Movies JJ Abrams: Lack of plan in Star Wars’ latest trilogy was a “critical” flaw. Hindsight is 20/20: "There's nothing more important than knowing where you're going."

[Jason]

A JJ Abrams production that had absolutely no planning out of anything?

 

 

JJ Abrams: Lack of plan in Star Wars’ latest trilogy was a “critical” flaw

ARSTECHNICA.COM

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Hindsight is 20/20: "There's nothing more important than knowing where you're going."

 

[Mr.Vic20]

I firmly believe that JJA is only good at the first half of anything he does. The man has proven time and time again that he likes coming up with ideas that he doesn’t know how to land. 

[Greatoneshere]

JJ Abrams has himself admitted he's not good at endings, then he was hired to rush the film that was meant to be an ending to a trilogy and a nine film saga and it was Star Wars on cocaine. The original Star Wars trilogy is great and wasn't necessarily made with a mapped out "plan", it's just JJ Abrams isn't good at this.

 

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Director Admits, He's Bad At Endings

WWW.CBR.COM

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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker director J.J Abrams says that endings aren't exactly his forte.

 

[Jason]

7 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

JJ Abrams has himself admitted he's not good at endings, then he was hired to rush the film that was meant to be an ending to a trilogy and a nine film saga and it was Star Wars on cocaine. The original Star Wars trilogy is great and wasn't necessarily made with a mapped out "plan", it's just JJ Abrams isn't good at this.

 

Nor are his acolytes. For example interviews with the Picard writers about how they'd use their COVID downtime were pretty (unintentionally?) damning about how writing for the first season went. It's incredible how far up they've failed.

[Fizzzzle]

I want to see him produce a big budget movie that he isn't writing or directing. Alias and Fringe were both awesome. Joy Ride is the last movie he was involved with that he didn't direct, and that was a pretty good movie (it was also 20 years ago)

[Reputator]

Yeah nothing revelatory there. But it's a bit of a head-scratcher how it took doing it the wrong way to figure out that plans are good.

 

Or maybe not strictly that plans are good. Maybe more like...a cogent trajectory is good.

 

IX is pretty universally loathed, but what's funny is how VIII would probably be appreciated more, by more people, if IX had stuck the landing. Instead they prioritized time over quality.

[Kal-El814]

I'll continue to reiterate that the OT had no plan and is still the best, so, it's possible that JJ is just... generally not good at storytelling.

[Kal-El814]

 

Yup… yup. 

[SaysWho?]

10 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

I'll continue to reiterate that the OT had no plan and is still the best, so, it's possible that JJ is just... generally not good at storytelling.

 

Exactly.

 

We already saw from Trevorrow's early drafts that it was set to continue the arcs 7 and 8 started. When I saw 8, many plot turns caught me off guard, I actually really felt like I didn't know where the story would go (which we obviously didn't get from the prequels and partially got from 7 being a new movie, even though we'd later find out it served more as a soft reboot), and many questions I had were answered (the Luke flashback with R2, Rey's origins). I felt like the story pushed forward. 9 would have done that. To me, it doesn't matter if people think it may not have been a good film because they're not impressed with Trevorrow's work; at least that work was the conclusion to 7 and 8 and not an acid trip.

[Jason]

10 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

I'll continue to reiterate that the OT had no plan and is still the best, so, it's possible that JJ is just... generally not good at storytelling.

 

Not everything needs to completely pre-planned like Babylon 5. DS9 got to basically the same tier as B5 by retroactively mining its past seasons for the ideas. Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis also did this to good effect, making shit up as they went a lot of the time, but keeping things together and fairly cohesive across 15 seasons of television, including some connection points while their broadcasts overlapped, because they would actually keep track of what they'd previously done. 

 

JJ and his acolytes don't even do that much. They just keep piling on new shit with zero regard for even the immediately prior episode.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

You don’t have to plan everything out, but you can at least know where you are headed. If RJ had been told that the plan for the trilogy’s ending would include Snoke in the climax, he wouldn’t have killed him. 
 

That being said, quite a bit of IX felt like JJA was trying to apologize to the loud fans that hated VIII. I’ve even heard some of those fans say that it felt like JJA spent a good deal of time “fixing” VIII. 
 

