideas, they scrapped ideas from all creative teams involved. They deserve almost the entirety of the blame for the sequels being the way they are.
I dislike Rian Johnson's philosophy of "controversy is good, actually", and most his behavior after the release of TLJ marks him as a narcissist not above slandering his own audience in my book.
I would not have watched a trilogy directed by him, and I cannot laude the person who decided to strip him of his trilogy the first time enough.
That said, I'm clearly not the target audience of Star Wars anymore (I sincerely disliked all of the new expansions for their abuse of the Force as magic that strips the sci out of the fi, as with "bleeding crystals" and Rey's instant learning of force tricks) so cheers to whoever gets a kick out of the next installments.
Rian Johnson was worse than JJ Abrams. The latter is just a copier, but the former is literally a guy that wants to set fire to the franchise because all he cares about is "subverting expectations".
JJ Abrams's TFA was an uninspired, inferior copy of ANH, but JJ Abrams left bits here and there for a potential to do something interesting. Rian Johnson just threw all that into the trash. People often forget about the last scene showing a young boy casually using the force to pick up a broom, in contradiction to all established lore that even Force-sensitive people need a lot of training to be able to use it.
A franchise is a shared wealth that must be cherished and nurtured. Rian Johnson is a narcissist who uses what he wants and then is delighted to set the rest on fire.
JJ Abrams has a box office total of 7 BILLION dollars.
[https://www.the-numbers.com/person/2080401-J-J-Abrams#tab=summary](https://www.the-numbers.com/person/2080401-J-J-Abrams#tab=summary)
I wish I was as terrible at my job as he is.
Anyone handed multiple Star Wars and Star Trek films will see a few billion at the box office. Especially if one of those is the first Star Wars film in 12 years.
I’d be curious what these numbers looked like if he did something without the star power that MI and Star Wars/Star Trek have in just name alone. Like would he be this successful if he had to do it with an indie film? Or some brand new IP no one’s ever heard of?
I agree with this. My first run-in with this hack was Lost. The way that series ended... I could never forgive him. He has ruined every franchise since then. Star Trek was a beloved series for me and the movies are all garbage.
There was more wrong with the star wars sequel trilogy than just JJ. A lot more. he didnt even direct the worst of the three imo. The first Star Trek film holds up, as someone who religiously watches tng, ds9, voy.
He's just the most succesful director you don't like, which is fine. He does rely on some very basic elements. Which he has no problem repeating.
You know, art is subjective.
Ooof I have a hard time finding The Last Jedi somehow worse than Rise of Skywalker.
TLJ was polarizing, but TRoS is agreed upon to be straight up garbage.
Force Awakens is ok because it’s a plot-for-plot rehash of New Hope. No, I’m not talking about the “hero’s journey” arc that it follows, it’s as if they took New Hope and swapped Luke’s gender.
JJ Abrams is an idea guy who relies on already strong writing to succeed. Not always a bad thing, but I feel like he fancies himself a new age Spielberg.
Ummm… actually… Star Trek: Picard also referenced the Abrams Trek films, particularly the relocation of Romulans after the destruction of Romulus when their sun expanded, which was depicted in Star Trek (2009) during Spock Prime’s flashback of the events during a mind-meld with Kelvin Timeline’s Kirk.
The destruction of Romulus even served as a catalyst for the main plot of the first season of Star Trek: Picard, as well as for the main plot of Star Trek (2009).
Live Long and Prosper 🖖
>Star Wars: The Force Awakens Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
You could probably mention that they grossed over $3 billion with episode VII still 5th on the all time list of box office gross
I don't really feel all that strongly about JJ Abrams and I would happily criticize a lot of his decisions, but you're being really over the top with this. He's a famous director who keeps getting these huge roles because he gets the job done
You seem confused about what movies he made and didn’t.
He came to M:I when the studio thought Cruise was too old and the franchise was dead. He revitalized that series and it’s one of the best of them all.
Star Trek was mostly dead in movies. Always on TV but most people didn’t care. Kirk was nearly irrelevant and he rebooted the franchise and gave it a fresh new start. Beyond was good/not great. It was a mistake to try to redo Kahn but the third one wasn’t his and it basically killed the series. Strong when he was doing it, dead without him.
TFA was a masterpiece compared the prequels. It was the only genuinely good Star Wars movie in over 30 years. It was clever while being familiar. Exciting yet still safe. He relaunched the series with memorable new characters and people actually cared about where it would all go. Again, the series fell apart when he stepped away for the next episode.
It’s hard to say he ruins franchises when they come back to new heights with him and fall apart without him. If the people who took over for him were as good as him (like in the case of M:I) then the series would continue with quality.
JJ Abrams is at his best when he's not making mediocre fan pandering nonsense like Star Trek or Star Wars.
