Well things hit a new low for Star Trek fans today as the last rotting vestiges of the Kelvin continuity took what appears to be a fatal hit. Is it the end of the big screen franchise as we (sadly) dive into a season of so far disappointing Star Trek Discovery with a new Spock?
For fans of Star Wars the news is pretty much the same – Youre movies are cancelled and on hold for being sub DC bad. Both franchises will now be reduced to mere pay service streaming video shows. Bravo Abrams, you’ve done what Lucas couldn’t, made Star Wars unWatchable!
He’s a double murderer of Sci-Fi Franchises. Douglas Addams would likely describe Abrams’ takeover of any franchise as ‘the coming of the great white handkerchief‘
He had practice.
JJ Abrams- A Sci Fi Force of Failure
JJ Abrams made one good Trek movie which he then destroyed with a special edition commentary that was too honest and came off fan hating and trope-obsessed. Then Into Darkness was just a bad movie. So bad it destroyed any lingering sentiment for the previous movie and beat us up with a recycled plot that is now the ONLY plot JJ Abrams uses in a movie – Bad Guy has a Death Star. Sure, maybe it was originally a Romulan Mining ship or is just a 5 times larger Enterprise, the story was just the same. A glimpse of what we were missing in the Cold Open only made Into Darkness worse. It was the best part of the movie and the ensuing nosedive never ended.
While Simon Pegg made a really watchable and in fact great Trek Movie in Star Trek Beyond it was too late, goodwill was gone. So little by little the cast and creatives that had produced the most entertaining of the movies was allowed to erode.
How Did this Happen?
Ever since he shot Harrison Ford in the head to make predictable tear jerker “Regarding Henry” Abrams has depended on missing or dead parents to add some emotion to his loosely related series of vignettes. The we all got a huge dose of FAIL when he decided to simply cease LOST and create perhaps the worst ever final episode of any show ever.
In the Star Trek movies he’s a one trick pony killing one each of Kirk and Spock’s parents On Screen in the first 40 minutes of his first Star Trek movie. 20 minutes into Into Darkness he kills Kirk’s surrogate father, Pike. So both characters are now motivated like Batman.
Destroying Star Wars for Toy Revenue
JJ Abrams only ever wanted to be the Star Wars guy and the stopover at Trek was complicated by his disdain for the franchise and fans and general all around desire to make Star Trek a Star Wars substitute.
Abrams gave away a little too much when he tells us Captain Kirk is now based on Indiana Jones, especially when he fights and only wins through luck. The concept would have been better had he not boasted of it in the commentary for his first Trek movie. He was drunk or high and telling too much of the truth that day but we’re lucky to have it on the record.
More importantly to the “Star Trekkiness” of the new franchise, Abrams simply threw away the idea that we would just go to a planet. It seemed to be scrupulously avoided to say risk the ship, struggle with the Prime Directive and possibly encounter a race analogous to the current state of Humanity or any combination of those things.
He never did Star Trek at its best, where it shines a light into a flaw inherent in humanity and aspires towards a future where were simply more reasonable. It became mere action and adventure.
He was largely successful in this endeavors to change and destroy Star Trek. Then, in a shocking turn of events he got his dream job, to destroy Star Wars. Again he was largely successful.
Who doesn’t love lines like when C-3PO makes mention of his red arm so that JJ Abrams can introduce his own red arm C-3PO toy he could keep more money from? There’s other examples you’ll easily find if you watch with the idea “Abrams is trying to secure a toy revenue stream.”
During his time at Star Trek toys were an issue and the toy obsession lead Star Wars down an awful path too.
The Abrams Trap-Good Beginnings that Go Nowhere
Anyone saying JJ Abrams ‘only writes beginnings” is absolutely RIGHT ON! The last decent movie he made, his first Star Trek, was one long beginning. The next movie, Into Darkness, was a mere rehash.
In the case of both Trek and Star Wars he wrote himself and the franchise semi – excitingly into an ultimately boring corner that pre-compromised the next movie. The Force Awakens was okay until the sequel destroyed it as lots of false cannon and quickly abandoned ideas both good and bad. On the bright side the launching of the First Order Assault ships was unnoticed by most as a re-hash of his original Star Trek movies credit sequence. I think that’s when he really starts thinking everyone’s an idiot but him as the movies have more and mor tropes and more big budget moments to inject some excitement into a now dull story.
For Star Trek after he leaves things improve fast. We got a near Abrams free movie and Beyond was enjoyable, refreshing and very much a return to form. Fans were already pre-heated and angry though and the movie underperformed. Sadly this seems to have had a discrediting effect on more relatable plots and Discovery has been abysmal. The lessons of the Abrams era were lost and the mistakes were are now being compounded.
In Star Wars we get The Last Jedi, a movie where both plots start with bad jokes that fall flat. The problem where Rian Johnson, the writer for the that movie, had just inherited nothing to work with was front and center through the whole awful sham. He also didn’t really distinguish himself with his self important ‘trick’ ending that fails.
Who didn’t pity poor Mark Hamill, forced to play Skywalker as a guy who toys with murdering children? That trait was supposed to SKIP A GENERATION! The moment he holds his lightsaber on Kylo Ren’s bad for both characters. Luke looks horrible and the bad guy suddenly has real justifications that are badly related. Like Han Solo being a bad dad wasn’t enough?
Handcuffed by the need to have a Death Star but not have an actual Death Star, which has been the plot of five of this franchises movies, Johnson gives us “Miniaturized Death Star Tech” in the Gun on the Salt Planet. Then Luke dies but doesn’t die. Then dies, kind of.
As an aside- Why Laura Dern was even in this movie is a “wondering out loud’ blog-post of its own
Where We’re At
Perhaps this is the best way to sum up the “genius” of JJ Abrams- both Star Wars and Star Trek have ALL FUTURE MOVIES ON INDEFINITE HOLD AND ARE ONLY PRODUCING STREAMING PAY TV SHOWS.
Star Trek Discovery, mired in a plagiarism lawsuit that Star Trek writers should have been above, are now going to do what the Abrams dictate demands Treat original characters with total contempt. A characters parent will die soon! Hell, we killed off a bunch of parents and doubles in the long boring trip through the new ‘improved’ mirror universe.
While Star Wars seems locked in to a terrible and unwanted Episode 9 that will likely be all house-keeping and a way to set up Non Skywalker future for the franchise, things are even worse for Star Trek.
Discovery is stuck in a badly plagiarized and predictably over the top world of super high stakes. The shows got a lot of flaws but the stakes being way too high is a constant. Sos the lack of humanity the characters show. Casualties among the crew don’t give the commanders pause.
Their “Spore World” is just not going to maintainable and the fact is the lawsuit and outrage about a thinly veiled rip off of Dune swirls around that. Star Trek has only one course –
Star Trek’s Only Hope
Give Quentin Tarantino complete control of one movie. The cast will return for this. Then let Tarantino kill as many people as he wants and re-boot The Next Generation as a movie franchise while the original characters get a well deserved rest.
Advertisements
