A director with flare

A couple of nights ago, the final piece of the puzzle for new Star Wars movies, apart from the casting of actors (or, hopefully, the re-casting of actors), was announced. J.J. Abrams, Hollywood golden boy de jour, was confirmed as the new director for Episode VII by Lucasfilm.

Abrams is a favorite of many of my co-workers, particularly for his involvement on Lost. The only of his movies I'm familiar with is, of course, Star Trek. While I'm grateful that he and his team were able to kickstart that beloved franchise, I initially didn't think Abrams was the man for Star Wars. He seemed too trendy, and with a vision that was too specific and personal to take on someone else's world. If anything, the fact that he did Star Trek took him out of the running for Star Wars, in my opinion, since he put so much of himself in that film. I really don't want lens flare to start injecting itself into the Star Wars world ever 15 seconds.

There's also the fact that no one man should have that much absolute power over geekdom without some sort of general election, or something. Either, way, I thought it wasn't a good thing.

Happily, after a couple days to reflect, I'm pretty sure I was wrong.

In one of the articles I read on this, the writer referenced a TED Talk where Abrams talks about his love of mystery — both in life, and in storytelling.

There are a couple of cool things that came out of this talk. For one thing, he sounds like an Apple Geek's Apple Geek, which makes me like him immediately. The main thing, though, is when he references the first Star Wars movie as his primary example of the importance of withholding information in storytelling. I won't pretend to do it justice here, so just go and watch it.

Before I started watching this talk, I was pretty indifferent to Abrams getting his hands on Star Wars. After I saw it, I was one board 100 percent. Because, like Michael Arndt, he seems to get what makes Star Wars special at a basic level. It's not the characters, or the worlds they inhabit, or the technologies they use — its the story, and how that story is told.

I love the Prequels; to me, they are just as much a part of that world as the Original Trilogy. But what was missing, particularly in the first two films, was a sense of suspense. I'm pretty sure that, between Arndt and Abrams, that won't be a problem for Episode VII. And that is a very good thing indeed.