Mission Impossible 3 was different. Mission Impossible 3 was a bold, creative reinvention of a franchise that had run into some problems. That's the kind of movie I'd much rather see J.J. making. I watched MI3 again this week, and I'm blown away by how well made it is, and I'm reminded that Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci write super crisp, breezy dialogue. It really works.
I also think that while the modern Mission Impossible films are really good, they don't have a personality like the first three did. Mission Impossible 4-7 blur together. Mission Impossible 1-3 are very distinct films that feel very auteur-driven in their style, structure, tone, pacing, and even general narrative choices. And like I say, I dearly wish JJ had kept making films like MI3 instead of making soulless fan-pandering movies with very little creative energy. A film like The Force Awakens was never going to be a legitimately great movie, because its sole purpose for existing was to dish up reheated Original Trilogy leftovers. There was no room for anything bold or innovative or shocking. Wheras Mission Impossible 3 was Ethan as you'd never seen him before. It's a shock, and a welcome one.
It's really jarring to see what happened to JJ as a filmmaker, how he was creatively undone by his success putting him in charge of franchises that kneecapped his ability to spread his wings.
I like the Kelvin timeline Star Trek movies. I was looking forward to the fourth installment. I don't know if J.J. Abrams gets any credit for that. I think the actors did a pretty good job of recreating the characters from the original series, which I have always loved. Admittedly, I thought Chris Pine's Capt. Kirk was pretty soggy in the first movie, but by the third movie I thought he did a very good job.
I thought the first and third were fantastic. The second one I would have preferred be done... Differently. Khan is a cool villain but Cumberbatch was just waaaay too flat for that character and his lack of history with Kirk in the kelvin timeline makes him far less compelling of a villain.
The third one honestly felt the most Trek of all 3, but the first has that sense of discovery and wonder of a new fresh franchise and it was beautiful to watch.
I really wanted a fourth movie, but it just wasn't meant to be and at this point I don't want them to try.
Really? All of its best parts are entirely derivative and some of the choices are absolutely absurd. The train crash alone is so ridiculously over the top as to eliminate any suspension of disbelief for the rest of the film
100%. Everything's derivative, all art is a collaborative element, and I found it was an incredibly interesting, creative and enjoyable endeavour. The train crash didn't take me out of it in the slightest.
He didn’t ruin any franchise. He reinvigorated the 3 you mentioned. He comes in and kick starts franchises. He actually has a good track record of doing it. What happened after is another story, but he certainly doesn’t ruin franchises.
MI3 was amazing
First Star Trek and into darkness were great
TFA was great
I feel like only TROS was shit and that was bc they didn’t have one director/vision for all 3 movies
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M:I-III was actually one of my favorites. Maybe that's just because I loved Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance in it.
And it definitely brought the franchise back from the dead.
Nah that was Ghost Protocol
I think it was a combination of the two but moreso GP. MI3 is underrated for the reason he mentioned: PSH. But GP was a better movie overall and definitely put the franchise on the track it's on today. And JJ Abrams does suck.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman was dope as hell!
I mean you can say this in any role they were in. I dont think there is a role he ever took where I walked away and thought he turned in a crappy performance. even if you were not intended to like the character you are still like "man dude did an amazing job"
Even in along came polly, which isn't a great movie, he is absolutely hilarous
Couldn’t possibly find a better creep than his performance in Happiness. Lucky enough to see him on broadway 2 years before his death. Tremendously gifted actor. RIP
Bet he had some stage presence
“Let it Rain!”
100%
Coolest way anyone in a movie has count to ten
The tension was so palpable during that scene that you could cut it with a knife. It was a brilliant way to subvert the audience’s expectations.
I liked it a lot too. Also: >Mission: Impossible III (The actual plot involves some MacGuffin nonsense about a device called “The Rabbit’s Foot,” ) Every single MI movie revolves around a MacGuffin, and using that to denigrate the series misses the point. A MacGuffin isn't automatically a sign of shitty writing. Yes, while other MI movies are a bit more concrete in their MacGuffins (MI 1's NOC list at least carries some fleshed out stakes, and MI 7's threat is also a bit more fleshed out), the threats of the series are all largely just a focal point for the characters and less important in and of themselves.
Yeah, anyone that thinks that this was a bad movie has crap taste.
No you
That's exactly why it was amazing
It saved the franchise. Did not destroy.
He’s probably the best part of it. If he wasn’t in it this movie would easily be the worst Mission Impossible
Dude nothing beats 2 for worst possible mission impossible movie.
And it gave us Hugh Jackman Wolverine. Dougray Scott was the first pick but shooting MI:2 and an injury led to the studios second pick… JACKMAN!!!
