The Wrap: "J.J. Abrams will direct the next "Star Wars" film for Disney, taking stewardship of one of Hollywood's most iconic and lucrative film franchises, an individual with knowledge of the production told TheWrap."

  • http://www.facebook.com/HyperionToASatyr Jack Holmes
  • http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/ tristan eldritch

    Do lightsabers give off lens flare?

    • Donald Petersen

      Well, they do now.

      Oh, well.  Thought for a minute there might be something to see in three years.

      • franko

        they actually had lens flare before, so this wouldn’t be totally a new thing anyway.

        • Donald Petersen

          Maybe it’s been a few years too long for me and I’m forgetting. Could you show me a cinematic moment when a lightsaber made a lighting effect like these outside of, say, the original Hildebrandt poster?

          • Ramone

            If they could find a way to film a Hildebrandt-esque version of Star Wars I would spend my life savings in that theater.

  • bruceburbank

    “Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

  • niktemadur

    Christopher Nolan would be the right man for the job, I still say.

    • http://www.facebook.com/HyperionToASatyr Jack Holmes

      Nolan would have been good, but I honestly think that Jon Favreau would have been perfect for the light, pulpy tone of the franchise.

      • franko

        or whedon. sigh.

        • EH

          or apatow

        • http://grumer.org/ Avram Grumer

          I was holding out for the Coen brothers. 

          • Jellodyne

            Is that yer friend there in tha Sarlac Pit?

          • Felton / Moderator

            Fuck it, Chewie, let’s go bowling.

          • ImmutableMichael

            “What did we learn, Vader?”
            “I don’t know, Emperor.”
            “I don’t fuckin’ know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.”

          • IronEdithKidd

            Shut up, Vader, you’re out of your element.

          • http://www.facebook.com/HyperionToASatyr Jack Holmes

            This is the best thread.

        • niktemadur

          or whedon. sigh.

          For The Win.  I quite forgot about Joss and am not proud to say it.

          • CH

            I have a bad memory, too. I’m at the moment wearing this t-shirt: http://store.pvponline.com/products/joss-whedon-is-my-master-now-tee

            Then you can just look down and go “Oh, right!”

    • http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

      He would have rebooted it. You would actually see Luke hunting womp rats.

  • Just_Ok

    Yah, and it turns out, Luke will be Vader’s father.

  • anansi133

    The question used to be, “How many times have you seen (the only) Star Wars?

    then it was, “What order do you think they should be viewed?”

    next it’s going to be, “When do you think the franshise jumped the shark?”

    For that question, I’m gonna stick with the last 10 minutes of _Empire_.

    • robuluz

      Ewoks.

      • TheKaz1969

        I think Jar Jar was introduced to make people hate the Ewoks a little less…

        • robuluz

          “What about the Ewoks?”
          “Yeah but Jar Jar Binks makes the Ewoks look like fucking Shaft.”

          Apologies for repeat quoting from one scene of ‘Spaced’.

          • McGreens

            Never apologise for quoting Spaced.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

    Abrams has already put together a design team. The set of the third Death Star will feature lots of spurious water-filled glass tubes for the characters to be hilariously trapped in.

    Also, you can see Alderaan from the surface of Tatooine.

  • http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

    So, the whole “Force” phenomena throughout the galaxy is going to be controlled by a donkey wheel on Hoth and a fucking cork inside the hollow tree on Dagobah?

  • http://grumer.org/ Avram Grumer

    Not long, then, till we get Prequel Trilogy purists complaining about how Abrams has ruined their childhood memories. 

    • Donald Petersen

      I can’t say I’d go that far.

      • IronEdithKidd

        You’re not part of that generation.

    • http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

      “The new Anakin Skywalker has none of the charm or screen presence of Hayden Christensen!” 

      Those words are followed by the sound of an overweight, neckbeared lynch mob.

    • robuluz
    • http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

       unless there’s 40 minutes of graphic Wooky sex, I don’t see how it can possibly be worse then the Prequels.

      • penguinchris

        Was hoping to see an Antinous quip in reply to this…

      • http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

        You will now spend the day defining the criteria of “Wooky sex” in the style of an Urban Dictionary entry.  

        Wooky sex:  (1) n. Intercourse involving at least one member of genus Pongo; (2) n. A dessert on Omega 5; (3) n. An interval within the human mating ritual wherein the participants become howling ape creatures, clad only in dense body hair, capable of great strength and bouts of unintelligible grunting.

        [Bob] How was the sex last night?
        [Doug] Satisfactory, chum, until I felt the need to bellow like a member of genus Pongo.  It all went a bit wooky after that.

        P.S. Wookiee.

        • http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

           you are the sanatorium of the internet.

          • http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

            Convalesce in my pastoral setting.  Inhale my dry air.

      • Lurking_Grue

        I think I already saw that in the Christmas Special.

