J.J. Abrams’ stock has been low ever since he put Star Wars in a bind it’s still extracting itself from. The Rise of Skywalker was the sequel trilogy’s critical and commercial low-point, and while it still hauled in a hefty sack of cash for its galactic overlords at Disney, the franchise doesn’t seem to know what to do with itself now that the Skywalker Saga has reached its empty end.
But Abrams never would have been put in that position if he hadn’t earned it, and he’d proved himself a shepherd of ailing franchises well before Palpatine somehow returned. He helmed The Force Awakens, of course, but he’d earned that gig by guiding Star Trek through a big-screen revival at a time when the franchise was moribund. And three years before that, he was a steward of a franchise that went on to do ridiculous, remarkable things.