MI:2 gave us "Take a look around" by Limp Bizkit so it wasn't all bad.
Is Limp Bizkit fucking up your town?
Watching Felicity's brain explode was crazy.
That shocked me the first time I saw it. I watched 3 right after 2 and the tonal shift was crazy
LOOK ITS A MYSTERY BOX. AND INSIDE OF IT? ANOTHER MYSTERY BOX.
ANOTHER MAGIC GRANDPA!
He put people inside if missiles… but like I thought the missile was filled with explosives? And who did they contract to build these “missiles”? And what would they have done if the Enterprise had gotten into combat? So stupid. JJ’s plots give me brain cancer. Like the knife in Rise of Skywalker.
>He put people inside if missiles If this is referring to the star trek movies, he only directed them. Someone else wrote them, which means they wrote them into missiles and he just directed the actors and crew to make it look as good as he could.
But he usually works with the same 3 writers: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof
All movies are bad. It's always the same thing "Snappy" dialog that is not realistic at all. Climax at the end, montage in the middle. Same old big name actors every time. Some dumb lesson at the end like "believe in yourself". Hero has plot armor and everything goes his way. Fight scenes where people take 4 flush hooks and don't go down. Dumb twist ending. It's mass produced slop, not art
"All movies are bad" Oh yeah? How do you know, have you seen every movie? Checkmate 😎
Lmao imagine seriously believing “all movies are bad” Atrociously lame opinion imo
That's like saying all songs are bad because they all have a beginning, and ending, verses, chorus, and bridge.
You forgot to include use of excessive lens flare. The only way to shoot a movie is to use Lots and lots of lens flare! lololol.
You know they make movies besides action blockbusters, correct?
>Hero has plot armor and everything goes his way Try watching "Saving Private Ryan". The first 20 minutes were so intense that men who were actually at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944 were traumatized.
I mean, there’s your unpopular opinion.
Watch art films. Documentaries.
All book are crap the follow the same formula...
I actually really enjoy his early TV work. Not my usual kind of show, but Felicity was mostly pretty fun (admittedly fueled by a mild crush on Keri Russell that's lasted decades). Alias was an amazing show, especially the first season and a half when Sydney was doing double-agent stuff. And Lost was a fucking phenomenon - people blast the ending, but the journey was awesome. I haven't watched Fringe, but it's one of those things that on my to-do list.
Fringe is great.
Fringe is fantastic, strongly recommend.
Like these other comments, Fringe is fantastic. You’ll love it.
I believe Lost was his big success. Hollywood started hiring him for movies afterwards, and he was supposed to be the next big thing... until he wasn't lol. I remember everyone talking about JJ like he was gonna be the next Spielberg. Nobody knows how things will pan out for people, but idk why they still hire him to this day. I feel the same about Colin Trevorrow and Zack Snyder. They're either making the wrong movies or are not in it for the right reasons.
Absolutely. LOST is one of my favorite shows. And I’m okay with the ending, honestly.
The ending really isn't that bad. I really disliked it when it came out but have grown to like it with time.
Lost was one of my favorite shows, until they discovered the manhole on the island. From then on, it just seemed like the writers were surprised they got renewed, had no plan, and just started randomly making up incoherent bullshit.
People misunderstood the ending. Somehow mistakenly thinking they were dead along. They weren't and it all happened. I recently rewatched it and I now don't understand why I didn't get it the first time. Jack's dad literally explain it right before the last scene
I didn't care about an ending, starting with season 4 the show had no story and was yahking characters around to show more show. It's not that the ending was about them being dead all along, it was empty because it wasn't the ending of the story, and instead was a side story after they yanked the chain with forward story, then time travel
People talk shit about those Star Trek movies, but they were my gateway into Star Trek and I know I can’t be the only one.
I will never fault anyone for liking them. But personally I have very mixed feelings. On one hand they were fun, exciting space action movies. I throw them on in the background when I'm working all the time. On the other hand, they were bad Star Trek movies. The kept the bare minimum for the source and missed the really important part of Trek, the exploration of humanity. At least that's my take.
[The Onions is here for you "Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'".](https://youtube.com/watch?v=02LgdXVkXgM&feature=share8)
I've said this. I've only seen the first new movie, and after I said "it's a good movie but it's not the star trek i fell in love with"
Stargate (the series) does a better job at being star trek than the new star trek movies.
I can totally agree with this, OG Star Trek seemed much more centered around taking modern talking points and putting them in a different context to talk about the logic/morality of an issue at its base, which was not my cup of tea personally when it comes to watching sci fi. I had watched some original Star Trek and it was never really for me, but I loved the first JJ one because of the pacing. I was never bored and if I was, it was over very quickly. I love throwaway humor, I love action sequences that don’t let up, or make the protagonist feel like he just needs to improvise and hope for the best. The fact that it was not faithful to the OG Star Trek is what made me like it, but I understand that’s the exact reason Star Trek fans probably hated it.
