The Most Glaring Problem With JJ Abrams' Movies

[@JethroLive]

"Ressurecting Star Wars" Bro put the final nail in the coffin for star wars movies

[@Comicbroe405]

That's a crazy take. Wtv Tros may have been TFA very much was a success. It's the highest grossing film for a reason & helped bring in many new fans.

[@Eupolemos]

@@Comicbroe405 The number of viewers and fans nosedived over the new trilogy. Merchandise went to landfills. It is now a trash brand with a few sparks here and there. "Somehow, the Emperor has returned" isn't fun, it is sad.

[@JethroLive]

@@Comicbroe405 Movies were all awful, even Mark Hamill didn't like how the Luke character was made. There are so many glaring issues when you look into it and also you can look at the reviews and people HATED them, and the prequels took years to get that level of flack so them getting such hated reviews so quickly shows how bad they were.

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@Comicbroe405 Money does not equal good. Then again, look at the rest of Disney; they keep pumping out garbage because people are too dumb to "vote with their wallet" and keep rewarding them for making junk. 🤦

[@pablocasas5906]

In some aspects I think any other director would've resurrected Star Wars if they instead directed Ep. VII. Still, his fingerprints are all over The Force Awakens and, with the benefit of hindsight, I think I like The Last Jedi more than The Force Awakens. Despite all of the problems in Jedi, it's a more original story than just a rethread from the original Star Wars Trilogy

[@SzymonAdamus]

Lens flares are not Abrams' biggest problem. His problem is that he is very weak in doing original ideas. At least in cinema. He's great at reworking familiar themes, preying on nostalgia and "member-berries," but when it comes to creating something original, he finds himself falling into the trap of flashiness, action and cheap gimmicks. And it's a shame, because technically he is very capable and has a great instinct for casting.

[@Winterhe4rt]

Not "biggest" püroblem. "Glaring" problem. see?

[@SzymonAdamus]

@@Winterhe4rt Yes I do see this highly sophisticated word play ;) But lens flares were never a serious problem. It was/is fun to laugh about them but at the end of the day - it's just esthetics. Every director has some style we associate her/his work with. For Abrams it was, for a moment, lens flares. What we should be talking about is the fact that he made one original-idea movie and even that one was a homage to older, to be honest better, work. We should be thinking not about the superficial elements of his films, but our fixation on nostalgia and how it can be weaponized against us by technically talented people. IMO it's way more interesting topic than the fact that he liked some visual effect for a moment.

[@I.____.....__...__]

His biggest skill is taking other people's ideas and starting to implement them, realizing he's not actually creative enough to see them through, getting bored, leaving to rush off to a shiny new project, and letting someone else mess it up. Every. Single. Time. At least with TV, he could do that, with movies, he can't really abandon it halfway through, so he does a rush job to jump onto whatever new project some brainless producer gave him to ruin. 😒

[@bradley8614]

Thank you for bringing this up! Thought I was going crazy when he didn't stop talking about the lens flares. Idk if they think he has any weak points outside of that, which as you brought up, isn't even a problem really.

[@aftabanimates1068]

​@@danjoredd I know how you feel man, I was extremely excited about a Hot Wheels Movie, he's working on a Speed Racer tv show, and let's just say that, my excitement for both of them, Crashed.

[@Zombiesnyder13]

Returning for THE RISE OF SKYWALKER was a career suicide

[@DarthTarter-wp4kh]

Fr I haven’t seen him in a single thing since

[@LavaChip]

I’m sure Disney gave him a huge cut of the box office for him to do ROS

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@DarthTarter-wp4kh They gave him the _Half-Life_ and _Portal_ movies to ruin, so don't worry, he's not going anywhere, he'll be continuing to ruin everything he touches for a long time to come. 😒

[@wile123456]

Bro really thought you could finish a trilogy with the middle movie going against everything you set up in the first lmao.

[@wile123456]

​@@technologyspecialistoperat8264fuck of with your racism, trailer park trash

[@theartofpqh]

Can’t believe they let this guy take over Star Wars. Hollywood loves the “popular” kid of the moment instead of a consistent lesser known director

[@wjzav1971]

M Knight Shyamalan was hailed as the "next Spielberg" after his first few hits.....

[@mcurran6505]

In his early years, he had potential as a director. But his reputation is now in ruins due to just making reboots & sequels with plots that were used already.

