JJ Abrams Returning To Director’s Chair On ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’

[eschatological]

TFA was a soft reboot and its critics seem to be unable to accept that as a valid plot for a new trilogy. If it was a one-off movie, maybe they'd have a point, but it's been a planned trilogy from the very beginning.

It incorporated elements from all three original Star Wars crammed into one movie, and it led to some things like a noticeable power creep in the main protagonist, but that is a flaw that almost has to exist to move on to new material in the 2nd and 3rd movies. This soft reboot of the original took place almost 40 years after ANH came out, it was literally re-introducing the series to a new generation. Now, if Episode VIII is more of the same, then yes, I think these critics will have some ammunition, but every indication we have from trailers is that there's some disruption in the normal cycle of Republic/Empire and good then bad then bad's redemption, and this disruption is caused by the last person from the last cycle who sees that cycle as inescapable. There's a strong indication that this movie very well may be about the Grey Jedi, and Luke struggling to achieve real balance in the Force.

But for all that, the one thing TFA did was be better written and directed than the prequels. The characters were believable, but set up some mystery in terms of their backgrounds. We don't know why Rey is so strongly attached to going home. We don't know why Finn rebels. We literally know nothing about Phasma. We don't know much about Poe, either, or what made Kylo Ren really fall. We don't know what happened to Luke. From a directing standpoint, scenes weren't simple shot/counter-shot, dialogue was active and kinetic, as was the action. It relied on practical props, and less CGI than the prequels. And it evoked that fucking feeling, man.

The people who don't understand the vast superiority of TFA over the prequels, while having to rehash some of the originals, I think are either being willfully ignorant, or actually don't understand, how popular art is made.

[Tijuana]

Abrams is so fucking overrated.

You think people would have gotten the picture with the ending of Lost alone, nevermind when he started lying to people's faces ("No, he's really not Khan, ya'll. True story."). And then the Force Awakens just being a complete rip-off of the original movie, only "BIGGER, OMG!" and, somehow, even more stupid on the sci-fi front. "Look, lasers everyone can see everywhere simultaneously, cause that's how light works!!!!!!!"

The man is nothing but a scumbag who takes great ideas and shits all over them.

You mean the ending that he factually had nothing to do with, as he had not worked on that project in many years, at that point? The guy who factually had the (original) great idea, that was later shit on by others? That guy?

[eschatological]

Ironically people don't realize that JJ was only involved in the pilot of LOST, which many people consider one of the best pilots ever.

He was merely an executive producer, after that, and never a writer or director again.

Edit: They also forget J.J. Abrams did Alias, which was a great fucking TV show, long before he ever did LOST's pilot.

[AlphaOut]

Ironically people don't realize that JJ was only involved in the pilot of LOST, which many people consider one of the best pilots ever.

He was merely an executive producer, after that, and never a writer or director again.

Edit: They also forget J.J. Abrams did Alias, which was a great fucking TV show, long before he ever did LOST's pilot.

Yeah, but most people don't even know what an executive producer is or does lol.

[Zeta333]

I'm still not over people still thinking Episode 1 is the worst star wars. When Attack of the Clones is clearly so much worse. I rather watch the twilight love story than to watch that horrible love story garbage.

Force Awakens is a GREAT movie. But the WORST Star Wars movie. (develops nothing new, and adds nothing of value to the universe)

Attack of the clones is the worst movie. And an average Star Wars movie. (greatly develops the universe)

i thought they were all subpar compared to the novels, but then i read the books first.

[Deleted]

Ironically people don't realize that JJ was only involved in the pilot of LOST, which many people consider one of the best pilots ever.

R.R. Martin have loots of mysteries, but he have a general design/plane how to resolve the mysteries. JJ have only loots of mysteries but no idea how to resolve the mysteries. Thats the problem if he shall do the last movie.

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TFA was a soft reboot and its critics seem to be unable to accept that as a valid plot for a new trilogy.

The problem is that it is not a soft reboot of the orginal trilogy. The orginal was a textbook exampel of a hero's journey, the new movie was a power fantasy.

Think how crazy how the next movie will be.

Luke: To become a Jedi you must defeat Kylo.
Rey: That loser? I already defeated him twice.

