JJ’s Wonky World Builds: Number 2
It always astonishes me when people defend these world-builds. I understand the appreciation of any art is subjective. We don’t always like the same thing. There are movies I hate that others adore, and vice versa. And I’m truly fine with all that. The difference here is that JJ’s world building is just dumb. It’ll fool you with its sweet visuals if you let it. JJ’s awesome at that. But if you pause to offer any scrutiny, it doesn’t take much to realise how moronic his storytelling is. And that’s not subjective. That’s just a reality. It doesn’t get any stupider than Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), the second Star…
JJ’s Wonky World Builds: Number 3
After JJ Abrams had decimated the Star Trek universe, he ran afoul of the franchise’s merchandising department and thus turned his depredations elsewhere: Star Wars. I thought he might be able to pull it off. Star Trek has always been intellectual science fiction. JJ totally mishandled that. But the action scenes looked great, so maybe his talents could be monopolised in science fantasy for Star Wars with The Force Awakens (2015). By now, we were all familiar – and in some cases very familiar – with the Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy in that galaxy far, far away. This is important to keep in mind. When the Original Trilogy first…