[@I.____.....__...__]

In his early years, he was overrated. People loved him solely because of the first 4 seasons of _Alias_ and the first 6 episodes of _Lost._ People are blind and oblivious and narrow-minded, thinking that something good must necessarily be good forever and can never go bad (or that they were mistaken about it being good in the first place).

[@darkarchon2006]

@@I.____.....__...__ Fringe was great, as long as we pretend the last season doesn't exist

[@TheLyricalCleric]

I wouldn’t associate Abrams with the lens flare anymore-I would associate him with the unexplained plot, the “mystery box.” Popularized on Lost, a lot of people don’t realize that there wasn’t actually an answer to all the mysteries that were being promoted on the show. The writers were working week to week and adding mysteries on mysteries, but not attaching them to any particular conclusion. Then, when the show had to wrap up the storyline, they had to force all of the mysteries into one unfulfilling answer-everyone was dead the whole time! Therefore none of it has to make sense! The Force Awakens leaned hard on mystery boxes-what role did Max Von Sydow play in the beginning of the film? No answer. Who is Snoke? No answer (mostly-apparently he’s a clone, but of whom? When? Why him?) Who are Rey’s parents? Everybody and nobody. None of the questions set up by the film received a good answer, whether you count Rian Johnson’s attempt to burn them down or not. Now, for a serial TV show about weird things like Fringe, having unexplained mysteries is perfectly fine. Abrams killed it with that show. But movies, that are supposed to have a beginning, middle, and end? Wrap things up neatly? Answer the questions to the audience’s satisfaction? No. Abrams can’t do it, he won’t do it. This even happened in Rise of Skywalker, where Abrams was put on the back foot and asked to actually give an explanation directly to the audience as to why Palpatine came back. “Somehow.” That’s it. That’s all he came up with. Man’s a millionaire and Disney’s a billion dollar company, and they couldn’t answer the biggest question of the series.

[@DrBdan8]

Regarding Lost, they weren't dead the entire time. It all actually happened and the finale was everyone reuniting when they died because what happened on the island was so significant that they all waited for eachother before crossing over into the afterlife. The problem is that Abrams had the idea in mind when he started the show but did a terrible job of setting it up and a terrible job of making it clear on the finale. Honestly them being dead and the island being some sort of purgatory where they were tested before going to heaven or hell would have made more sense!

[@Geronimo_Jehoshaphat]

Stop being reasonable!!!

[@reinotsurugi]

I find the mystery box system of writing insulting and psychologically devastating. Watching Lost was painful and I had to give up on it because it was so frustrating.

[@lightforce4604]

He did this with his installment of Mission Impossible as well; where they were going after a mystery substance called the "rabbit's foot" the movie never explains what it is and instead ends up using it as bait to bring back TC's character for the next installment lol.

[@fruehlingsobst8123]

There is literally a whole wiki-site for Lost with thousands of entries explaining even the smallest shit. He was right, people got engaged and thrilled by mysteries. I rather rewatch the entire Lost series than another unoriginal MCU or Furious movie.

[@picblick]

Abrams is like a musician realising that an occasional kazoo can add a silly note to the music, only to add more and more kazoo. One day he releases an album with every wind instrument exchanged with a kazoo.

[@keithwoodcrest]

​@matthews1320You beat me to it!!! Hahaha

[@anorak775]

I remember watching another video that said his strongest and weakest point was his "mystery-box storytelling." He was really good at setting up high concept plots, intrigue, and mystery to reel the audience in fast. But he "never plans" what the end will be, boxing himself in a corner and leaving us with an ok or lackluster ending. Like "Lost" and the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

[@kevin10001]

Well the Star Wars trilogy wasn’t his fault he didn’t get to direct all 3 movies he got removed from the last Jedi while still doing the post production on the force awakens so a lot of what he set up in the force awakens didn’t get answered cause of that and he only got brought back to do the rise of skywalker when Lucas film finally understood that Johnson upset fans so he had to marry his ideas with what Johnson did in the last Jedi so it made the rise of skywalker feel like a mess in places

[@JZBelexes]

@@kevin10001 Oh the Star Wars trilogy absolutely WAS his fault for setting up so many gimmicky mystery boxes to begin with that other writers had to juggle afterwards.

[@tallerwarrior1256]

@@JZBelexes I think a lot of his mystery boxes could’ve been resolved fairly easily, it was really more on the fault of Kathleen Kennedy for not bringing in someone or being a part of making some grand outline for the entire trilogy. George literally wrote all six Star Wars films in his first draft of a new hope but the entire outline was so big and detailed that he decided to make it into a trilogy and then do prequels that set up the main trilogy. Later on he wrote an outline for a sequel trilogy and then gave it to Kennedy when he sold his company, she apparently only took pieces and scrapped the rest.