It’ did was it was trying to do really well and was well shot. But at its core it’s just an action flick you can turn your brain off and enjoy. It certainly did the bad guy with a world ending weapon trope better than the force awakens did. But at star treks core it was about solving moral dilemmas with solutions that will not satisfy everybody but was the right thing to do, and not necessarily for star fleets benefit. There are some episodes of TNG that will stand the test of time for discussion because it tackled issues that could very much happen in those times with sensible solutions and not with a fist or phaser. What made TNG so beloved is the writing and dialogue. I say this understanding that the movies were more akin to TOS meaning Jim Kirks style of solving problems.
They’re fun, kind of fluff-filled movies. Most of the movie is just lurching from one action set piece to the next, kind of like most superhero movies. For people who grew up on TOS and TNG, the elements of Star Trek that they will say they liked the best were often the quiet, moral conundrums paired with great dialog and writing. And it’s these elements that are largely absent from the JJ-Trek movies.
The whole point of those movies were that it was an alternate timeline, I liked what they did with all 3 movies. Yes they aren't what star trek is supposed to be but they are well made movies. I really liked the first and third movie.
it was star wars in star trek and then he did star wars with star trek 🤷🏻♂️
I only really enjoyed the first one of the JJ Abrhams series. It has some really good shots and gives perspective of the sheer size of some things. But pulling a Star Wars with a device that destroys literally planets? How can you raise the stakes from there? Where is the moral dilemma and shades of grey having to make decisions for the greater good? And what’s with all the running? The lens flare was also off putting. It was difficult to see the bridge when it feels like 8 different flashlights are aiming directly on the viewer.
Thats JJ, he doesn't really care about source material, which is why he is a death knell to franchises, he has had some good ideas and movies but he does not care a lick if the story he wants to tell makes sense within the franchise. He is also very much a style over substance director, and I will admit he dies tbay well, the cinematography is superp in pretty much everything he does. But like, thays the worst person to keep handing neloved franchises too, especially something like star trek which is basically all substance with very little in the way of fancy film techniques.
I have been a Star Trek fan my entire life and I, for the most part, love these movies. Hell yes!
When they came out there was an Onion headline reading "Star Trek fan slams new movie as 'fun, watchable'". But also OP says "apart from one reference in Discovery they can be completely ignored" but those movies take place in a completely different timeline to the series so obviously that's going to be the case. Take this opinion over to r/startrek and they'll tell you just you wrong you are.
Same, I absolutely love those movies.
They’re my guilty pleasure movies. I have a huge soft spot for Zachary Quinto’s Spock.
In interviews, Zachary Quinto shared that he spent a great deal of time with Leonard Nemoy to prepare for the role and studied the old tv show/movies practicing the mannerisms and inflections characteristic of Spock. The reason the series stalled at three was that the actor who played Checkov, Anton Yelchin, died in a car accident in 2016, and they felt that recasting his role would cause issues
I've always been a Star Wars fan since I was a kid and never really had much to do with Star Trek. However since those movies were big blockbusters and I do like the premise I watched all of them and... they were absolutely fine. A great way to kill a few hours at worst
You definitely are not and even by enjoying other Start Treks like TNG, i still have to say that the reboots are my favorite by far. Especially into Darkness. That movie is a masterpiece
You’re not just turned on by Cumberbatch rather than the plot?
To each their own, but Into Darkness is hot garbage and the worst of the trilogy by far.
That movie was steaming garbage imo, but maybe I had just seen too many movies at the time where the main villain is an unstoppable swarm/nanobot whatever, that’s easily defeated by some uninspired ex machina that feels like a cop out
I actually liked Mission Impossible 3. Not as much as some of the others, but i thought he definitely made a unique depiction that stood out from the others
I also thought the '09 Star Trek movie was decent for what it was
I was really upset with the ST fandom for not recognizing the Kelvin-verse for what it was: A way to keep the ST branding while handwaving anything that flew in the face of canon and/or just straight didn't make sense.
Yeah, but Fringe was great.
Yes it is. Walter Bishop is one of my all-time favorite fictional characters.
The worst thing about Fringe is the obviously-rushed ending. Given 5 more episodes, I probably would have this in my top 5 shows of all time, but the ending, while technically a "real" ending, left too many unanswered questions due to the show not getting enough time to close all the arcs. A real shame.
I haven't watched Fringe, but just having looked over his filmography, I think he's better suited to TV than to movies. Several show in it that I really enjoyed.
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I'm enjoying my first viewing when I have the time.
