I Like Abrams

My only major issue with NuTrek in general is the shift in focus from exploration and outwitting the enemy to just shooting the crap out of the enemy.

 

That is the worst picture of the new Enterprise I ever saw (the less said about the "295m" the better!)

Here's what she actually looks like.

 

Beautiful ship. The only thing that bothers me at all are the curved pylons, and I still like them better than the way the Enterprise-D was designed to fall over forward.

 

Fine, well, and good, but I and others here are not going to agree with you about how 'crappy' the current movies are based on your say-so and your saying that you're a director and writer. To me, what you said in the original post sounds like jealousy.

 

Uh, I didn't say I was a director and writer. (I'm only one of those things, and not in film or television.) I said I was evaluating Abrams on his strengths as a filmmaker and television producer. Sorry if that was unclear.

As for your agreeing with me, it really doesn't matter. We are all of us part of life's rich tapestry.

 

Okay, then, who do you think's better than JJ & Co. to make new movies? Please give us the best (and most realistic) candidates that wouldn't be objected to by most of fandom.

 

Not to speak for JirinPanthosa or anything, but Alfonso Cuaron would be my dream pick. Recently took home the Golden Globe for Best Director for an Oscar contender sci-fi movie that considerably out-grossed Star Trek: Into Darkness without relying on schlocky pulp tropes. (As a result of which the buzz around the new series Believe -- which he's co-producing with Abrams, actually -- is largely about Cuaron.)

But what will really make the difference is how the attitude of the development executives evolves. Anyone who is brought on to the franchise will be beholden to what they want.

 

Fanboys (and girls) would object to that one on general principle (just like some other posters said my choices of Peter Jackson and J. Michael Straczynski would be) and I don't think that his style is going to work with Star Trek, or be praised when the finish product is released, aside from a few of the snob critics who don't get Star Trek or most sci-fi anyway-and this movie will be the real flop-money wise, at least-similar to Superman Returns.

NEXT!

(I'd say/predict that the Paramount and CBS brass will wait a while, and they'll figure a way to get J.J. back for the third movie, or they'll go with somebody like J.J. and company; why would they kill the goose that's laid the golden eggs?)

 

Hyper-realism has been tried in Star Trek before, in TMP. In terms of what's on screen, I think that it was a strength of TMP, giving it a "You'll believe a starship can fly" aspect that partially compensated for its shortcomings.

While Alfonso Cuaron might not bring an approach of hyper-realism, were he to work on Star Trek, I think that Star Trek would be the better for trying hyper-realism on again. Hyper-realism is of course more than just photorealism.

 

Nah, you mean your hostile "gotcha" question was just an excuse to try on an attitude of juvenile dismissiveness? I am shocked. Shocked, sir!

Given Cuaron's proven ability to adapt and deliver results in franchise format (like his notorious "flop" Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), I think you're letting a kneejerk need to automatically disagree with someone who doesn't rubber-stamp your over-praise of the current NuTrek product get drastically in the way of your better sense. (Which is a shame, because your picks of Pete Jackson and JMS show that you're capable of some degree of actual thoughtfulness.)

Oh, and BTW, not that it has any particular relevance to this topic... but Superman Returns grossed almost four hundred millions dollars worldwide. It wasn't a box office flop. (Not that it was a good movie, mind you. Turns out a movie can be profitable in the short term but still suck. Who knew? )

They already have J.J. for the third movie, he's still executive producing it. And of course they will not change the current course until it runs aground... which, the early bubble of goodwill J.J. and company enjoyed having considerably evaporated by now, seems likely to happen with the third movie. I'm thinking in terms of the movie after that, when the franchise is re-rebooted.

 

Oh my, do I now have to address the SW podracer style warp engines...?

(I might even be tempted to say "mostly compensated")

Bob

 

^I take your "Star Wars pod racer engines" and raise you stretched-out Klingon engine units stuck to the Enterprise with large Christian crosses mounted on their fronts.

I think, short of a complete reboot with massive changes, Trek is far more suited to the comic bookish fantasy setting. We have a half-alien Spock with copper-based blood who is deeply repressed and must mate or die ever seven years. You can't just roll with goofy stuff like that and aliens that look exactly like humans but for forehead bumps or odd colouration and yet expect Gravity-style space physics or other (supposedly) hyper realistic things.

 

Star Trek 3 will bomb?!

I thought Star Trek 2 was going to bomb?!

Star Trek 1!?

 

I don't know whether or not it will be a box office failure. But continuing on the current formula it's like to be a critical failure, as Superman Returns ultimately was. In studio terms, when that happens the prospect of throwing more money after such a strategy starts to look risky (that's why the Superman franchise tried to reboot after the Superman Returns pseudo-reboot).

 

Best thing I've read today.

I have issues with both films - but I do like the two of them and think Abrams did a good job. Would like to see the next one take on something completely new.

 

What does Superman Returns have to do with the critical prospects of Star Trek 3?

 

Hmm...the front caps of the warp nacelles of the TMP Enterprise do indeed resemble Klingon engines (and I thought the horizontal Klingon engine core from "More Tribbles, More Troubles" was the only Klingon design Starfleet copied - so much for "inferior" Klingon technology ).

Hey, wait a minute! At least I'm still in the same franchise universe where those things are expected to happen.

Bob

 

Their technical understanding and innovating ability might still be inferior, and they've just managed to hang on to some of the advanced aspects of the tech created by the species (their former enslavers?) that they took it from.

 

Directly speaking, nothing. It's just an example of box office "success" that turned out not to translate into actual success -- only comes to mind because our esteemed Zulu mentioned it upthread.

 

I knew I was missing something --- apparently, in this case, the whole last page of the conversation!