J.J. Abrams' Star Wars vs Star Trek reboot?
 

Hey folks I am very curious to know which sci fi franchise you think JJ did a better job on?

I will admit that I throughly enjoyed his Star Trek reboot (Star Trek 2009 & Star Trek Into Darkness) much much more than his Star Wars movies (The Force Awakens & The Rise of Skywalker) .

Star Trek (2009) was a total blast (solid reboot imo) and had such a superior cast of new actors/ characters in it. The chemistry between all the actors/actresses was great and felt totally natural. Also, major kudos to JJ for casting Chris Pine as Kirk! He was born to play that role.

Then there is the bad. I was actually stoked about The Force Awakens after seeing the 1st teaser trailer but was totally let down by it after seeing the film in theaters. I don't even know where to begin haha. I guess I'll start with the new younger cast members who were all lackluster and had zero chemistry together. Plus, Adam Driver as the emo Darth Vader fanboy was pretty ****ing terrible/cringeworthy. Couldn't stand him in that role at all. IMO Eric Bana (as Nero) and even Benedict Cumberbatch (as Khan) were much better villains .

I'll probably be in the minority here regarding this topic but I'd love to hear your thoughts . Thanks!

I agree that his Star Trek movies are better, but only because his Star Wars movies are so bad. They make the Transformers movies seem well-written and clever.

The Force Awakens was just a carbon copy of A New Hope, only with flashier graphics. The Rise of Skywalker was just a disaster, but that wasn't all necessarily his fault as he was trying to make chicken salad out of chicken shit by then.

I can probably agree with his Star Trek being much better than his Star Wars. Bruce Greenwood as Admiral Pike is severely underappreciated in both films - he lends a gravitas to both stories in that role.

For me, The Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker were far better films overall as compared to the 2009 reboot of Star Trek and the sequel, Into Darkness.

2009 Star Trek changed canon far too much for my taste and had far too many coincidences (Kirk dumped off the ship, only to find an older Spock and a young Montgomery Scott for starters), although it was a fairly enjoyable popcorn film.

Into Darkness was an epic disaster, IMO. Replacing a Sikh warlord with a British man was absolutely ridiculous and the overall plot had nothing original to it, other than the father of Carol Marcus being a traitor to the Federation.

Blech.

The bad Star Trek movies were better than the bad Star Wars movies, but at the end of the day they all pretty much sucked. Jar Jar Abrams needs to ****ing die. 4321

They're both piles of entertaining shit. One slightly smellier than the other.

That's what JJ specializes in.

If forced to choose one of the four to watch, it is definitely the 2009 Star Trek. Sure it is flawed as hell, but still loads better than the other three.

Everything else was just a ****ing ripoff.

I think both franchises need some new blood to get them back to representing a positive future instead of a bleak and darker version of the present times.

I watched the other night while on the treadmill and while it definitely has its fun moments, the villain was pretty weak.

I also think that another 10-15 minutes of run time focusing on the individual characters would have made the film much stronger. I understand that it's a reboot but for first time Trek viewers, the film just didn't provide much in terms of backstory for characters such as Uhuru, Sulu, Chekov, Montgomery Scott, Spock and so on.

It's like Abrams just assumed everyone was already familiar with their backstories.

The worst thing about the 2009 Star Trek was Nero. He had absolutely no reason to bear Spock any ill will. That was just dumb. There was a comic book that gave a bit of backstory to it - the reason Spock was unable to save Romulus in time is because he was denied entry into Romulan space by their government until it was too late. If they thought that would make things better, it didn't.

Nero hating Spock, the Federation, and basically everybody else that had exactly dick to do with the supernova - dumb.
A mining vessel (even if it is from the future) being able to take out a fleet of warships - dumb.
Red matter - dumb.
Spock stranded on the moon of Vulcan, which never before had a moon - dumb.
Spock and Scotty just happening to be on the same non-existent moon - dumb.
Transwarp beaming - dumb.
The interior of the Enterprise being some giant open air factory looking thing - dumb.
Uhura basically being the linguistic equivalent to Data - dumb. In Star Trek VI she had to fumble through actual books to fake speaking Klingon.
Uhura and Spock being a couple - dumb.

The only saving grace was a good, likeable cast that had excellent chemistry. It certainly had its moments. But overall, silly and sad.

When his Star Trek 2009 came out everyone was head over heels for it. Even the critics.

Probably his best received movie so far in his career.

Appreciate all the feedback so far folks!

