Not at all, completely different genres outside of what they usually make. Directing a sci-fi movie is completely different than any movie most of those directors have done. Most of them have been directing for 20+ years and have never done anything close to science fiction, how easy would it be for them to one day decide to direct a movie like Star Wars, which is completely different than anything they've attempted before?
These guys are capable story tellers. Brad Bird did nothing but animated kids movies before Mission Impossible 4 but he's a good story tellers. It's hilarious you mentioned him then cut everyone else off at the knees. He's a perfect example of what you think these guys are incapable of doing.
Matthew Vaughn was my choice for Star Wars. I think he would have done it brilliantly.
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Besides that fact most of them would have turned it down. There are only so many directors out there willing to oversee a universe like Star Wars, and pretty much put a stop to whatever else they're doing. Do you honestly see any of those directors willing to only do Star Wars movies for the imminent future?
That's not what we're debating though. You're probably right, the greats don't want to commit to such a long thing. So you've got the guys like Abrams left who they know will make it big and shiny and bring in the dolla dolla bills.
What the heck are you even talking about now? People loved Ghost Protocol, and it was one of the better movies of last year (93% review rating). It reinvigorated the franchise, and had many excellent action scenes. Brad Bird is a visionary, who is working on many upcoming projects that will more than likely be superb movies. But hey you compared Brett Ratner, who has never directed a movie with a rating above 70% to JJ Abrrams, who has never directed a movie with a rating below 70%. Trustworthy comparison there!
You've totally missed my point. Prior to Mission Impossible Brad Bird had done nothing like it. By your own guidelines he wouldn't be able to do it, because he hadn't done it in the past.
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What the heck are you even talking about now? People loved Ghost Protocol, and it was one of the better movies of last year (93% review rating). It reinvigorated the franchise
Yeah, agreed. MI:4 reinvigorated the franchise after the third movie... I wonder who directed that shiny piece of lens flare garbage.
Last edited by MrMastodonFarm; 07-12-2013 at 01:14 AM.
You've totally missed my point. Prior to Mission Impossible Brad Bird had done nothing like it. By your own guidelines he wouldn't be able to do it, because he hadn't done it in the past.
Have you seen Iron Giant by any chance? Or The Incredibles? Both are sci-fi movies, and both are absolutely fantastic works. The Iron Giant is probably the most underrated animated movie of the last 20 years. Besides that point Bird is mostly an unknown commodity, who would be more willing to tackle the Star Wars franchise than the directors you selected. Many people (Star Wars fans included) expected Disney to choose Bird actually, so I am not just speaking out of my ass.
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Yeah, agreed. MI:4 reinvigorated the franchise after the third movie... I wonder who directed that shiny piece of lens flare garbage.
Reinvigorated it mostly at the box office, but yes it was better than the third movie. MI3 was still very good though, just not as good as Ghost Protocol. Abrams still produced MI4 of course, and probably had quite a bit of involvement with the project (pretty sure he chose Bird to direct actually). Oh and you really need to get off the lens flare argument; that was one (maybe two) movies, time to let it go.
Totally not science fiction
Spoiler!
Last edited by trackercowe; 07-12-2013 at 01:28 AM.
It's amazing how you keep missing my point about Brad Bird.
What point? You're saying like me that he's is incapable of doing it because he's never done a sci-fi movie (like the others you listed). Well that's wrong as Bird has done science fiction movies in the past, and also showed he is capable of taking a big name franchise like Mission Impossible and made it relevant again. Really even with a somewhat unproven track record, he's met two of the main requirements needed for directing Star Wars movies.
As for Matthew Vaughn he would have been an okay choice. But I think you overrate First Class a tad (the acting made that movie), and the other movies he's done have ranged from meh (Stardust) to pretty good (Kick-Ass). Abrams is a better director than Vaughn, especially when it comes to making a sci-fi movie. Vaughn did his best work when Guy Ritchie was involved.