[@feleepe]

Alias too. Such a good show with such a bad ending.

[@PoleTooke]

Yeah, this

[@jwnj9716]

He is so overrated. I'm surprised he didn't direct the Total Recall remake aka Lens Flares the movie.

[@garrett8707]

I hate his mystery box aspect of his filmmaking. especially when he’s not in charge of answering the questions he sets up

[@NickCodyComedy]

How are we not going to touch on his "mystery box" problem in his storytelling habits?

[@melissaharris3389]

The issue is he doesn't know what's inside his own 'box'. It's really an issue of the writers he's consistently worked with becoming an echo chamber of group think and lazy writing. He(and those he surrounds himself with) are clearly more into the style over the substance of the established properties he's worked on.

[@NickCodyComedy]

@@melissaharris3389 thats certainly one layer of the onion.

[@caronstout354]

Don't forget "S", his and another author's literary "mystery box" book, with ephermera, that takes at least 4 readings to understand...

[@colenedrow]

JJ Abrams has much worse problems as a filmmaker than lens flares. He really is a pretty average or even below average director. He’s the master of introducing plot lines with no follow through. I mean he does fine with solo outings but he’s the last guy I want involved in a franchise.

[@the6ig6adwolf]

If by "resurrected" you mean the fanbase (of ST/SW) are completely divided, disinterested or disgusted then yeah, sure JJ completely resurrected these franchise.

[@xrstevenson]

That was mainly Rian's treatment of answering all the questions JJ had set up but yes, JJ shouldn't have done any of that to begin with

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@xrstevenson Maybe the "mystery box" is as overrated as Abrams is and should stop being sued, again, like Abrams should. 😒

[@pablocasas5906]

​@@xrstevensonI think JJ did more damage to Star Wars than Rian. Despite all of the movie's flaws, I think I like The Last Jedi because it tries to be different from the previous Star Wars movies. Ep. VII is almost 10 years old and I don't think people remember most of what happened in the movie, aside from some of the opening scenes since the movie was so derivative of the original trilogy. It would've been better if JJ and Lucasfilm had a plan since the start of the new trilogy, but I think Disney just assumed people would watch any Star Wars project regardless of the story

[@Shiftarus]

Hearing about how he approached Star Trek makes me like the movies even less. They aren't bad movies ... they just don't seem to understand everything that made Trek what it is.

[@zw8596]

Exactly. His Star Treks have zero charm.

[@Watcher4187]

Kurtzman is more to blame. He just doesn't understand the franchise and honestly doesn't want to.

[@I.____.....__...__]

Abrams said himself that he was never a Star Trek fan and didn't know or like it, he was a Star Trek person (yet ruined BOTH 😒).

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@Watcher4187 Abrams is responsible for that too because Kurtzman wouldn't be a thing if it were for Abrams. 😒 I blame _Lost._ If it weren't for those first 6 episodes mesmerizing everybody, that whole group of untalented hacks wouldn't have become "Hollywood's golden boys" and trusted with all the projects people keep giving them to ruin. 🤦

[@just_some_random_guy]

Agreed, but I think this is less of an Abrams problem and more of a Paramount problem. They wanted their own version of Star Wars, which isn't what Trek was ever meant to be. And look at how they're driving the franchise into the ground today, even without Abrams. It's discouraging.

[@bamflyer]

The lens flares don’t bother me, what bothers me is that he is great at coming up with intriguing mysteries but never has a decent explanation or ending to them

[@danielboone8435]

"And then, our intrepid heroes finally learn the truth about their mysterious antagonist...he's just some guy."

[@psychonexus]

The lens flares are bad. But not as bad as the mystery box.

[@fizola88]

Well Michael Bay has obviously big explosions and camera circling the heroes many times in slowmo, but he has one much more significant trope: Stuff flying at the camera in intense scenes, like car chases, spaceshuttle following an asteroid, rockets flying, everything is going directly at camera and at viewers. I love it.

[@orlandowright2323]

Yeah, I always think about the South Park parody they did on his camera circling and "If Michael Bay directed Titanic" video from years ago.

[@julietamargenet530]

Edgar Wright also has the crash zoom, the quick jump cuts, and seamless match cuts.

