COUNTDOWN TO DARKNESS 5-page preview

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

My guess is that it's an improbable Avengers-style leap onto a passing (flying) car, which he'll commandeer in his continuing persuit of Harrison.

Also...

[teacake]

eh, Spock feels bad about his mom. Nothing new there.

[The Wormhole]

What the hell is this shit? Spock has a nightmare about Vulcan's destruction? That's the preview we get of the series? Now we're really going to uber-draconian lengths to avoid revealing any kind of info about the movie. The preview which could set up the plot of the comic and gives us hints about the movie is essentially a recap of the previous movie.

This kind of dicking around is getting out of hand and offensive. Either reveal something or don't, stop playing these games of kind of revealing something but not really doing anything. At least Countdown's preview had the hilariously horrible dialogue of Nero and his crew. "No time to explain, Big Boy. Just get your ass moving."

Kruezerman wrote:

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When will the comic be out?

January 23, this coming Wednesday.

[Christopher]

Actually it makes perfect sense that the comic would open this way. It's an interstitial work between the two movies, and there's no guarantee that the people who read it will read any of the other Abramsverse comics; so for many readers, this will be the very next story in sequence after the '09 movie. So it makes perfect sense to begin it with a reference to the events of that movie, a reminder of it to establish the progression of events. It's being done that way for story reasons, not because of some evil conspiracy to keep people in the dark. And it's perfectly understandable why they wouldn't preview more than the first few pages; after all, it hasn't come out yet, so it makes no sense to expect to be shown more than a small portion of the work. Just because you don't get instant gratification, that doesn't mean anyone's doing anything wrong. There was a time when people understood that.

[The Wormhole]

I don't know, I just expect a preview to be, well a preview, not a recap. The preview to Countdown, we were introduced to Nero and his crew. That's a preview.

Really, it's just beginning to feel like a bit too much effort is going into keeping things a secret in regards to STID, moreso than XI and they sure went overboard there. After a full year of it, it is rather frustrating. A better approach would be Abrams and his gang to just keep their mouths shut until they want to give something away. None of this "this guy is playing a canon character but we won't tell you who he is" or eleven months until finally saying "the character's name is John Harrison." There was something to be said about the days when scripts leaked online. Hell, even Rick Berman gave away actual spoilers in his official interviews. I miss those days.

[Christopher]

Considering that the actual comic is going to be released in three days, don't you think you're overreacting? Is waiting a paltry 72 more hours really that intolerable?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Resenting the fact that people won't tell you anything about their movie before you see it is dumb.

[BeatleJWOL]

The Wormhole wrote:

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There was something to be said about the days when scripts leaked online. Hell, even Rick Berman gave away actual spoilers in his official interviews. I miss those days.

A better approach for you would just to go ahead and say "I want to be told what happens in this movie so I don't have to spend money to see it in the theater."

[M'Sharak]

Christopher wrote:

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Considering that the actual comic is going to be released in three days, don't you think you're overreacting?

I believe the phrase "laying it on with a shovel" would probably be closer to the mark.

[teacake]

King Daniel wrote:

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My guess is that it's an improbable Avengers-style leap onto a passing (flying) car, which he'll commandeer in his continuing persuit of Harrison.

Like the time Anakin free fell into a flying car in his pursuit of Zam Wesell?

[Ovation]

The Wormhole wrote:

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I don't know, I just expect a preview to be, well a preview, not a recap. The preview to Countdown, we were introduced to Nero and his crew. That's a preview.

Really, it's just beginning to feel like a bit too much effort is going into keeping things a secret in regards to STID, moreso than XI and they sure went overboard there. After a full year of it, it is rather frustrating. A better approach would be Abrams and his gang to just keep their mouths shut until they want to give something away. None of this "this guy is playing a canon character but we won't tell you who he is" or eleven months until finally saying "the character's name is John Harrison." There was something to be said about the days when scripts leaked online. Hell, even Rick Berman gave away actual spoilers in his official interviews. I miss those days.

I certainly do NOT. And really, the "Abrams is such an asshole for keeping us so unspoiled" theme is getting a bit, well, stale.

[The Wormhole]

There's a difference between keeping the audience unspoiled and what Abrams is doing. Keeping the audience unspoiled is easy, don't say anything. What Abrams is doing is promising to reveal something, only for it to turn out to be meaningless or not really a revelation at all. That's not being secretive, that's the literal definition of being dicked around. And it's an offensive way to treat the fanbase.

[Christopher]

^Maybe it isn't meaningless, though. Maybe it's just not what you were expecting or assuming it would be. That's the whole problem with having advance ideas about something, with trying to judge it before you have the whole picture.

Frankly, I think most of the anticipation has been built up by the fanbase and the press, not by Abrams or his people. So I don't think he's promised anything and then reneged on it. I think the fans and the press have just read a lot more into what's been said than what was actually there.

[The Wormhole]

Christopher wrote:

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Frankly, I think most of the anticipation has been built up by the fanbase and the press, not by Abrams or his people. So I don't think he's promised anything and then reneged on it. I think the fans and the press have just read a lot more into what's been said than what was actually there.

To an extent, maybe. But then you have the way Cumberbatch's role was kept secret when it was announced, with only vague hints about him being a "canon character." By the fall, Abrams finally officially announced the the character was "the villain," a truly pointless revelation since everyone had already guessed that anyway. And then finally he's revealed to be named John Harrison. The only canon character named Harrison in TOS is a backround extra who never had any dialogue.

Then there's the whole issue of whether Khan is going to be included in the movie or not, which I would have given a firm answer to first thing had I been calling the shots for this movie. Come on, if the answer is yes than you have everyone saying "hey cool, that was my favourite movie. It should be interesting to see what they do with this." If the answer is no then "Hmm, well maybe they're going to do their own thing. Should be interesting." Instead, we have no real clue at all about something which should be part of the plot synopsis.

Abrams and his minions are also known for screwing with their audience, like with Lost when they kept repeatedly denying the island was supposed to represent Purgatory, even though that's exactly how things played out by the end of the series.

So yes, maybe I am upset that things aren't going exactly the way I would have wanted them to, That still doesn't mean the fanbase isn't being screwed with all the same.

[Christopher]

Well, I'm a member of the fanbase too, and I sure as hell don't feel "offended" or "screwed with." I don't feel I'm entitled to be told about a story before it comes out. On the contrary, I think it's good not to know too much in advance. What matters is the movie itself, the complete story it has to tell, not the advance publicity. I think modern society has gotten too preoccupied with publicity as an end in itself, obsessing with previews and trailers and spoilers and leaks to such an extent that it drowns out the actual story at the heart of it all. I mean, for Pete's sake, we've reached the point where we're getting promos for teasers for trailers for movies! It's ridiculous! I don't need all this foofarah in advance. It's not what matters. I'd be fine going into that theater in May and not having any clue what to expect.

Hell, the reason they call them "spoilers" in the first place is because people used to think it ruined the viewing experience to be told too much in advance. There is value in being surprised by a story. I think Abrams is absolutely in the right to try to restore that sense of mystery and surprise, to resist the modern pressures to spill everything about the movie months in advance. I'm not offended by his approach; I laud it. So you can damn well speak for yourself and not pretend that your excessive sense of self-entitlement represents the consensus of fandom as a whole.