Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof should not Return.

As I noted here, the increasing unwillingness of critics and reviewers to look past the kinds of flaws that STiD shared with ST09 would be a key one.

Interesting, that surprises me. From the reaction many here seem to have to criticism of STiD it seemed like dissent over NuTrek was a new development to them.

Anyway, I'll leave it there, M'Sharak is right to disprefer discussions about fandoms as a subject in itself.

 

Some also seem to be working under the assumption that those that dislike the film now, will always dislike it. I was someone who wasn't exactly thrilled with Star Trek 2009 when it came out (I think Into Darkness is the better movie) and let people know it. I had to go back and re-evaluate what I thought was Star Trek before coming around. I found it enjoyable but didn't think it was "Star Trek".

 

I do suspect that some of those currently willing to rate STID as worse than TFF will mellow out in due course. (As I suspect that the tendency toward over-praise of Abrams will correct itself out in the long term.)

 

...and vice versa. Where the majority of people side has yet to be determined.

 

The majority of the viewing audience is clearly of the opinion that the Abrams films were good. The tendency of people to complain about something (anything--service at restaurants, quality of an item they've purchased, movies, books, TV shows, music, etc.) is well established to be 2 to 3 times greater than any tendency to praise something. Therefore, when you have a significant (actually overwhelming) majority of people signifying they liked the Abrams films at sites like Rotten Tomatoes (when they could just as well have voiced their displeasure), it is a solid indication that the films were…wait for it…very POPULAR with the MAJORITY of the audience. Particularly since those ratings are the result of hundreds of thousands of viewers across all demographics and not the 100 or so carefully cherry-picked "fans" at one convention.

This is not an indicator of artistic quality, artistic tastes, personal views about canon and so on--those are highly individualized (and an excellent reason why no one should try to "give the audience what they think they want", since few audiences of beyond, say, 3, can agree on "what they think they want"). However, the results of audience feedback on Rotten Tomatoes makes the Abrams' Trek films indisputably popular. No amount of cognitive dissonance can alter that fact.

Does it mean YOU have to like the movies? Certainly not. But let's not pretend that anything but a rather small portion of the viewing audience joined you in your dislike.

 

Come now. What does the opinions of a couple hundred-thousand people mean when a hundred people get together and decide somethings a failure?

 

Well there was this one time that 56 guys got together in Philadelphia and decided that constitutional monarchy was a failure.

I don't know that they even think it's a failure so much as it's not what they wanted from Santa, and that's just their way of having a temper tantrum.

 

As much as I love the United States, I'm sure that Native and African-Americans would be of the opinion that those fifty-six guys didn't get it right either.

 

Touché.

 

* looks regretfully over plan to conquer the North American continent, shelves it *

 

As with most things, the truth can be found hanging somewhere in the space between two extreme positions.

One extreme position says, "The entire film is a ripoff of TWOK!"

The other extreme position says, "Absolutely nothing in the film is a ripoff of TWOK!"

Of course, we inevitably get into the question of what constitutes a "ripoff". It sounds like a pejorative; it could be taken as implication that something scandalous has happened. Maybe that's why some don't want to use that term. At least it's been lampshaded in STID by references to how things "would have" turned out in the original timeline. But when you're actually reusing some lines of dialogue verbatim ( a fact which, hopefully, can be conceded by everyone ) and changing "Spock goes into reactor, dies, Kirk puts hand on glass" to "Kirk goes into reactor, dies, Spock puts hand on glass" - then it's pretty hard to credibly deny that some cutting-and-pasting has taken place.

 

Nothing about that scene was stolen, cheated, swindled, copied, imitated, or exploited.

Borrowed, mirrored, homaged, reproduced? Certainly. But the semantic difference is significantly distinct beyond any implied connotation.

"Ripoff" is one of those words that is used way too often and conveniently to sour the grapes.

 

I don't consider the assertion that "Absolutely nothing in STID is a rip-off of TWOK" to be an extreme position. I consider it to be a statement of fact. One reason that I do, among others, is that TWOK and STID, both being Star Trek films, are two films in the same series. That alone makes it erroneous to characterize any intentional copying of elements from the former into the latter as a rip-off. The implication of the use of the term rip-off is that some sort of theft has occurred. That's simply impossible in this case.

 

Anyone who thinks STID is a worse film than TFF needs to have their head examined.

 

Well I certainly wouldn't have used him at all, and would've used him differently, myself. Can't say it was a mistake, however. Just different from what I would have expected.

Just because you disagree with my conclusions doesn't mean the thread objectively disagrees with me as well.

Or perhaps you could specify how you disagree with me, rather than just imply it.

A conspiracy of one ? Interesting use of the word.

What objective reality ? It was a homage. Perhaps misguided, yes. But not a rip-off. That you didn't like it doesn't make your opinion "objective reality".

What's your point ? If you only had snark as a response, why make it ?

 

Now, now. It's just a matter of personal preferences.

 

I'm going to have to enthusiastically go with Dukhat on this one. Even Lindelof might have improved it.

 

It's a question of semantics: what you call a misguided homage, I call a rip-off.

I would have thought the point was obvious: if source A presents certain information, but source B does not ( though it also does not contradict it ), while sources A and B are in the same continuity, source B's failure to provide the information does not somehow make the information non-canonical. It does not have to be presented over and over again in each successive piece of canon in order to be considered valid. Once was enough. Citation of its lack of appearance in source B ( where it may not even be relevant to the plot ) does not somehow negate its appearance in source A. This is not "snark", it's simply the facts.

 

English please.