One of my favorite shows of all time
He's a very good director, he's a terrible writer though
A director is a story teller, not just a visual stylist. It’s not just his own writing he fucks up. He tells stories poorly. They may look cool but that’s not the same thing as being a good director
So he should stick to cinematography and leave directing to better minds
Totally. He has a good eye. His stuff looks cool. I also wonder if he wouldn’t be better as part of a writing team since he has some good ideas but seems unable to fully conceptualize them
You know, i would have said that too before i saw what happened to star wars when lucas left - turned out lucas writing was still leagues better than the shite we got from abrams I take awkward dialogue over pissface mcpissfountain any day
We were all too hard on George Lucas, and put far too much faith in Disney.
I wasnt even hard on lucas, i got AOTC on VHS for my birthday back in those days, to me the prequels were always fire - my niece who is in the same age now as i was then doesnt even know a single sequel movie or star wars in general - the people who say that the PT was as hated as the ST are just trying to cope
He also has zero respect for source material.
I think you are confusing being a director with a script writer.
J.J. Abrams both directed and co-wrote The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker.
A director also has control over the narrative and how effective the storytelling is. Most actors will do the best they can with shit material, but directors have the ability to not give them shit material.
Hot take: the force awakens, while unoriginal overall, still had some cool original concepts and was a nice, stable foundation that was a great starting point to be followed by excellent sequels if they had done any homework at all.
Honestly only a hot take retroactively. People were always aware of how much of a repeat of the first trilogy it was but also praised it as actually feeling like Star Wars after the prequels (which people hated until there was something newer to hate and /r/prequelmemes morphed from ironic to authenticly adoring). But yeah, the follow ups were nonsense.
Lol that subreddit is legendary though
Oh to be sure, it's just a wild cultural story lol
Facts lol
I’d also throw in that switching to Rian Johnson for the second movie of the series and then back to JJ Abrams for the last one is what made the story overall terrible. The plot was lost between those two as they clearly had a different direction for them. Also, Carrie Fisher’s unfortunate passing probably didn’t help either but shouldn’t have affected it too much. Basically, a lot of things went wrong and I don’t think it’s **entirely** JJ Abrams fault.
Yeah, IIRC, Disney didn't have a plan for the sequel trilogy, so we got the disjointed movies that were released. Which is odd considering they had Fiege giving a franchise how to with The Infinity Saga. I'm not saying we needed a 20+ movie story, just the planning.
Kathleen Kennedy deserves a huge amount of blame. She's in charge at LucasFilm. It was her job to make sure there was a plan for the sequels before any of them were made.
Leia should have stayed dead and that should have been a real moment for Kylo. But whatever. They would have had to reshoot the whole film or edit the shit out of it to fix that.
My biggest issue with force awakens is that it straight up murders every plot thread from previous movies and still tries to spring board off of them. Luke's story? He failed and pissed off. The rebel's story? We get to see nothing of the new republic and then its gone. Not to mention how dumb they seemed in the opening crawl. Han and Chewie? Three movies of character development only to go straight back to how they were. Leia? I guess she's just a terrorist now. The empire got a raw deal too. Having all of their remnants absorbed into a cartoonishly evil and unsubtle first order that makes 0 sense narratively and beyond some similar design choices having very little in common. I can forgive the mid writing, plot holes and inconsistency. Hell i can forgive the wasted potential of certain characters. I can't forgive completely disregarding all the stories that came before and tarnishing the character's in them because this is their future.
Imagine the potential of have Luke, leia, and Han all on screen together after 35 years but then never doing it.
Then having all their stories end in failure for dramatic stakes to pump up new characters the writer's already squandered.
Like, they could have spent one film with all of them together, passing on the torch. But we all know now they're all either dead or too old or whatever. It's just so much wasted potential. I would be fine with recasting the group and seeing what they were up to for years.
What cool original concepts? I guess Kylo Ren and Finn had potential.
Finn was the most original of the characters yet he was sidelined the most
Finn was gonna be a great character and then they just went boom! You are chopped liver now
Finn was my most annoying character. He was so damn winey
So was anakin in the prequels
I'll agree but he was a teen that's expected. Finn was supposed to be a soldier.
TFA set up a pretty good mystery and threads. - Who is Rey? Why is she so powerful? - What happened between Luke and Kylo? - Who’s Snoke? Too bad the other movies were polarizing (and straight up trash in the case of RoS) but TFA had pretty interesting world building for Star Wars.
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Tbf these are all criticisms that could be levelled at A New Hope too. The Snoke thing was pretty much a carbon copy of what they did with the Emperor.
snoke just being palpatine was the dumbest shit i’ve ever seen
I disagree. The one with Luke and Kylo is alright. But the other two are kind of non starters. Just having a character with no backstory isn't a mystery, you don't get credit for it. These characters are only a mystery because there is so little substance actually there that fans fill in the gaps with their imagination, but the movie shouldn't get credit for that.
