The Big Picture: Mystery Bonks

[UsefulPlayer 1]

But wait a minute, you just talked about how those movies were so good because the mystery/surprise was not marketed.

But then you go on to say that there is a mystery in Ironman 3. It just seems so impossible these days when you watch reviews before you watch the movie

 

[Gatx]

That doesn't make sense though since it's out in other countries already. Audiences already have access to those reviews, so why is there a need to handicap domestic movie critics from doing their jobs?

Say what you will about the quality of his movies (personally, I like them, for what it's worth), I will say this about Abrams;

In a time where some films (like the next X-Men and Spider-Man movies) basically have daily twitter updates, and where trailers seem hellbent on showing you absolutely everything in the damn movie, I do appreciate that Abrams at least tries to keep his movies under wraps for as long as possible.

Hell, I remember the off-set photos of his first Star Trek film where he had the cast walk around outside the soundstage in hooded black robes so that nobody would see the new uniforms too soon.

Iron Man 3 kept it's pretty major twist under wraps quite well just by advertising normally, which is how it should be done - just don't talk about it. What Bob is saying that Abrams does is not tell you what the secret is, but shouting at the top of his lungs that there is a secret, which ruins half of the surprise of a twist when you go in expecting one.

 

[MrBaskerville]

yeah, I will say that Abrams is good at his job, but he has some serious issues with story-telling techniques he keeps not rectifying. And yeah, he is NOT Spielberg 2.0; if anyone is THAT it would Chris Nolan.

But Nolan has nothing in common with Spielberg, i´d say Abrams style is a lot closer to Spielbergs, though the quality is nowhere near his level. I might suggest that the new Peter Jackson (post Hobbit and King Kong) is a candidate for the title? If we are talking crappy Indy 4 and Tintin Speilberg, those movies are so similar in their flaws that it´s almost eerie.

 

[Blade_125]

Lens Flares! Ahhhh! The goggles, they do nothing!

 

[Wargamer]

The big reveal of Star Trek: Into Darkness should come as no surprise to any long-term Star Trek fan. Seriously, I knew what it was from the very first trailer.

There is nothing 'special' about this film. It's fun to watch, it works mechanically, but there is no big reveal or shocking twist or total mind-fuck moments. If J.J. Lens Flare really believes this is going to be a revelation that will leave the audience in shock and awe, then he must be living on Rigel.

 

[TheSchaef]

The truth of Abrams, which Bob dances around here but doesn't come directly to this point, is that while Abrams is a serviceable director, he's much better suited as a producer.

Example: MI3 was a good movie (my favorite of the three to that point) and definitely the breath of fresh air that franchise needed. Similarly, while the new Trek is not without its critiques, it was a fun movie unto itself, and if nothing else was perfectly cast; even if they have to go back and do some mid-course correction on the style of the movies later, at least they have a young cast who seem to have slid into roles previously inhabited by 40-year icons, so they have another 40 years to work on that

But I just saw Ghost Protocol recently, and while there are a lot of similarities in style with MI3, the execution is different in a way that is better in each aspect of the film. If you read some critics' reviews of the two movies side by side (Ebert being a prime example), many of the complaints they had about aspects of 3, they saw as positives in Ghost Protocol. The main difference? IMO, Abrams was "only" a producer, and it was directed by Brad Bird, who is a superb storyteller, much closer to Spielberg than Abrams will ever be.

So if Abrams is producing exciting summer blockbusters, with more competent directors, and hopefully a marketing team that will keep a leash on his mystery box, good things could happen with the Trek franchise in the future, and he can go direct the spacey shoot-em-ups he always wanted with the new Star Wars films.

 

[xPixelatedx]

Cloverfeild was such a monumental letdown. The monster in it just looked soooo retarded and generic. Very typical mish/mash of teeth and skin that every modern day monster seems to be; no style at all. And if you need me to elaborate, I am saying it looked no different from a random baddy in Doom3 (just on a larger scale). I don't find such monsters frightening at all; they are only good for jump scares.

Never heard of the Voltron thing (sounds retarded and obviously fake) but I do remember the convincing story about it being a mutated whale and even concept art surfacing (even if it was proven unofficial). I kind of thought the whole whale thing would have been more creepy.

And 'creepy' has a lot more lasting appealing over "frightening".

Just, anything but what we got would have been better really...

 

[Frost27]

The only thing close to a surprise I have been hearing about is that after all that hype about Karl Urban dropping the bomb that Benedict Cumberbatch is playing Garry Mitchell, in actuality:

Spoiler

He is in fact Khan Noonien Singh and spends the first act of the movie under an assumed name with the audience none the wiser. Though, now that IMDB has listed his character name as 'Khan' it is no longer close to a secret.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

yeah, I will say that Abrams is good at his job, but he has some serious issues with story-telling techniques he keeps not rectifying. And yeah, he is NOT Spielberg 2.0; if anyone is THAT it would Chris Nolan.