It really felt like JJA made what he thought those loud fans would like, and not what would actually be a good Star Wars story. 

[Jason]

From the comments on the from the article:

 

Quote

In the case of Lost, he supposedly refused to have an ending in mind when he started the series, even though the network requested one.

 

Then when given Star Trek, Paramount requested a plot for a sequel before he started production of the first, and again he flat-out refused, and the studio let him.

 

When he was first announced as the director of Star Wars I predicted the results (although the last one was far worse than I expected.) I am reserving judgement on whether he has learned this lesson or not.

 

[Kal-El814]

18 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

You don’t have to plan everything out, but you can at least know where you are headed. If RJ had been told that the plan for the trilogy’s ending would include Snoke in the climax, he wouldn’t have killed him. 
 

That being said, quite a bit of IX felt like JJA was trying to apologize to the loud fans that hated VIII. I’ve even heard some of those fans say that it felt like JJA spent a good deal of time “fixing” VIII. 
 

It really felt like JJA made what he thought those loud fans would like, and not what would actually be a good Star Wars story. 

 

Luke catching the lightsaber and saying a Jedi should treat their weapon with respect, and the “here’s why we don’t do Holdo maneuvers all the time” bits really feel like unnecessary apologies for TLJ. As does… literally everything Rey and Kyle go through.

 

It’s a weird fucking movie.

[Kal-El814]

Also, I’ll say again…

 

All you need to know about JJ as a storyteller you can get from watching Into Darkness.

 

It relies completely on nostalgia and knowledge from outside the movie to work at all.

New Spock has a conversation with Old Spock in which Old Spock says that Khan was their most dangerous enemy (no) and tells New Spock the secret to defeating Khan and then they cut away from the conversation… then to win the fight, New Spock just hits Khan in the head with a blunt object.

 

JJ is really very good at selling the drama and emotion in scenes, I just wish it was tied to stories that didn’t consistently blow ass.

[69los]

2 hours ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

You don’t have to plan everything out, but you can at least know where you are headed. If RJ had been told that the plan for the trilogy’s ending would include Snoke in the climax, he wouldn’t have killed him. 
 

That being said, quite a bit of IX felt like JJA was trying to apologize to the loud fans that hated VIII. I’ve even heard some of those fans say that it felt like JJA spent a good deal of time “fixing” VIII. 
 

It really felt like JJA made what he thought those loud fans would like, and not what would actually be a good Star Wars story. 

 

This was the meme day one.

 

[Reputator]

14 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

I'll continue to reiterate that the OT had no plan and is still the best, so, it's possible that JJ is just... generally not good at storytelling.

 

The themes of the characters were consistent though. Each one had an arc. But like, if they're going to make Rey a nobody... Stick with the nobody story. Play with the themes of that.

[TwinIon]

I think the biggest problem with these films was the timeline Disney set. Having overlapping directors and writers working on sequels to films that hadn't been finished yet and pushing aggressive timelines was a bad idea.

 

Sure, let Rian Johnson start working on the second movie before Force Awakens is out, but if I recall he was deep into production before seeing TFA on screen. Then you had the whole mess with swapping directors on the last film, but still sticking to the timeline for release.

 

What if JJ had the time to work with Johnson while planning out the second movie, and visa-versa? Maybe you end up in the same mess, but maybe things get more time to breathe and arcs get a chance to naturally flow from film to film. Yeah, the OG trilogy didn't have a complete plan from day one, but Lawrence Kasdan got to see Star Wars before writing Empire.

 

Star Wars is basically the biggest media property there is. Why force an every other year release timing?

[ort]

They botched it all so bad... it really is indefensible. They got handed the most popular media franchise in the history of humanity, and then they just kinda shrugged and said, you know, whatever.

 

They killed the goose that laid the golden egg. In like a 6 year span, they managed to squeeze every single last drop of enthusiasm I ever had for this franchise out.

 

I mean, the prequels already did most of the damage, but I was ready to be a total fanboy nerd again. I wanted these to be good, SO BAD.

 

And they just aren't.