[@matthewsengendo6302]

Also Ambulance shows that Bay needs a better script & less money for he's new movies moving forward no more 6 undergrounds from him

[@Madvizion]

You are the problem. Michael Bay sucks

[@ngultrum1]

That, & once you get past the redditor mindset, you realise that he actually makes great films, unlike JJ.

[@3Dsjk]

I watched the JJ Star Trek films a few months ago, and one of the things that really bugged me about The Force Awakens was really on display there; you get no sense of time, or how long it takes to travel between plants. How long was it between Kahn bombing the archives and when the fleet set off after him? How long did it take from the fleet to get from earth to whatever Klingon planet he was hiding on? How long did it take the Millennium Falcon to get from Tatooine to the rebel/republic base, and then from there to the Starkiller base? Was there not enough time for Rey to put on more weather-appropriate clothes? Everything felt like it took place over a few hours, not days or even weeks.

[@Malum09]

I would argue that at this point he’s more infamous than actually liked, his reboot/revival of both Trek and Wars and his reliance on the Mystery Box type of storytelling has made him very infamous with both fandoms.

[@kyterunner5440]

Thank you for the 'lens flare' question. I can't watch his movies that feature his ' hey look at me the director' distractions right in the middle of all of his scenes.

[@halfbakedmedia]

6:08 I'd have to disagree with the cultural respect part. Fanbases hate him. Seth McFarlane wanted to direct Star Trek 2009 and I think he'd have done a great job. He's proven with the Orville that he knows Star Trek very well.

[@mileslaw]

I like the fact that JJ seems really self aware of it.

[@tecpaocelotl]

Lens flares are the least of his problems even though it's an obvious problem. I think you're doing mental gymnastics on JJ Abrams. His plot in everything he did was always a mystery with claiming to have a big payout, which would entice simple-minded people, but it would turn me off, and his payoffs were disappointing.

[@Steve30x]

He also done FRINGE. There's lots of lense flares on that TV show too

[@baskkev7459]

Nah, it's his afwull scripts. Star trek and star wars both fell apart because of bad scripts. It fell like a greatest clip compilation instead of a movie 😊

[@agonefire]

“Resurrected” Star Wars? Is that what we’re calling it?

[@vanzc7920]

Have you seen Alias? Lots of mystery boxes and absolutely no answers. Great characters and actors but it all ended up meaning nothing.

[@Locadel2003]

I personally still prefer his career during the 2000s with excellent movies like Super 8, really underrated sci di movie and he put back on track both the Star Trek and mission impossible with two excellent chapters and he did Alias and Lost, for me two of the best tv shows ever made

[@Bow-to-the-absurd]

He made a terrible trek film Lost is a pathetic show full of mystery box gibberish

[@jcohasset23]

@@Bow-to-the-absurd The 2009 film has quite a bit of charm if you're willing to overlook a few troubled aspects of the plot. A lot of it helps that most of the cast was well picked. Into Darkness is the highest grossing Trek film but usually considered one of the worst Star Trek films by Trekkies as it does have a lot of problems from the writing and direction. Lost was good for much of its run time- the problem is Abrams is usually not good at delivering something satisfying with his mystery box once it's opened.

[@johnhoney5089]

@@Bow-to-the-absurd I've never seen Lost, but I had heard it was decent. For me, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are the best shows ever.

[@keithwoodcrest]

​@@Bow-to-the-absurdHow many seasons of Lost did you actually watch

[@tecpaocelotl]

"Back on track"? I think you mean trash. I didn't like them. I shown those movies to my parents who are trekkies, and my parents felt insulted with those movies. I lost interest with Lost on the first episode. I knew it was going to be a show bringing out the mystery box without having anything significant in it. Now the positives: Super 8 was an ok film even if it was an ET remake. I enjoyed Forever Young even though he was just a writer, but was a Captain America movie without the super powers.

[@ryandineen3655]

He is one of the best visual directors that we have. My issue with him is: he’s great at coming up with ideas, but not coming up with solutions. This is exemplified both in the Lost series and the new Star Wars.

[@angelainamarie9656]

He should just be a cinematographer he doesn't actually know how to make a story.

[@TheRandist]

Honestly though, Abrams' biggest problem is the whole 'mystery box' approach. However he may try to sugarcoat it, from looking at his work it looks more like an excuse to shill out random ideas without actually following up on them. At worst it's a way to shove unfinished ideas into other directors' laps, making it their problem, and then act high and mighty when they stumble over his mess.