But Nolan has nothing in common with Spielberg, i´d say Abrams style is a lot closer to Spielbergs, though the quality is nowhere near his level. I might suggest that the new Peter Jackson (post Hobbit and King Kong) is a candidate for the title? If we are talking crappy Indy 4 and Tintin Speilberg, those movies are so similar in their flaws that it´s almost eerie.

If we're talking about the next big star director, it's him. He definitely has a LOT more Kubrick though.

 

[DalekJaas]

I'm just gonna say that Into Darkness is a fantastic movie, a real blast to watch from start to finish. Haven't heard a bad thing about it yet from real people, haven't read any reviews though.

 

[Zeraki]

I'm assuming the big "surprise" in the new Star Trek is the fact that

Spoiler

Benedict Cumberbatch's character actually is Kahn after all that time they spent denying it. Which really wasn't a surprise to anyone who saw the trailers and has seen Wrath of Kahn.

Haven't seen the movie yet, or followed any news about it, so I'm just taking a shot in the dark with that guess.

Also... people seriously thought Cloverfield was going to be a Voltron movie?

Spoiler

 

[Nurb]

How is he going to direct star wars with his head so far up his own ass? I assume a different style of awful because Lucas was just clueless

 

[Redd the Sock]

I've heard it said that this is why Shyamalan sucks now. It's not that he does, but he became so synonymous for "the twist" that people expected it, and when you expect a twist, it stops being a twist and everything is ruined.

This actually explains a lot about Abrahms and why I've never been a large fan, particularly when he does TV. A little mystery is fine, but whole shows get built around people not telling you things until the writers make something up....er... decides to tell you the whole story, minus parts with a lot of lies tossed in.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

snip

Yes, because the original films weren't action movies already.

People like to give XI a lot of flack for being too devoid of substance but how exactly is it different from the fan-favorite duo Wrath of Kahn/First Contact? Uber-villian with emotional baggage and history with our captain, a bunch of interpersonal drama about the captain worrying if they're up to the challenge/the rest of the crew questioning their motives and qualifications, massive threat to earth that will destroy the Federation, and we spend a lot of time running around shooting people and stuff blowing up. The only reason WoK and FC had a slightly slower, more deliberate pace is because it better fit the respective cat and mouse submarine warfare and slowly-being-overrun-by-zombies plots, things XI doesn't have to deal with.

And when the movies did try to live up to the more 'high-minded' reputation the franchise has gathered, anyone remember what we got? The Slow-Motion Picture and The Final Frontier.

And besides, saying Star Wars was never about being old-school adventure serial, intentionally campy 'action schlock' is just blatantly ridiculous.

Yes, Wrath of Kahn and First Contact can be called action movies, but they would be classified as action movies that didn't let the action be the main point.

Really, you actually prove the point I'm trying to make with your line about plot. Yes WoK had the slow ship battle, and FC had the Borg taking over the ship, but yeah the New "Star Trek"(I'm not going to give it the XI number that you give it, because it doesn't deserve to be on the franchise list) doesn't have the thing that the other to had, a plot, at least not a developed one. It had, here is the bad guy, he did bad stuff and wants to do more bad stuff, so lets go stop him, pew pew pew.

With WoK we have the old and dated Enterprise being used as a training vessel, the introduction of the Genesis project which of course flows into the next movie, and Khan with all the history and back story to flesh him out, and the movie actually takes more than all of one minute or two to explain these points and make them solid.

With FC, we have Picard facing one of his ultimate fears(an enemy that truly bested him that he wasn't able to actually overcome himself), the First Contact storyline where the crew find out that they have to actually convince Cochrane to make his warp flight or they won't have a proper future/present to go home to, and we also have Data dealing with actually having emotions and that they can effect his performance which puts the rest of the crew in danger. And again, we get loads of scenes that work on these points that aren't quick screen cut to screen cut high octane rapid action for the ADD ridden kiddies and adults.

Those movies let the plot points sink in after rolling around in the head a bit, instead of like the New "Star Trek" which drops in plot points, but within mere seconds, bats them away in favor of more pew pew, aaaah explosions, run for your life, run at the bad guy and fight him, run run run.

Yes, Star Trek has had slow movies like the first one and The Final Frontier, but that is the case of the other extreme, too much plot and not enough action. For a movie and/or a series in the Star Trek universe to be properly done, it has to have the right balance of both, though balance doesn't mean 50/50. I would say the a suitable Star Trek movie and/or series has a balance of 60 to 65% plot with proper explanation and 40 to 35% action that is well placed because it is encompassed by the plot.