[eschatological]

The problem is that it is not a soft reboot of the orginal trilogy. The orginal was a textbook exampel of a hero's journey, the new movie was a power fantasy.

Think how crazy how the next movie will be.

Luke: To become a Jedi you must defeat Kylo.
Rey: That loser? I already defeated him twice.

The whole point was to fit the entire journey in one movie, so as to move on to a different take on the hero. Essentially, Rey goes from an afraid, lonely girl on a desert planet (analagous to Luke in ANH), she's pushed into something larger than herself when she runs into a droid. She escapes harrowingly, tapping into flight abilities she doesn't really recall or remember beyond fragments. She then meets Han, who serves as Obi Wan, the older, father figure mentor, who tells her there's some big, mysterious Force out there....

...then, she goes to a lush, green planet to learn from a shriveled up Jim Henson puppet. While there, she has visions, potentially of the darkness within her, and of other, repressed trauma. She tries to push it away. In a little bit of a role reversal from ESB, she gets captured, and it's her friends who have to go rescue her, which starts the resolution into RotJ.....


...where she and her new friends face the apprentice to a sinister Master in a ground assault, while a space battle rages on above them. It's then that she comes into her true powers, using the Jedi mind trick like Luke in RotJ, and even having the rage-y lightsaber battle with the bad guy (at the end). But also, they twist it a bit. In an expert narrative technique, they set up the potential redemption of the bad guy with his father (instead of with his son, as in RotJ), but instead of following the happy ending of RotJ, they say, no, there is no redemption for Kylo, while simultaneously hitting the chord of losing the father figure, in ANH fashion. The way this scene is written, where Kylo is begging and pleading with Solo to help him kill that which is troubling, which, upon reflection, could mean either the redemption arc or this new "irredemption" arc, was better than anything in the prequels by miles, and I might also say the original movies as well.

Then you have a sequence after Solo's death which is, to me, the introduction of the end of the cycle. Because there is no redemption of Kylo, the fight must continue. Because the mentor is dead, the rage is still present in Rey. She is about to succumb to the darkness of it when the earth beneath them literally split them apart, and she goes off to find Luke, who will teach her that the cycle must be broken ("It is time for the Jedi....to end.")

It's only a power fantasy if she keeps on going rip-roaring through the rest of these next two movies with no consequences.

[MrMatticus]

Disaster. The force awakens was a sub par movie. A copy of a new hope with some out right tetrible characters and writing. Finn is a terrible character played a a terrible actor. His whole backstory and arc are so poorly written and actored out it. Stinks of meeting a quota.

Rays character could od been ok, but once again poor writing struck and with her been so powerful so quickly it made the movie bad. There are more problems with it.

If you're calling the lead role from Attack the Block a terrible actor then you've lost all right to have an opinion on anything.

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Force Awakens is a GREAT movie. But the WORST Star Wars movie. (develops nothing new, and adds nothing of value to the universe)

It's better than Return and all of the prequels.

[Deleted]

People you were in the cinema with are not even 0.01% of the total amount of people who watched the movie. It's not representative of anything at all.

As for bad reviews but high rating, this happens a lot in our day and age with many entertainment products like movies, music and games. The basic of it is that people who are unhappy are far more vocal about it, so in our face we see more bad, while hidden in the back there's a lot more people, that we don't see, who just rate it high without flipping tables about it.

So things are rated high because they are liked by the vast majority, but the people doing actual reviews are the one so mad they just have to write about it.

And more specifically about TFA, I quickly went over some of the reviews in your link. Those are all people who didn't understand the core concept of soft reboot. They have every right to not enjoy that, but let's be logical here, we see reboots of every franchise withing less than 10 years of the previous one (spiderman, batman, and so on), so why would ANYONE expect a franchise to just follow up right after the last episode over 30 years ago years ago? That makes no sense at all.

No one in these reviews seem to even think or analyse the ideas and goal of that movie, they all just spit out their own opinion and taste. That's not being critique at all, that's just expressing your view, which, to be quite frank, is 100% meaningless.

Another thing, a lot of people act like Star Wars in the first place was like the messiah of cinematic accomplishments. Let's be very clear, it was visually cool for it's time and it did a bunch of things right to appeal to as many people as possible but it was never the most impressive artistic work. Why all of a sudden people expect every actor to be fucking top notch, Mark Hamill sucked ass in Episode 4, straight up, no point hiding it.

