Simon Pegg Told To Make Star Trek 3 Script "More Inclusive"

[Ukomba]

This made me face palm so hard.

I'm beginning to think Star Trek was better off dead.

Welcome to the world of the Star Wars fans. Whole swaths of continuity already erased, alterations to appeal to more casual fans... has the addition of a new cast and teen protagonist that completely undermines the premise of the original happened yet for you guys? Unnecessary addition of irritating and offensive comic relief characters? Dumping of fan favorite characters in desperate attempt to grasp at nostalgia? I don't follow star trek enough to know.

 

[flying_whimsy]

This made me face palm so hard.

I'm beginning to think Star Trek was better off dead.

Welcome to the world of the Star Wars fans. Whole swaths of continuity already erased, alterations to appeal to more casual fans... has the addition of a new cast and teen protagonist that completely undermines the premise of the original happened yet for you guys? Unnecessary addition of irritating and offensive comic relief characters? Dumping of fan favorite characters in desperate attempt to grasp at nostalgia? I don't follow star trek enough to know.

You are preaching to the choir: I've loved star wars and star trek equally for as long as I can remember. I'm also a huge doctor who fan, and I've felt like it's sucked since Matt Smith became the doctor.

It's hard for me to want to like anything sci-fi: they end up cancelled or sullied.

 

[Wuvlycuddles]

You are preaching to the choir: I've loved star wars and star trek equally for as long as I can remember. I'm also a huge doctor who fan, and I've felt like it's sucked since Matt Smith became the doctor.

It's hard for me to want to like anything sci-fi: they end up cancelled or sullied.

Farscape is the only franchise I can think of that hasn't ended up a total disappointment.

EDIT: Scratch that, just checked and apparently a movie is in the works...... /sigh

 

[flying_whimsy]

Farscape is the only franchise I can think of that hasn't ended up a total disappointment.

EDIT: Scratch that, just checked and apparently a movie is in the works...... /sigh

I was just going to say say 'shhh, don't say that too loud or hollywood might hear you.

Looks like I was too late. Why do they keep doing this to us?

 

[Fox12]

This makes me wonder how Interstellar got made. Seriously, I'm surprised anything with intelligence is getting made these days in cinema.

 

[seditary]

I just knew Pegg wouldn't be able to save it. You'd think the suits would try something different after what a disaster Into Darkness was but nope. Better the devil you know I guess.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I'm also a huge doctor who fan, and I've felt like it's sucked since Matt Smith became the doctor.(

That wasn't Smith, it was Moffat.

OT; As I read the article, I could almost feel Simon's will being crushed.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Honestly? I can see the logic that Hollywood executives' are basing their decisions on, even if it is massively flawed. For all the good Star Trek movies and even episodes, what does everybody remember and talk about years later? No, it's not Jean Luc Picard waxing philosophically about their latest morally dubious actions, it's Khan and Kirk's ships being in an intense dogfight "With my last breath I doth spit at thee!" and all that. Therefore logically more of the latter and less of the former equals more memorable movies right?

Wrong. They miss the fact that it's the former that help the latter work so well. It's the well done writing and slower moments in Star Trek that make the big tense scenes seem so meaningful. We wouldn't give so much of a crap about Spock dying in Wrath of Khan if he wasn't a well written character that we had gotten to know and love dying in a well done scene, as is proven with Into Darkness which not only blatantly rips off said scene they do it with a Kirk we never had much of a chance to care about. Now, I have to admit I liked the new Star Trek movies (please don't kill me) but I liked them for what they are, dumb action movies. They are well done dumb action movies but terrible Star Trek movies and I think that's where the problem lies here.

 

[Malbourne]

i'm always reminded of Dead Space when this discussion comes up. first game came out and people liked it, it had a following, made some money. so the corporate idiots said, "shit, lets try to make more money!" and systematically ruined everything that made the game loved in the first place, and were left holding their dicks saying "i don't understand what happened, the algorithms and cost/benefit analysis and decades of market research said this should have sold billions!"

I just finished a Dead Space binge, and the evolution of the series really shows. The upgrades to gameplay just bolster my opinion that the second is the superior title, but at that point it was already trending away from the claustrophobic horror of the first game. When the beginning of Dead Space 3 concluded in a train chase, I kind of figured I knew what to expect from the rest of the game. The mechanical changes were odd, to say the least. I didn't see any point in crafting more than two weapons at a time since the slots were restricted to as many, so I saw little point in tackling side missions besides the enjoyable mini-stories. At least Visceral Games got to go on to make Battlefield: Hardline!

