The Fast and the Trekkiest
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Interesting thoughts. I am interested in who is going to be leading the script writing for that also removed a lot of the "thinking" elements from the franchise as well since they were more interested in going the conspiracy route last time around. I do have hopes if Justin Lin is given a good script no matter what the focus will be, it will be a positive step towards something better down the road.
I remain unconvinced, but Bob does bring up some good points here. At the very least, it's no longer in the hands of JJ Lensflare Abrams, so I think the only direction the franchise can go from here is up.
I remember when Star Trek had a point beyond 'Let's blow shit up!'
Anyone else remember that time?
Anyone else remember that time?
I'm not seeing reasons to be optimistic, but at the same time, I do want to give the guy a chance.
I still find the notion that Star Trek is somehow 'the thinking man's' science fiction franchise both terribly quaint and quite frankly... depressing. Don't mistake me, Star Trek is good fun and all, but the thought that it somehow holds more intellectual weight than any of the other stars, Star Wars, Stargate, etc., is utterly laughable. Paper-thin, weekly plots that pause the poorly wrought special effect filled exchange of lasers and various instances of interpersonal drama to, occasionally, murmur some question of marginally greater scope, should not be the standard by which we determine intelligent science fiction. Star Trek is not Rama. Star Trek is not A Canticle for Leibowitz. Star Trek is not goddamn, fucking Dune. Stop treating it with a reverence it does not deserve. I mean when was the last time you actually sat down and watched those original Star Trek films? (It's not like Sy Fy isn't making it painfully easy by running a bloody marathon of them at least once a month) High-brow fodder they are not. The scope of their questions is marginally larger, and while the new films trade off developing those questions in favor of bombastic action, the old films traded off answering those questions in favor of bald-face CAMP.
Hell, let's be a bit more grimly self-aware of the current culture. What was the last critically acclaimed, financial blockbuster with an ensemble cast that didn't break down essentially into 'the power of friendship?'
Hell, let's be a bit more grimly self-aware of the current culture. What was the last critically acclaimed, financial blockbuster with an ensemble cast that didn't break down essentially into 'the power of friendship?'
Already read your opinion in your Tweets.
And I concur; Lin is great at staging stuff and especially amazing cameraderie and chemistry in big groups.
Plus... doesn't Kirk have a fetish for 1960's cars or sth? (Sorry, too young for TOS; TNG all the way!).
And I concur; Lin is great at staging stuff and especially amazing cameraderie and chemistry in big groups.
Plus... doesn't Kirk have a fetish for 1960's cars or sth? (Sorry, too young for TOS; TNG all the way!).
I really like the cast of Abrams Trek, but we hardly get to see them. Hopefully there will be a script that allows a more ensemble focus. Less Kirk more Bones, Chekov, and Sulu basically. Oh and I really want to see a recreation of the Scotty bar brawl from The Trouble with Tribbles where personal insults roll off his back until they call The Enterprise a garbage scow. Pegg could really deliver that scene.
While I can see some of your points and agree that this new guy is a step up from Abrams (he'd be hard not to be, really), I won't be excited until a good writer is on board. Because it does come down to the writing. A good director can make a bad script passable, or a passable script good, but the director, like any artist, can only work with the materials they're given. Hell, even the times when directors have saved bad scripts, it's because the directors *re-wrote* the bad parts to make them better, not just because of some magic touch in the directorial techniques. If the script is shit, no amount excellent directorial flourish will save it. Conversely, when a script is good, it takes a lot of work for a director to ruin it.
So, I don't honestly care all that much about who directs it until I know the person writing it is talented - or, at the very least, competent.
Speaking of, do we even know who's writing the script?
So, I don't honestly care all that much about who directs it until I know the person writing it is talented - or, at the very least, competent.
Speaking of, do we even know who's writing the script?
Yeah, I mean let's be honest. Levar Burton has said, that on multiple occasions people have come up to him and said "Watching you on TNG is the reason I became an engineer." Whilst Simon Pegg is a fine actor, and I enjoy watching him act, thanks to Orci and Abrams I doubt if ANYONE will walk up to him in 10 years time and say "Mr. Pegg, watching you in the Star Trek reboot inspired me to become an engineer." It just doesn't inspire the same way that the primary timeline films and shows did.Reed Spacer said:
What the folks in charge of the reboot do not seem to get (And Abrams has admitted to having not been a fan of Trek until he was handed the directors chair for the first one, so it makes sense that he doesn't understand the basic concept) is that the spaceships and the aliens, and the wars are an allegory for dealing with real life. TOS was the first time on national television that the word "Hell" was used as curse word, it was the first time that a black woman was kissed by a white man (on TV). DS9 had the second ever (they were beaten to the punch by two weeks by a soap opera) lesbian kiss on American television. A few years later Will and Grace came out, and suddenly homosexual intimacy was no big deal on the small screen. It was because of an episode of TOS that the man who invented the MRI machine was inspired to start tinkering around with technology and see if he could make a machine that could scan the body and determine what was wrong. It was because of the Holodeck on TNG that the creators of Wolfenstien and Doom were inspired to create the FPS genre, which has demonstrated an uncanny ability to improve a persons hand eye coordination when doing things like surgery. And a few years back we discovered that thanks to Beverly Crusher's dermal re-generator we now have a very similar device (still awaiting approval for use here in the USA, but it is being used with great success in the EU.)
That is my very long winded way of saying. "Yes."
I still kind of wish they'd do another TV series so the movies could be their own thing without die-hard fans of the source material getting mad. It's clear no one is going to pony up the money for a "proper" Trek movie any time soon, but surely they could manage a TV show? I imagine the franchise must have enough recognition and cultural cache for that. Lots of casual viewers, not just Trekkies, have seen Star Trek on TV over the years.
(For the record I really liked the first movie, and thought the second was a hue blunder)
(For the record I really liked the first movie, and thought the second was a hue blunder)
Man... that was a LONG time ago. Once they got the Next Generation crew to start starring in movies, the point slowly became "Blow Shiate Up!". And horribly.Reed Spacer said:
Still, even the worst of the Next Gen movies tried (and failed, true) to have a point beyond Blowing Shiate Up. NuTrek... eh, it's nice to look at, it's action packed and blows shiate up real good. And best of all, you can completely turn your brain off! (you sort of have to turn your brain off to enjoy it, really.)
Honestly if they just slap "Star Trek" onto another movie and then release another series its still going to be trouble. For me at least the problem isn't that the two new movies weren't that they were full action movies, but they didn't understand the core principle of the shows.Grace_Omega said:
If they can get a person to write a script that understands a couple of the core fundamental principles of Star Trek it shouldn't be a problem. Just making a movie based on the "greatest hits" of the previous Universe, cramming in all the "truther" garbage they could into the script, and then not keeping the movie constant with the lore within the movie itself I think they could have a fine movie that people who enjoy Star Trek will like.