There's a trailer apparently.....

I work with a NZ fellow who was reading one of the Tolkien LOTR books and who told me that he wished these film tie-ins books would be truer to the film that was shot. He didn't understand why I was laughing so much.

FML.

 

I put that down to age, not country. The UK may have a proprietorial pride about LOTR so knowing where it comes from spans generations.

 

Mmm. I don't know. I thought everybody knew that the books came first. That had to have been covered with any "buzz" associated with the project.

 

Yes and Paul Macartny was in a band before Wings.

 

Nah, he's a Kiwi, he genuinely believes that it's a product of NZ. They don't let a little thing like 'facts' or 'history' to disavow them of delusion.

 

Well uhh.. maybe you should go home if you feel that way. You're kind of feeding a few stereotypes there yourself.

 

It's bearable here in the Colonies. And when the balloon goes up in the Middle East, probably nice and safe too.

 

Just wait until he finds out the Doctor Dolittle books changed the main character to a white dude!

 

Say what? Bigger and Bolder and more Challenging somehow translates into "Divorcing himself from his performance" and means the movie will suck? Yea, OK, sure...

 

I think the person commenting on the thread is insinuating that the film/effects/explosions/scale is transcending what Star Trek should be, an essentially character driven piece of moral and philosophical platitudes and notions, with a sci-fi twist.

At least that's what I assume several of those posters were getting at. And we all know there is a section of fandom who feel that way too.

 

Movies need 'splosions.

 

Movies need Hugo Weaving.

 

I completely agree.

 

'Cause, of course, nobody ever watched TOS for the cool spaceships, phasers, photon torpedoes, transporter beams, alien monsters, and snazzy special-effects.

And Kirk never got his shirt ripped off, got into a fist-fight, or made out with an alien babe in a skimpy costume . . . .

 

So that's it lasting appeal then was it?

 

Oh, there was certainly more to it than that. But this revisionist idea that TOS was a purely cerebral exercise in highbrow philosphy and utopian ideology that never, ever indulged in good old-fashioned thrills, action, bad behavior, or excitement gets taken to extremes sometimes . . . and bears little resemblance to the series that we all grew up on.

Especially when people start having vapors because (gasp!) there's kissing or explosions in STAR TREK! Because Trek is supposed to be classy, civilized, and intellectual at all times, damnit!

I swear, the way some people talk, TOS was a weekly Sunday-morning symposium on the Important Issues of the Day, and not a rollicking, grown-up space opera that mixed heady scifi ideas with lots of colorful action, sex appeal, special effects, and adventure.

 

The adventure element was strongest in TOS I think. And damned good it was too.

 

Agreed. Indeed, some of the later shows could have used a bit more pep, IMHO.

(I'm looking at you, VOYAGER.)

 

Agreed about the abortion that was Voyager.

However, the other stuff described can be applied to any number of other 60's shows, there was an extra layer to Trek that transcended the aforementioned stuff.

And that characterisation and message has been active across 6 decades now. It's that depth that a big budget, populist notions of what makes a blockbuster and with several exceptions, poor leading actors, that is missing in its current incarnation.

Sure I'll go to the cinema to see it next May but its a clever facsimile of the essence of what it was.