OT: If Star Trek becomes more Star Trek-y, I may feel compelled to watch the new movie. Even the first seemed too similar to...any other movie.

 

[killerbee256]

Even so, we're talking about a well established franchise that is over 5 decades old. They can find the right combination of blood and tits for the lowest common denominator crowd and sci-fi technobabble plus actual smart dialog and story telling for the thinking crowd, especially with Simon Pegg writing some of the script. The execs are just too scared of losing money from the very few idiots that will walk out if they hear "reverse the polarity" or are actually surprised by who the villain really is or what their motives are.

That's the odd thing, TOS always had the sex appeal, but it wasn't completely over the top and the scripts were great the whole story was not based around T and A and explosions unlike the bs we got in the two reboot movies.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Ugh. This is... Dissapointing.

Look. I get it. Star Trek has a few aspects to it that might put certain audiences off.
I mean, this was true right from the beginning, when studios called the pilot 'too cerebral', and basically asked for it to be dumbed down.

But come on! You're destroying what star trek means.
Seriously, why even bother anymore if you pull the guts out of it to the point that it just becomes a generic action movie?

That's not star trek anymore, that's some horrible serial killer parading around in public in star trek's skin...

OK, sure, sand down a few of the especially problematic edges that really puts people off.
But... Show some respect towards the principles and ideals that defined the series.
(And it's core audience)

Some people like to complain that star trek is too utopian. Too optimistic.
OK, sure, it is, compared to lots of things, and the trend in sci-fi generally.

But that optimism is kind of the point of it.
It was created by someone who believed we could better ourselves.
That human nature, and all our faults and weaknesses would not be so strong that they would cripple us forever...

Does that seem a little naive perhaps? Maybe.
But not everything has to be built on hardline pessimism, now does it?

 

[MHR]

He should have just made another cornetta movie. Those were good, people would probably see them, and two of them didn't have crazy effects budgets.

I didn't like Into darkness, and that's saying something, because I was one of the rubes that thought the Star Wars prequels weren't that bad.

Into Darkness was dumb. It was too painfully obvious that the whole story and setting was just built around justifying over-the-top action scenes and special effects. I don't want to go see any more.

 

[lacktheknack]

you know what though? that's a bullshit cop out. it's only the movie (and game) studios that are enforcing this false narrative of what sells and what doesn't. say disney was as creatively bankrupt with their view towards the MCU, there's no way Guardians of the Galaxy would have ever gotten greenlit. but they trusted their fanbase to not just want something easily digestible, and it paid off.

Guardians of the Galaxy IS easily digestible, though.

My cousin, my uncle, my Mom AND myself all enjoyed it. This would not have happened with anything particularly gritty or artsy.

If it had been particularly risky, my Mom would have hated it. If it was particularly gritty, I would have hated it. If it was particularly artsy, my cousin would have hated it. If it had a non-conventional message, my uncle would have hated it.

I'm not calling Guardians of the Galaxy pap, but I've never seen it as a particularly risky or artsy thing.

 

[Wiggum Esquilax]

But that optimism is kind of the point of it.
It was created by someone who believed we could better ourselves.
That human nature, and all our faults and weaknesses would not be so strong that they would cripple us forever...

Morality isn't the only soul of Star Trek, intelligent decision making is a big part of it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-YyL7X4CWw

And here, from 1:20 to 5:40https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlatxLP-xs

I'm not saying that you're wrong; you aren't. But Star Trek is defined by the means by which decisions are made. As much as by the reasons for coming to those decisions.

The profitable and defining separation towards J.J. Abrams Trek is the lack of any intelligent decision-making process. Thinking is hard, apparently.

 

[CrystalShadow]

But that optimism is kind of the point of it.
It was created by someone who believed we could better ourselves.
That human nature, and all our faults and weaknesses would not be so strong that they would cripple us forever...

Morality isn't the only soul of Star Trek, intelligent decision making is a big part of it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-YyL7X4CWw

And here, from 1:20 to 5:40https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlatxLP-xs

I'm not saying that you're wrong; you aren't. But Star Trek is defined by the means by which decisions are made. As much as by the reasons for coming to those decisions.

The profitable and defining separation towards J.J. Abrams Trek is the lack of any intelligent decision-making process. Thinking is hard, apparently.

Well, yeah, but that wasn't really what I meant by optimism and human nature.

I more meant that star trek doesn't assume that our innate nature (greed, lust for power, or whatever else you can think of) is so overwhelming that our future must inevitably be some hellish dystopia, or messed up harsh, cruel place...
That there is in fact, hope for the future to actually be a good thing for the majority of people, and not leave huge numbers of people just struggling with basic survival.

