STID "tracking" for $85-90 million opening [U.S. box office]

Yes, precisely. People conflate their own personal likes and dislikes and opinions and such with objective reality all the time. Very frustrating.

 

If TWOK came out in the internet age, it would have been ripped to shreds like all movies are these days.

 

Absolutely. It was nitpicked by Trek fans in 1982, but that stuff rarely spread beyond small groups in those days.

 

Not really - STII was VERY hyped leading up to its release (and I was there in 1982 and saw it twice on opening day) - and the fact Spock dies was known (just not when in the film and they had the mis-direction of having Spock 'die' in the opening simulator scene - so many figured that was the 'death' leaked to fans); BUT, the fact was, it was just MUCH more enjoyable ST film than TMP was - and Star Trek fans were so happy about that we were indeed willing to IGNORE the GLARING plotholes and inconsistencies, such as:

1) The Reliant crew (Chekov in particular) not noticing that Ceti Alpha V exploded and other planet's orbits in the system were altered. (Of course if he's written competently, we have no film.)

2) The fact that (again by the Reliant's scans) the altered Ceti Alpha V was shown to be uninhabitable (with a toxic atmosphere; and even Terell and Chekov beam down in EVA gear) - YET - Khan and his people seem to survive in the open just using masks - and are able to trake long walk from therre containers (for what purpose who knows, buts it's the entire reason Terell and Chekov can check out the completely empty cargo containers.)

3) The fact that Chekov WASN'T a part of the Enterprise crew back when the events of "Space Seed" took place -- yet Kahn says to him, "I never forget a face!" (and sorry the fan rationalizations don't wash as there was a line in Season 2 TOS stating Chekov was 'recently transferred to the ship.'

I also have an issue with Kahn being described by Spock (and depicted in the film) as 'inexperienced (in a military sense) and showing "two-dimensional thinking". Why? Remember his background as stated in "Space Seed" - Kahn was one of the most militarily successful tyrants that conquered most of Asia before they were stopped <--- You don't do that without being a shrewd military leader; and any successful ground or air campaign would require three-dimensional thinking.

Again, NONE of the above prevented the film from being very entertaining; but, overall, nothing really stands out as overly exceptional with regard to the writing, directing or 'filmcraft'.

And I bring that up because as an old Star Trek fan (watching first run since 1969) - I honestly found Star Trek: Into Darkness equally as enjoyable and entertaining; and honestly, (depending on my mood) it's either in a tie with, or ahead of Star Trek II: TWoK as my overall favorite Star Trek feature film.

 

I don't think this film compares to WOK at all in writing and direction. I just don't. Maybe because I have an internal bias and because I think that the director was able to work wonders with a relatively restricted budget that had been scaled back from TMP.

This movie was good, but the plot holes alone kept it from being a better film. They were aiming for Dark Knight territory, and they missed. It's how they handled Khan/Cumberbatch: methinks so much more could have been done to make it a better character study that could have been more appealing to a wider audience. People are still attracted to drama and conflict.

However, I think that was too much of a reach for this writing team.

BTW, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the film and I do think they resolved the fact that NuKirk wasn't ready for the Chair. The resolution of how he was made Shat-Ready was a little pat, however.

 

I don't see this film as any worse than TWOK.

It shares a wonderful common thread with TWOK - friendship, family, sacrifice.

And it's action-packed - something many wished TOS movies could have been, and should have been, but Paramount never spent SW $$$ on Trek's budget.

It's a story about TOS characters as younger versions - Say what you will about the TOS movies, I wasn't too keen on my heroes going through mid-life crises while I was in my teens. (Ironically I'm at mid-life enjoying my heroes in their youth now!)

I'd say the only thing TWOK has going for it are the original cast, and rose-colored feelings of nostalgia. No one is arguing TWOK's longevity and cultural impact ("KHAAAANNN!!!!). I'm just saying, personally, strip away the good feelings and memories and they are about dead even.

And, I'd dare say, STiD may be a little bit better... All IMO of course.

 

Episode and quote, please.

 

He can't because it was NEVER said. Made up to cover his weak argument.

The actor came along for season 2---the crewman's posting was never mentioned. PERIOD. Red herring----of course he could have been aboard.

 

"George Takei (Sulu) does not appear in this episode. Neither does Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov), although Khan remembered him years later. There are several non-canon explanations for this, all pointing to some off-screen contact between the two characters."

 

Yeah. And I believe it involved a urinal.

 

?????

He was asking for the (nonexistant) on-screen quote where it is stated Chekov had just came aboard as a member of the crew.

