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The new Star Wars film has reportedly found a director. JJ Abrams is here to rescue the series by taking charge of Star Wars: Episode VII, but can the same man captain both Star Wars and Star Trek?
TheWrap reports that after successfully rehabilitating Star Trek, JJ Abrams appears to have beaten other contenders to the Star Wars gig, including Ben Affleck, Matthew Vaughn and Guillermo Del Toro.
Disney bought production company Lucasfilm, the home of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, last year — and immediately announced it would milk the cash cow begin a new chapter in the beloved series. That prompted me to ask whether we’re overwhelmed by franchises, but I’m still excited about the prospect of new Star Wars adventures.
I’m not sold on Abrams though. Fans of Lost, Alias and Fringe may find my lack of faith… disturbing. But for my money he’s yet to prove himself on the big screen — Mission: Impossible III is just another Mission: Impossible film, and Star Trek is loud and fun, but flimsier than an Orion slave girl’s nightie.
He’s the brains, sweetheart
Abrams strikes me as being similar to George Lucas: an ideas man rather than a great director. He’s not writing the script for the new trilogy — that job falls to Michael Arndt, who wrote Little Miss Sunshine; Lawrence Kasdan, who penned The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark; and Simon Kinberg, who was responsible for, er, xXx 2. So he must have been hired for his visual stylings. Which consists of bunging in a load of lens flare like someone who’s just discovered the FX tab in iMovie.
But it doesn’t matter what I think: let’s assume the guy knows what he’s doing. There’s a much bigger concern.
The sleek futuregazing of Star Trek is — literally — a galaxy far, far away from the rough-round-the-edges retro thrills ‘n’ spills of Star Wars. To borrow a metaphor from another classic sci-fi series, having the same guy in charge of Star Trek and Star Wars feels like crossing the streams.
Still, he can’t be worse than George Lucas, can he?
Let’s blow this thing and go home
The new Star Wars movie is set for 2015. Star Trek Into Darkness hits UK cinemas on 17 May this year. In the meantime, get your extra-terrestrial kicks with the coolest spacecraft that actually exist, our favourite evil computers, and the best gadgets from Red Dwarf.
Is Abrams the man for the job, or is it a case of Jar Jar Abrams? Tell me if you’ve got a bad feeling about this in the comments, or on the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is our Facebook page.