Oh and I believe Vaughn is working for Fox, since he's still producing X-Men movies and the Fantastic Four reboot. I doubt he would have gone to work for Disney with his involvement in those franchises.
Last edited by trackercowe; 07-12-2013 at 01:40 AM.
What point? You're saying like me that he's is incapable of doing it because he's never done a sci-fi movie (like the others you listed). Well that's wrong as Bird has done science fiction movies in the past, and also showed he is capable of taking a big name franchise like Mission Impossible and made it relevant again. Really even with a somewhat unproven track record, he's met two of the main requirements needed for directing Star Wars movies.
My god tracker, you aren't this slow.
Previously you said the list of quality directors I posted weren't capable of doing Star Wards, because they hadn't done anything like it in the past. Then you mentioned Brad Bird should do it. This is a really funny thing to say back-to-back because it's contradictory.
With this line of logic Brad Bird should never have done Mission Impossible 4, he had only done Animated movies previously. A big budget Tom Cruise blockbuster wasn't in his wheelhouse. They gave him the keys to that movie and he knocked it out of the park. Why? Because he's a gifted story teller and director.
Brad Bird would be an incredible choice for the Star Wars franchise because he's shown to be a gifted director, similar to the other guys on my list, similar to how Marvel went with Bryan Singer or Matthew Vaughn on the X-Men franchise.. because they're gifted story tellers and understand depth and emotions in story telling.
It was hilariously ironic that said those guys couldn't direct Star Wars because they have no Sci-Fi past, but then listed Bird who was in THE EXACT situation before doing MI:4. Do you not see that? That's my point!!
We aren't going to agree on Abrams, so we've moved on from that. You like him, I don't. You're not going to convince me by listing so-so movies like Super 8 or MI:3 or Cloverfield (which he didn't write or direct). But please please please don't put amazing quality story tellers in a box and tell me they aren't capable of doing Star Wars.
At one point Darren Aronofsky was attached to The Wolverine.. he hadn't done anything like it previously but there is little doubt in my mind one of the best film makers working today would have hit a home run with that movie.
The main point is though, that Abrams was really their only logical choice to go with. Heck I wasn't even aware of it, but they did offer Brad Bird the position, but he turned it down:
So yeah the list of capable directors willing to oversee the Universe was obviously quite small. And no I don't believe some of the guys you have listed would be capable of direct sci-fi movies. Could anyone really see the Coen's directing a Star Wars movie? Just way too much of a genre switch after directing serious drama's for their entire careers. Someone like Ben Affleck would have been an intriguing choice, and I still hope he changes his mind about Justice League, but he's doing well making his own path. Really Abrams was the only choice they could make, without choosing a complete unknown.
Say what you will about Abrams, but he does have mass market appeal, and generally people do love his movies. Fanboys might not like the choice, because he's more commercial than some directors, but at worst he'd have to make a tremendous effort to make Star Wars movies worse than the last three.
Also I would argue he had to make the Star Trek movies more commercial, as Star Trek is usually a hard sell to the general audience. Which is why his Star Trek movies have only been moderate hits at the box office, while previous entries in recent years failed to do the same. He won't have to do the same with Star Wars, as no matter what direction they decide to go Star Wars will be a hit at the box office (how much of a hit is the question).
Also don't forget he directed/wrote episodes of memorable TV shows like Alias, Lost, and Fringe. So you might not like the movies he has directed, but regardless of the medium he has shown he is more than capable of both creating new universes, and reinvigorating old ones.
Last edited by trackercowe; 07-12-2013 at 11:43 AM.
Why are they rebooting a franchise that hasn't even been finished yet? Wasn't Salvation supposed to be the first of a trilogy?
The production company that made Salvation filed for bankruptcy. Now the rights are owned by a new group, so it looks like they are going in another direction.
They were initially going to make the films connected to the original cannon, but it looks like they are just going to "reboot" it now.
While I didn't think Salvation was as bad as some. I thought that they really missed the future war concept.