There's a bandwagon of hate for TFA, people can jump on it if they want it's their right, but it's also their duty to realize it's just one wagon, the rest of the train loved that movie and being in that little wagon of circle jerking doesn't make them right in any way shape or form.

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The new Trilogy doesn't need any redeeming. If anything it's making the franchise grow. You seem to live in a bubble of your own opinion that entirely ignores everything opposing your views, without realizing what the movie has accomplished and how many people actually liked it.

Also about the rest of your post. The writing in episode 4-5-6 wasn't exactly great, it was fine and for the plot it was probably slightly better than TFA, and again, that's just because TFA is a soft reboot, they had to do that. George Lucas is not a good writer, he's a good creator, he made a very compelling universe that holds itself strong, with alien languages, economic systems, etc, a bunch of stuff and details that make the star wars universe really cool. But the script writing itself isn't his strength. Need I remind you he wrote the prequels? Yeah, the movies that had extremely huge marketing, big name actors, everything, and did WAY LESS in term of both profit and overall appreciation compared to TFA.

If anything, The Force Awakens IS the redemption the franchise needed after the prequels.

Also Rogue One was good.

YA man we are the .01%...

That is why it is such a mainstream opinion that even southpark mentioned how the force awakens is a rehash rather than a new movie of ANY creativity. It's pretty universal after the hype wore down that everyone saw through the smoke and mirrors and realized it is a bad star wars movie.

[Deleted]

Ironically people don't realize that JJ was only involved in the pilot of LOST, which many people consider one of the best pilots ever.

He was merely an executive producer, after that, and never a writer or director again.

Edit: They also forget J.J. Abrams did Alias, which was a great fucking TV show, long before he ever did LOST's pilot.

They also seem to conveniently forget that TFA was:

- The first star wars movie in 10 years

- The first movie to follow the original heroes in 30 years.

- And the first ever star wars movie without Lucas.

Of course it was going to be very similar to ANH. They had to show they can do a classic star wars movie. And considering the critical and commerical success it had, it accomplished what it had to. Sure it had its faults, but the previous six had as well. Now before we shit on Abrams let's wait for Episode 8 and see how well that turns out.

[Deleted]

Then you have a sequence after Solo's death which is, to me, the introduction of the end of the cycle. Because there is no redemption of Kylo, the fight must continue.

Totaly disagre, Not that Arthas kill his father without hesitation, noting holding him back. Kylo need to strugel to kill his father, hence some part is still "good" not that his redemption will be hard and long and he might not have the will to do it. But I disagre that he can not be redeem. Personaly I feel it cheep if they do it we have already seen it in RotJ.

Because the mentor is dead, the rage is still present in Rey.

Intresting angle, not thought about it, did rewatch it and Rey do screaming NO! so your theory is sound.

[eschatological]

I think the killing of his father ends that struggle. If you look at that scene, what Han thinks Kylo is saying is that he needs his help to get rid of the Dark Side in him. He of course says he'll help him.

But Kylo is really deceiving him. He's not seeking to purge the Dark Side from himself, he's seeking to purge the Light Side from himself. He recognizes he's been trained by Luke, a Light Side Jedi and his Uncle, and he knows it's a part of him, and he is making a conscious choice to step away from it. And I think this viewing of it is confirmed when Snoke later says that now his training can finally begin - because he's shed himself of the thing which has held him back. You also see that symbolically in re: his mask. He wore this mask to emulate Vader, to strike fear - but Vader was wearing the mask to stay alive, not to invoke some emotion. Kylo realizes that he's relying on a crutch, of sort, and even his Vader worship is kind of a crutch as well, because, after all, Anakin brought balance by killing Darth Sidious. That's why it's so shocking, and such a good character twist, when Rey challenges him about hiding his face, and he instantly takes the helmet off to confront her face-to-face........and then never puts it back on. It's also telling that in the trailer for The Last Jedi, you see the mask smashed on the ground. He doesn't need it any more. He is irredeemably Dark Side, worse than Vader. In some way, he's eschewed the very attachments that both drove Vader to the Dark Side and then brought him back to the Light Side.

I'd be very surprised if Kylo Ren was redeemed in this trilogy, or ever. Narratively, it would be incongruous with what they've set up already.

