STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

I'm an eternal optimist.

 

I am sending my ticket to GMDreia this night. She should have it by next week.

For me, there are several issues with summer popcorn flicks. And, for me, there are more specific issues with the new Star Trek film.

On summer popcorn flicks, I am mentally disabled. I suffer from severe anxiety and severe depression, which are connected to my Asperger's Syndrome, and I have to be careful about what I watch and what I play. I like films where there are actually pauses between action set pieces. For me, films that meet this criteria are Django Unchained and The Hobbit. I was watching Kill Bill, Volume 2, and I am impressed that the ending of the film involved a lengthy discussion between the main characters of the piece. From what I have read, the new Star Trek is a smorgasbord of action set pieces punctuated by brief respites. I don't want to leave a film feeling more anxious than when I entered the film.

I grew up with the original Star Trek. My mother was a fan of the series since she saw the first run of "The Naked Time", and she introduced me to the franchise. I developed impressions of the characters from watching the series and the movies.

For me, Captain James Kirk was an upstanding, honest, principled commander who valued his crew and who respected the chain of command. When he acted to violate the Prime Directive, he had already the discretion by Starfleet to act as he wished. When he did interfere with a society, he took responsibility for his actions and insured that the planet would receive aid from the Federation. He was later remembered by historians for breaking the Prime Directive so that he could save several civilizations. In his relationship with Spock, he came to him for advice and the two often worked in concert with each other. There was trust and respect between the two. To be contrary to this was used by the captain on several occasions to alert Spock to a situation that wasn't right or to fix a situation.

I am being asked by this film to accept prima facie that Captain James Kirk would willingly and deliberately lie about breaking the Prime Directive in a report. I am being asked to accept that Captain James Kirk would contradict his first officer in an official capacity. This isn't the captain I grew up with.

I would imagine my captain to be honest in his reporting, and to accept that the natives saw his ship. I would imagine my captain and his first officer would have reports that didn't contradict each other; their reports would be different in perspective, but not different in what happened. I would imagine my captain to take the necessary steps to right the damage.

This is a step too far for me to take. This will be the first Star Trek film I will not see in theaters.

 

This is so funny...

Back in 2009, when STAR TREK premiered I perdiced THIS story exactly for the sequel (Khan being captured like the Joker, terrorising the Federation; Kirk or Spock dying etc.). Everybody was telling me to shut up, how genius JJ Abrams was and that the next film would be nothing like that.
I knew they had no creativity - one does not need to be a professional, but if you take a closer look at Abrams', Orci's and co's filmography, you will see that all they did was ripping off classics and copying the straight from the source material. I knew they were unable to invent something new, fantastic, daring, never-seen-before. They would stick to the formula, never dare anything, never try being different, being against the mainstream, just not to piss off the average Joe.

If you want to think it through (and won't rip me apart in the following responses to this post) - this is just my opinion, and I feel perfectly comfortable with people liking these films, for whatever reason - and please keep in mind that I do not comment on the users here, but on the films themselves:

In 1990 a team of authors sat down for a few weeks and come up with a STAR TREK story that is one of the most essential to date. Few week of filming, a budget of 6 million dollars and the timeless classic "The Best of Both Worlds" was born. An episode/tv movie which stands the test of time (go get the Blu Ray).

In 2009 a team of super paid authors sat down for 4 (!!!!! ) years to write a story most fans came up with in a few seconds after they have seen the first film. They spent 185 million on visual effects, to create a loud, shiny, CGI-overloaded film to hide (once more) the poor plot and ripped off story.

STAR TREK was always much more than just cool effect shots and crazy action scene (granted some were really awesome in the 2009 outing). The best episodes worked completely without effects at all ("Measure of a Man").

Enjoy the film! My hopes for a real STAR TREK film are up again, even if only slightly, since mainstream films and bought reviews (as if AVENGERS ever really was so good) and of course 3D ticket prises will raise the box office income for any shitty film (G.I. Joe anyone? ) and will squeeze a sequel out of any brand until there is no profit to be made anymore.

Now the only fear that remains, is that they recast TOS once more, and that there won't be any progress in the future... maybe one day we will get an AVENGERS style movie out of TREK with the difference that in this film the different Kirks will reunite... to fight the various incarnations of Khan... Oh God...

 

Of course they'll recast TOS again, as certainly as the villain of this one would be Khan.

 

I must be the only one that thinks the Avengers movie wasn't the greatest thing since sliced bread...

 

What is with all the soapboxing around here? I honestly wish I had the spare time to whine about a movie this much.

 

It is in the nature of human beings to criticize. I am reading the history of the early Church. There were written books by adherents on either side either supporting or condemning the new religion. These disputes lasted for centuries. These disputes brought forth developments in the formation, direction, and institutional beliefs of the rising Catholic Church.

Xavier_Storma

The people you mentioned are not afraid of the average Joe. They are afraid to offend those who hold the money bags. I see JJ Abrams as the servant of the corporations. He creates a product that pleases his master, and, incidentally, pleases the hoi polloi.

 

So were Gene Roddenberry and Harve Bennett and Nick Meyer and Rick Berman. You have to make product that studios are willing to invest money in.

 

It's in the nature of human beings to do many things, some so awful that they're felonies. "The nature of human beings" is a poor excuse to give for anything.

