J. J. Abrams is a hack and I hate that he keeps getting work
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
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Eh, he’s done some decent work he just isn’t always the right fit for the properties he’s given.
Sorry I can't read your comment. The 20 lens flares he put on screen still have me blinded
Edit: to be clear. I don't think his movies are bad per say. They're just painfully mediocre.
What director is that supposed to represent? JJ flares are horizontal, sometimes have multiple occurrences in a single frame, and often are accompanied by a briefly blown out image in case the viewer doesn't notice the insane distraction.
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JJ, when the lens flared.
SeductiveTortoise, his fists clenched.
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The JJ lens flare then made it into DISCO although I think they toned it down a bit for SNW. I checked out of SFA after 3 episodes so I don't know if they continued to be flare happy there.
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He's always the wrong choice for anything that calls for the bare minimum planning and substance, but that's what they keep giving him. He has good instincts for cinematography but shouldn't be trusted with anything that requires an actual plot.
Now I kinda want to see him make an Avatar movie.
(Blue skinned aliens, not ATLA. Although his ATLA would probably be better than what we got.)
He would probably announce a trilogy, spend the first movie setting up some mystery in Pandora's core and then would never follow up.
spoiler
And somehow Quaritch would return, but Cameron has that covered already.
As long as you don't let him anywhere near the plot.
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I would so watch a Star Trek parody made by Kevin Smith.
Burton's Batman films are top tier, though. If I get a great director with a solid vision for the character/story, I don't care at all if they were a fan before hand or not.
The first one was a great reintroduction to batman given the campiness of the 60's show it was trying to shake off.
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People are taking this interview out of context.
He said, as a kid, he never liked Star Trek. But as an adult, after rewatching TOS to prepare for the 2009 film, he grew to appreciate Star Trek.
You wouldn't guess that from the movies.
he grew to appreciate the money he was going to make from Star Trek.
Fixed.
But as an adult, after rewatching TOS to prepare for the 2009 film, he grew to appreciate Star Trek.
Right, so he should not have been hired to do the job. He didn't rewatch it until money, and he likes money. He liked it because of money.
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Indeed. Nicolas Meyer was the same, and most fans seem to love his contributions to the franchise. Being a newcomer isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes a fresh perspective can be a great thing.
Not to say I love Abrams’ work, but in the end he did more harm to Star Wars than to Trek, and by all accounts he’s a life long Star Wars fan.
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Yeah, but he actually succeeded though.
Star Trek 2009 revived a franchise that had been dead since Nemesis, reviewed well, is still the highest grossing Trek film ever made, and regularly appears near the top of lists of the best films in the franchise.
It really was obnoxiously enjoyable; In the words of Aurelio Voltaire, "Someone tell me why I love this film so fucking much". It wasn't golden era new gen philosophy trek, let alone the heights the series hit during the "Suck it Straczynski, we can write überplot too" era of DS9, but it was far, far from the depths that Final Frontier ~~and generations~~ took the series. Imo, it was a lot more coherent than Nemisis and had way better characterization of the villains than Insurrection, the two most "action trek" of the films. It was never going to be Khan (ranking among the most influential science fiction media period), but I don't think anyone intended it to be.
... the rest of the trilogy though, hot fucking garbage. The kirk motorcycle fight is pure power-cringe, and JJ should be executed for the whole "Bumblesnatch as Khan" fiasco.
The kirk motorcycle fight is pure power-cringe
Absolutely, yes - it was silly.
But - the only reason we never got that motorcycle fight earlier with Shatner was lack of budget.
It doesn't fit the tone of orignal Trek because original Trek couldn't afford it, not because original Trek would not have sunk that low, if it could have. Haha.
It really was obnoxiously enjoyable
Was it though? I could see it if you changed the audio track to a language you don’t understand, because it does have a lot going for it; the production design and costumes, set design and construction are all outstanding, sound design is still some of the best there’s ever been (especially when it came to modernizing legacy sfx), obviously the vfx and novel approaches to cinematography (yes, including the lens flares) are all great, etc etc.