When the resistance has nuclear subs. A-10 warthogs helicopers and all that I cringed. I know they wanted the cool hardware factor.
But I remember the first terminator movie and even the second one and even the third one had Skynet basically crushing the worlds military in one strike. In some of the books there was just nothing left. Mankind was hiding in the ruined cities like rats, except for the ones in the liquidation camps. The resistance wasn't even founded until Conner broke out of one of the camps.
When I watched Salvation, with the sun showing during the day and a coordinated military I was a bit disappointing.
If I was going to reboot, I would start it in a skynet prison camp, with rag clothed humans just waiting to die as collaborated loaded the bodies into the furnaces until John Conner rises up and does a great escape type of breakout. He can spend the movie desparately trying to evade hunter killers and the older style terminator exoskeltons, and slowly forming the resistance.
The ending of the movie could be him returning to the prison camp to liberate the prisoners.
You could do a whole three part trilogy of the future war leading to John Conner and the resistance smashing the power grid and supposedly winning the war until they stumble onto the time displacement device. and then the trilogy could end with him sending his father back through time to save his mother.
You could throw in Kate Brewster since she's pretty much canon now.
But you could have humans in shattered cities making hand crafted weapons or stealing them from terminators. You would never see the sun because of the nuclear winter.
I don't know if I would want to see the rubber skinned infiltrators yet.
I know it would totally kill off Salvation, but because this movie is about time lines this could just be another time line. Hell you could rename John Conner as Joan Conner and have her played by someone hot with big cannons.
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Last edited by CaptainCrunch; 07-13-2013 at 07:14 PM.
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Wow, I woulda really liked to see a Fincher Star Wars. And Tarantino?! That could have been an interesting choice.
But all those directors probably said no because they realized the studio is going to be running the show. With Disney owning the rights now they'll probably throw Johnny Depp in it and turn it into some Pirates-esque family frolic with zero substance. Not that Star Wars ever was very dark or had anything super interesting to say, but the first three still are classics.
The only one in that list that I could see pulling it off and able to make a good yet serious family film woukd be Spielberg. A little surprised they didn't get him now that I think about.
As for Abrams, I liked his Star Trek reboot. But find most of the rest on his list (including and especially the TV series') to be very average.
As for a Terminator reboot, I agree it'll probably lose the charm the first incarnation did, like what recently happened with Total Recall.
Lost average?!? A pox on you good sir! Go ahead and say MI3 and Super 8 were pretty average, but Lost (and Fringe to a lesser extent) are amazing when they were on their A Game.
And Spielberg turned Disney down on Star Wars. The man is 66 years old and probably has other projects in mind than some lame Star Wars rehash. Heck he passed on Interstellar to Christopher Nolan which in itself should be far better than any Star Wars sequel.
Tell me that this doesn't already sound like the next great original sci-fi concept?
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An exploration of physicist Kip Thorne's theories of gravity fields, wormholes and several hypotheses that Albert Einstein was never able to prove.
Probably my most anticipated movie right now. Aside from producing that Spielberg is currently invovled in producing or directing like 4,000 projects, no chance would he have time to do a Star Wars movie as well. He should have directed Return of the Jedi like was planned in the first place, it's a shame he didn't though, as it could have met the standards of the other two with someone overruling Lucas' craziness.
Last edited by trackercowe; 07-13-2013 at 11:09 PM.
While I didn't think Salvation was as bad as some. I thought that they really missed the future war concept.
When the resistance has nuclear subs. A-10 warthogs helicopers and all that I cringed. I know they wanted the cool hardware factor.
But I remember the first terminator movie and even the second one and even the third one had Skynet basically crushing the worlds military in one strike. In some of the books there was just nothing left. Mankind was hiding in the ruined cities like rats, except for the ones in the liquidation camps. The resistance wasn't even founded until Conner broke out of one of the camps.
When I watched Salvation, with the sun showing during the day and a coordinated military I was a bit disappointing.