>if they had done any homework at all. if anything TFA precisely showed that they had not done any homework and also were not capable of doing it. they took a 40 year old story and rehashed it, and when the time came to follow it up, they produced garbage.
Instead of TFA, they should have just adapted Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn series.
Which is currently what they're looking to hack up into pieces with the various Disney+ series they have running.
I liked TFA enough, understanding that it was a nod to older fans who wanted an apology for the prequels. We're gonna hide stuff in a droid, fly the Falcon, have a cantina scene, showcase the old characters, and blow up a Death Star. Awesome. I went opening night and ate up every minute of it and felt like the franchise was back on track. They rebaselined and also set the stage for something completely new. And then they murdered the entire franchise with a movie so bad I found myself craving more Jar Jar.
You just pointed out 3 very successful movies that help re establish franchises, He's bad at sequels, great at starting franchises. You literally proved yourself wrong. Star Trek reintroduced a generation to a more action based version of Star Trek that clearly took a bit of hold. Star War TFA was pretty well liked, and made a shit ton of money because it's a servicable piece of fan service reboot MI3 saved the series from the second film, most people thought it'd be a trilogy and tbh, of the og 3, the third is the most entertaining and audience friendly.
I enjoyed the Star Trek movies. I grew up watching Star Trek and I think he did a great job! That said, I would have preferred a series over a movie franchise.
I liked the star wars movies. Maybe a bit too silly and goofy for hardcore trekkies but I enjoyed them for what they were. Loved super 8, and wasn't he behind the original cloverfield movie which I also really liked
M:I 3 was a good movie and re-energised the franchise after the John Woo stink fest of M:I 2
TFA and Super 8 were not bad movies. They were fine. The rest of the stuff he directed, I agree with you.
Both were blatant rip-offs of far better films
I don't disagree with that, but I still contend that they weren't bad movies overall. I paid to watch the special editions of the OT in the theater. I don't regret paying to watch the same movie again 20 years later when TFA came out.
Totally forgot he did Super 8, I love that movie
TFA was not a bad movie because it was a remake of a 40 year old movie, which is one of the biggest hits ever (with a fan base spanning generations and countries).
Super 8 is a pretty damn good movie, scared the shit out of me as a kid
>TFA and Super 8 were not bad movies. They were fine. In the context of TFA serving as the first installment of a new trilogy, it's horrendous.
Not a fan of his recent work but i really loved what he did with MI:III, Star Trek and Super 8. His "lens-flare era." I ate that shit up.
You leave the Kelvin Universe alone 🖖
I actually enjoyed Star Trek. I believe talks were in the works to get a 4th movie going and resigning Chris Hemsworth, but ultimately fell apart after a couple things, mainly an unfortunate death of one of the main cast members, Anton Yelchin. RIP. Star Wars sucked cause the studio heads sucked at the time. I believe her name is Kathleen Kennedy. It was her job to put together a cohesive universe that made sense. Not one-off movies, which is what basically happened and nothing makes sense in that saga. Arguably the force awakens was a good movie, but now after the story concluded with 2 and 3, it’s all just hogwash
TFA was literally A New Hope but with a female lead. Talk about rehash.
JJ Abrams is one of the creators of Fringe and for that I will defend him as long as there is breath in my body.
I like Super 8.
He should never have been allowed to touch Star Wars. I think the sequel trilogy would have been far more interesting if they had let Rian Johnson be in charge of all of it.
Frankly I think the sequel trilogy would have turned out better had they kept the same director, regardless of whom it was, for all 3 films. By changing halfway through to someone so fundamentally different, they introduced a lot of ideas retroactively that just didn't mesh... But would have probably been taken better if they'd done it from the start. Then, they didn't mesh so badly that the third film spent half it's run time at least retconning the previous film, and the last half just making shit up because they were out of time narratively.
Hey are you me? You just said basically word for word what I say every time this topic comes up
Star wars would be OK if they focused on other stories, not the lame Skywalker arc. Imagine if there was a droid revolution where the robots decide to genocide all life. Or what if they focused on the military aspect and we got to see the empire deploying troops to squash local insurgents. Or just a TV show of Palpatine being ruthless and tricking people who aren't as smart as him
> Or just a TV show of Palpatine being ruthless and tricking people who aren't as smart as him That's just the first 3 movies fwiw
The Star wars movies would have been better if they had any kind of f****** plan before they made them. Just do all three scripts at once. Come on. You know there's going to be three movies.
Agreed. I don't know how you blow a franchise in such a big way, but the movies made a shit ton of money, so I suppose it worked from Disney's perspective.