  • http://twitter.com/dethbird dethbird

    I for one am happy Star Wars is FINALLY heading in the direction of a serial melodrama. F***ing finally.

  • Jellodyne

    Give me the MI4 team instead — Abrams can produce, but Brad Bird can direct. Bird’s MI4 was better than Abrams’ MI3 – in terms of pacing, action, dialog, tone, etc. Bird can do epic. Bird can do emotive. Bird can do iconic. The tone of Iron Giant and The Incredibles are more akin the Star Wars original trilogy than anything Abrams has done. Don’t get me wrong, I like Abrams. Frankly, I think his style was a better match for Star Trek. I just think Brad Bird would be a better match for Star Wars.

    • Rickenbacker4001

      Bang on, Yes ! 

  • http://twitter.com/ProfessorBlind Matt Blind

    Wrong ‘Abrams’ – what the franchise needs is Zucker Abrahams Zucker

    • http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

      Luke, do you like movies about Gladiators?

  • Donald Petersen

    Weird.  Unlike all the tweets showing up in the sidebar at The Wrap, so far I’ve yet to see anyone here happy about this development.

    Are all you guys as old and crotchety as I am?

    • Ramone

      Not at all. I think this is great news, especially since he’s a bigger ‘Wars fan than Trek (he’s on the record as never being a trekkie). He’s a good director and Lucas, for all his efforts, was not great with actors. Abrams can put the opera back into space opera!

      • Donald Petersen

        I’m not optimistic.  I think I blame Orci & Kurtzman for most of my issues with Star Trek, but I kinda hated Super 8 as well, and that’s a movie that should have been right in my wheelhouse.

        I’d have been tickled pink if del Toro or Blomkamp had been picked.  They can tell a genre story without the particular irritating visual tics (yeah, the lens flare is just the most obvious) that Abrams employs.

        • IronEdithKidd

          Blomkamp is a suggestion I could get behind.  But not until he makes District 10.  Fucker owes us that.

    • http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

      Red Letter Media seemed happy. Several years ago in fact:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e7Upf6i7dE

  • feetleet

    “Star Wars of the Roses.” No colon. Like the Sarlacc, I imagine.

  • EeyoreX

    It’ll be fun to see how he’ll shoehorn “Slusho” in there.

  • Conan Librarian

    I would have preferred David Lynch myself, but I’ll give it a chance. 

  • http://twitter.com/Skyhawk1 skyhawk1

    Damn, now light saber duels will come with lens flares.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1271680112 Felix Tannenbaum

    The 11 minute intro to his Star Trek movie is some of the best and most effective space opera i’ve ever seen. I cried! (and yes i’m a bit of a sissy), but that was some A+ moviemaking!

    THE FORCE IS STRONG IN THAT ONE.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1271680112 Felix Tannenbaum

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5BONJcookQ

  • Peacen1k

    It couldn’t be any worse than the last 3 and a half movies. The thing died when the ewoks hit the stage. RIP.

  • http://undulantfever.blogspot.com/ Bruce Arthurs

    No love for Uwe Boll?

    • IronEdithKidd
  • peregrinus

    Oh.

    * cue bushweed tumble, whistling breeze *

    So this saga pivots from the slim possibility of re-igniting the fun in a new generation to a full on cash-sucking yomp through treasured memories and powerful talismans.  It’s a last-gasp cash-grab by the studios before the the goodwill of ANH finally dissipates.

    Star Trek was good, although I found the sets to be more 1960s Supermarionation / Space 1999 than even ANH’s visually persuasive level.  But that movie, after the initial thrill of it, lacks depth or impulse for me.

    I mean, it’s Hollywood ‘n’ all, so whatever, but there was such opportunity here.

    JJA is a nice producer.  He’s hooked into what delivers rush for audiences.  But he’s also hooked into the studio way, which is why, in a sense, with such an expensive project, he’s the right guy for the job.  But not really for me.  I’m feeling sad.

    And then, the imdb trivia quotes him as saying – “I’m an impatient guy and tend not to like to stay with one thing for a long time”,  ”I’m just too impatient these days. I want to get on to the next project.”.  I’m not sensing investment here.

    I say, guerrilla time – with the lowering cost of CGI and hoardes of out-of-work actors, I might just put up an alternative #7 flick before this baby gets born!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2X6OHAN7GLVLAIP4QLECKD3NY4 morgane

    What? They didn’t give it to Lea Dunham?

  • Senor Schaffer

    I was hoping for John Waters. :(

    • Felton / Moderator

      I’d be more into that idea if Divine were still alive to play the next Emperor.

      • Lurking_Grue

        I would so watch the fuck out of that movie.

  • http://www.batshite.com/royalflush Scott Bartlett

    I’m gonna go out on a (incredibly fragile) limb and say I can’t wait to see Star Wars directed by J. J. Abrams! Loved Lost and loved his Star Trek reboot. Can I preorder my ticket yet?

    *lies down on cross*

    K, ready!