If the two ST movies Abrams did had been some other sci-fi instead, I still would’ve disliked them for countless reasons. I’ve been on record here voicing my dislike for what Abrams did to the franchise, especially as a fan since the ‘70s. To me, it is parody, plain and simple.
As for his other projects, I never watched “Fringe”, “Lost” lost me after the 2nd season (plus I already figured out early on the lead guy was likely imagining the entire thing at the moment of death). I only saw ads for “Revolution”, so never saw that, either.
At least in the case of Star Wars, the 7th film will be set after ROTJ, so he won’t be going back to rewrite the entire history or recasting the classic actors (no doubt if he pulled such a stunt, he’d never have been hired in the first place — it’s unfortunate the Trek saga wasn’t similarly protected from his wrecking ball).
Well alternate quantum reality, "real" Star Trek is still valid. Something that actually should be re-done and re-cast are the damn Star Wars prequels.
As for the Star Wars post-ROTJ expanded universe, it is being violated. I don't see how they could have not violated it. A lot of it is crap that I can be pleased will be ignored but some stuff like Timothy Zahn's novels were great and I would have tried to reconcile them.
"In order to give maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience, Star Wars Episodes VII-IX will not tell the same story told in the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe. While the universe that readers knew is changing, it is not being discarded"
http://www.starwars.com/news/the-legendary-star-wars-expanded-universe-turns-a-new-page
The books will remain in "print" under the banner of "Star Wars Legends" but there won't be any new projects with the same continuity.
I've said what I think of the new Trek movies before, good action, very watchable, especially compared to the last 2 TNG movies. Terrible "plots" (basically they are the plot of a porn movie, back when they had plots) spotty characterization. The first one was better, "Into Darkness" was ill-conceived.
Basically they were designed to do one thing, make money. The director of the next one is Roberto Orci, who was involved in the first 2 and is a 9-11 conspiracy nut. If it sucks, which I have every reason to believe it will based on Orci, I hope they discard this reboot thing.
I'd prefer a new post-TNG/DS9/Voyager series to re-launch Star Trek, as long as Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are not involved, those a-holes make Abrams look like a genius, no plot is better than stupid plot, "Enterprise" should have been so much better, they canceled it when it finally started getting good. A pity that Abrams destroyed Romulus in the "real" universe, **ckhead, I would choose to ignore that. The oft-mentioned idea of rebooting TNG is idiotic.
Can't say I'm a big fan of Abrams, Fringe sounds interesting but I never did watch it, I was watching the pilot of "Lost" and I just decided "no", and I'm glad I did based on everything I read about it. The show of his that I did watch is "Alias" which is the opposite of his Star Trek movies because the plot is convoluted and strange rather than thin, it got pretty stupid in the later seasons. "Lost" sounds just like that, only much worse.
Can’t really disagree with any of your comments. I saw like the first episode of Lost at a friend’s house and I just didn’t “get it”.
Fringe I really got into it because every episode was intense in the First Season and they stuck to the central plot from Pilot to the End. They released a book that really is like a compendium to the series and made the show even better IMO.
What Impy said about the Expanded Universe is true and pisses me off. The Zahn Trilogy would have been the best movies to make. There isn’t any doubt that those novels helped the franchise.
Star Trek had the original series, the movies, then they had TNG, DS9, Voyager and I liked that they could spin off. However, these stories in the Expanded Universe for Star Wars ARE the reason the Prequels and now Sequels were given the go. Now that Disney has full control I’m even more pessimistic.