[CitizenVectron]

9 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

 

 

Star Wars is basically the biggest media property there is. Why force an every other year release timing?

 

Because Disney's original plan was to have 1-2 Star Wars movies each year, forever. 

[CitizenVectron]

4 minutes ago, ort said:

They botched it all so bad... it really is indefensible. They got handed the most popular media franchise in the history of humanity, and then they just kinda shrugged and said, you know, whatever.

 

They killed the goose that laid the golden egg. In like a 6 year span, they managed to squeeze every single last drop of enthusiasm I ever had for this franchise out.

 

I mean, the prequels already did most of the damage, but I was ready to be a total fanboy nerd again. I wanted these to be good, SO BAD.

 

And they just aren't.

 

Exactly. It's like, the most exciting part of any franchise is wondering where it goes from the present. You can also get limited excitement for exploring the past. The ST managed to kill both. We now know that anything that happens between the OT and ST is inconsequential, and anything after the ST...doesn't matter, because the characters aren't really that interesting.

[ort]

...and that nothing really matters at all because they're just making everything up as they go and don't give a shit about anything.

 

If they don't care, why should we?

[Kal-El814]

17 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

Star Wars is basically the biggest media property there is. Why force an every other year release timing?

 

I think it’s technically Pokémon.

 

5 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

Exactly. It's like, the most exciting part of any franchise is wondering where it goes from the present. You can also get limited excitement for exploring the past. The ST managed to kill both. We now know that anything that happens between the OT and ST is inconsequential, and anything after the ST...doesn't matter, because the characters aren't really that interesting.

 

I don’t know how true this is.

 

Nothing that happened in The Prequels, Rogue One, Clone Wars, Rebels, or The Mandalorian “mattered” given where they happened in the narrative, but they’re beloved. Make shit that people like and people will show up.

 

1 minute ago, ort said:

...and that nothing really matters at all because they're just making everything up as they go and don't give a shit about anything.

 

If they don't care, why should we?

 

This is how so much storytelling works though. DC doesn’t have a plan for how Batman comics are going to go beyond the current arc, different comics come out with the same character all the time and they don’t acknowledge one another, and it’s fine.

 

This insistence that something like Star Wars needs to have a plan in order to be good is really weird.

[ort]

10 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

This insistence that something like Star Wars needs to have a plan in order to be good is really weird.

 

Well, it clearly needed something it didn't get. A back of napkin scribble with a vague idea of where all of the big mysteries they plotted out in the first movie might have been a good place to start.

[CitizenVectron]

4 minutes ago, ort said:

 

Well, it clearly needed something it didn't get. A back of napkin scribble with a vague idea of where all of the big mysteries they plotted out in the first movie might have been a good place to start.

 

Even pantsers (writers who don't outline, like Stephen King) will generally tell you that they have the big ideas floating around in their head, and aim for them. So maybe they don't know the scenes that carry the protagonist from the first act to the third, but they know that the bad guy dies in a certain way, or there is a certain scene they have in mind in the middle somewhere, etc. Having some idea of things to aim towards is incredibly helpful. You don't need everything planned, but at least some idea. It would be like writing/shooting a movie and not having the final act written while filming the first and second. It might pay off...but hard to drop hints and foreshadow events if you don't know where it's at least generally heading.

[Kal-El814]

11 minutes ago, ort said:

Well, it clearly needed something it didn't get. A back of napkin scribble with a vague idea of where all of the big mysteries they plotted out in the first movie might have been a good place to start.

 

Again, the OT started with a love triangle that involved characters who ended up being twins and retconning characters to be liars despite having no narrative reason to be that way, and those are still the high point in the series. Or on the other side of that coin, the MOST planned Star Wars content were the prequels and those were not great.

 

I believe JJ is sincere when he says that lacking a plan was problematic, I just think he’s wrong based on almost all long-running fiction NOT needing one, along with his output having issues when everything’s contained in one movie.

 

EDIT - I’m pretty sure the early drafts of ESB didn’t include Vader being Luke’s father, if that’s not evidence that “a plan” isn’t strictly necessary, I don’t know what is.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Hell, a ten year, twenty movie franchise at least had some planning on how they would get to Infinity War and End Game. 
 