[@angelainamarie9656]

Means he doesn't have the emotional maturity or temperament to actually finish anything which is why none of his movies are all that fun to re-watch.

[@sirnik84]

Only JJ Abrams' Into Darkness could make me say "Man, I wish Shatner could come back and direct another Star Trek movie" Good job JJ you made The Final Frontier look fantastic in comparison.

[@FlummoxedFish]

This may have been accurate a decade or two back. Lens Flare is the least of JJ's problems today. Mystery Box story telling and not understanding the source material are far more of an issue.

[@grfrjiglstan]

Respect for the pun, but I would’ve gone for the naked failure to write a compelling, high stakes plot on display in Rise of Skywalker.

[@bottombarrelbudgetfilms1854]

Tbh as a Trekkie i quite like Trek 09 as a starting entry point to the franchise, it worked for me and my friends when we were 14-17!

[@Mr_Case_Time]

Since discussion about Abrams will inevitably lead to “mystery box” storytelling, I have to recommend Severance as the best way to effectively utilize that phenomenon. By the last shot of the last episode of season 1, questions were answered, setups were paid off, and more questions were asked. Brilliant.

[@kyterunner5440]

JJ'a bs about the lens flares is as annoying as the flares themselves. They are only there so that we, the audience, can say, Hey, JJ directed this. Look at me. Nothing more than vanity.

[@wile123456]

I mean he took the honour of those lens flares. But they have a technical and artistic origin before him. The wide lens flares come from square anamorphic lenses. It's a unique flare very different from most normal lenses. Anamorphoc lenses have the shot squeezed, and it's stretched in post, the pixels not being square but rectangles (if its digital and uses pixels that is). So the flare is stretched out. It is a cool effect and very cinematic since cheap or hobby cameras don't have anamorphic lenses. But overusing them and inserting them digitally some of the magic is lost and any artistic thing gets ruined if overused, like the video mentions.

[@MasseyKY]

Honestly the lens flares arent the problem. Its that JJ is great at coming up with ideas, just not good at following them through.

[@melissaharris3389]

ADHD much

[@I.____.....__...__]

Except he doesn't come up with the ideas, other people do, he just implements them, but yes, he realizes he isn't creative enough to follow through. Look at that abomination called _Lost._ 😒

[@I.____.....__...__]

@@melissaharris3389 Yup, exactly. He gets bored with stuff and abandons them to move onto the next shiny new project and leaves them with someone else to mess up. Look at how he abandoned _Alias_ after season 4, or _Lost_ after a couple of seasons, or _Fringe_ after a couple of seasons. He can't abandon a movie in the middle, but he can rush through it to move onto the next thing. Wait until he ruins the Half-Life and Portal movies they handed him. 🤦

[@VoiceNerd]

"Golden Boy?" Hahahaha my good sir, he has fallen FAR from that title. He lost his chance of becoming the next Spielberg a long time ago, and it's not just because of the lens flares.

[@desert_hunter83]

1:27 MI:III “Massive success” $150M Budget, Box Office: $398M This would be deemed a massive flop now. Times have sure changed in Hollywood 🎬💵🤑

[@Light-at-Dawn]

My biggest issue with his movies is that he relays way to much on the element of surprise with shocking twists without thinking upon their implementation to the story. Like the way he decides to destroy the transport on which Chewbaka was on allegedly only for it to be a chep fakeout just to convince the audience that Chewy was dead for 5 minutes, only for Rey to somehow ("The Force") find out he is alive to pull out a stupid rescue mission that also led to the "shocking reveal" that General Hux is the spy for petty reasons and also to the reverse of another twist about Rey's past.. I could go on and on, but You get the idea

[@angelainamarie9656]

That is literally all he really knows how to do is shock the audience. That's why his stories are exhausting and eventually I just tuned them out. They aren't stories.

[@ericoffill3697]

Lens flares are a paramount concern when compared to his biggest problem; the dude doesn't have a single original idea to save his life!!!

[@georgesgauthier]

0:10 the man who KILLED, not resurrected, Star Trek and Star Wars

[@Spaxer]

Hardly to either. Got them back as household names and introduced them new fans. Now they're both thriving.

[@Comicbroe405]

How'd he kill Star Trek? Those film were well received.

[@SchmergDergen]

Alex Kurtzman is like Palpatine and Star Trek is the Skywalker family he keeps torturing.

[@SchmergDergen]

@@Comicbroe405Into Darkness is universally hated and seen as the hack shit show it was.

