-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
JJ Abrams on his decision not to do Star Wars Episodes VIII and IX, and then being asked to do IX after all
- Thread starter DiipuSurotu
- Start date
Exactly. The OT not being planned is not relevant to today when they knew it would be a trilogy. No one knew the OT would be a trilogy at the time lol
What part of my post was a glowing endorsement of a production method?
The reality is there are a litany of great franchises that are not the result of meticulous planning. That was the extent of my point.
The prequels, on the other hand, were planned as a trilogy, and well...
The main reason people were so happy when Lucas sold to Disney.
I'll always be grateful to George for the original Star Wars, but the franchise quickly grew beyond him. It succeeded in spite of him, not because of him.
I'm curious to k ow what he would have actually done differently in 8 cause, especially in terms of the force users, that movie is a direct and logical continuation of 7. JJ is the one who decided Luke was a depressed hermit, that Rey idolized him, that Kylo was struggling with figuring out who he was and torn between the two sides.
Id also love to know what he would have done differently with Poe and Finn, but I'd wager it wouldn't be much. Just more action yahoo. Especially Poe, who had no arc at all in TFA.
Id also love to know what he would have done differently with Poe and Finn, but I'd wager it wouldn't be much. Just more action yahoo. Especially Poe, who had no arc at all in TFA.
Nah. By the time ROTJ was made, it was a trilogy. And at that point we knew Lucas wanted a 9-part saga. My dad used to talk about it all the time. And we consumed these movies, repeatedly, along with millions and millions of fans. There were also TV movies and cartoons, and a disproportionate amount of toys. The decades of hype that preceded Star Wars were about the craft of moviemaking and pulp adventures and serials that came before. So to say these elements were not there at the time is not accurate.
What is present now that wasn't present then is this: immediate and competitive access to every piece of media ever created by humanity.
When there's so much available, along with a high-pressure yet wide pipeline of NEW material consistently being delivered, it's just so so easy to pick out the few things you like and/or have time for - and deem the rest of it "trash". There is also a competitive and robust market for those looking for media that exists to call other media disposable and of no value. This is the phenomenon that pervades today's zeitgeists.
I'd go on a whim and say Finn being in a coma was just to make sure Rey would leave on her own to meet Luke. So he'd wake up, want to go help, people say no, he goes anyway, and shows up with Rey is mind-battling with Kylo as he lures her to the dark side. Kylo would play on her parents' fate and her sense of loneliness to draw her in, as both are now "alone, without a family" or some such, but Finn showing up makes her realize she has a family now, and rejects Kylo.
LOTR was planned as a trilogy, and well...
Avengers was planned as a saga, and well...
This game has no purpose. Maybe they would plan it and it would be crap. Who knows but lack or direction and cohesion is an issue with this trilogy atm and it would be negated if it had been planned
JJ Abrams: "I was surprised the 8th movie didn't have the group together!"
Same man ends Force Awakens with Rey and Poe never meeting, Rey hardly interacting with Leia, Finn in a coma and Rey flying off to the island to get Luke.
If he wanted the gang together maybe he should have left Rey leaving to find the mystical wizard to the next movie and not on a cliffhanger?
Same man ends Force Awakens with Rey and Poe never meeting, Rey hardly interacting with Leia, Finn in a coma and Rey flying off to the island to get Luke.
If he wanted the gang together maybe he should have left Rey leaving to find the mystical wizard to the next movie and not on a cliffhanger?
It was a trilogy by that point, but the "saga" was still only 6 years old. It didn't have decades of of hype built up for it alone. Hype for "the craft of moviemaking and pulp adventures and serials" is not the same thing as hype for a singular franchise. Star Wars has 40+ years of baggage at this point. Multiple generations have "grown up with it" now. It's an entirely different animal than it was in 1983.
people who don't understand how all of this works. They should have had an outline of the overarching story, instead of the approach of each director can change it as they go, but they tried and it doesn't seem to have worked. I'm sure they will take an approach similar to the Marvel movies in the future with the news they are going forward with a new format not tied to trilogies.
Going to stop you there. What made the original trilogy work wasn't just Lucas, he had his then wife at the time helping, editors, ect. Helping him and implementing changes to his original vision. Being surounded by yes men while doing the prequels is what caused the majority of the problems with the prequels.
Of course he would, he too has no family until this point. Him and Rey were in a similar situation. Poe and resistance folks would show up as Finn is helping Rey out, after they had told him not go. They're all a big family! Finn and Rey's arcs would unfold together.