While I agree it was a tad sunny for a post nuclear war world, I think the rest made sense. This movie took place in the early years of the war. The terminators as we know them haven't been made yet by skynet, that's why they could "kill" a terminator with a shot to the head from an AR15. All the aircraft they had must have just been whatever managed to escape the initial strike. And neither side had any sort of energy weapons yet either. I figured all that would come around in the next two movies.
REALLY dissapointed they won't be finishing that trilogy. A set of movies based in the future would have been really cool to see.
While I didn't think Salvation was as bad as some. I thought that they really missed the future war concept.
When the resistance has nuclear subs. A-10 warthogs helicopers and all that I cringed. I know they wanted the cool hardware factor.
But I remember the first terminator movie and even the second one and even the third one had Skynet basically crushing the worlds military in one strike. In some of the books there was just nothing left. Mankind was hiding in the ruined cities like rats, except for the ones in the liquidation camps. The resistance wasn't even founded until Conner broke out of one of the camps.
When I watched Salvation, with the sun showing during the day and a coordinated military I was a bit disappointing.
If I was going to reboot, I would start it in a skynet prison camp, with rag clothed humans just waiting to die as collaborated loaded the bodies into the furnaces until John Conner rises up and does a great escape type of breakout. He can spend the movie desparately trying to evade hunter killers and the older style terminator exoskeltons, and slowly forming the resistance.
The ending of the movie could be him returning to the prison camp to liberate the prisoners.
You could do a whole three part trilogy of the future war leading to John Conner and the resistance smashing the power grid and supposedly winning the war until they stumble onto the time displacement device. and then the trilogy could end with him sending his father back through time to save his mother.
You could throw in Kate Brewster since she's pretty much canon now.
But you could have humans in shattered cities making hand crafted weapons or stealing them from terminators. You would never see the sun because of the nuclear winter.
I don't know if I would want to see the rubber skinned infiltrators yet.
I know it would totally kill off Salvation, but because this movie is about time lines this could just be another time line. Hell you could rename John Conner as Joan Conner and have her played by someone hot with big cannons.
To nerd it up for a while....
T3 changed the timeline. Arnie gets sent back in time and hides Connor in a bunker. He uses that bunker to coordinate the resistance.
You're main point stands though, it could have been a lot darker and cooler.
When the resistance has nuclear subs. A-10 warthogs helicopers and all that I cringed. I know they wanted the cool hardware factor.
But I remember the first terminator movie and even the second one and even the third one had Skynet basically crushing the worlds military in one strike. In some of the books there was just nothing left. Mankind was hiding in the ruined cities like rats, except for the ones in the liquidation camps. The resistance wasn't even founded until Conner broke out of one of the camps.
If I was going to reboot, I would start it in a skynet prison camp, with rag clothed humans just waiting to die as collaborated loaded the bodies into the furnaces until John Conner rises up and does a great escape type of breakout. He can spend the movie desparately trying to evade hunter killers and the older style terminator exoskeltons, and slowly forming the resistance.
The ending of the movie could be him returning to the prison camp to liberate the prisoners.
The problem with that scenario is that the humans would be hopelessly outclassed with no chance at all. Flesh and blood humans with hand-held weapons against mechanical masters and technological weapons of mass destruction would be wiped out like a 1000 Zulus charging a British fort with one Maxim gun.
The idea of humans in rags breaking out of a prison camp and turning the tide of war would be like exhausted Jewish prisoners breaking out of Austwitz and defeating Nazi Germany all by themselves.
The humans need some technology and some way to hide from a mechanical threat that has no qualms about conducting nuclear or chemical warfare. They need the sub and fighter craft and some other ways of surviving beyond hiding in caves and shooting at armored robots with M4 carbines.
You can say what you will about the classic movie tropes of human creativity and passion and spirit, etc. but they would be wiped out in any realistic future war with Skynet if they really started out with nothing.
