It ’s laborious to overstate how boring Star Trek seemed in 2008 . A superfluous prequel had sucked the life out of it , the movies were crud , and the whole affair become a source of flat jokes on late - dark telecasting . There were cartoon strip , game and novels for the die - laborious buff , but as far as mainstream culture was refer , Trek was toast .
J.J. Abrams brought Star Trek back . And now , with Star Wars in a not completely dissimilar situation , he ’s been brought in to replicate the feat . Can he do it again ?
All persona by Ralph McQuarrie
So first of all , yes , the comparison between Star Wars circa 2013 and Star Trek circa 2008 does seem apt . This bump to every popular universe from time to metre : unease exercise set in , everything feels like a retread , and too many iterations of the same old thing have invoked the Law of Diminishing Returns , which is right smart more unbreakable than the Prime Directive .
truthful , Star Wars has the Clone Wars toon , which is keeping it exciting for a new generation . And the Expanded Universe has a heavy ambit than things like Star Trek ’s attempts to create an extended persistence . But to most the great unwashed , Star Wars is still mostly a set of six movies that first enchant our corporate imaginativeness … and then starved it .
Like Star Trek five years ago , Star Wars is n’t just in want of a raw coat of paint , or another outing down memory lane . Star Wars needs to be reinvent . Whoever directs a new Episode is going to require to take some liberty with the source textile . ( And really , why would you ever want a new installation of anything that does n’t reinvent the concept to some extent ? you may always pop in the DVDs if you want the everlasting original . A new flick , in any serial ever , should be new . Or what ’s the point ? )
So I guess the question I ’m wondering are , Will Abrams be uncoerced to take chance with Star Wars ? And will he take the correct chances ? And most of import , will Abrams be able to get to the heart of what Star Wars is really about ?
( Of naturally , now ’s a unspoilt office to betoken out that Abrams is n’t write the screenplay to Episode VII in any case — by all account , that ’s Toy Story 3 / Little Miss Sunshine writer Michael Arndt . But of path , whoever calculate the affair would have a decent amount of leeway to screw around with Arndt ’s script . And actually Abrams seems more probable to prise the words on the varlet , based on what he ’s say about other projects he directed and did n’t write , than a lot of other writers . )
So rent ’s take those questions one by one . Will Abrams be unforced to take chance ? He certainly take some pretty major liberties with Trek , to the degree where some fans still hate the film . Abrams took the classic TOS characters and gave them a massively different linguistic context , while botch up a large hollow in the Trek cosmogony . And yet , Abrams and his writers equilibrize all of this sacrilege with a healthy dollop of lover - service , throw off in light-green Orion woman , the Kobayashi - Maru trial and a random Tribble .
On the other bridge player , Abrams made a big deal out of not being a Star Trek devotee when he directed Star Trek . And he has made an equally handsome deal out of being a Star Wars fan . So he may be instinctively more worshipful when border on this particular chalice , and that would be a regretful matter for all of us . At the same metre , after find out most of Abrams ’ clobber at once , it feel like surprise and gimmick occupy a huge section of his storytelling toolbox .
Look at it this way — back when we had the oral tradition , you had storytellers who get around reprize the same tales that other narrator who came before had tell . And some narrator probably stick pretty close to the classic , but they were popular because they have intercourse how to embellish a bit , or just milk the spectacular moments in a way that was fun to listen to after a few cup of goat wine . And then there was likely a 2d group of storytellers , who modify things up more , maybe infix some new twist or even making the story ’s end something unlike than what other storytellers had taught you to expect . A third group of traveling fabulists might actually make up a stain raw story from scratch sometimes , including some Graeco-Roman elements but also fashioning a whole set of characters and outcome .
Of those three type , Abrams commonly seems to be the 2d type — he ’ll tell the stories you ’ve heard before , but he ’ll find a fashion catch you off guard .
Will Abrams take the right liberties ? A lot , patently , depends on whether you like the autonomy he took with Star Trek . And whether the flamboyant , gooftastic take on undercover agent traditional knowledge in Alias and Undercovers cultivate for you . And whether you thought Super-8 was a great tribute to 1980s Spielberg , or an unforgiveable bastardization . And so on .
establish on all that material , we can generalize : to the extent that Abrams has an influence on the news report of the novel Star Wars , it wo n’t only make sense if you think too much . ( But it was never going to make gumption in any compositor’s case . ) And yet , Abrams reliably brings a lot of energy and a sense of fun to whatever he tackle , along with a dedication to personal drama in the middle of huge stage set pieces . I ’ve never been bored find out something Abrams was directly involved in . Even if you hated Abrams ’ Trek , you have to admit it tamp in some powerful emotional second , and was way more entertaining than the best moments of the last two TNG movies put together .
Here ’s the affair people often say about J.J. Abrams : he ’s addicted to mysteries and cryptic plot constituent . But that ’s really based on a misreading of his oeuvre — he sure knows how to twitch fan around using viral merchandising and the internet hearsay mill , but that acquirement is not integral to his storytelling .
I often intend about the Rabbit ’s Foot in Abrams ’ Mission Impossible III . That ’s the orphic object that Ethan Hunt has to have . And we ’re never tell what it is , beyond a few random trace . So is the Rabbit ’s Foot a mystery ? Only if you ’re the sort of person who analyse movies after watching them . For the purposes of the motion-picture show , it ’s a pure McGuffin — Abrams is n’t saying , “ You should obsess about the nature of the Rabbit ’s Foot . ” He ’s saying “ It does n’t matter what the Rabbit ’s Foot is . The bad bozo need it , that ’s all you need to know . ”
hoi polloi often speak about J.J. Abrams as a hombre who cares too much about secret plan gadget — but if anything , he ’s someone who does n’t worry about them at all . cherry Matter ? Sure , it gets the job done . Rambaldi Artifacts ? Yeah , whatever .
So if you ’re shopworn of Star Wars being all about midichlorians and the fine details of astronomical politics , J.J. Abrams is probably your guy rope .
Will he get to the heart of what Star Wars is about ? Abrams did n’t really get what Star Trek was about , at least in his first movie . ( And based on what we ’ve go out thus far , Star Trek Into Darkness will be more of the same . ) The emphasis on exploration , on pushing the boundaries of human cognition , on using our power sagely , on prove to understand the Other , IDIC , all that stuff — it ’s not in the first Abrams Trek movie at all . Which is one cause people complain so much .
And this is where Arndt being the screenwriter , and Abrams being an O.G. Star Wars fan , might come in ready to hand — those two guys , between them , might in reality get what Star Wars ought to be about . ( In a nutshell , avoiding the Dark Side of the Force , the little guy rope bring home the bacon , a hoagie achieve his / her fate , coolheaded aliens , mad fun and optimism . I wrote a whole matter about what we want to see from a new Star Warshere . )
https://gizmodo.com/what-we-want-from-a-new-star-wars-trilogy-5957041
All Abrams really has to do is make the Force seem coolheaded and ghostly and relevant — to do what he absolutely did not do with “ boldly move where no world has gone before ” — and we ’re sold .
last think : Whoever directed the new Star Wars was going to be a intersection of Star Wars . George Lucas and the ILM crew change motion-picture show drastically , ushering in a unexampled earned run average of particular burden - enceinte tentpoles — the same stress on peculiar effect that eventually destroy Star Wars . The ultimate challenge of a fresh Star Wars is to get past the VFX and the awesome spaceship battles and get to the grapheme and the emotions . That ’s a tiny exhaust embrasure that ’s hard to polish off — but I suppose Abrams has a bonny stab .
J.J. AbramsStar TrekStar warfare
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