J.J. Abrams names his favourite sci-fi sequel
Remember when the American filmmaker J.J. Abrams was the hottest property in Hollywood cinema? We do. Having sprung to contemporary popularity at the start of the new millennium with the TV phenomenon of Lost, Abrams started to be compared to such American greatness as Steven Spielberg and James Cameron, showing promise as an ambitious up-and-coming science fiction lover.
Don’t get us wrong, Abrams has certainly found success in modern cinema, directing Mission: Impossible III in 2006, along with the Star Trek reboot in 2009 that sparked a whole new blockbuster franchise. Indeed, in the mid-2000s, Abrams may have been the most influential name in all of science fiction, arguably having a similar effect on the industry as Spielberg did in the 1980s.
Take the 2011 movie Super 8, for example, whilst admittedly forgettable, the film was a major release at the time and displays many popular hallmarks of contemporary cinema and TV, including young protagonists working to solve a sci-fi mystery which is way beyond their understanding. Sure, Spielberg certainly pioneered this family-friendly sub-genre in the late 20th century, but Abrams’ efforts revived this forgotten Hollywood tone.
Years later, in 2015, Abrams would have the chance to fulfil his dream and have a say in the direction of the new Star Wars franchise, a series of movies he adored in his youth. Introducing such beloved characters as Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac), the director did a fantastic job of bringing these characters together with franchise mainstays Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill).
This is not the only sci-fi series that Abrams adored, however, revealing in a conversation with EW that he was a lover of the James Cameron sequel movie, Aliens, picking the film over Ridley Scott’s original as one of his favourites of the genre.
As he told the publication, Aliens is “the textbook example for How to Make a Sequel: Change the genre. No, Aliens didn’t alter the essence of the brilliant Ridley Scott original, but it made the franchise an action adventure. For all she went through in the first outing, who knew Ripley was such a massively badass action heroine?”.
Calling the movie “beyond great”, Aliens wasn’t the only movie Abrams picked out as his favourite of the genre, also opting for the Stanley Kubrick movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
The last film in his top five science fiction movies of all time he reserved for the David Cronenberg movie, The Fly, stating, “The love story at the core of this movie is so beautiful and tragic and funny and crackling that your heart breaks when things turn Brundlefly”. Recently returning to body horror, Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future is a bizarre hodgepodge that doesn’t quite live up to the director’s name.
While he may not hold the same significance as he once did, Abrams is still a prominent Hollywood figure, with a Hot Wheels movie being one of his many upcoming projects.