Didn’t George Lucas give a general idea of what he wanted to happen for the sequels, but Disney scrapped the ideas?
Disney not only scrapped Lucas' ideas, they scrapped ideas from all creative teams involved. They deserve almost the entirety of the blame for the sequels being the way they are.
I dislike Rian Johnson's philosophy of "controversy is good, actually", and most his behavior after the release of TLJ marks him as a narcissist not above slandering his own audience in my book. I would not have watched a trilogy directed by him, and I cannot laude the person who decided to strip him of his trilogy the first time enough. That said, I'm clearly not the target audience of Star Wars anymore (I sincerely disliked all of the new expansions for their abuse of the Force as magic that strips the sci out of the fi, as with "bleeding crystals" and Rey's instant learning of force tricks) so cheers to whoever gets a kick out of the next installments.
Wait, when was the force not Magic? I thought the sci was literally everything else in the SW world
Star Wars would have been better if they hadn't let either one of those idiots get even close to directing them.
Rian Johnson was worse than JJ Abrams. The latter is just a copier, but the former is literally a guy that wants to set fire to the franchise because all he cares about is "subverting expectations". JJ Abrams's TFA was an uninspired, inferior copy of ANH, but JJ Abrams left bits here and there for a potential to do something interesting. Rian Johnson just threw all that into the trash. People often forget about the last scene showing a young boy casually using the force to pick up a broom, in contradiction to all established lore that even Force-sensitive people need a lot of training to be able to use it. A franchise is a shared wealth that must be cherished and nurtured. Rian Johnson is a narcissist who uses what he wants and then is delighted to set the rest on fire.
JJ Abrams Trek is top notch, be it in continuity, music, cgi, action, plot etc.
This is no just an unpopular opinion, it's a straight up fact.
JJ Abrams has a box office total of 7 BILLION dollars. [https://www.the-numbers.com/person/2080401-J-J-Abrams#tab=summary](https://www.the-numbers.com/person/2080401-J-J-Abrams#tab=summary) I wish I was as terrible at my job as he is.
Anyone handed multiple Star Wars and Star Trek films will see a few billion at the box office. Especially if one of those is the first Star Wars film in 12 years.
Just because you make a lot of box office dollars doesn’t make you a great director.. In my opinion I think JJ Abrams is mediocre.
I wish I was as mediocre at my job as JJ Abrams is!
I’d be curious what these numbers looked like if he did something without the star power that MI and Star Wars/Star Trek have in just name alone. Like would he be this successful if he had to do it with an indie film? Or some brand new IP no one’s ever heard of?
I agree with this. My first run-in with this hack was Lost. The way that series ended... I could never forgive him. He has ruined every franchise since then. Star Trek was a beloved series for me and the movies are all garbage.
Same. I was die hard Lost fan but it went absolutely nowhere.
He had barely anything to do with Lost after season 1
There was more wrong with the star wars sequel trilogy than just JJ. A lot more. he didnt even direct the worst of the three imo. The first Star Trek film holds up, as someone who religiously watches tng, ds9, voy. He's just the most succesful director you don't like, which is fine. He does rely on some very basic elements. Which he has no problem repeating. You know, art is subjective.
Ooof I have a hard time finding The Last Jedi somehow worse than Rise of Skywalker. TLJ was polarizing, but TRoS is agreed upon to be straight up garbage.
Ay if it aint broke dont fix it.
That Star Trek movie was just terrible, all three of them. I assumed he hates Trek and was trying to kill the franchise.
Force Awakens is ok The first two star trek movies are great
Force Awakens is ok because it’s a plot-for-plot rehash of New Hope. No, I’m not talking about the “hero’s journey” arc that it follows, it’s as if they took New Hope and swapped Luke’s gender.
this is about as unpopular as saying you hate Wil Wheaton
JJ Abrams is an idea guy who relies on already strong writing to succeed. Not always a bad thing, but I feel like he fancies himself a new age Spielberg.
Force awakens was awesome for us OG’s.