[@Comicbroe405]

​@@SchmergDergenI don't remember much about that. I have seen a lot of praise for the first one & Beyond. I'm pretty they're even making another.

[@thewayofthebeard3680]

His issue is he knows how to setup but completely 'lost' when it comes to the payoff

[@vanzc7920]

Yes.

[@The_Keh27]

Abrams and Lens Flare are the visual equivalent of Bruce Dikinson and cowbell

[@randallrona9618]

Let's face it. JJ Abrams was the one nearly ended the Star Wars franchise with two words: "Rey Skywalker." Thank goodness we still have Dave Filoni and other competent people made The Mandalorian series, Andor and Ahsoka to the fans.

[@spaceagepenguin]

To answer your question at the end of the video, I would say James Gunn with his visually gritty yet bright colored shots, unique usage of music, and quick pans, lots of quick pans. Plus his ability to take obscure characters no one thinks about and turn them into household names thanks to the unique blend of deadpan humor and genuine emotions

[@SpaceCowFour]

Does Ken Burns count? His use of panning and zooming in/out of still photographs in his documentaries over the past ~40 years was enough to have the effect in iMovie named "The Ken Burns Effect" within a decade of the original release of The Civil War series. It continues to be a staple of his documentaries (naturally), and arguably has become standard in many historical documentaries outside of his own

[@halfbakedmedia]

NEVER get a director who's not a huge fan of the source material.

[@MarvelX42]

Speilberg, makes everything bigger, bigger dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, bigger UFO in Close Encounters, M. Night has the twist (mostly at the end), Tarantino has violence, Corman has lots of nudity, those are things that jump to mind.

[@elichilton7031]

The filmmaker that I associate with a technique is Spike Lee and the Dolly Shot. Sometimes it is a double, sometimes a dolly crane single, either way I always look forward to see how he uses this very cool shot.

[@13Xerro]

JJ Abrams, the man with not a single original idea in his head.

[@sessasidney]

"Technically" resurrected Star Wars... it's more like a zombie than a second life

[@tymek200101]

JJ trek had one of the most contrived plots I've ever had the misfortune to watch. And I cannot entirely blame Abrams for it, the fault is surely with the writers and perhaps Abramses affinatly for nonsensical plots. What I cannot deny is that the cinematography and the visual aspects of those films were stunning, if a little bit too bright in places.

[@DCG909]

As someone wearing glasses, lensflares annoy me like nothing else does... its really annoying to even see them in movies :/

[@HankseyHill]

Wes Anderson and his symmetric shots are pretty much his brand at this point, that's the only other one I can think of.

[@chheinrich8486]

Resurected and then killed star trek and star wars, 😅

[@FilmscoreMetaler]

Wes Anderson style. Alfonso Cuarón and the long shot. Zac Snyder and that Zac Snyder look. Christopher Nolan and his use of practical effects.

[@onetwo1013]

Try John Woo and the double guns, slowmo and doves...

[@FilmscoreMetaler]

@@onetwo1013 I was thinking of his doves for a brief moment actually. xD

[@keithmichael112]

I like his TV work better than his film stuff..Alias, Fringe and Lost were all great. Mission Impossible 3 was pretty good, it was basically like a really long Alias episode. Not a fan of the Star Trek/Star Wars stuff

[@Comicbroe405]

I gotta check out Alias then.

[@NoraHelmer023]

@@Comicbroe405 Alias was brilliant for the first 2 seasons, then mediocre-to-bad for the next 3 (starting when JJ largely peaced out to create Lost). The series finale is an atrocity. So enter at your own risk. When people call JJ a hack, I think about how brilliant the first 2 seasons of Alias were and I’m reminded he is capable of some amazing creativity.

[@the_glitter_is]

In Star Trek, they are able to transport moving objects, yet Kirk's mother still has to painfully give birth like a cave person? Bah!

[@IM-xs3uv]

Resurrected and re-buried...

[@melissaharris3389]

I don't know Nerdstalgic. JJ Abrams' over use of a stylist flurish isn't really his biggest issue. His GLARING issue is his continued association with demonstratably bad writers that don't have enough originally and have gotten into some group think, yes men echo chamber of their own ideas. I don't blame him completely for the collapse of Star Wars as that's a corporate wide issue. As for Star Trek; if Shatner and The Final Frontier couldn't kill the franchise then Abrams would have needed to try harder.

[@SchmergDergen]

JJ is a hack. An idea man that lacks substance.

