The Most Glaring Problem With JJ Abrams' Movies

Returning for THE RISE OF SKYWALKER was a career suicide

Lens flares are not Abrams' biggest problem. His problem is that he is very weak in doing original ideas. At least in cinema. He's great at reworking familiar themes, preying on nostalgia and "member-berries," but when it comes to creating something original, he finds himself falling into the trap of flashiness, action and cheap gimmicks. And it's a shame, because technically he is very capable and has a great instinct for casting.

"Ressurecting Star Wars" Bro put the final nail in the coffin for star wars movies

Can’t believe they let this guy take over Star Wars. Hollywood loves the “popular” kid of the moment instead of a consistent lesser known director

I remember watching another video that said his strongest and weakest point was his "mystery-box storytelling." He was really good at setting up high concept plots, intrigue, and mystery to reel the audience in fast. But he "never plans" what the end will be, boxing himself in a corner and leaving us with an ok or lackluster ending. Like "Lost" and the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

Abrams is like a musician realising that an occasional kazoo can add a silly note to the music, only to add more and more kazoo. One day he releases an album with every wind instrument exchanged with a kazoo.

In his early years, he had potential as a director. But his reputation is now in ruins due to just making reboots & sequels with plots that were used already.

I wouldn’t associate Abrams with the lens flare anymore—I would associate him with the unexplained plot, the “mystery box.” Popularized on Lost, a lot of people don’t realize that there wasn’t actually an answer to all the mysteries that were being promoted on the show. The writers were working week to week and adding mysteries on mysteries, but not attaching them to any particular conclusion. Then, when the show had to wrap up the storyline, they had to force all of the mysteries into one unfulfilling answer—everyone was dead the whole time! Therefore none of it has to make sense! The Force Awakens leaned hard on mystery boxes—what role did Max Von Sydow play in the beginning of the film? No answer. Who is Snoke? No answer (mostly—apparently he’s a clone, but of whom? When? Why him?) Who are Rey’s parents? Everybody and nobody. None of the questions set up by the film received a good answer, whether you count Rian Johnson’s attempt to burn them down or not. Now, for a serial TV show about weird things like Fringe, having unexplained mysteries is perfectly fine. Abrams killed it with that show. But movies, that are supposed to have a beginning, middle, and end? Wrap things up neatly? Answer the questions to the audience’s satisfaction? No. Abrams can’t do it, he won’t do it. This even happened in Rise of Skywalker, where Abrams was put on the back foot and asked to actually give an explanation directly to the audience as to why Palpatine came back. “Somehow.” That’s it. That’s all he came up with. Man’s a millionaire and Disney’s a billion dollar company, and they couldn’t answer the biggest question of the series.

He is so overrated. I'm surprised he didn't direct the Total Recall remake aka Lens Flares the movie.

I hate his mystery box aspect of his filmmaking. especially when he’s not in charge of answering the questions he sets up

JJ Abrams has much worse problems as a filmmaker than lens flares. He really is a pretty average or even below average director. He’s the master of introducing plot lines with no follow through. I mean he does fine with solo outings but he’s the last guy I want involved in a franchise.

How are we not going to touch on his "mystery box" problem in his storytelling habits?

Hearing about how he approached Star Trek makes me like the movies even less. They aren't bad movies ... they just don't seem to understand everything that made Trek what it is.

If by "resurrected" you mean the fanbase (of ST/SW) are completely divided, disinterested or disgusted then yeah, sure JJ completely resurrected these franchise.

The lens flares are bad. But not as bad as the mystery box.

Well Michael Bay has obviously big explosions and camera circling the heroes many times in slowmo, but he has one much more significant trope: Stuff flying at the camera in intense scenes, like car chases, spaceshuttle following an asteroid, rockets flying, everything is going directly at camera and at viewers. I love it.

I would argue that at this point he’s more infamous than actually liked, his reboot/revival of both Trek and Wars and his reliance on the Mystery Box type of storytelling has made him very infamous with both fandoms.

The lens flares don’t bother me, what bothers me is that he is great at coming up with intriguing mysteries but never has a decent explanation or ending to them

6:08 I'd have to disagree with the cultural respect part. Fanbases hate him. Seth McFarlane wanted to direct Star Trek 2009 and I think he'd have done a great job. He's proven with the Orville that he knows Star Trek very well.

I like the fact that JJ seems really self aware of it.