A year after it's been confirmed that JJ Abrams has, in fact, placed an indelible blemish on my childhood, I've gotta wonder why he still seems to be a regular success with audiences and critics. He might be proving that technical prowess is actually more important than story and character arcs, even for people who are supposed to be invested in the substance of the movie.
Starting with Star Trek, his first film looked cool. Previous Trek films have always had budgetary constraints by comparison to other sci-fi franchises. But, it betrayed Star Trek. It's a movie full of either thin or unlikable characters making bad, stupid, and illogical decisions culminating with Starfleet taking a cadet on probation, who Pike put in command over his first officer (because...reasons), and promoting him straight from a cadet on the verge of getting kicked out to captain of the Federation Flagship (because...you know...reasons). That's not to mention the nitpicky Trekkie stuff like Scotty not thinking of space as the thing that was moving. Scotty? Really? That didn't occur to him?
Highest rated Star Trek film among audiences and critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
Star Trek: Into Darkness was no better. This is where we start to notice the trend that his films have that we never actually have any consequences to worry about. Oh no, Kirk is relived of command! Oh wait, we need to get Starfleet command together about Benedict Cumberbatch! Let's invite Kirk (a pending captain) into this room full of admirals even though he's off duty due to disciplinary problems and isn't relevant to this meeting! Oh, now Benedict Cumberbatch will kill Pike so Kirk can get right back to work. Cumberbatch will escape using a transwarp beaming device which Scotty recognizes like it's almost standard issue. That's weird. The crew of the Voyager were amazed that the Borg had achieved transwarp and that's more than a century later than Kirk; but, yeah, there's a device the size of a camping backpack that can instantiously beam you across solar systems. So, now it turns out that Cumberbatch is Khan (nobody got that way before the least climactic reveal in cinema history), because Cumberbatch looks like a Sikh from Northern India. Turns out Khan is designing advanced weaponry for the Federation. Odd choice...he's smart (because we're told so); but, the last weapons that he used were a few hundred years less advanced and he never designed any of them. Anyway, Kirk dies in a similar way to Spock in Wrath of Khan. They appropriate Kirk's famous "Khaaaan!" moment as something for Spock to do which is completely unearned. Spock gets into a fist fight with Khan. McCoy discovers that Khan's super blood can save Kirk. McCoy desperately tries to get a hold of Spock insisting that he needs Khan alive because McCoy forgets about the 72 other supermen on the ship. Kirk is dead for all of five minutes. Again, nothing bad will happen.
I won't rehash my rant about Star Wars, but, The Force Awakens was a mess. JJ Abrams did what I thought was impossible and actually made the worst movie in the Skywalker saga in The Rise of Skywalker which was filled with those, "Chewy's dead! He'll be back in five minutes." moments.
This is a trend. His movies are dressed up nicely and photographed well; but, they're insults to the people who fell in love with Star Trek and Star Wars over the decades. In a lot of ways, I think he's more toxic than Michael Bay. At least Bay's films aren't lauded by critics. At least Bay has never been invited to speak at TED.