Trek to Episode IX: What J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek tells us about The Rise of Skywalker

Both the 2009 Star Trek and 2013 Star Trek Into Darkness feature, along with lots of kinetic action, some moments of comedy.  Many of these moments are delivered by Simon Pegg playing Montgomery Scott, the ship’s chief engineer.

Throughout both films, quick moments of snappy dialogue and character reactions keep the mood generally light, balancing darker moments such as the death of Amanda Grayson on Vulcan in the first film (and Vulcan’s death itself for that matter), and Khan’s brutal murder of Admiral Marcus in the second.

The comedic moments usually feel very organic to the situation and when in the form of character moments are quite reminiscent of similar scenes in the Original Series.

The Last Jedi received some criticism for its comedy, particularly for bits that seemed out of place for the situation, or even for the established Star Wars universe (though others didn’t see a problem).

The Force Awakens certainly had moments to make you smile but like Abrams in Star Trek, the comedy arrives more matter-of-factly with the plot scenarios.  John Boyega’s Finn delivered a lot of the comedy in TFA often when playing along with Harrison Ford’s Han Solo. Though BB-8’s thumbs-up (at least we should assume it was his thumb) always gets a laugh.

We have already seen BB-8 will have an adorable sidekick in TROS  with D-0. No doubt Abrams will use comedy to balance out the intensity of the completion of not just the Sequel Trilogy, but the Skywalker Saga. Both STID and TFA show us that Abrams is adept at getting his actors to drop some levity at key moments to break the tension of the story; something Irving Kershner did well in The Empire Strikes Back as well.

Who among us hasn’t called someone a “scruffy lookin’ nerf herder”?