What I'm trying to say is, the proper franchise Star Trek is plot driven action, while the New "Star Trek" is action driven plot, where the action sits on the plot and suffocates it. As I've said before in another thread, Abrams's style is 90% action, 9% lens flare, and 1% story.

Yes, the Star Trek franchise has action in it, many episodes through all the series had a great deal of action points when it all comes together, but in the end, it has a focus on plot that drives the action and that is why it is there.

(Oh, and you might want to change your little typo near the end of what you said there, unless you are wanting me to go into how Abrams' style doesn't fit Star Wars either and that it is a huge mistake that he now has control of that too.)

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Am I the only one who didn't like the first Star Trek movie they released?

No you are not, I can't stand his "Star Trek" I saw it for the crap that it was. A movie that had the franchise title and familiar character names to lure in the fans, but in reality he was really just looking to make a box office action flick that was only built on action to get the everyday ADD kiddies and adults into the seats, because without them he would have only made a modest amount of money through the viewership of actual Star Trek fans if he had truly made it for them mainly with the proper Star Trek structure.

He saw "Ka-ching", pure action with no substance = bringing in the general unimaginative slobbering audience, instead of what he should have seen:

A grand franchise that he should be honored to make an installment for, where he would gain great creditability as a director with many many people if he just made a properly balanced movie that had action, but was all driven by plot, and actually giving the known characters proper characterization and not making them characters that are practically cut-out caricatures of the established characters they represented.

But hey, it's all good, he set his new take on the franchise in an alternate universe. Blah blah blah! But of course people, if you don't already know, that excuse doesn't work, because while the plot was extremely thin, they stupidly linked the insane universe to the proper canon one. Also, the way the new universe is setup, is also much like a comparison to how alternate universes work in Futurama. The canon universe is the proper one where things are rather stable in that there is diversity of styles(people, technology, etc), while the New "Star Trek" uinverse is basically the equivalent of the universe where everybody is a hippie.

I mean look at it, everything is an extreme. The New "Star Trek" is action action action that covers up the plot, the weapons systems are to the max overdone to where when they go off, they look like they are more advanced and powerful compared to anything that might come after Picard's era, and the whole cast for the crew is preposterously young, instead of being diverse in age like all other crews have been.

Went to see ST: Into Darkness on the weekend it came out here in England. Absolutely loved every minute of it, it's just as good as the first film, which was also brilliant. I really don't understand the prevailing attitude around here of everybody putting their noses up at Abrams while snickering; "heh... lense flare man..."

It's not the Star Trek from the 60s, it's a complete re-imagining of the setting and as far as sci-fi action moves go, you'd be hard pressed to find more excitement crammed into 120 minutes. Wonderful acting from a perfectly cast set of actors and amazing special effects. Great fun and I'll be watching it again before its showing is done.

The lens flare thing is a shallow dig, and I admit I do it(thought it is a valid criticism point on his actual style).

I think what makes a lot of people(the vast majority of Star Trek fans) like me angry is that it shouldn't have been a complete re-imagining, at least not one if they were going to give the movie the franchise name.

A proper complete re-imaging is when you take a lot of ideas from an established franchise and make them a part of your new franchise that has nothing to do with the franchise you took them from. It's not taking the franchise name and character names and making stupidly placed references, and saying "alternate universe".

And seriously, the actors must do a 180 degree turn in the latest "new" one, because the acting in the first New "Star Trek" was bland as hell, but really how can actors act when the vast majority of the scenes they are in, they are running or jumping to avoid explosions or creatures or holding on to not fall.

If the latest movie is somehow different compared to the first "new" one, the trailers haven't done it justice, because it looks like more schlock of the same caliber, and I'm definitely not giving Abrams and anybody involved money to support the crap.

 

[Kingjackl]

Funnily enough, this latest one actually does have a twist. Trouble is, it's the sort of thing that critics won't mind (hence the generally favourable reviews) but the Star Trek fans will go apeshit over.

It's not really a mystery though. It's more like the twist from 'The Dark Knight Rises' - if you know the source material, you'll see it coming.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I remember the Voltron rumors but I had no idea it was tied into Cloverfield. Or maybe I forgot intentionally since I kinda liked that movie. Either way, the disappointment that we didn't get a huge, live-action Voltron movie is back and I'm all disappointed again...*sigh*

 

[Metalrocks]

lol. was wondering where your review of star trek is.
i personally dint mind it. i think it was good. it was fun to watch, it had good humor and the lens flare wasnt that bad for a change.

 

[Caffeine_Bombed]

You know the type of twist that always gets me?

"I am Talia Al Ghul!"

*GASP* No shit...