How many franchises has JJ ruined now?

I'm not sure he really ruined Star Wars. At best, it was a group effort.

I really enjoyed the new Star Trek trilogy but I admit I never watched the original series or movies so I didn’t appreciate them for what made themselves special which was more science fiction and less science action. These new ones obviously were light on space exploration and heavier on conflict.

Christopher Nolan couldn’t fix the mess Rian Johnson left after TLJ.

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his Star Wars was a ripoff of ANH

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No, it was more of a homage, not a “rip-off” as many claim. They weren’t trying to hide any of its similarities to ANH.

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I wonder if JJ ever asked for two films instead of one because that was the only way in hell he'd have enough time to do so.

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I’ve wondered about this until I saw this trailer in a movie the year after TFA was released with his name behind it. Would have been nice had he and Lawrence Kasdan kept their drafts for Episodes VIII and IX instead of Johnson coming in and tossing them out. Was he already signed on and committed to this?

Yeah, people who say JJ "set it up perfectly" are idiots. It was the same old hackneyed crap he always feeds us. The dude is not capable of original, creative thought. Franchise names are his meal ticket.

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Yeah, people who say JJ "set it up perfectly" are idiots. It was the same old hackneyed crap he always feeds us. The dude is not capable of original, creative thought. Franchise names are his meal ticket.

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People loved TFA; but it was because they loved seeing a new Star Wars movie.

I felt that way about TPM, too. Incredibly pumped going in, yay we finally get a new one in the theater. And enough action to keep you distracted awhile, and the immersive John Williams score reminding you IT'S STAR WARS!

And then, the shine wears off, and you think- wow, that really was pretty weak, considering all the possible stories we could have got. And in this case, the sequel trilogy is the greater offender, because it eliminates a ton of potential ongoing storylines-
No renewed Republic led by our original heroes. No fitting, noble conclusions to their arcs- all die in relative failure and obscurity, their goals unaccomplished. Han is killed by his own son. Luke dies in isolation, after spending years in bitter rejection of the Jedi way. Leia, who started out as a princess, dies on a remote uncivilized campground, after apparently spending decades without even living on a planet with running water and an organized power grid.
And everything they fought for was wiped out, the only thing that stopped Palpatine was Palpatine's rebellious bloodline. Anakin, Yoda, Obiwan, Luke... irrelevant in the long run.

That isn't the direction I saw the OT going, and it's not what I wanted, either before or after seeing it.

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Resistance vs First Order. I thought the Rebel Alliance had won, so what exactly were they resisting? And please, give me movie answers, not stuff from a book.

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Much of the outer rim worlds were never really controlled by the Empire or the Republic, but were somewhat neutral and dominated by organized crime (The Hutts). People kept going to Tatooine for that reason. The Empire would go there to do business with The Hutts, but didn’t have political power. The hutts traded slaves which the empire used to build the death stars as well as “spice”, fuel for ships. The Empires and Republics were always trying to control the spice trade.

The rebels succeeded in overthrowing the Empire after the death of the emperor and restoring the power of the Senate. The Senate went from the source of power in TPM, to sharing power with an appointed executive in AOTC, to being largely symbolic and subservient to the Emperor in ROTS, to being essentially disbanded at the end of ANH. When the Emperor was overthrown by the rebels, Senate control was restored.

However, the Galaxy was always somewhat decentralized with power beings wielded mostly at the planetary level. Many ex-Imperial governors refused to accept Senate control and used their remaining Imperial garrisons to maintain control. The war between the Imperial remnants and rebels dragged on for years after ROTJ. Eventually, the republic conquered enough of these worlds to broker a peace.

However, not all of the remaining war lords took this deal. They instead fled beyond the Republic’s borders to the outer rim. They were more tolerant of organized crime than the republic, and were able to rebuild an army. This army became The First Order. They were conquering independent worlds outside the republic (neutral planets). Leah warned the republic senate that this was a growing existential threat to the republic, but they refused to sanction direct military confrontation since the worlds the First Order were conquering weren’t claimed by the republic.

So, Leah organized and helped fund a sorta guerrilla army called “The Resistance” to aid these independent worlds against the First Order. This “Resistance” was funded by monied interests in the republic that were invested in the government succeeding. The First Order was funded by people within the republic who made more money during the Empire’s days when organized crime and slaving were kosher. Meanwhile the arms dealers were supplying both sides. Basically, the outer rim was like a proxy war between factions within the Republic that were jostling for control.

The First Order “won” when they blew up the Republic Senate and bureaucrats in TFA. This allowed the people who wanted to restore Imperial rule to essentially come out of the shadows and regain power in their respective planets. The First Order became the de-facto power with The Resistance trying to stop them so they could rebuild the Senate.

Basically, in Star Wars, the Republics were always bloated, inefficient, bureaucratic, and economically stagnant. These republics were always fighting organized crime that supported slavery and smuggling. These republics always fought off forces within or without that wanted to replace the ineffective republics with centralized empires. These would collude with organized crime and through oppression and exploitation of certain non-human species, would generate massive financial booms for the wealthy. However, these empires were never sustainable because the oppression would breed revolutions or infighting between greedy planetary governors and generals for more power.

Basically, in Star Wars, governments all suck, and they either protect civil liberties while throttling economic liberty, or they go full nazi and eventually collapse in on themselves through violence.

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He had a lot of success with Cloverfield, which then turned into its own franchise.

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He didn’t direct or write it. The guy is an ace producer, but as a director his movies are mostly flashy and stylized rehashes/homages to films others did better.