J.J. Abrams First Turned Down Star Wars For Star Trek And Then Ruined Both
Back in 2012, 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 was in the midst of rebooting the Star Trek franchise which he’d taken over in 2009.
Despite being a love-him-or-hate-him figure amongst fans, J.J. Abrams seemed like the sort of talent who would be a shoo-in for the Star Wars job. Sure, he eventually got The Force Awakens gig but as it turns out, he originally turned down the job out of loyalty to the Star Trek franchise.
At the time, in an interview with Empire Magazine, J.J. Abrams revealed the discussions he had with Disney, and why he originally 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 had stated from time to time that he is a huge Star Wars fan. And at the time, there was good reason to believe he was among the best choices to bring a galaxy far, far away back on to the big screen.
Of course, when J.J. Abrams gave this interview, he was on the cusp of releasing Star Trek Into Darkness. That movie ended up scoring well with critics and general fans, but the true Star Trek folks couldn’t stand it. It’s been met with boos at conventions and many fans would agree the tone of that one and Star Trek just didn’t align with the overall franchise.
Later, J.J. Abrams would admit to not even really being a Star Trek fan at all. Whoops.
And then we know he turned over Star Trek franchise directing duties to Justin Lin for Star Trek Beyond (Abrams stayed on as a producer). That’s because he did take The Force Awakens directing gig after all.
That movie was fine enough as a reentry point into the Star Wars universe after being away for so long. Bringing back familiar faces while also onboarding a new generation with the likes of Rey and Kylo Ren worked as a jumping-off point.
It was the retconning mess of The Rise of Skywalker that proved to be the massive stumbling block. It had lazy story elements, was mostly pandering to the Star Wars crowd, seemed to ignore the previous film completely and just seemed like there had been no Star Wars trilogy plan to begin with.
When it was all said and done, J.J. Abrams left the Star Trek franchise a bit high and dry after Into Darkness considering Beyond missed the mark. And then he upended everything at the end of Star Wars after saying he was out on that franchise because of, *checks notes* Star Trek.
J.J. Abrams’s heel turn was amazing all the way through. Is it any surprise that five years after The Rise of Skywalker, he has no film or television credits to name? Or that there are rumors of his Warner Bros. deal going a bit south? Sure, there are some possibilities in the works. But after Star Trek and Star Wars, we are a bit dubious.
