On YouTube, there's a galaxy of "Star Wars" fan videos fighting for attention. Many get lost in black holes. That didn't dissuade Portland copywriter Prescott Harvey. He needed to get a message to J.J. Abrams.

The Force, it turns out, was strong with Harvey.

In September 2013, a few weeks after Harvey's "4 Rules to Make 'Star Wars' Great Again" popped up on the video site, he received a phone call.

"Hey, Prescott, this is J.J.," the man on the other end of the line said.

Before "The Force Awakens" even had a name or a script, the director of the wildly anticipated sequel opening this week wanted to chat about Harvey's blueprint to redeem the iconic movie franchise.

"It was absolutely surreal," Harvey said of his 8-minute-45-second conversation with Abrams. "He was personable and down to earth. We nerded out together. But I could tell he was really sincere."

It helped that the video had high production values and managed to go viral as soon as it hit YouTube.

Disney had just named Abrams -- creator of "Lost" and director of the recent "Star Trek" movie reboots -- director of "Star WarsL Episode VII." After George Lucas' much-maligned, CGI-heavy prequel trilogy from 1999 to 2005, die hard fans like Harvey fretted Abrams might continue to stray from the original trilogy's virtues.

Prescott Harvey

With the help of illustrator Robert Perez and other co-workers at his then employer, Portland marketing firm Sincerely Truman, Harvey created what was described on YouTube as "a warning cloaked in a love letter" to Abrams.

It is a variation of Princess Leia's hologram message carried inside R2-D2, Harvey pleaded: Help us, J.J. Abrams. "Don't mess this up."

The four rules:

1. "Star Wars" is western and it's set on the frontier. It doesn't happen in the gleaming, high-tech cities and boring parliament meetings omnipresent in Lucas' prequels. It happens in the remote, uncivilized places such as Tattooine, Endor and Hoth, "amidst smugglers and bounty hunters."

2. The technology should reflect a used, dented-up future. "Star Wars' beauty isn't clean, it isn't new," Harvey declares in the video. "It's dirty, gritty, a second-hand world." Just compare the Millennium Falcon to the mirror-like paint jobs on space cruisers in the Lucas' prequels.

3. The Force is mysterious, metaphysical, magical. It doesn't need to be explained. Obi-Wan already covered it in the 1977 original. So, please, no more talk about "midichlorians."

4. Finally, "Star Wars" isn't supposed to be cute, silly or child-proofed. The frontier is a dangerous place. "Walk into the wrong bar, lose your arm," Harvey declares. And Han Solo always shoots first!

Harvey, 33, and his team produced the video with the support of Sincerely Truman boss Dustin Evans. "Prescott absolutely spearheaded it and led it," Evans said.

During his phone call with Abrams, Harvey said they "nerded out" about how the video was made and chatted about possible directions the next trilogy needed to take.

"He said so many 'Star Wars' fans making videos about their ideas are so passionate that can come off as angry," Harvey said. "But he said he could tell ours came from a place of love and respect."

Abrams also mentioned he was thrilled the video came from Portland. "He said he comes up here to write," Harvey said.

Apparently sensing Harvey had ambitions beyond writing ad and marketing copy, Abrams invited him to pitch movie ideas to his Bad Robot Productions in California. (A TV pilot script is under consideration, Harvey said.)

During a recent email exchange with Abrams, Harvey told the director he was headed down to the Bad Robot offices in Santa Monica for a meeting.

Abrams replied that he wished he could be there, but he was in London, finishing production on "The Force Awakens."

"Hope you are well," Abrams wrote. "Keeping things un-cute, worn-out, mysterious and frontier-set. JJ."

Like everyone else who wasn't lucky enough to be at Tuesday's world premier, Harvey is spending the week trying to avoid spoilers on social media. He has tickets to see "The Force Awakens" on Thursday night in Beaverton.

Early word is the movie is a success, largely because it restores the look, feel and mystery of the first films.

So did Harvey and his Seriously Truman collaborators save "Star Wars" from a Jawa junk heap? He won't go that far.

Abrams told him "the video articulated many of the things he had been thinking," Harvey said. "But I like to think we had an impact on the movie."

-- Joseph Rose

503-221-8029

jrose@oregonian.com

@josephjrose