Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness director (and 2016 Star Trek movie producer) JJ Abrams is currently helming the next Star Wars movie and just like he did with Star Trek he has a charity promotion going to give someone a chance to win a role in Episode VII. And in a new video he shows off a couple pieces from the movie. watch it below.
Chance To Win Role In Star Wars Episode VII
During his time directing two Star Trek movies, JJ Abrams did a number of charity events offering fans chances for special screenings and even a role in Into Darkness. He is doing the same with Star Wars "Force for Change" and UNICEF. JJ explains the opportunity in the video below which also happens to show off some elements from the new Star Wars movie.
Visit omaze.com to learn more and enter to win.
What about that ship?
Star Wars fans, just like Star Trek fans (and of course there are fans of both), love to nerd out over ships. The new video has many buzzing, including Star Trek’s Simon Pegg who recognized it.
It's not a Z95, it's an X-Wing, and what's beautiful is that appears to be an old McQuarrie model.
— Simon Pegg (@simonpegg) July 21, 2014
This was confirmed by the official @starwars Twitter
@CDCanimation It is in fact an Episode VII X-wing, not a Z-95.
— Star Wars (@starwars) July 21, 2014
#McQuarrieMonday – Look familiar? pic.twitter.com/vwRHyV3VAi
— Star Wars (@starwars) July 21, 2014
That X-Wing looks a little different, no? It’s missing a couple engines, and the fuselage back of the cockpit is much more slender.
No lens flares in SW Ep. VII, please.
I am going to move to a galaxy far, far away and open a car wash. I will get rich as a hutt!
I think the only guy I’ve ever heard who can talk faster than JJ is that guy at the end of those commercials who motormouths “manufacturer’s suggested retail price some items may be excluded not guaraanteed to apply in all states &c.”
Well, him and a certain Coastie named Dave ….
dayum I love that SWars music.
Star Wars fans are just as dorky about their hardware as Trek fans are. See, we are more alike then either side cares to acknowledge….
And yeah, I’d still like to see Simon Pegg to a comedy skit of Scotty working on his third bottle of Scotch….
GAWD I HATE JJ ABRAMS! =(
That’s a decent looking ship! Hopefully JJ has NOTHING to do with design!
…yeah, NO LENS FLARES, PLEASE??
I am not Herbert
Warning for trolling
Star Wars…. loved it as a child. Still like it today.
That said:
I firmly believe it’s the most overrated film franchise ever made.
I believe it was asked and asked and asked again on this board who had won the contest to be in STID. No one ever answered. And Bob chimed in that he had never heard of the contest! So that tells you how credible these ‘contests’ are.
JJ’s having fun showing off ships and aliens and all those cool fun things that he hid from Trek fans. How much more fun these ridiculously long hiatuses between movies would be if Trek cared as much about fans as Star Wars seem to. In the past 2 months, I’ve seen more of Star Wars than I did in 4 years waiting for STID.
@ 4. Marja – July 21, 2014
“I think the only guy I’ve ever heard who can talk faster than JJ is that guy at the end of those commercials”
You should listen to JD Payne then :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnOmQrCVaq0
@8. Anthony Thompson
“I believe it was asked and asked and asked again on this board who had won the contest to be in STID.”
I think we all know who was the winner :)
http://scifanatic.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/stbomb-1.jpg
The SW contest is different from STID contest, Disney & Abrams are taken it very seriously.
Star Wars is completely overrated, overblown nonsense. Enjoyable but hardly deep and meaningful.
That being said, as a brand… It’s a relentless, unstoppable machine, pumping out new content that kids lap up and pass onto their kids and so on. It’s that ambition that’s sorely lacking from those charged with developing the Star Trek brand.
Besides that though, Star Wars is a hollow vacuous franchise engineered to sell toys and make money with not a decent story left to tell.
Star Wars is a good example of lazy storytelling and greed and shouldn’t have ever become as successful as it has become.
aaaannnnnd….bam! Six post in for the ‘I hate JJ’ post. Must be wonderful to be filled with such bitterness….
