- Star Wars and Star Trek director and Oscars host stage full and frank discussion of technique, mistakes and sexism in TV and the movies
The Guardian
Nigel M Smith
JJ Abrams has a fondness for lens flares. In Star Trek Into Darkness, he allegedly used the special effect a whopping 826 times.
“That’s your thing,” Chris Rock said to Abrams on Friday night at the Tribeca Film Festival. “Like Spike Lee’s got that dolly shot.”
The pair were taking part in the Tribeca Talks: Directors Series, Rock moderating a chat with the director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
“So what’s up with the lens flares?” Rock asked, bluntly.
“For a period of time, on Star Trek, and then I couldn’t give it up on this other movie I did, there was this idea we had, that the future was so bright that it just couldn’t be contained,” Abrams said.
“So you had stuff happening … so it felt like just off camera there was something great! And there was this energy in the room and it gave it a sort of signature. And I overdid it, and I went further, and on the second Star Trek movie I went nuts.
“We’ve all made mistakes. Mine was with light.”
Abrams said that while making The Force Awakens, technicians who had worked with him before would add flare to shots – which he had then to tell them to take out.
Rock, who worked with Abrams on the parody segments of this year’s Oscar telecast, acted like a fanboy for most of the talk.
“I make movies occasionally,” Rock deadpanned. “You’re a director.”
At one point, the comedian begged Abrams to direct a Fantastic Four movie.
“I love the Fantastic Four and they keep fucking it up,” he said.
He also made his thoughts known on Zack Snyder’s critically derided superhero mashup Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
“Did anyone see the Superman/Batman shit, what the fuck was that? Superman can’t fight a guy that drives a car.”
Abrams also made the dispiriting revelation that back when he was pitching his spy series Alias to TV networks, one executive expressed concern that attached star Jennifer Garner wasn’t “hot enough” to lead the show.
The statement prompted Rock to share his own story regarding sexism in Hollywood, when casting his 2007 romantic comedy I Think I Love My Wife.
“An executive at a film company – who probably weighs 165lb, 180 – was like, ‘Hmmm, Kerry Washington is getting a little big,’” Rock recalled.
The most unexpected moment of the evening came when a Star Wars fan, wearing a black cape, asked Abrams if he believed in God.
“In all honesty I don’t know,” Abrams said. “But I do know that when my mother, who passed away a few years ago, was sick, I did find myself connecting with, talking to, thinking about things in a way that I never had before.
“It’s a funny thing, because what George Lucas did so brilliantly [with Star Wars] was he told a story that was about a spiritual connection that we all have.
“There’s something about the notion of all of us being connected, every living thing, that is profound and beautiful and resonant and somewhat true. I love what George did in that regard.”