But literally every last thing about the story is stream of consciousness, fever dream nonsense, which in any other franchise might be forgiven, but for Star Trek of all things to have such boneheaded threads of anti-science magical thinking, noxious xenophobia and childish cruelty is unforgivable. It’s a top to bottom garbage script, ironically produced with one of the most talented film crews in sci-fi movie history, which for my money anyway, makes it even more tragic and hard to enjoy.
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Yes, you are explaining it perfectly: JJ Abrams MADE MONEY for Paramount. That's all that matters.
Which quite possibly kicked the idiot bandwagon in Hollywood/StreamingLand of hiring people who do not like the IP into overgear. "It made money one time, so we should do it forever" - High Level Business Executive Thinking. So many promising projects ruined.
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I will give JJ Abrahams one genuine heartfelt compliment about his Star Trek movies: they delivered on the sense of scale.
Particularly the opening scene in the first film, the cinematography (sans overused lens flares) and sound design was excellent and showed both the awesome spectacle of the sheer size of the ships and the awful danger of space combat.
That's something there wasn't the budget or technological capability to show until Abrahams-Trek and then Discovery and Strange New Worlds.
Particularly the opening scene in the first film, the cinematography (sans overused lens flares) and sound design was excellent and showed both the awesome spectacle of the sheer size of the ships and the awful danger of space combat.
For their flaws, the Abrams films delivered in visual spectacle.
The intro in the second film, where the Enterprise rises out of the oceans, to the awe of all below, is pretty much one of a very small handful of times where the Enterprise is shown to be quite impressive. It's a really good show of how a religion could form around it if someone is just a little careless with the prime directive. For its weaknesses, it's still a cutting-edge Federation starship, with advanced technology beyond our ken.
The first film had the fast-paced nature of Star Trek combat, but it fell into the trap of doing things like Star Wars, by having only warp engines be fast, and keeping a small distance between the ships. Impulse engines can trivially reach a decent fraction of the speed of light (full impulse can go to the moon and back in minutes). They should be no less agile at typical engagement distances.
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For what it's worth, I found Star Trek dreadfully boring as a child. The trailers for '09 did nothing for me either because it seemed to be all references to a show I didn't watch. Wasn't until everyone at school was talking about how fun it was that I finally saw it. I had a blast. It made me want to understand more about the lore. 'I'd heard about Kirk and Spock my whole life, but who the hell is Bones?' Etc. Baby-stepped up to Wrath of Khan. 'Oh wait, this is a sequel to an old episode? Well I gotta see that episode.' Watched that and found the show way more gripping at an older age, so I went back and did TOS from the beginning. Then on to TNG and so on...
Slop still serves a purpose.
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None of those movies actually happened so it's ok
At the time, liked it out of pure desperation for good sci-fi to exist again. As a whole, just a mediocre money-grab with the classic attempt to "appease all audiences" while abandoning the franchise with a parallel universe loophole.
He was right. My GF never liked Star Trek but went "holy fuck!" to the opening of the 2009 movie.
"We don't like or know the IP and we wrote a script until everyone liked it instead of saying anything because I don't like philosophy."
We, the communities, need to start buying IPs of the shit we like before it becomes a target for the mainstream to steal and destroy.
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FWIW, Star Trek isn't the only sci-fi franchise he manages to drive against the wall.
The other big one is known more for action than philosophical discussion. You'd think he'd have been a better fit!
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Jonathan Frakes never watched Star Trek as a kid either. He preferred Bonanza.
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The problem with the Kelvin movies is they are all pale imitations of Wrath of Khan. Dude has a problem with Starfleat. Dude enacts revenge. Wrath was a shiny red button you press once. They've pressed it four times now and each iteration keeps on getting shittier. As much as I love Star Trek, it's time to take it off life support. At this point it's more Weekend at Bernie's than Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.
It's difficult to have that conversation without making assumptions about... Things.
But for what it's worth, ST is still somewhat popcorn in its subject matter.
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The only thing good about JJ touching Star Trek was the trailer for it, which is 10/10. The movies were all a big let down in comparison. But the trailer is amazing, in no small part due to the music from Two Steps From Hell.
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i found it too philosophical for me
yea thats why ds9 is the best one
punches omnipotent being in the face
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