There never was any.

 

Well, tomorrow night is the final showing in the last theater in my area to still be running the film. I wish I had the chance to see it more than once, but this has been a crazy summer. Still and all, thanks to an amazingly robust Foreign box office response, which for the first time has matched the US box office, Into Darkness brought in the most money of them all. It's great that Star Trek can coax over $444,000,000 out of people.

 

Probably right.

I was just a little confused someone asks about a quote for the episode where it was stated and the next guy puts a quote for 'non-canon' explanations.

Of course there are many non canon explanations.

 

mea Culpa -- I actually thought there was a dialogue snippet about Chekov's crew status at the start of "The Trouble With Tribbles"-- so (I am at work but allowed to bowse on breaks) -- I checked on Hulu and it turns out I was indeed mistaken.

That said, I don't know what part of my 'argument' is 'weal ass' as Chekov WEAS NEVER a part of the cast in Season One and Space Seed was a Season One episode.
^^^
That doesn't change the incongruity in the STII:TWoK script of Khan 'never forgetting Chekov's face' as he hadn't seen it (as far as anything shown on screen in "Space Seed".)

I just am left to wonder if Mr. Abram's and Co had referenced something back to the prime universe and had a similar glaring inconsistency in a script -- how many fans would be calling for their heads, or claiming they did bother to really watch any episodes, etc.

Again, I just find it interesting how some fans hold up STII:TWoK as 'excellent Star Trek writing' when all the inconsistencies I listed in my previous post (and more) exist in said script; yet it gets a complete pass by many, while other Star Trek films, etc. get roasted at the stake for the smallest canon inconsistency at times.

(And again, I repeat that such inconsistencies don't affect my enjoyment of STII:TWoK at all and it's still either tied or slightly behind -- depending on my mood -- with ST:ID as my favorite Star Trek feature film.)

 

Time heals all continuity wounds. Whatever's new is held to a far stricter standard (by some) than what came before. Voyager and TOS/movies I-VI depict warp speeds so differently they can't possibly co-exist, yet nobody seems to care. Instead everyone has a conniption fit over the upteenth time a Trek starship goes underwater...

 

I especially agree with the bolded. To me, it seemed like STID was thrown together, and I'm guessing that this might be true at least to some extent from the fact that they pushed back filming so the writers could finish putting together a script. I think it was Lindelof that said they were "lazy" in getting together to do it... Like you said, it shows.

I can agree with this.

I can agree with this too.

Your comment reminded me of a few articles that I've read. I'll quote one in particular:

Please forgive the length. Source: http://www.telegram.com/article/20130510/NEWS/305119990

Edit: Just in case anybody needs me to link to the actual NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/business/media/star-trek-into-darkness-aims-for-world-audience.html?_r=0


Now if Brooks is to be trusted, as well as other sources I've come across, then they did expect this film to do better than the 2009 movie did overseas, and probably much better. They would not have poured such resources and time (and research) into their efforts overseas if they did not expect a significant gain.

Massive? That's a relative and subjective term. If by that Serenity means 100% over ST09's overseas gross, then what she said may not only not be crazy, she may actually be right. But again, only Paramount and Bad Robot can really say what "massive gain" means to them.

Anyway, what they ended up with was kind of an opposite situation. The 2009 film was a domestic smash hit, but it was disappointing overseas. The aggressive marketing campaign overseas worked and STID was a hit there, but domestically it is not performing as well as ST09. STID's overall gross number is better, in an "absolute values" sense, but who knows if it has profited Paramount and Bad Robot more than ST09? Only they can say.

Perhaps the third time will be the charm. Maybe the 2016 movie will perform really well domestically and overseas. Obviously, at least to me, from reading this article, it sounded like ST09 gave them hope for overseas numbers because they saw "potential" (and "progress") there. And it looks like they've tapped into that potential by essentially making an action movie that they heavily marketed as such.

I guess all I'm saying is that I don't think her statement is "crazy" at all, at least not based off of what I've read.

Yep. It seems to have done well enough. So, on to the next one, I guess.

Interesting. I've never looked up ROI on boxofficemojo. I'll have to check into that. But, even without it, I'd figured they'd need to make around 480 million in order to be doing just about as good as ST09. It sounds like from your calculating, they might need a little more. We'll see how things turn out. Thanks for the numbers.

 

"I care." - Luke Skywalker

 

Woo-hoo! It's now showing in the cheap theaters (Danbarry) $3 (1.75 on Tuesdays) 4x a day. Also, still playing @ the 2 AMCs in the area.