[@Comicbroe405]

I actually like the lens flare in his films plus they give him a distinct style of his own. I also think he's a much better producer than a director.

[@VoiceNerd]

100% agree. He needs to stick to the producer chair.

[@SergioLeonardoCornejo]

I think he overestimates his talent tbh. He's good, but that hubris gets in his way and makes him repeat bad habits, including lens flares!

[@tallerwarrior1256]

He should stick to writing and directing original projects, in all honesty most directors should. I think he’s really creative with writing and directing shows like Lost, Alias, and Felicity and writing films like Cloverfield and Super 8. He has so much potential but he wastes it by being a corporate lackey who just goes around trying to save projects thrown at him by executives who have no idea about film or even storytelling.

[@tmartin95]

Mission: Impossible III is arguably JJ Abrams's only coherent movie. I enjoyed his Star Trek movies until I really thought about them; Super 8 started as Alien and took a jarring shift into ET at the end; and The Force Awakens would be good if the rest of its trilogy, including Abrams's other contribution to it, didn't turn into a mess.

[@onetwo1013]

Count on JJ Abrams to start something with a bang only to fumble it before its conclusion.. He is like viagra that only lasts 15 minutes..

[@etherwestley2579]

From lens flare to bad writing

[@Dan-bc5td]

I thought you were going to treat about the real issue with Jar Jar Abrahams, that he’s a mystery builder and delivers no answers. Decent director, poor writer. He’s just frustrating and now when I see his name attached to a movie, I’m running away.

[@jaymontana2708]

The problem with his mystery box style is that audiences want to open the box. And it damn well better have something satisfying inside.

[@angelainamarie9656]

I think the problem with him is the same problem that people have with ai artists. he's just really superficial and doesn't have anything important to say. Therefore he doesn't perceive anything in movies except the shock value and the lens flares and the mystery box. He doesn't understand that other s*** because he doesn't even see it himself. I'd love to hear a breakdown of what it is that he finds compelling about other movies it would probably tell us everything about what the hell is wrong with this man.

[@Jimtac]

Alfred Hitchcock. His use of the dutch angle, dolly zoom, etc. became the base of modern movie making.

[@Y2Jerms]

The problem with Abrams is that he creates a monster movie based off a franchise for the u.s. to have its own monster movie and decides to do nothing with it!

[@Mecharnie_Dobbs]

6:58 Daved Cronenberg, with slimy silicone animatronics.

[@REIDSRAPS]

I feel like we're gonna get one of these for Taki in a couple of years

[@simz88]

All of his recent work has aged poorly, the man is overrated

[@Loganzone637]

It's so weird seeing a video like this with only 13 views

[@sirg-had8821]

His "stories" are nothing but member-berry salad. There's a chase every 15 minutes. He's not capable of sticking an ending. He is bound to his mystery box method of story telling at the cellular level. There's one thing he never seems to get about the mystery box... Sooner or later you have to open the box.

[@pianist150]

In my humble opinion he's good at where to put a camera and directing actors, but for the love of God don't give him script control.

[@NardBlake]

Did Nerdstalgic completely miss the mark on this video? I don't mean to be a hater (i've watched his vids for years) but honestly did A.I. write the script for this video? This is like a 10 year old take and he even admitted it in the beginning of the vid. I don't even think the future for J.J. is a question of how he is going to approach projects stylistically, it is more of a question what story? He had a style and still will tweak his style but his underlaying "problem" is actually substance. He shot himself in the foot with the Ted Talk about the mystery box and everyone has roasted him for how ironic that is. He is a cinematic box full of hot air he sells to Hollywood. A better video would have been: what should a post Star Wars J.J. do next? why is Nerdstalgic sounding like watchmojo

[@alp9323]

JJ should be kept away from movie making. Apart from his lack of talent and imagination, his approach to movies is the everything wrong with the industry now.

[@EmanuelCampos]

Michel bay... he uses it all. Slowmo, flares and metal sounds

[@DIAC1987]

A lot of angry Star Wars fans in the comments blaming Abrams for something that was glaringly and obviously the fault of Disney and LucasFilm. Not saying he is a flawless director that should never be criticized, but Rise of Skywalker was clearly a film that was being run by the executives and not by the writing/directing staff.

[@adamyusuf1805]

He came up with one of the best books I’ve ever read though, so that makes up for it

[@selalewis9189]

J.J.’s a great director, and I choose to remember his early acting work as a spoiled son of a wealthy family in “Six Degrees of Separation.” He gave a hilarious monologue scolding his parents. He ends the scene by throwing the phone out the window. It’s such a brilliant single scene and I wish J.J. did more crazy cameos like that: A great A-list director who can occasionally turn in an eccentric performance.