Yes, and I said so in my post. But elements of it were there at the time, and even in 6 "short" years it had cemented itself firmly and substantially into popular culture beyond nearly anything else at the time.
People are entitled to their time and place, of course - multiple generations have grown up with Star Wars in their own way. But as I get older it is easier to see that some things are just not as different as they may seem. Still, I even point out what is different today than back then, you're welcome to read my post again.
I read it, came across as the typical dismissiveness I see from people who defend the sequel trilogy. It's not YouTube's fault that this trilogy has no sense of direction.
The ST needed a competent visionary behind the scenes to keep things on track. The fact that George + company managed to pull it off without that in the early 80's is not relevant to the situation today. Yes, it's true that in only 6 short years Star Wars had cemented itself in pop culture. Add 36 more years of buildup to that and that's where we're at now. It's different. The stuff to brought up only adds additional layers of difficulty on top of an already difficult situation.
I didn't mention the sequel trilogy at all. I even agreed it was different. Very well, friend.
I've always liked the idea of trilogies being written relay style like this. I like the idea that second writer, while supportive enough to not change the trajectory too drastically, would leave a few previously unthinkable obstacles for original writer to overcome.
Edit whoops.
I think it's an interesting highlighter of a creative writers collaboration abilities and imagination. I know JJ doesn't choose these questions, but as he goes on he's really encouraging us to put this movie under a microscope...or at the very least, he's shining a spotlight for inspection.
*Edit whoopsie*
The thing I've learned that is "wrong" about that relay writing idea, is that it allows cracks where tribalism and favoritism can flourish. A "supervisor" might alleviate it slightly but could possibly be constricting.
Edit whoops.
I think it's an interesting highlighter of a creative writers collaboration abilities and imagination. I know JJ doesn't choose these questions, but as he goes on he's really encouraging us to put this movie under a microscope...or at the very least, he's shining a spotlight for inspection.
*Edit whoopsie*
The thing I've learned that is "wrong" about that relay writing idea, is that it allows cracks where tribalism and favoritism can flourish. A "supervisor" might alleviate it slightly but could possibly be constricting.
Last edited:
JJ Abrams said:
JJ Abrams said:
LOL, TLJ in a nutshell. It's "subversive" but actually accomplishes very little with regard to plot and character. The movie mimics the best parts of Empire and Jedi and pads out most of the remaining runtime with dull b/c plot. Hell, Johnson even borrowed the "British actor as a Stormtrooper cameo" thing from TFA (although the scene was cut). The few times it seemed like something big or unexpected would happen, it didn't. Kylo and Rey teaming up? Nope. Finn making a heroic sacrifice? Nope.
TLJ is bold in terms of jerking people around, but as a paradigm-shifting second act it's quite safe. "Tune in next week to see if the small band of heroes will survive to fight another day!" (spoiler = they will)
Last edited:
The only time this ever happens is when they filmed Lord of the Rings simultaneously. And even then, there were tons of things that shifted along the way.
No one writes three scripts in advance.
People have the dumbest notion of what serialized storytelling entails.
No he didn't,
The Last Jedi spends the majority of it's runtime on developing character arcs. It's like THE movie to talk about in screenwriting when it comes to establishing an equilibrium and creating a new equilibrium.
Because people don't know fucking shit about writing and it's really annoying to see armchair writers constantly say "well you should've done this."
You do have a point. His biggest wins have been on his own side. Han Solo is the only win he has on the good guy side, which is hilarious when you think about it
They need to replace Kennedy with a Feige.
Kennedy is the problem here, not Abrams or Johnson.
Replace one of the greatest producers in Hollywood history who's led to 3 out of 4 movies making more than a billion dollars each. I suppose that's just a coincidence and Kennedy doesn't understand what resonates with people. 🤷♂️
There was literally never an intention for one director to do all three, let alone a single director doing two of them. A reminder, JJ was not originally going to direct episode 9 nor did he have a strict outline.
To be fair, Lucas more or less made up the OT as he went along too. Vader surviving the destruction of the Death Star was a throwaway sequel hook, his special link with Luke coming as ESB was coming together, and the other Skywalker being a setup for a quick sequel trilogy that later had to be diverted to Leia. The idea that there was any good in Vader also sort of comes out of nowhere in RotJ, so the redemption idea was probably not thought of when Lucas decided to make Vader Luke's father.
Only the PT was end-to-end planned.
Edit: Damn was I late on this argument.
Only the PT was end-to-end planned.
Edit: Damn was I late on this argument.