But yes, intelligent decision making does add a lot to the series in a more direct sense.
The big, optimistic vision stuff is kind of more... Background material. It's not obvious, it's just kind of... There.

Oh, but yes... 'in the pale moonlight' is a brilliant example of pragmatic, clever decision making, even if it does seem somewhat morally questionable in context of the kind of ethics the federation is known for...

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I'm always reminded of Dead Space when this discussion comes up. First game came out and people liked it, it had a following, made some money, so the corporate idiots said "shit, let's try to make more money!" and systematically ruined everything that made the game loved in the first place; and were left holding their dicks saying "I don't understand what happened, the algorithms and cost/benefit analysis and decades of market research said this should have sold billions!"

Point being, the necessity of blandness and mass appeal is a false narrative only adhered to by corporate tools with no love for their product.

Schools of thought differ for these precise reasons. Someone who does an MBA in Business or Finance isn't being trained to value movies as art, even if one particular student's endgame dream involves being the purse-holder behind some entertainment juggernaut, and even if said student is brimming with passion for the media. The truth is Kevin Feige is a fluke on legs, someone who's managed to marry their interests and professional training in surprisingly successful ways, no matter what your personal opinion of the MCU might be.

Most finance guys aren't focused on entertainment. They do what they do for the good of the company, and observe the returns as they've been trained to. If their formulas don't work, they're not trained to consider that there's a point where financial planning, PR and marketing will not or never guarantee the maelstorm of sales you'd expected.

Of course, the exact opposite holds through. Become a maverick art-house director, and chances are you'll have an easier time putting an evocative establishing shot together than securing funding for your passion project. That's the crux of the issue, really. Finances and Art are two distinct languages that can't be transliterated, much less translated from one to the other.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

This makes me wonder how Interstellar got made. Seriously, I'm surprised anything with intelligence is getting made these days in cinema.

Because Interstellar isn't as smart as it pretends to be.

 

[Fox12]

This makes me wonder how Interstellar got made. Seriously, I'm surprised anything with intelligence is getting made these days in cinema.

Because Interstellar isn't as smart as it pretends to be.

I don't know, I thought it balanced the emotional core of the film with hard science pretty well. Much better then anything Hollywood has produced in a long, long time.

Care to elaborate? I'm legitimately curious about your opinion.

 

[Amir Kondori]

This was my exact complaint with the new Trek stuff, too much action not enough scifi. They were fun movies but didn't feel like Trek to me.

Well at least I got the HD release of TNG.

 

[elvor0]

say disney was as creatively bankrupt with their view towards the MCU, there's no way Guardians of the Galaxy would have ever gotten greenlit. but they trusted their fanbase to not just want something easily digestible, and it paid off.

I just don't see this characterization of GotG. It's an action movie. Space opera anti-heroes. Lead by basically Han Solo. With some quirky sidekicks. One is a hot chick, one is furry, various endearing traits. Stock MacGuffin-driven save-the-worldgalaxy plot. Where's the big risk here? I don't see it.

There's all these memes floating around about DC not making a Wonder Woman movie while Marvel gives us a talking raccoon, but GotG is still fronted by a white male protagonist, and they didn't exactly invent the furry comic relief sidekick, to put it mildly.

Yeah. Pretty much this. The real risks will be Black Panther and Captain Marvel. Those are going to be the two Marvel movies to look out for to change the game if they are big hits.

Less risky than you think, I think. Marvel knows what they're doing, no muss no fuss. It's obviously great that Black Panther is getting a movie, for the character and for black comic hero exposure(proper ones, not ones that have just been diversified for quota fufillment), but it's not risky, because it's a Marvel movie, people are going to go watch it and I don't think the main character being black has any bearing on the riskyness of the movie. I guarentee that Iron Fist will be a big hit too, because it's a Marvel production and the Daredevil series was badass.

The only risk is the obscureness of the character, but fuck GotG is obscure even by comic book standards and The Avengers are B to D tier exposure characters themselves, Captain America caused people to wrinkle their noses just at the name. Marvel doesn't currently own ANY of their A tier exposure characters (Wolverine, Spider Man, Fantastic 4), except The Hulk.

Captain Marvel shouldn't be too much of an issue at all unless they're using the Muslim one from the comics; now /that/ would have risks attatched given the political climate, especially in America with Islam. Still salty at the fact that DC blinked and renamed the /real/ Captain Marvel to Shazam though ¬¬