[Deleted]

I'm still not over people still thinking Episode 1 is the worst star wars. When Attack of the Clones is clearly so much worse. I rather watch the twilight love story than to watch that horrible love story garbage.

Force Awakens is a GREAT movie. But the WORST Star Wars movie. (develops nothing new, and adds nothing of value to the universe)

Attack of the clones is the worst movie. And an average Star Wars movie. (greatly develops the universe)

Darth Maul alone is better than everything in force awakens...

[Deleted]

Darth Maul alone is better than everything in force awakens...

Honestly of all the things people complain about force awakens kylo Ren should not be one of them. I think he is a great addition and a diverse character. Yes he acts like a angry kid but that is part of his character. He is supposed to be unstable and dangerous. It's not enough to save the movie but my god everyone thought it was cool as hell when he stopped a laser blast.

[Deleted]

Vader stopped several from Han in Empire.

[Swalload]

YA man we are the .01%...

That is why it is such a mainstream opinion that even southpark mentioned how the force awakens is a rehash rather than a new movie of ANY creativity. It's pretty universal after the hype wore down that everyone saw through the smoke and mirrors and realized it is a bad star wars movie.

Why is it so complicated for people to understand that TFA was a soft reboot? It was literally never meant to be an entirely new original movie from the very first day of it's conception.
Take it for what it is, not for what your entitled self wish it was.

[A dot Ham]

Synopsis:
One of the main characters has been taken captive by one of the galaxies most notorious gangsters. Our heroes must infiltrate the organization undetected to rescue their friend.

Meanwhile the Resistance learns that (get this) the First Order is building ANOTHER Starkiller Base [WTF RIGHT]! But here's the catch it isn't complete yet. Guys a lot and I mean A LOT of Bothans die.

While under construction the planet is being shielded by one of its moons. Destroy the shield generator, destroy Starkiller base easy, right? Wrong! Snoke. SNOKE! is on Starkiller Base and ITS ACTUALLY OPERATIONAL!

Rey has turned herself over to Ben, in an attempt to bring him back to the light. Snoke tries to kill Rey, and this was the motivation Ben needed to turn on Snoke and redeem himself. The resistance wins and the New New Republic is born.


JJ Abrams and TFA:
I was totally stoked to see what JJ was going to do with Star Wars... considering I loved LOVED the Star Trek reboot. There was nothing remotely original about TFA, it was a rehash.

For me it has ZERO rewatchability (its a word look it up) I have grown up watching the originals OVER and OVER and OVER again... I'm not an angry purist... because I actually really enjoyed the prequels too... which also takes care of the film snob retorts... while I can totally appreciate the nods to original McQuarrie designs, and commitment to practical effects... it missed the mark.

It was TOO much of a rehash of episode IV. Hell I even appreciated the nods to some of the god awful made for TV ewok movies (which have a special place in my heart), TFA just didn't have enough originality. There is/was enough from the EU for them to pull from (even if they bastardized it) they didn't NEED to make "A New Hope" for this generation to draw in a new group of fans. Existing fans would have done that work for them.

[eschatological]

They absolutely DID need to soft reboot it. It was 30 years after ANH. They were literally aiming it at a new generation of Star Wars fans. And guess what, it worked.

It seems to me you don't know how pop culture works.

[Coombs]

He co-wrote TFA with Lawrence Kasdan, and will be doing the same in Ep. 9. Are you saying Kasdan can't write a good Star Wars movie? Like...for real?

Like... anyone who wrote that carbon copy of the first film beat for beat isn't a good writer. You're given Star Wars. An IP finally removed from the clutches of Lucas, you can do anything with the story going forward, and you make A New New Hope. Dog shit terrible.

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They absolutely DID need to soft reboot it. It was 30 years after ANH. They were literally aiming it at a new generation of Star Wars fans. And guess what, it worked.

It seems to me you don't know how pop culture works.

Bullshit. It's one of the most recognized IPs, and it didn't need any kind of reboot to make it relevant to a new generation.

[Septik]

Of course it was going to be very similar to ANH. They had to show they can do a classic star wars movie.

are you daft? this was supposed to be the continuation of the fucking story, not a remake of a 70s classic. get with the fuckin program.