8. Directorial Mimicry
The director taking the helm of, at least the first film of Trilogy III, is J.J. Abrams, most closely associated with the recent Star Trek reboot, and a variety of sci-fi / fantasy projects such as the TV series Lost, and monster movies Cloverfield, and Super 8. Worryingly, his artistic sensibilities offer little in the way of assurance that he will make a Star Wars film that is anything more than a fusion of brain-teasing puzzles and spectacle. Since penning the rather mawkish and silly Regarding Henry in his early twenties, Abrams has shown a fondness for establishing complex problems only to solve them with cheap and unsatisfying contrivances, like a magician who spends ten long minutes hamming it up with his bouncy assistant, only to step back, press a concealed button, say the magic words as the mechanism does its work, and then bask in applause; that is, the applause of morons trying to convince themselves that handing over their hard earned money to a smarmy ponce in a tuxedo wasnt the real trick. The TV series Lost, for instance, after demonstrating dazzling promise for the first few episodes, dissolved into a mire of increasingly bizarre events without explanation. The hook of the show
was the explanation(s), and in response to each new supernatural event, viewers theories multiplied. Rather than providing a meaningful timetable of resolutions, however, each episode continued to stack the convolutions. I quit in disgust after season two, and having read the synopsis of the entire series, am glad I did. Like a gambler trying to recover his losses by going deeper and deeper into debt, the writers were eventually forced to reveal their imaginative bankruptcy. Abrams approach to the Star Trek films are similar, with the crucial difference being that theyre mercifully short and demand resolution. Nonetheless, they remind me a lot of the cars produced under the Lamborghini badge after Volkswagen bought it as a present for Audi: that is, technically dazzling, adventurous in design, but utterly lacking in soul. Soul emerges from qualities such as idiosyncrasy, personality, vulnerability, uniqueness. Abrams Star Trek films seem to have been written by a roundtable of voluble nerds hyped up on Big Gulps and gushing possibilities centred around self-referential fan service and staple sci-fi / fantasy machinations: And then we could, like, do
this! And make Spock say
this! Because remember when he said
that! And then have, like, an orbital drop like HALO! And a space chase like Star Wars And oh
oh (dear). Admittedly, I quite like the Star Trek reboot because I dont really like Star Trek, and appreciate the films as somewhat smart, slick action films in the vein of the Bourne series. But that isnt to say that I havent watched a lot of the various Star Trek TV series and dont respect them. I do. And what I respect
most about them, and the films featuring the original series cast, is the writers driving impetus to use the creative universe at their disposal to discuss all manner of problems, both emotional and technical, ranging from the present and terrestrial, to the (possible) future, and extra-terrestrial. In other words, the exploration of space is an allegory of humanitys journey into the unknown. And were
always travelling into the unknown
the futuredebating the ethics of our attempts to live long and prosper. This accounts for the wide appeal of the show. Abrams, by contrast, used the franchise like a child playing with action figures, having the characters making up the USS Enterprises crew act in characteristic fashion whilst being occupied by the type of twisting plot popularised by filmmakers such as David Cronenberg, the Wachowski Brothers, Christopher Nolan, and David Fincher. Watching the cerebral and relatively meek Star Trek characters of TV become jacked up on the conventions of modern action cinema is amusing, but it isnt really Star Trek, and raises serious concerns for Star Wars fans. Theres the very real possibilityeven the
likelihoodthat Abrams will make at least one, and potentially three, financially successful films that arent really Star Wars. Therell be post-modern references; characters butting heads as they act according to type. Therell be fan service galore, and contemporary convolutions of plot. But there wont be idiosyncrasy, personality, vulnerability, and uniqueness. There wont be soul. I dont think its fair to say that J.J. Abrams doesnt
have a soulmore that he has an insipid, nerdy Spielberg-lite one (floating somewhere between War of the Worlds and Minority Report). Therefore, the best we can hope for is that hes capable of
understanding the emotional tensions which made Trilogy I so great, and
mimicking them. In directing circles, this isnt uncommon. Spielberg made a perfectly wonderful Kubrick movie in A.I. Polanski made a stellar John Huston film (Chinatown), and de Palma has made a slew of great Hitchcock films. Just as actors contort their voices and faces and mannerisms to create characters, Abrams needs to contort himself into the director of a Star Wars film. Like Kershners (The Empire Strikes Back) and Marquands (Return of the Jedi) collaborations with Lucas before him, Abrams must use his talents to
augment The Saga, rather than trying to make it his own. Make us care, J.J. Dig deep, find the truth of your characters struggles, and portray them honestly on screen. Dont sugar-coat them, dont lose them in plot convolutions, and dont conceal them behind light-shows and jokes. Weve already had one Mickey Mouse trilogy. We dont want another.