That wasn't the intention but it should have been. Either that or have a singular writer working on all 3. I mean Treverrow got the boot because his stuff was different in a third direction. The only film trilogy in history that I think works/is considered great with different directors helming each movie was SW and that's largely because Lucas was controlling things both in a positive and negative way.
It's clear from that interview and everything else that Abrams has said that he did not really understand TLJ.
That's never how film making outside of strict adaptations
The thing is that external factors are the reason why ep.9 was challenging, as they could've gone ANYWHERE after ep.8's ending, particularly the part where Carrie Fisher died. The ST is incredibly meta as it spends a lot of it's time through metaphor examining how SW fits into cinema and why it was ever good in the first place. Episode 7 was nostalgic AF with a ton of intentional callbacks to the OT, focusing on Han. Episode 8 was very introspective challenging the audience to self reflect on the concept of SW, focusing on Luke. Ep. 9 was supposed to be Leia's movie.
It wasn't. The PT went through heavy rewrites in every film.
Last edited:
James Cameron claims to have had 4 Avatar scripts ready to go before filming the sequels.
Then again James Cameron is insane.
I never once claimed that there should be a strict storyline that has to be adhered to. Saying there should be consistent oversight is significantly different than saying there has to be multiple scripts in advance that the director has to adhere to. Whether that oversight is in the form of a basic outline for the trilogy or just having identical people in place, I don't think it particularly matters.
Of course you can get situations where the quality/tone differs even from the same person, the Godfather trilogy with Francis Ford Coppola for example, however the track record in regards to trilogies is historically better when there's a singular vision overlooking all of the movies.
A basic outline was in place. They just let the directors do what they felt was best for the story. I think the issue is that a lot of people don't get what "a basic outline" means. There is a straight up story group that checks makes sure that everything made is consistent.
People don't understand that the intentional thing with Kylo is that we aren't supposed to be afraid of him like we are with Vader. Luke was a farm boy who had a sheltered life. Rey is a scavenger who lived on a planet shitty enough to warrante her carrying around not just a staff but also a knife that she had no problem threatening people with.
That's true, but having said that, there's nothing that would be unreasonable about asking for an outline of all three films beforehand and then asking the directors to at least adhere somewhat to that.
It could have worked out, but considering how safe they went for VII's story, it's mind boggling that they took this approach.
In theory that's what the Story Group should be however having a council full of people isn't the same as a singular person overseeing it all. I'm also not sure how much oversight that Story Group is providing:
In addition, I'm not sure how many members of the Story Group are actually writers/authors and not just general producers.
They make sure that we don't end with stuff like the Force Unleashed. Based on what's been said by the people working with them they simultaneously give artists a lot of freedom while making sure we don't get pink Darth Vader and such, or a gary stu so OP that they managed to not only defeat Darht Vader twice but also remove his helmet in coincidentally the exact same way it was removed in return of the jedi because poetry it rhymes.
OP
OP
As you said the Story Group is multiple people. Matt Martin is just one person.
I would probably need to see a better example for me to feel their existence is justified as a substitute for someone like Lucas overseeing everything.
So a Story Group member worked on the first two movies of the ST and not the final? Or he didn't work on any of the ST in which case how involved are the Story Group in overseeing the ST?
As someone that has seen two of the three movies of this trilogy and has zero insider knowledge, I do indeed conclude the series would've turned out better and not just about the same or worse if it was planned out ahead of time. /s
OP
OP
Again, Matt Martin is just one guy. When Nintendo makes a video game, it's not the whole staff of Nintendo that makes it, right? Some employees might move between different projects, different teams, might go on vacations during such or such periods, etc. The Lucasfilm Story Group is not a singular, monolithic entity. It is also multiple employees just like any group of employees in any company.
I mean by all accounts, Trevorrowwas fired because he was having disagreements with Kennedy in regards to the script, not the Story Group. Some of this is impossible to know without working at Lucasfilm and seeing how much control/freedom there is in terms of individual stories and who talks to who but I'm not exactly convinced that the Story Group has much serious input/say on a lot of these higher level topics.
Star Wars 9: Why Colin Trevorrow Was Fired
A new report sheds light on why 'Jurassic World' filmmaker Colin Trevorrow was fired from writing and directing 'Star Wars 9', confirming that Rian Johnson was approached to take over.
collider.com
A better case would be examining individual franchises inside Nintendo and there are definitely singular people that oversee certain franchises. The whole point of this discussion/argument is whether the Story Group is a good replacement for a person like Lucas and I haven't seen much evidence stating that they are. There were a ton of stories of Lucas possibly micromanaging everything SW back in the day. I'm not seeing a lot stating something similar for the Story Group currently.