We tweeted this out yesterday (follow us @NerdRating) but here is the lowdown on what may be the biggest news of the movie year.

J.J. Abrams is officially the director of Star Wars Episode VII. The news broke early yesterday afternoon when The Wrap reported that the director had been given the job after a lengthy courtship by the head of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy. Reports are that Steven Spielberg had a hand in getting Abrams to say yes after the legendary director declined the job.

Let’s face it, Disney needed someone that knows how to handle a franchise as large as Star Wars. Abrams is a huge Star Wars fan and that is one of the reasons he said he did not want to direct the movie last December.

“There were the very early conversations and I quickly said that because of my loyalty to ‘Star Trek,’ and also just being a fan, I wouldn’t even want to be involved in the next version of those things. I declined any involvement very early on. I’d rather be in the audience not knowing what was coming, rather than being involved in the minutiae of making them.”

I could make a really corny “force was too strong” joke but you are already thinking that right now, so I won’t.

Abrams is putting the final touches on Star Trek Into Darkness and then, one would assume, he will begin early work on the galaxy far, far away.

The future of the Star Trek franchise is certainly in question after this announcement also. If there is to be a third movie (which you would think) will Abrams’ Star Wars involvement mean that another director must be found or does Paramount wait on Abrams to get done with Episode VII before getting back on a third Trek adventure? I am interested to see how this decision affects the Paramount executives feelings towards Abrams. They could go ahead and prep a third Star Trek and leave him out of the equation completely.

So now we have Michael Arndt writing the screenplay and Captain Reboot in as director. This Star Wars thing might just become a movie yet.