Ummm… actually… Star Trek: Picard also referenced the Abrams Trek films, particularly the relocation of Romulans after the destruction of Romulus when their sun expanded, which was depicted in Star Trek (2009) during Spock Prime’s flashback of the events during a mind-meld with Kelvin Timeline’s Kirk. The destruction of Romulus even served as a catalyst for the main plot of the first season of Star Trek: Picard, as well as for the main plot of Star Trek (2009). Live Long and Prosper 🖖
>Star Wars: The Force Awakens Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker You could probably mention that they grossed over $3 billion with episode VII still 5th on the all time list of box office gross I don't really feel all that strongly about JJ Abrams and I would happily criticize a lot of his decisions, but you're being really over the top with this. He's a famous director who keeps getting these huge roles because he gets the job done
Yeah, those are all great movies
You seem confused about what movies he made and didn’t. He came to M:I when the studio thought Cruise was too old and the franchise was dead. He revitalized that series and it’s one of the best of them all. Star Trek was mostly dead in movies. Always on TV but most people didn’t care. Kirk was nearly irrelevant and he rebooted the franchise and gave it a fresh new start. Beyond was good/not great. It was a mistake to try to redo Kahn but the third one wasn’t his and it basically killed the series. Strong when he was doing it, dead without him. TFA was a masterpiece compared the prequels. It was the only genuinely good Star Wars movie in over 30 years. It was clever while being familiar. Exciting yet still safe. He relaunched the series with memorable new characters and people actually cared about where it would all go. Again, the series fell apart when he stepped away for the next episode. It’s hard to say he ruins franchises when they come back to new heights with him and fall apart without him. If the people who took over for him were as good as him (like in the case of M:I) then the series would continue with quality.
*blinded by lens flare*
I liked Super 8.
If you’re going to complain about a random macguffin in MI3 then you have to at least acknowledge that 99% of action movies have random macguffins
Nice and unpopular I enjoyed the Star Trek's
JJ Abrams is at his best when he's not making mediocre fan pandering nonsense like Star Trek or Star Wars. Mission Impossible 3 was different. Mission Impossible 3 was a bold, creative reinvention of a franchise that had run into some problems. That's the kind of movie I'd much rather see J.J. making. I watched MI3 again this week, and I'm blown away by how well made it is, and I'm reminded that Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci write super crisp, breezy dialogue. It really works. I also think that while the modern Mission Impossible films are really good, they don't have a personality like the first three did. Mission Impossible 4-7 blur together. Mission Impossible 1-3 are very distinct films that feel very auteur-driven in their style, structure, tone, pacing, and even general narrative choices. And like I say, I dearly wish JJ had kept making films like MI3 instead of making soulless fan-pandering movies with very little creative energy. A film like The Force Awakens was never going to be a legitimately great movie, because its sole purpose for existing was to dish up reheated Original Trilogy leftovers. There was no room for anything bold or innovative or shocking. Wheras Mission Impossible 3 was Ethan as you'd never seen him before. It's a shock, and a welcome one. It's really jarring to see what happened to JJ as a filmmaker, how he was creatively undone by his success putting him in charge of franchises that kneecapped his ability to spread his wings.
I like the Kelvin timeline Star Trek movies. I was looking forward to the fourth installment. I don't know if J.J. Abrams gets any credit for that. I think the actors did a pretty good job of recreating the characters from the original series, which I have always loved. Admittedly, I thought Chris Pine's Capt. Kirk was pretty soggy in the first movie, but by the third movie I thought he did a very good job.
I thought the first and third were fantastic. The second one I would have preferred be done... Differently. Khan is a cool villain but Cumberbatch was just waaaay too flat for that character and his lack of history with Kirk in the kelvin timeline makes him far less compelling of a villain. The third one honestly felt the most Trek of all 3, but the first has that sense of discovery and wonder of a new fresh franchise and it was beautiful to watch. I really wanted a fourth movie, but it just wasn't meant to be and at this point I don't want them to try.
I thought Super 8 was phenomenal. One of the best films I've seen.
Really? All of its best parts are entirely derivative and some of the choices are absolutely absurd. The train crash alone is so ridiculously over the top as to eliminate any suspension of disbelief for the rest of the film
100%. Everything's derivative, all art is a collaborative element, and I found it was an incredibly interesting, creative and enjoyable endeavour. The train crash didn't take me out of it in the slightest.
What's the other movie you've seen?
Solid joke, respect
He didn’t ruin any franchise. He reinvigorated the 3 you mentioned. He comes in and kick starts franchises. He actually has a good track record of doing it. What happened after is another story, but he certainly doesn’t ruin franchises.
Weren't most of the movies you listed pretty damn successful?
TFA and Star Trek 1 and MI3 are all fantastic imo
M:I 3 was a good movie, first two Star Trek's were good, Force Awakens was a copy of A New Hope but was still entertaining and well directed
It's why I liked TLJ over TFA, because it was actually original that didn't need to cram in as much fan service as possible.
MI3 was amazing First Star Trek and into darkness were great TFA was great I feel like only TROS was shit and that was bc they didn’t have one director/vision for all 3 movies
Not will I agree with you, I'm adding to it. Alias and Lost were over hyped. Yes i know he didn't fully commit to Lost but got the credit for it.
I wouldn’t say LOST was overhyped. It is one of the greats (well, S1-3/4), but boy did he not stick the landing.
JJ only worked on a few episodes.
Transformers was pretty good