To Whom Should the Movie Mantle Pass Post-Abrams

Realistically, it's going to be somebody cheap. Probably somebody we've never heard of before.

 

I said it before in another thread, but what say we give Cameron $1B to do three films...ALL costs and expenses...he cannot go on Safari hiring people that do not "know" Star Trek, but we work that out and have reasonable control...with his technology and effects, and the likelihood that he would involve Michael (A-Different-Kind-Of-Lense-Flare) Bay, we could have some serious shit on our hands...

...now tell me how many different ways I am crazy and delusional...

 

I'd vote a solid "meh." Whedon does a great job in bringing more depth to very shallow properties like Buffy or comic book heroes; I'm not as confident that he could really bring something like Trek to the next level. He might be able to improve on AbramsTrek, he might be just as tempted to try to turn it into the Avengers in space. (Which they're already kind of trying anyway and which seems to me in the long term to be a fundamentally misguided... Enterprise.) At any rate, if he were to return to space opera he'd surely be more interested in reviving his prematurely slain baby Firefly.

Tom McCarthy is a really interesting, out-of-the-box idea. I think he'd pretty much answer to Starbreaker's criterion at the very least.

Glad you asked!

Well, first, Cameron is unlikely to direct three films for eighteen dollars?

Second, yes, I know (or I think I know) you meant eighteen millions, which... as a personal stipend or salary? I don't think he needs the money enough for it to divert him from the business of turning Avatar, his first love (and the monster box office hit of all time), into a franchise.

Third, I don't know why Cameron would involve Michael Bay (a disciple who seems to have learned all the wrong lessons from him), and thank God for that because the prospect of anyone letting Bay near the Trek franchise would probably cause people to Burn Sh*t Down.

 

That would be consistent with the writers they hired. If that's the case then I say Seth Worley, who I doubt anyone here has heard of. He directed a number of popular short films that got him a job at Bad Robot directing that STID Esurance ad.

 

$1B = One Billion Dollars. Just sayin'.

 

There's a big difference between those guys and Abrams based on his TV work, and you know it.

As for who I'd like to see direct (and I don't think that Paramount's going to give away Abrams just yet, or give it to any of the men mentioned for a lot of obvious reasons), I'd like to see the team of JMS and Peter Jackson give it a try (this is dependent on both men being respectively be wanted by studio bigwigs and one wanting to leave New Zealand to direct a film.)


Keep this in mind, Abrams detractors; Star Trek's an action-adventure franchise, and has been since the original series. It IS NOT a super cerebral SF show, no matter how people define it. If the next director and script-writer forgets that, the next movie will fail at the box office and (most likely) be denounced as a pretentious failure.

 

Indeed. J.J. hasn't directed a nothing but disaster movies like Emmerich or non-stop action movies like Bay.

I'm not sure about Peter Jackson. His films tend to be overly long and he still hasn't gotten around to doing Tintin 2. JMS would be good, though.

 

Thanks, Big Jake, for your candid opinion...

...oh, and it must have been the fonts, but I wrote "dollar sign, numeral one, upper case letter "B"', to mean One Billion Dollars for three films, bottom line, all expenses...and Imam thinking that Bay would Burn Sh*t Down, which seems to be the direction things are going...but I do take your meaning...just thought the idea was intriguing...

 

I get to agree with Shaka! (At least until he gets around to trying to lecture us about what "action-adventure" means...) Comparing Abrams to Bay and Emmerich is mistaken.

And not just based on his TV work. Abrams has shown an ability to make good, intelligent and exciting movies when he wants to; if he produces a mindless popcorn flick it's because he's chosen to do so, not (unlike it would appear to be the case with Bay) because he simply doesn't have the ingredients for anything else. And even his mindless popcorn flicks are relatively well-crafted for what they are.

Heck, even Emmerich in his day had Universal Soldier, Stargate and the '98 Godzilla remake to his credit; none of them especially memorable (save that the second film spawned a moderately successful television franchise), but all a hell of a lot more entertaining than anything Bay's ever done.

 

Are you kidding? Bay may have done nothing watchable this century, but THE ROCK is about a zillion times better than anything Emmerich or Abrams has done in any format ever, and that's even with the terrible arrow-through-the-head-before-going-into-battle burden of Nicholas Cage to drag the whole thing down. Christ, JUST LISTENING TO THE MUSIC for when Connery wipes out 1/2 of SF with the humvee is more fun than anything these other guys ever do.

He'd be absolutely crap for TREK though.

I'm kinda surprised nobody has mentioned Marc Forster, just as a 'fuck with your mind/are you shitting me?' kind of choice. Then again, QUANTUM, for all its horrid ADD cutting, is still the only Bond movie this century that works in any way at all for me. But when I think of Forster, it ain't for Bond or WWZ, it's for STRANGER THAN FICTION, which I find brilliant and funny and which shows a grasp for material that treads heavily on the fantastic. (The "I brought you flours" bit when Ferrell gives baking presents to Gyllenhaal gets me every time.)

You can take Cuaron off the table anyway, because he has been pretty emphatic about never wanting to go to space with a movie ever again. I think that's legit, he has DONE space, much as Kubrick did with 2001, you don't need to go there again if you've defined it (or redefined it) for the generation.

 

Meh. I wasn't ever psyched about JMS's Trek reboot pitch.

 

Even though I haven't been crazy over the nuTrek films I'm reluctant to see the old guard back.

I am curious what Macfarlane would do if given the reins.

Maybe James Gunn? Have to see how Guardians of the Galaxy turns out but he has a history of working with existing properties and modernizing them.

Could Vince Gilligan be wooed from the world of television to feature film?

A Wes Anderson Trek would be amazing but would probably lose a lot of the audience.

 

I genuinely have no idea.

JJ Abrams did an amazing job, he could've done better with STID overall and was on the verge of greatness but otherwise it was probably one of the best Trek movies.

There are so many talented writers in Hollywood with a passion for Trek these days, its really difficult.

 

I think the problem with that is that it wasn't as in-depth as Babylon 5. It didn't feel like something he'd spent years planning. Who knows, with some more work it could have been brilliant.

 

I thought it went to too much trouble trying to justify the 5 year mission, when it was probably something used to justify why Kirk and co. were running around dealing with weird stuff.

Plus it's basically the Chase dragged out for 5 seasons.

 

Sorry gents and ladies, that's all who I could think of to do Star Trek; I wish that I had more.

*Wes Anderson-Wouldn't know what to do with Star Trek other than give it a name.

*Alfonso Curon-Could do a Star Trek (he's doing the TV show Believe now) but has said that Gravity is all the space that he wants to do, ever.

*Michael Bay-Give him a good script, and it might work with him directing a movie.

*Joss Whedon-Why not?

*Ron Moore-Didn't he do Star Trek already? (and if you thought that what Abrams, Orci, & Kurtzman did to the characters was wrong...)

One other guy not considered (but should be)-Brad Bird.

Jonathan Frakes wouldn't be bad either.

 

Maybe I should read up on this, I wish THE CHASE had been TNG's feature debut.

 

I don't know. i didn't like Gravity that much. I found the overly long shots very distracting where you would have one shot that lasts for 15 minutes and then another that's 10 seconds. I prefer J.J.'s style.

 

Cuaron will come around. We have ways.

 

The funny thing is I would have picked Abrams (along with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse) had he not already given us the last two films.