J.J. Abrams Isn’t the Savior the Sci-Fi Genre Expected

No shit. He ruined Star Trek and Star Wars. Keep him away from the rest of my childhood.

'Ruined' is an odd thing to say. JJ made two deeply unoriginal Star Wars movies that failed to lead anywhere and his contributions to Star Trek showed he didn't understand Star Trek - and he certainly shouldn't be handed another franchise again. He doesn't really know how to tell an ongoing story with an evolving plot and how to develop characters over time.

But Star Wars and Star Trek haven't been 'ruined', they've recovered just fine since he left. The Mandalorian, Andor and Ahsoka have been excellent contributions to the Star Wars universe - Dave Filoni clearly has the original vision for where to take Star Wars that JJ lacked. Strange New Worlds and Picard season 3 have been Star Trek back to its 1990s best (the less said about Picard season 2, the better...), and again Terry Matalas could be a similar figure for Star Trek.

I don't like the language of 'such and such weak production RUINED my franchise' when we're talking about franchises that are thriving like never before.
- I don't know about star trek, but he completely overrode long standing lore and plot points in star wars. That being said, star wars was never good at that to begin with.
- Younger people might not care because they grew up with newer versions of the franchises, but those of us who grew up with the originals can absolutely say 'ruined' in context of the spirit of where they started. Putting our original dream team of Star Wars actors together decades later and then doing THAT with them is ruining what could have been a masterpiece swan song for the characters. Putting Spock in a fucking space fighter that incidentally ripped the exact same weapon and sound effects from Slave One in the SW prequels is just mind mindbogglingly stupid. Abrams always only cared about the Michael Bay wow factor and had no clue what made these franchises special to long time fans. He turned them both into dumb action movies with recycled plot lines and no heart. When I say ruined I don't mean he ruined the franchises entirely, just the entries he had a hand in. Regardless of how well the franchises have survived and prospered, he still left an indelible stain in the minds of long time fans.

It's come to the point that, if I see Abrams name attached to a new project, I immediately lose interest altogether.

Abrams butchered the Star Trek reboot and the Star Wars final trilogy, so my whole childhood.

But more, I blame Disney and Paramount for letting him.

C'mon, your entire childhood? A bit dramatic there.
Abrams butchered the Star Trek reboot

Butchered? That's an insane exaggeration or you're being exceedingly dramatic. How did he possibly "Butcher" Star Trek? They were well received! They were widely acclaimed, they did the source material justice in many ways and brought Star Trek - a fandom that was dying to the times, back to a mainstream audience who embraced and engaged with it.

I seriously don't get how you Sci-Fi fans have such incredibly lofty expectations. The things you want done in cinema to satisfy you simply cannot be achieved. You'd find fault no matter what was presented to you.

You have to understand that creative decisions need to be made to condense TV storylines that typically run for an entire season or volume of comics into 2 hours of screen time, including exposition, character development and world building. It won't ever be the way you want it, but shitting on people who made those things come to life just means less of it. No one wanted to touch Star Wars after the Prequels. Everyone pissed all over Hayden Christensen's acting, and now they embrace him like an old friend.

And Abrams didn't ruin the final trilogy. He was attached to The force awakens which largely followed the same pattern as A New Hope (it was extremely well received at the time), then Rian Johnson turned up for the second, squatted over the franchise and took a massive Mr Whippy all over it, leaving it in an unsalvageable mess for Abrams to polish into a reasonably attractive turd.

@inkican, JJ is a hack who has connections. I'm so happy to finally find others who see it, too! That said... I honestly enjoy Super 8. Still, I'll include it's flaws any time I'm tearing his work apart.

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Jar jar Abrams makes dumb boring movies by committee and board approved jumbo set pieces with the soul of a Pontiac Aztec and the inventiveness of an incandescent light bulb.

I remember watching Fringe and being utterly underwhelmed by it. It introduced intriguing mysteries, with most of them being forgotten by the next episode. I think this is what J.J.Abrams has always been about. The same seemed true for The Lost. Although, I stopped watching it after about 3 episodes.

No, you got the nail on the head. He loves a mystery, and wants to keep audiences guessing about what's in his "black box" but there's never actually been anything there. Fringe, Lost, Star Wars, Star Trek, he's just never been able to actually tell a story with an actual conclusion. If he absolutely has to be involved in a creative process, it should be for about 5 minutes at the beginning before he's kicked out in favour of writers that can actually do something interesting with the incomplete messes he spews.
- This is how he treated the Star Wars sequel trilogy. All McGuffin, no plan. People have planned better on bar napkins in a restaurant. I really wish Trevorrow's script would have been used instead of putting Abrams at the helm of Episode IX. Instead we got "Somehow Palpatine returned."

I don't think I ever liked anything he did, not one thing.

I loved season 1 of Lost. Back then, I had no idea who he was or that there were no answers coming.
- I watched lost really late, but i also hardly knew anything about it. The beginning is so much fun, and then it turns more and more into a show where it feels like they have no idea what they want to do with that show.
Fringe wasn't bad.
- Fringe was good when there were still mysteries about it, when you were never sure what was going on. It kind of dragged out in the later seasons and whatever they did with the Observers was just… whatever.
  
  Force Awakens, despite its unoriginal plot, was also somewhat good when it came out because of all the unanswered questions and the potential it had. JJ Abrams seems good at sparking things and planting mysteries (“mystery box shows”), but not so great at actually answering those mysteries. Force Awakens didn’t really start to look bad until Last Jedi came out and everyone realized that there was no plan and nothing mattered, but that was more on Rian Johnson than JJ Abrams. Yes, Abrams/Disney should’ve had something worked out beforehand, but Johnson seemed to go out of his way to just shut the story down midway through a trilogy and left nothing to move forward with.
I think the pilot episode of Lost is one of the bets pilots ever, but it goes down hill really fast.
Have you tried Fringe? Not a huge J.J. fan myself, but I really loved Fringe
- @paddirn replied to my similar comment quite thoughtfully
He was executive producer of Person of Interest, and I enjoyed that show right to the end.

Can't say the same for any of his other works though

Connections Connections Connections.

It's telling that someone can be as creatively bankrupt and still thrive in Hollywood.

I'mma go out on a limb and admit that I posted this article knowing that I disagreed with the premise. JJ Abrams is incredibly talented - he proved that with Cloverfield and Super 8. Additionally, he took Star Trek into a new direction despite its challenges and he remains scandal free unlike some other scifi directors (looking at you Bryan Singer). So you can be angry about TFA or Fringe if you want, but the guy does quality work in an industry full of bad actors. Credit where credit is due.