In his early years, J. J. Abrams was a brash and creative project director who brought solid teams together to bring hit shows to TV like Alias, Felicity, and Lost. From 1998 to 2006, world wide audiences were caught up on his shows, which built up a variety of dramatic, spell bounding, plot twisting, story-lines that kept the fans coming back to new seasons of his hit shows. I guess early on it was just something fresh to see, seeing some interesting character build ups, an entertaining variant of casting changes that bulked up the idea that these new shows were going to reveal something BIG in their final season.
Before Abrams began directing, he spent a few years working on movie sets with screenplay and assisting script writers to polish up each new script dropped on his desk. He had a quick wit with just adding those little things to make scripts read better, driving the screenplay to seem more natural to keep each passing scene flow by flawlessly, giving the each new film a realistic feel for the audiences. When he began to produce films and make creations for TV, he seemed ready to deliver the best ideas that could bring a whole new audience to the networks. And for a while, they did. Each new series he brought to the world, brought him a step closer to the ultimate goal of any series producer; the chance to work on big budget films.
When Abrams sold the idea of the film CLOVERFIELD to Paramount in 2008, claiming the film could be produced in twelve weeks, he was more than excited to get the ball rolling on the film and get a chance to go up against some of the other big films being released later that year. He found Matt Reeves to direct the film and commanded him to begin filming sequences to CLOVERFIELD even before the final script was even completed. Even though Reeves admitted that he had never worked in such a "top speed" environment, he did as he was told; producing scenes out of sequence that weren't even put to script, and then adding them to the film and adjusting the scripts afterwards to officially add them successfully to the entire plotline. And don't forget the flashy lighting in the film and the addition of lens flares that follow in all of the films created and produced by Abrams; I'm sure that you're way over tired of seeing them in his films by now.
But there was one BIG problem with the script and production to CLOVERFIELD, something that also plagued those network show's that brought him up to the spotlight of success in the film industry...the movie lacked a solid ending. As a matter of fact, ALL of Abrams film and network creations all had bad endings, many that pissed off fans who watched his network show's for years; trust me, I was one of them! I watched LOST endlessly and in the final season it was revealed that the entire show was just a dream and that all of the passengers and characters had all died in an opening plane crash from season one. The failure of bad endings would [and still do] plague many of the Abrams new movies. But did he try to fix this one bad issue with all of this past films, of course not. He explained to the big wigs in Hollywood that "fans will watch whatever is tossed at them."
So, when Hollywood decided to give Abrams the keys to the Star Trek franchise and launch it with a reboot. The new STAR TREK movie of 2009 also brought with it a slew of creative problems that would also be noted in every new and old movies led by the startling new producer and director. Fans began to learn quickly that Abrams had absolutely no grasp of technical know-how on how things actually work; i.e. he knows that a key turns the ignition to a car, he knows the gas pedal makes the car move, but has no concept of how a car engine works or how combustion leads to the production of carbon, except that when the car is low on gas it needs a fill up. If you're making a movie about car manufactures and designing a new engine for a car, the concept for knowing how a car motor actually works and how to repair it, are vital.
First of all, in the STAR TREK movie alone, the concept of military ranking, officer etiquette, and advancement eluded the storytelling. Even the ship's concept and designs, required for building realistic sets were tossed out of the window. Bit by bit, the STAR TREK movie was filled utterly with "bullshit" technology that fans began to see through the hype and eventually the movie itself proved that Abrams was way out of his league when it came to writing and creating SciFi movies. His reboot of STAR TREK II, entitled "Into Darkness," was also a complete BUST with Star Trek fans. What's a bigger shame is that newer, more popular actors were brought in to try and save the new film, but that idea fell under harsh reviews and a Rotten Tomatoes Rating that even today wouldn't save anyone's career in Hollywood.
So, how could Abrams escape the fracas of ruining a top notch SciFi franchise? Well, Hollywood decided to give him the reigns to the STAR WARS franchise, where the details on knowing "how things work" were never explained in the first six episodes of the franchise and how presenting military etiquette truly never meant a hill of beans. But the writing to the new scripts for this reboot presenting a complete misunderstanding of the force, how light sabers work, ship's designs, and slew of other odds and ends that Star Wars fans first ignored, but then eventually had to acknowledge that Abrams was again far out of his game. His miserable talent for creating series began to rub off on other Hollywood executives, keeping in mind that "fans will watch whatever is tossed at them" on the big screen. I feel that Abram's true failure with the Star Wars Franchise was his decision to release a trailer to the film that had absolutely nothing to do with the true scenes of the film.
And the philosophy built up and openly shared by Abrams has held him in the limelight now for over fifteen years. He is not the authority in SciFi productions, but his long list of films, his staple amplified on IMDB and his name sharing by the plethora of Hollywood elite will not let this jackass fade away. We are surely in for a long ride and in my lifetime we will see a plethora of Abrams wanna-be's who know that its not about how the ending to their films are delivered, but about the money that fans will bring in just to watch another reboot to another old idea that didn't need to be rebooted. Don't spend your money too soon just to see a reboot that [in the end] you won't like.