Did JJ gesture a Vulcan salute at the end???
Show me the lens flares!!!!
Then I’ll believe JJ is actually directing Star Wars Episode VII
Just kidding, I really don’t give a flying fruit fly fart if he’s die-recking Star Wars too.
I am a little sad that JJ was so stringent about his Mystery Box for the Trek films and tried to keep fans almost completely in the dark, but is now proudly showing off so much from Star Wars filming. Trek and Trek fans had to be the testing ground for his mistakes, and now Wars reaps the rewards of experience. Le sigh. (And I say this as a huge SW fan.)
This is why I so admire JJ. He knows the power of his image and Star Wars, and he uses that light to shine on a great cause.
Here we go again with the whole “Star Wars is overblown, mindless nonsense” crap. Some Trekkies have a truly elitist attitude towards Trek, and they have to put down “Star Wars” as something inferior.
They happen to be different franchises. One is not “better” or “smarter” than the other. Both have had their highs and lows.
#12.
“aaaannnnnd….bam! Six post in for the ‘I hate JJ’ post. Must be wonderful to be filled with such bitterness….”
It wouldn’t be an Abrams-related article without I am not Herbert’s bitter, angry outbursts.
boborci: OF COURSE you love JJ! =P
he set YOU up to be A DIRECTOR?!? of “Star Trek” (sic) no less!!
you’d better keep you lips close to his ass for years to come! LOL!
Welcome back to the forum boborci.
JJ can’t do any worse than the last 3 Star Wars movies.
They were overblow tripe.
Perhaps JJ and Bob may have found their true callings.
Boborci, the future of the Star Trek franchise now rests in your hands and creativity.
No pressure.
16 – boborci — Yes, I hope the vid helps a good cause. That MAY happen once the geekage over the X-Wing dies down. (As if it ever will…)
@boborci
‘Matador’ was a real fun to watch, mixing spy stuff with football, the REAL football, was a unique & fresh concept for a TV show.
Oh & it was a pleasant surprise to see a real Khan in the show :)
No offence to anyone, but how long are we going to have Star Wars updates? This is a Star Trek site, yes? I can go to Star Wars site for that intel. Meanwhile, when the show Cosmos was on the air recently on Fox, no one posted anything, even though Star Trek related people were involved in it including Brandon Braga, and Patrick Stewart.
Yea, I totally get the love for the original Star Wars movies, though hardly a fan myself, but the most recent movies were a shambles. Confused and messy.
It does rather look as if JarJar is going back, stylistically speaking, to those original movies and I think that’s very wise.
As to him ‘shining a light’ on a good cause, good for him. Will make a change from shining a lens flare on, well, on everything!
Looks beautiful.
#21. Ahmed – July 21, 2014
“… a unique & fresh concept for a TV show.” — Ahmed
One question: Was it as fresh and unique as when it was used in Steve Martin’s PINK PANTHER?
(16: bobocri): “This is why I so admire JJ. He knows the power of his image and Star Wars, and he uses that light to shine on a great cause.”
Very true, I just wished he’d been given the chance to do as much with Star Trek has he’s been doing with Star Wars.
I think where I get a little bitter about Star Wars is that it’s become so popular, so powerful and for what? 3 movies that had stories that were weak at best and spectacle like no one had ever seen before. All style no substance.
Where as Star Trek… a show that had something to say about our world, a show that has inspired advances in technology and science… Continues to be treated like a man with a broken leg… Oh careful! We can’t do this because his leg might fall off…
Where’s the confidence gone from Star Trek… Why is it that these huge studios are so paranoid about doing something that in the end very little gets done at all. In 2009 CBS and Paramount had the chance to listen to Abrams and allow him to power forward with Star Trek that would have raised it to the level of Star Wars and Marvel in terms of popularity.
Instead it languishes with the likes of Gi: Joe and Transformers… Man I wish Bad Robot had the money to buy it off of CBS… Maybe then something aside from a movie every 3 years would actually happen.
