But Star Wars? That's only 3 movies all coming out (supposedly) within a year of each other telling a very solid storyline. Why have different directors for each one?
You
do remember the original trilogy was like that, right?
First it was George Lucas, then it was Irving Kirshner, and then it was Richard Marquand. The different director for
Empire dramatically improved the level of urgency and seriousness in the story, the drama in the character interactions, and the compelling nature of character motivations, which ultimately made that film a masterpiece: something which I highly doubt George would have been able to do as well as Irving did.
George may have directed all three Prequel films. But the unfortunate issue with those is that
The Phantom Menace looks almost nothing like
Attack of the Clones or
Revenge of the Sith. Clones and Sith look similar enough to each other. But the fact that Phantom still uses real sets and practical effects causes it to look like a reasonable sequel to the original films, whereas the other two prequels look completely alien by comparison.
I'm personally of the mind that a different director each time makes it much more likely that each film will be as strong as possible. You still roll the dice as to whether or not the chosen director can make the right choices. But is also allows each film the best chance it has of approaching things in a better way then the last, if the last made some major mistakes, that a different creative mind could then work out.
All of the Star Trek films were directed by different people. The first was a mess in the script, even though veteran Robert Wise helmed the film's direction. Nicholas Meyer made
The Wrath of Khan a masterpiece, but then he kind of made
The Search for Spock a lame followup by comparison, save for the scene where they hijack the Enterprise. The rest was kind of goofy and lacked the same seriousness and class as Khan. Then Leonard Nimoy got the chance to direct, and he managed to take the fish-out-of-water time-travel cliche work really well for Star Trek, when it had been so terrible in films like
Beastmaster 2 and
Masters of the Universe.
Each film has it's own voice, it's own take on the universe. Some directors are just better at certain stories and certain motifs than others. So it's sometimes not the best idea to have one person running them all. Besides, JJ was the best person to do The Force Awakens because of everything it needed to achieve. But he has other aspirations, other projects he wants to work on, and he probably wants to be back with his family for a while. So it'd be asking a lot to have him direct all three after being pulled out of Star Trek to do it, after having done two of those as well.
Let's look at Harry Potter for example. Those movies all came out in rapid succession in a way. Four directors. If you were to sit down and watch all the movies in close proximity of each other (like with breaks and stuff cause that's a lot of hours of footage), you would clearly see the transitions in style from director to director.
Do you know the story good enough? Watch 2 - 5 in order. You'll have gone from all 4 directors and each one feels different. 1 and 2 you'll see have a very easy feel about them, once you get to 5 on ward you feel like everything is urgent and moving quickly. 3 and 4 don't fit in, it's like a rough patch as those directors were in and out. Only those movies have their unique feeling.
I actually felt like the Harry Potter films were handled reasonably well. The story starts out as a magical adventure for a very special young kid who discovers he's a wizard. So the movie needed a bright and colorful atmosphere with only a fair amount of darkness and danger. Then as the films went on, the style and atmosphere got darker, bleaker, more mature, until finally it just got grim and grey, exactly what it needed to be given how dire the situations were by that point. And I thought three and four were perfect transitional stories as well. Three was a tad darker than four, so it was a bit in reverse, but they still kept the gradient transition going in a particular direction. And WB likely chose their directors for each because of this goal to make each installment more serious and gritty than the last.
The What-Ever-They-Call-This Trilogy of Star Wars won't have a defined style, it'll be like the 3rd and 4th Harry Potter films, just rough to watch together. Granted, they'll feel pretty fresh when you first watch them a year apart from each other.
I also think you're wrong about this. The style of production design, color, and general adventurous mood has been beautifully established. And just like how dozens of directors will helm a TV series, the basic style of production will not change, because many other people who stay on consistently will be in charge of those departments. The only thing that will change is the script and the approach to shot design. But since JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan worked closely with Rian Johnson (perhaps more closely than most people in their transitional position) there's likely to be much more consistency here than there was in Harry Potter. Because Chris Columbus did not actively converse with Alfonso Cuarón before he came on to make the third film so that the style of the films would remain the same. Nor did Alfonso Cuaron converse with Mike Newell before he came on to do the fourth film, at least not enough to continue consistency and drive a linear progression of one film to the other. They all worked independently. However, that's not what's going on with Star Wars. It's much more important to retain the look and the feel here than it was for Potter. So I think they're taking the necessary steps to ensure a connective and matching trilogy. The directing style and cinematic look of JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson, and Colin Trevorrow are also a lot closer than they are with other directors. So Kathleen Kenedy and Disney have chosen their three helmsmen rather wisely because of this.