Another thing I liked about JJ's Star Trek reboot was the casting of Karl Urban as Bones. Urban flat out rules in pretty much everything I've seen him in and he had great comedic timing in those Star Trek films.

The Narada was actually a Romulan/Borg hybrid vessel armed to the teeth, but, you're still correct with all of that. Like I said, Pike was a real pleasant surprise for me in that movie. I liked the cast as well, but Greenwood brought something to an otherwise thrown away character that drew me in a little more.

And just because you brought it up - if a single drop of Red Matter could create a black hole that could swallow Vulcan, how come the entire beach ball sized glob of it didn't create a supermassive blackhole that swallowed the entire galaxy? Absolute bullshit. Lol

Another bonus, he was nails as Bones. Hell I thought Chris Pine did great as a young and brash Kirk. They all hit their roles.

Urban was the best of the bunch. It felt like he was channeling DeForest Kelly.

There's only one Leonard McCoy:

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...uh...but occasionally there are two James T. Kirks:

https://i.imgur.com/07sLV7V.jpg

I didn't see why old Spock needed to be in the movie, but other than that, it was good. Fantastic score, too.

It gives the continuity obsessed nerds in the fan base an excuse to believe that everything all still fits together.

The story wouldn't have worked without older Spock, so I completely disagree with your premise.

Shatner was originally intended to be in the reboot as well but Abrams ended up cutting that scene.

They all sucked. :(

What I'm saying is is that they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. On the one hand they want to do a reboot, but on the other they want to draw in as many of the old fans as possible. So instead of having a clean reboot, you say "Actually this is a divergent timeline - all the old stuff still exists." This kind of distinction is very important to some Trek fans.

"They" are JJ Abrams, not Paramount.

I went to the premiere of the film at Arclight Hollywood back in 2009. At least half the audience was dressed in original series uniforms and everyone seemed to have a great time but of course, any fan base is going to have criticisms from the hardcore fans because it's just impossible to make everyone happy.

I didn't really have a problem with the 2009 reboot and IIRC, the third movie was pretty decent. But they could have trotted out the entire original cast and people still would have been pissed off.

Again, it's impossible to make every fan happy.

Hell yeah man Pine was great as Kirk (IMO he is one of the best actors that were born in the 80s ). Sure he has been in some panned clunkers over the years but he impressed me in quite a few films since he got the role of Kirk in Star Trek. (he held his own starring in Unstoppable with Denzel Washington which is not an easy task at all. Great dramatic work in Hell or High Water and thought he was pretty badass as Robert the Bruce in Netflix's Outlaw King. His accent was solid for the most part)
He also has a key uncredited role in the 2014 zany comedy called "Stretch". Flat out awesome/darkly funny performance in that. Highly recommend checking it out to anyone that hasn't seen it yet.

For some reason I thought that Spock KNEW he was going to run into Kirk there, because he knew the past/future or something.

I dunno, time travel stuff.


If it was just coincidence, then yeah... that is dumb.

I rewatched it the other night while on the treadmill and Spock was definitely surprised to see Kirk, just as he was surprised to find Montgomery Scott at the Federation base that was like only 7 kilometers away.

LMAO

So, Spock was in an ice cave and some how built a fire to keep away those dragon-type monsters, yet Scotty was less than 3 miles away, and could have just beamed him over had he known they were there. How could Spock's ship have landed so close to that base yet Scotty was unaware?

I swear, JJ Abrams must think he's the smartest man in the world because his narratives are just plain stupid.

Yeah, I remember Spock looking surprised to see Kirk... but I thought he was just trying to play it off.

I suppose I gave JJ too much credit.

Would be an interesting interview question to ask him...

"So uhhh Mr. Abrams, do you realize how _______ this coincidence is?"

Turd burger, or shit sammich sir?

My favorite thing about 2009 Star Trek was Karl Urban. His Bones was great. That movie is really rewatchable for me. Never did watch Star Trek growing up at all, even though I knew most of the characters in the show.

2/3 of the original series sucks, but there are some good episodes too; you should check some out. At least watch City on the Edge of Forever, it's a classic.

There are always some questionable things in his movies, the fight scene on the drill comes to mind from his first Star Trek movie. But for the most part the 2 first Star Trek movies he did were okay, but I was never a Trekkie, just watched The Next Generations, and never cared much for the original stuff. I enjoyed the Force Awakens, still lots of questionable stuff, basically was A New Hope rewritten, but it at least felt like Star Wars. The last one was strange, but what company knows they are going to make a trilogy and doesn't have it all planned out from the beginning?