[@RobBon12]

Sorry, couldn't get past the 54 second mark. I must question my subscription with that complete lack of reality check. You'd think you were talking about Spielberg or Nolan. Abrams has given us nothing but IP soul destruction and mystery boxes he can't solve himself. How sad.

[@k31than]

Sure, Woo's got the slo-mo, the Wachowski's got the bullet time, etc. But none of them are as guilty as Abrams for over-using their cinematic style for almost every single shot/frame to a point of it being an annoyance or nuisance.

[@hawkeyes4768]

Jar Jar Abrams: messa do flares now

[@Donkeyiser]

Another amazing video, Thanks for sharing!

[@noahvandenberg3637]

Don't forget Michael Bay with EXPLOSIONS

[@torenatkinson1986]

1:37 Hesitant - unwilling or slow to act decisively Reticent - reluctant to speak

[@kingdave31]

I liked the lens flares in his Star Trek movies. For most of the previous 20 years the Trek franchise had been under the thumb of Rick Berman, who was staunchly opposed to doing anything that wasn't flat, bland, and boring, to the point that Jonathan Frakes using a Dutch angle for 5 seconds in the opening scene of Star Trek Insurrection looked like a bold stylistic choice.

[@corbz273]

I found them to be pretty immersive. You feel like you're right there on the bridge of the Enterprise

[@raptorkvn]

How do you bring a little Star Wars into Star Trek? Oh, that explains so much!

[@DOC_951]

If you do anything more than twice… people will start to notice patterns and styles. Look at any director.

[@brianstorm5488]

After Ep 9 I will be very reluctant to see anything by him in a theater. This was the act of an A-lister giving an important title the hack script treatment of a direct-to-DVD sequel cash grab. I don’t know if he has sex island cocaine orgies or what, but he clearly cares more about his lifestyle and industry status than telling a story. Many assumed he learned his lesson from ST Into Darkness, and Ep 7 was a solid course correction, but Rise is grounds for a true case of cancel culture. It plays like an endless “Play All” Blu Ray string of deleted scenes. I keep imagining him saying “I’d love for dear friend Keri Russel to make the cut, but we realized what a needless time waster it was, then we noticed hours of lazy ideas to reject. The rough cut was so terrible we knew reshoots would be a bitch but protecting the legacy was beyond necessary.” Absolutely unforgivable.

[@parkerpshebnisky1051]

He’s a better producer than he is a director.

[@eliyastomas4713]

I personally hate his stylistic overuse of shaky cam. It’s too unnecessary for such minimalist moments.

[@klokinstein]

I got another filmmaker with a stylistic choice. Tarantino and Feet, do it you cowards!

[@onetwo1013]

You came up with that all by yourself?! Genius!!

[@klokinstein]

@@onetwo1013 we could always do Dan Schneider and feet.

[@professorbaxtercarelessdre1075]

i recently watched super 8 for the first time, it was actually pretty good, the ending was a little weak but overall i liked it, also my sister and i may be the only people who didn't hate into darkness, i wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but its not terrible

[@TankUni]

He helped drive two of the biggest sci fi franchises into the ground by turning them into weightless, meaningless sugar rushes that disappear from memory like yesterday's fast food. Had the gall to admit he wasn't interested in and didn't understand Star Trek, but took the job on anyway as a stepping stone to get to Star Wars. Apparently he recommended the two show creators for Amazon's awful LOTR show. He helped get the horsemen of the apocalypse - Lindelof, Orci, Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman - into key positions where they went on to damage if not destroy other big franchises such as Alien, Tron (cancelled after Lindelof's Tomorrowland flopped), The Dark Tower (remember that dud?), a planned Dark Universe based on old movie monsters (The Mummy - a movie so shitty that not even Cruise's star power could save it from Kurtzman's suck), and of course, TV based Star Trek. This is to say nothing of his heavy reliance on member berries to the point where he steals whole scenes from other better movies (and directors), but gives his versions a 'twist' and calls them a 'homage' in order to avoid being (correctly) accused of plagiarism. Even his physical appearance mimics another, better director. Abram's unoriginality is astounding. The sooner his influence (and his awful acolytes) is gone, the better.

[@ThatFanBoyGuy]

I think JJ Abrams films from now on should just have 1 lens flair as an Easter egg.