Also I have to agree with 22, lets not have anymore Star Wars updates, this is a Star Trek site. If you do continue with the SW updates then yes I think it’s only fair to do news relating to other shows that Star Trek alum are involved in like COSMOS.
Gotta admit, the end was pretty witty. . .
Well, this site has long followed Trek actors and production staff on their non-Trek endeavors, so it’s perfectly within reason for this site to be keeping up on JJ’s current work. Besides, it wasn’t that long ago that people were complaining there wasn’t anything new being posted to the site.
You’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t….
Im not sure how I feel about the spoilers I’ve read concerning the plot but it does seem like an effective use of Mark Hamill and one Orci could mimmic with Star Trek 3 if they hadnt hurt the franchise with STID.
As for Abrams, I’m beginning t strongly feel he’s over-rated. I thought Cloverfield was pretty average. The film movie with the kids (name escapes me) was also average.
Lost was a great idea that turned into a complete cluster (though I liked the finale).
And Star Trek wasn’t nearly as good as it could have been.
And it sure sounds like Kennedy and Disney are keeping very tight reigns on him with Star Wars.
Normally, I might agree about the Star Wars updates. However, the movies ARE being directed by someone who is prominent in the Trek universe. This site always covers the doings of people who have been involved with Trek over the years, so why would it be any different with JJ? And, before any TOS purists get on me for lumping JJ in with Shatner, Nimoy, Meyer,Stewart, Frakes, et. al., let me remind you this site was founded primarily to bring us news of JJ’s first Trek movie.
And why are none of us discussing the design of the modified X-wing (other than me)?
Star Wars never had the place in my heart that Star TREK has, but I still like it and hope the new movie comes out well.
Here’s hoping Episode VII will be a lot more like Episodes IV – VI than Episodes I – III. :-)
Bob is going to be at Comic Con for Sleepy Hollow etc.
Perhaps we can get get a new tidbit, a morsel ,a crumb about Trek 3
Trek 3 may be released prior to Comic con 2016, then next year should be a good time to have a panel on the movie.
This takes some common tropes now well-worn about JJ and goes just a bit deeper:
http://tv.ark.com/transcript/charlie_rose/918/KQED/Tuesday_May_05_2009/32097/
“STAR TREK always had characters in extraordinary adventure mode. ” — JJ Abrams
Don’t know how I missed it the first time around.
@ 26. Disinvited – July 22, 2014
“One question: Was it as fresh and unique as when it was used in Steve Martin’s PINK PANTHER?”
I meant it was a fresh idea for an American series. But the concept itself was used even before Steve Martin’s Pink Panther.
I used to read Tintin magazine when I was in high school, one of the sci-fi/action stories they ran in the magazine was “The Olympio Trilogy”, about Vincent Larcher, a player in the French national football team.
John Tenuto is in the current Star Wars Insider. Is he still writing for this site?
16. boborci – July 21, 2014
It sounds like your pitching a Charlton Heston type for an epic bible movie.
16. boborci – July 21, 2014
can you clarify where the light is actually coming from? and will that effect the films pg rating.
They did exactly what the guys behind Tron Legacy did with the light cycle. The designers went back to the original concepts behind the famous vehicles for inspiration when making newer updated versions for a sequel set many years after .
27. Picard, Jean-Luc – July 22, 2014
Where’s the confidence gone from Star Trek… Why is it that these huge studios are so paranoid about doing something that in the end very little gets done at all. In 2009 CBS and Paramount had the chance to listen to Abrams and allow him to power forward with Star Trek that would have raised it to the level of Star Wars and Marvel in terms of popularity.
I agree with your assessment of Paramount not being willing to let Star Trek be Star Trek, but what gives you the idea that the solution to that problem would have been giving freer reign to JJ Abrams, who by his own admission never understood nor particularly liked Trek?
It should be fairly obvious that Star Trek was nothing more than an opportunity to get into feature films for JJ, and now stepping stone as it turns out on his way to Star Wars.