 

Oh no. Can't have that. Can't have filmmakers aim to please the general public. That simply won't do. They don't deserve such attention. Far better for filmmakers to try to please self-appointed arbiters of "taste" who would never sully themselves among the dirty masses.

And by the way (and I can't believe I have to even point this out), Star Trek is NOT a religion. It's not even an "institution" in the sense you are implying. It is entertainment--for the masses. Anyone who thinks it was ever something other than that is, well, wrong.

 

Well we all know that Gene put babes in seductive clothing for the betterment of humanity...

 

It certainly enhanced my appreciation of Trek as I moved from childhood to adolescence. Gotta thank him for that.

 

Well I say again that paramount spending hundreds of millions of dollars means this particular outing of Star Trek is not going to 100% resemble one of the episodes. You should go and enjoy the spectacle and in supporting this Star Trek and ensuring it becomes profitable perhaps you will get a television show that has the opportunity to explore the things you want but even then, that TV show is not going to be the same as the trek show you preferred to watch.

Due to changes in the world that have taken place since the last trek show and the changes in production techniques and the changing tv situation etc etc in short, you may never be satisfied and its time you moved the goalposts with the rest of us.

Lets say Star Trek started in the 30s and looked like Flash Gordon of that time, would you want Trek to stay the same as that 1930s serial forever? What if Star Trek was from 1901 and featured the enterprise looking like a giant bullet shot out of a giant cannon? Powered by steam engines? Should it remain that way forever?

 

I am giving an example from what I am reading. I am not implying that Star Trek is a religion; although, at times, it borders on being a cult. ("...a group that devotes itself to or venerates a person, ideal, fad, etc...." (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cult))

Who lies between the people and the artists in the movie making industry? The corporations. Who gives their approval to fund a movie? The corporations, or the people? Who regulates the content of a movie? The corporations, or the people? The people are the last to see the film. Corporations put their money into projects that they hope will succeed.

 

You want a tinfoil hat with that? You know what? If you're so concerned about this corporation thing: Why don't you disconnect from the Internet. These 'corporations' control most of the routers that supply bandwidth. So yeah, if you're really serious about this; better disconnect, and be a hermit.

 

The people make the decisions by spending money. The corporations exist to make money and give the people what they want. Nemesis and Enterprise where not profitable because people did not go to see them so Paramount responded to that by turning to JJ Abrams to reboot Trek and that gamble worked.

 

I know and accept that we live in a rapidly changing world, in terms of technology. This isn't the past where the next big thing in technology could take decades, hundreds, or thousands of years to emerge. I am, however, turned off by the depictions of the characters in the JJ Abrams universe. And, I am not feeling that Chris Pine has the gravitas to carry the role of Captain James Kirk. I see him as a corporate pretty boy.

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don't put faith into conspiracies. I put my faith into reality. The people who pay money to see the films are rewarding the corporations for their decisions, and the corporations benefit from the money. However, as long as people support how a product is marketed and produced and everything else that goes with that product, corporations won't have incentive to change their ways. I view corporations as entities, much like I view people as entities.

People are bemoaning that there isn't innovation in Star Trek. Well, as long as people go to these movies, and put down money for films that are not innovative, they are working against their own interests.

 

Which means every creator of Trek has/are currently "servant(s) of the corporations" starting with Roddenberry. So it's a very unfair criticism to lob at Abrams.

Even Joss Whedon, who had a great success with The Avengers, is a servant of the corporations. I guarantee that his first draft script didn't get made and if he went in with the idea of killing off someone like Iron Man, Marvel would've told him to get lost as he wasn't going to screw around with something that was making them a ton of money.

 

And…? Unless filmmakers are independently wealthy and finance their own projects OR manage to convince investors to contribute to the making of a film without expectation of a return on their investment (save the satisfaction of supporting an artistic endeavour)--two scenarios that are not unheard of, but are certainly unusual--then filmmakers are beholden to those who pay the bills.

This isn't new or particular to film, incidentally. Do you think all those amazing Renaissance artists in Italy were simply doing what they wanted (either for themselves or the public) with no regard to the people footing the bill? If so, think again.

Entertainment is a business, not a charity. The people (individually or as corporations) who put up the money to produce a film generally expect some sort of return. They understand the general risk--the audience may not like it, so they might not make their money back--but they make aggregate bets to remain profitable overall. The more money is involved in a production, the greater the risk. Frankly, I'm amazed that big budget productions have the variety and creativity that they actually provide, given the financial stakes. I'm willing to concede that such films are not as daring as small budget indie films in terms of stretching the creative envelope. It would be illogical to think otherwise (as it is also the same in just about any artistic endeavour). But for every risky, envelope-pushing movie I've enjoyed (Darren Aronofsky's Pi, for example), I've also enjoyed being one of the hoi polloi and being entertained by Trek 09 or Raiders of the Lost Ark or… It is totally unreasonable to expect studios to risk 100s of millions on something like Aronofsky's Pi--and Trek, in all of its incarnations, has NEVER been a risk-taking envelope stretcher. It has always aimed for (albeit with varying degrees of success) entertaining the masses. Let's not pretend it was ever otherwise.

 

At least his co-actors in this film don't have a bitter relationship with him, unlike that other Kirk.


Seriously, people like throwback should be put in the Nexus, where everyday they watch their beloved Episodes and movies, and time doesn't move forward.