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Friday, September 05, 2008

J. J. Abrams: Moron in Producer's Clothing

From io9:
Abrams talked a lot about why he thinks the time is right for a show about the horrors of science gone wrong. "Every day, every week, we hear about some potentially horrifying thing... Science is out of control."
No, what's out of control is the overrated producer/creator that gave us the Lost, Cloverfield, and what will almost surely be a horribly overrated junker, Fringe. Let's discuss for a moment, shall we?
You wrote an adult version of Gilligan's Island, which wasn't very good and which proved to have no credibility when the fat guy on the show never lost any weight. Really? A guy that size goes on an extreme diet on a semi-deserted island and doesn't lose a pound? I mean, come on, he had to lose at least a little weight. All that running around, climbing, and eating coconuts and dirt...I'm losing weight just talking about it. Not to mention the show took itself way too seriously, so much so that nothing happens in almost all the episodes, which puts me to sleep (sort of like Heroes, which lost me when it got all "evil government" on me...the X-men cartoon was better).
Then you wrote Cloverfield, one of the worst science fiction movies I've seen in a long time, sporting the witty narration of a half-retarded guy named Chud, or Chug, or Chum, or some four-letter name for a mentally deficient college-aged guy who clearly took one too many hits in the head during football practice. That movie took all the horribly idiotic cliches of horror movies and disaster films, put them together, and did nothing all that new or original with it. Bravo.
Finally, you're giving us Fringe, which sounded cool to me for a while, until that glorious quote above where you tried to make it sound like science is this big scary evil thing that's out of control. Excuse me? This is why people like Abrams shouldn't be allowed to write about things they don't know anything about. Science isn't out of control. In fact, it's strictly controlled by rules, regulations, etc. We're not producing evil super-humans who go around assassinating people in their sleep, never leaving a trace, and being capable of scaling 20-storey buildings in a single leap. We don't have super-viruses controlled by the government to keep the masses in check, or nasty robot bugs that go around with little lasers, shooting people that make a vague threat against the government. See, that would be out of control...having those things. But we don't. Nope, science is cool. Just remember that the next time you get a shot. Science gave us the means to fabricate our own immunities.

And that's all I have to say about this...

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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:41 PM

    I like Lost ... But then I also liked Sunset Beach, and that was way more implausible. *Sigh* I miss that program.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's not like "science gone wrong" is that novel an idea. Has he ever heard of the mad scientist trope? or read a novel (or seen a movie version) of any of Michael Crichton's books? or seen an episode of Eureka, where every week science goes out of control and the non-scientist sheriff is instrumental in saving the day?

    What a maroon.

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  3. Anonymous4:57 PM

    I agree. J.J. Abrams is an idiot. He couldn't write a coherent plot to save his life.

    It wouldn't be quite so bad if he wasn't trying to dominate sci-fi, a genre aimed at rational, thinking people.

    Abrams and producers like him have taken the thinking man's genre and turned it into an excuse to show off special effects.

    Special effects should be the gravy, not the substance of the meal.

    I seriously wish Abrams would die so that somebody- ANYBODY else would take over the Star Trek franchise.

    Abrams is only helping to make the world stupider.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ellira: I preferred Gilligan's Island when it was Gilligan's Island...

    Peggy: Oh, well if Abrams were trying to create original fiction, then he would really be a failure :P

    Anonymous: I agree entirely. I don't think he should die so much as simply disappear...Star Trek deserves better, and that's coming from a Star Wars nut :P.

    ReplyDelete
  5. But if he wasn't allowed to write about things he knows nothing about, what would he write about?

    Hey! That does sound like a good idea!

    ReplyDelete