31. TUP – July 22, 2014
As for Abrams, I’m beginning t strongly feel he’s over-rated.
He’s absolutely overrated as a director.
He’s a good, competent craftsman and technician. He knows how to get movies made and make them look good. As a creative visionary, he’s mediocre, at best.
This new crop of mediocre to sub-mediocre Hollywood movie-making talent seems to be a symptom of the current, extremely conservative business model adopted by the big studios. They want sizzle over steak because the foreign market likes it that way with American movies. And that’s JJ and BR in a nutshell: sizzle over steak.
JJ Abrams and the writers that he works with are basically the version 2.0 of Michael Bay his associated writers. They all make these sort of third-tier action movies. First-tier would be the greats that made their bones in the 80s with high quality, meaningful action movies—Steven Spielberg, James Cameron… Second-tier would be directors like Christopher Nolan, who’ve proven that they can do very creative, thoughtful films (Memento) but have moved on to doing action movies that still offer some food for thought (Inception) and good quality drama to balance out the action (Dark Knight). And then you have the third-tier—the JJ’s and Michael Bays—who, at best, are giving you the illusion of depth in their movies and TV shows by just throwing in a bunch of plot twists. And actually, I’m not even sure that Michael Bay bothers much with plot twists in his movies. I think the writers that he tends to work with are of that style in their TV work, though, in shows like Alias.
You know I may not like the writing of the star trek films with Orci and the other guy, but JJ, he is a good director (outside of the Brig Scene in the second film, steady the camera lad!) and he has the right writers for this film.
so I wish him the best of luck, and when they’re done with starwars, hire those writers on for star trek 5 please.
Not the transformers guys who made a mess of the cannon, I mean atleast if I was bringing TNG back to the small screen I could write off Voyagers ending as the doctors program malfunctioning or something.
and have the computer giving endgame as an accidental recording of his fever dream as fact as the captains log so we could undo that mess they made of the borg and Q.
especially after seeing this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9iJMBftk_Y
while with the new movies, it sounds like they blew up our universe to create this new rebooted universe.
and I really dont know how to fix that, and I’m the son of a bloody engineer for god sakes lol
I agree with you guys.
When I read a story about Lost where the writers admitted they crafted major plot points without having a clue where they were going or what they meant, I was astounded. The writers (cant remember if it was Lindelof that was quoted) seemed amused at the prospect of writing stories without any idea as to where it was going. Not only is that irresponsible but incredibly disrespectful to the viewer.
Then you look at Transformers and you see another example of sizzle but no steak. And thats a great way to describe Star Trek too. All surface details, no substance.
It’s sad that a bunch of average-at-best writers get such prime gigs. If I was a Paramount exec I’d be lobbying to hire some actual writers and not these guys.
Bob Orci tells MMPR fans: “I won’t ruin your franchise”!
http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2014/07/roberto-orci-talks-power-rangers-wont-ruin-franchise.html
Very thoughtful of him to reassure the fans !!!
@45. Well, considering that just about anything would be an improvement, it’s an empty promise.
# 46. Phil – July 23, 2014
“Well, considering that just about anything would be an improvement, it’s an empty promise.” — Phil
If anything is an improvement then as a promise it can’t be as empty as the gesture. Can it?
#44 – That is, they wrote the story as in how life unfolds, ie sometimes the answers are not always apparent and the future is unknown…maybe this form of writing may not adhere to the “rules”, but it is how life is.
@45. Ahmed,
“Bob Orci tells MMPR fans: “I won’t ruin your franchise”!
He wasn’t reassuring the fans, he was reassuring Hiam Saban. I’ve don’t business with Hiam Saban, he’ll have your legs broken if you cross him. And “ruin your franchise” has nothing to do with creativity, it has to do with losing him money.
@48 Are you really that stupid?
@49. Curious Cadet
I’ve no idea who Hiam Saban is but he sounds like a Mafia boss from your comment!