this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Risa
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Come on'n get your jamaharon on! There are no real rules—just don't break the weather control network.
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I love me some JJ Abrams hate. The man deserves it all and sooo much more.
What's annoying is that he's good at pacing and creating intrigue. He just never knows how stick the landing without turning the plot into swiss cheese.
He’s a great visual director, but he needs a good writer to keep him in check.
Jorge is a fantastically creative guy. He needs limitations on that creativity, but he is undeniably a foundation of ideas.
JJ Abrams mostly regurgitates without having any truly unique ideas. Anything unique he does have is either a subversion or an unfinished mystery concept that’s film student tier. Especially in Star Wars and Trek, he took a bunch of the most surface level aspects from the franchises and threw them in without really doing anything with them.
Wait, is that what J. J. stands for?
It is now.
I'll add that this didn't start with the SW prequel movies either. The various essays on the topic typically focus on The Phantom Menace to make this case (see: Red Letter Media); we do love to hate on that movie. But if you look to early drafts of the very first Star Wars movie script, it's clear that it took a village to make it more than B-movie material. Also, the making-of stories are complete with every kind of move-making person improving and adding to our producer's vision, right down to salvaging the whole mess in the editing room. It's been a problem the entire time.
Now I wonder if THX-1138 and American Graffiti have similar war-stories behind them.
Creating intrigue is relatively straightforward if you don’t worry about sticking the landing.
Yup. Have weird shit happen, don't bothering explaining why.
Basically, writing movies like running a 100% improvised DnD campaign. Which is to say it's great, as long as your audience signed up for repeated intellectual kicks to the groin.
After seeing the rise of skywalker, I don't think I agree on the pacing bit.
Is he good at pacing? His movies are just go go go go without any room to breathe.