The Disappointing Career of JJ Abrams

JJ Abrams has made Star Trek movies and Star Wars movies, and yet I find his early TV work like Alias and Felicity to still be his most interesting stuff. In this video, I talk about what I wish he'd get back to.

[lonelychameleon]

It’s called “Mystery Box” because it’s empty. It’s up to you to write the mystery yourself while he leaves before he has to do any of the creative work.

[GreayWorks]

Glad you brought up Speilbergs diversity as a director, there is a very odd trend online of people saying "He just makes nice whimsy movies for kids" but when you look at his catalog of movies, not many of them count as "whimsy" movies, the closet would be maybe Hook and E.T but then there is Jaws, Bridge Of Spies, Schindler's list, The Twilight Zone movies etc. Even the movies people call whimsy movies like Indiana Jones and Jurrasic Park still have moments of legit horror.

[liquidpulse]

It's ironic that Abrams would replace Lucas. Lucas hated mcguffins that were meaningless. It's one of his critiques of Hitchcock and he created R2D2 to prove that mcguffins don't have to be meaningless. Mystery Boxes on the other hand are always meaningless.

[yesthatpaul]

He's kind of an epitome of the modern nerd, caring more about the trappings of their nostalgia than the actual meaning behind it.

[_NIKOS_NIKOS]

One of the few thing that solidified my oppinion on JJ was durring the filming of the Force Awakens he made comments about not considering the prequels SW movies and he allegedly wanted to include a Gungan skull (implied to be Jar Jar's) to the opening scene of the movie.
Like, even after almost 20 years of mockery that Lucas had to putt up with and even after it was public knowledge how much hardship Ahmed Best went through the dude really wanted to keep that hate wagon going and even add fuel to the fire instead of genuinely trying to improve things (maybe creating a badass Gungan character for a change) or adding something new.
It really is poetic how he and his movies ended up being in the receiving end of that mockery while the prequel era is now more appreciated than ever before.

[chronovac]

Calling Rebel Moon Snyder's own mythology is generous.

[KingOfMadCows]

The problem is that JJ Abrams doesn't know what a mystery is. He treats anything that you don't immediately know as a mystery. A new character is introduced and it's treated as a mystery even if there are no attempts to hide the character's identity or misdirect the audience on their motivations.

All his mystery boxes are disappointing since the characters and the audience don't really have to do any investigating. Things just get revealed in an anticlimactic way and then they move on to the next mystery box.

[leonarddillon]

So true that JJ Abrams doesn't take risks. Here's one risk he can do: Reveal the mystery box to storytelling that's actually worth our while.

[SkyRainpuff]

Abrams and Synder are on the same level as being overrated. They did a few good things right but never could manage living up to their own films/tv shows.

Abrams has no voice. He’s just a safe director.

[LeonardoKlotz]

Returning to "The Rise of Skywalker" for damage control was a career suicide

[TheAntiburglar]

I was never particularly invested in J J Abrams as a creator, and really didn't have any strong feelings one way another when he was slated to direct The Force Awakens. And ultimately, his failure to realize that "I'll just set up a mystery box in the Star Wars Universe which has already had a conclusive 6 movie story told and let the next guy figure out where to go from there only to have to come back for the third one because I didn't like what he did with my literal nothing story" was gonna be a spectacularly bad idea. I still can't believe he managed to get Oscar Isaac to say "Somehow Palpatine has returned" in a multi-million dollar production without once thinking it might be absolute shit writing. It's staggering.

[CaptainCataractss]

That’s why I like A24. They showcase a lot of young and new directors. They take big swings and the movies are not hug budgets, mostly. But through A24 I’ve discovered a lot of directors that I now follow. Alex Garland, Ti West, Rose Glass and more.

[_thomas]

The comment about Snyder's creative swing @4:00 doesn't make too much sense when almost all of the lore or world of Rebel Moon is straight up copying previous films without a creative way to differentiate. So I don't think there's much merit at all including Snyder in the conversation of doing something unique

[soulhunter]

I always hated Abrams' mystery box. I remember in his Ted talk about how he came up with the concept from a magic shop box. He equated it to learning Darth Vader is Luke's father. But that was a twist, not a mystery box.

[Dragons_Armory]

It’s called “Mystery Box” because it's a scam

So many of his movies are simply clickbaits framed as Epics.

[theWolfnMiniatures]

I was just thinking about how relieved I am that they've stopped handing important sci fi IP's to JJ. Thanks for reminding me why.

[KingsandGenerals]

Thing is his TV shows are full of great ideas. But when it comes to movies...

[johnnylollard]

The directors of Lucas generation that we remember are different, in that they were steeped in much superior literature and art, even if by second hand.
Lucas was famously influenced by Joseph Campbell, who was in turn influenced by the great philosopher, Oswald Spengler. Anakin Skywalker is basically the literary archetype of Faust.
This older generation of directors understood something about myth, theme, and storytelling. This is why Star Wars resonates with people, for the same reason the culture can still remember Shakespeare, Homer's Iliad, or Goethe's Faust.
JJ Abrams saw Star Wars, and only understood it on a superficial level. Fair enough, but the bigger problem was that he relished and loved that, and that's true of the people that surround him. Superficial, pop culture dorks. Having a low view of Star Wars as just some goofy space opera laser show is one thing, and fair enough, but imagine having that view and actually adoring it. He has an unconsciously low view of storytelling (apparent in most of his movies), but relishes the bland entertainment.
Those are the kind of midbrained dummies that permanently ruined Star Wars with their love.

[GoTenDu]

J.J. Abrams is a hack.

I remember Warner Bros. commissioned Abram's studio developing a bunch of DC Comics projects.
They ended up just spending the money while coming up with absolutely nothing 😡

[floydroid]

I dont hate his directing. His writing on the other hand....