Nobody is saying JJ needed to story board all three movies out before making TFA. 
 

And being the most planned out Star Wars movies was the NOT why the PT were cringe worthy movies. An over use of CGI, and dialog that seemed to be written by somebody who had only heard about two people having a conversation, but never seen it for themselves. I’d argue that the story elements themselves are fine. 

[SaysWho?]

37 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Nothing that happened in The Prequels, Rogue One, Clone Wars, Rebels, or The Mandalorian “mattered” given where they happened in the narrative, but they’re beloved.

 

Bruh

[Kal-El814]

2 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

Bruh

 

I mean that only in relation to what Riley said, the claim that the most exciting thing about a franchise is what happens next. Before they came out we knew by the end of them that Anakin would be Vader, that Sheev would be Emperor, etc. They were still exciting (potentially, anyway, before we knew what they’d be  ) even though we knew where things would end up. Same with Rogue One, the only thing that could happen to the majority of allegedly important characters we’d never heard about before was for them to die, but the movie was still fun.

 

Also my use of “the narrative” was wrong, I meant in terms of when they were released.

[Greatoneshere]

3 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

Also, I’ll say again…

 

All you need to know about JJ as a storyteller you can get from watching Into Darkness.

 

It relies completely on nostalgia and knowledge from outside the movie to work at all.

New Spock has a conversation with Old Spock in which Old Spock says that Khan was their most dangerous enemy (no) and tells New Spock the secret to defeating Khan and then they cut away from the conversation… then to win the fight, New Spock just hits Khan in the head with a blunt object.

 

JJ is really very good at selling the drama and emotion in scenes, I just wish it was tied to stories that didn’t consistently blow ass.

 

Yep, all of this. Star Trek Into Darkness is so bad as a result.

[Jason]

6 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

Also, I’ll say again…

 

All you need to know about JJ as a storyteller you can get from watching Into Darkness.

 

It relies completely on nostalgia and knowledge from outside the movie to work at all.

New Spock has a conversation with Old Spock in which Old Spock says that Khan was their most dangerous enemy (no) and tells New Spock the secret to defeating Khan and then they cut away from the conversation… then to win the fight, New Spock just hits Khan in the head with a blunt object.

 

JJ is really very good at selling the drama and emotion in scenes, I just wish it was tied to stories that didn’t consistently blow ass.

 

One of the worst parts about how Into Darkness relies on existing knowledge from outside the movie is that if you do have that existing knowledge then it makes no sense that Khan is now a pasty scrawny British guy given when the timeline diverges.

 

Plus remember all the denials that Cucumberpatch was Khan...and then they just reveal that everything is exactly what everyone suspected in a series of gigantic exposition dumps. Just ugh.

[cusideabelincoln]

The OT could swing without a plan because it had no prior established cannon, and in the incestual case that it needed to retcon something there wasn't much else effected.  But the more media that comes out, the more cannon gets established, and more planning is required to navigate the established content and to explain away, in-cannon, anything you want to change.

 

I mean, if the execution of the PT was actually good, I'm quite sure people would be more bothered by the fact Obi-Wan and Anakin barely interact with each other in Ep. I despite his backstory dump to Luke in ANH about him and Anakin being pals.  But since there was so much shit in the PT, this is more easily overlooked.

[Remarkableriots]

On 5/27/2021 at 5:44 PM, cusideabelincoln said:

The OT could swing without a plan because it had no prior established cannon, and in the incestual case that it needed to retcon something there wasn't much else effected.  But the more media that comes out, the more cannon gets established, and more planning is required to navigate the established content and to explain away, in-cannon, anything you want to change.

 

I mean, if the execution of the PT was actually good, I'm quite sure people would be more bothered by the fact Obi-Wan and Anakin barely interact with each other in Ep. I despite his backstory dump to Luke in ANH about him and Anakin being pals.  But since there was so much shit in the PT, this is more easily overlooked.

Canon | Wookieepedia | Fandom

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Star Wars canon was first defined in the first issue of the Lucasfilm magazine, Star Wars Insider:1 "Gospel,' or canon as we refer to it, includes the screenplays, the films, the radio dramas and the...