J.J. Abrams Turned Down The Star Wars Job Out Of Loyalty To Star Trek
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After Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, pretty much every big-name director was mentioned as a possibility to helm the newly announced Star Wars: Episode VII. Unsurprisingly, that included J.J. Abrams, who of course rebooted the Star Trek franchise in 2009. Despite being a love-him-or-hate-him figure amongst fans, Abrams seemed like the sort of person who would be a shoe-in for the job. But as it turns out, Abrams turned down the job out of loyalty to his current space franchise.
In an interview with Empire Magazine, J.J. Abrams revealed the discussions he had with Disney, and why he opted out:
There were the very early conversations and I quickly said that because of my loyalty to Star Trek, and also just being a fan, I wouldn’t even want to be involved in the next version of those things. I declined any involvement very early on. I’d rather be in the audience not knowing what was coming, rather than being involved in the minutiae of making them.
J.J. Abrams has stated from time to time that he is a huge Star Wars fan. Given the chance to direct a Star Wars movie, Abrams would’ve surely done a bang up job bring the Star Wars franchise back to life, as he did with the Star Trek movie series. Some Trek fans were irate over Abrams’ vision of the long-running universe, but his 2009 film earned $383 million worldwide. It would have been interesting to see his take on the Star Wars universe.
But keep in mind, we don’t know who Disney will hire to direct Star Wars: Episode VII yet. This unnamed director could possibly be a better director than J.J. Abrams and could make Episode VII a better film series than the recent Star Trek films. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Let’s just be grateful that the new Star Wars movie will not have excessive lens flares in almost every scene.
