What is it you want?

[RobertScorpio]

I keep coming across threads, or comments in threads, from those who just don't want to like this movie even before it comes out. They seem to be holding this movie up to a higher standard than some of the crappy TREK episodes we have had over the past 40 years (and some very suspect movies as well). Well...what is it you nay-sayers want?

Star Trek XI has to get butts in the seats of those theaters. To do this, the plot can not be mired in confusing scifi lingo. It also can't look like a two-hour episode of a STAR TREK TV show (most TREK movies have this problem). But more important, it has to be fun. Shatner, Nimoy, Takei, very seldom to these three agree. But they have all mentioned at one time or another that TREK just stopped being fun...and they are right.

If you nay-sayers are holding out for a Star Trek movie to deliver the 'scifi' goods, like 2001 or something like that, then...you haven't been watching Star Trek.

So...you nay-sayers. WHAT is your problem. And if your answers do not include the following;

1. What is your favorite TREK movie (so as to gage what you think is a good movie)

Then your answer is useless. Its time to put your cards on the table and then tell us what your ideal TREK movie would be. Because if this STAR TREK movie is in the IRONMAN side of movie entertainment, then...YAHOOOO...its about time I took my non-fans TREK friends to a movie and actually came out of the movie theatre without having my tail between my legs..and lets face it. INSURRECTION and NEMISIS are not how you go about making successful movies...as Berman eventually found out..

Rob

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Naked Hoshi Sato. That's my basic requirement for all Star Trek.

[CaptainHawk1]

RobertScorpio wrote:

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I keep coming across threads, or comments in threads, from those who just don't want to like this movie even before it comes out. They seem to be holding this movie up to a higher standard than some of the crappy TREK episodes we have had over the past 40 years (and some very suspect movies as well). Well...what is it you nay-sayers want?

Star Trek XI has to get butts in the seats of those theaters. To do this, the plot can not be mired in confusing scifi lingo. It also can't look like a two-hour episode of a STAR TREK TV show (most TREK movies have this problem). But more important, it has to be fun. Shatner, Nimoy, Takei, very seldom to these three agree. But they have all mentioned at one time or another that TREK just stopped being fun...and they are right.

If you nay-sayers are holding out for a Star Trek movie to deliver the 'scifi' goods, like 2001 or something like that, then...you haven't been watching Star Trek.

So...you nay-sayers. WHAT is your problem. And if your answers do not include the following;

1. What is your favorite TREK movie (so as to gage what you think is a good movie)

Then your answer is useless. Its time to put your cards on the table and then tell us what your ideal TREK movie would be. Because if this STAR TREK movie is in the IRONMAN side of movie entertainment, then...YAHOOOO...its about time I took my non-fans TREK friends to a movie and actually came out of the movie theatre without having my tail between my legs..and lets face it. INSURRECTION and NEMISIS are not how you go about making successful movies...as Berman eventually found out..

Rob

+1

Starship Polaris wrote:

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Naked Hoshi Sato. That's my basic requirement for all Star Trek.

+1,000,000,000

[Brent]

I think those naysayers want this movie to be EXACTLY like TOS, not understanding it simply cannot be. Maybe they are afraid of change.

I can only speak for myself, I am looking forward to new Trek and the start of a whole new universe, so to speak. Finally Trek is creating a lot of buzz around the world, and that is something it has failed to do in the last couple of decades. Star Trek needed this shot in the arm, cause up until now, it was on life support.

No matter how much Star Trek changes from here on out, the past 40 years of Star Trek still exists and anyone has the opportunity to go and watch it. It isn't as if your DVDs sitting on your shelves will suddenly disappear after this movie release.

[superdeluxe]

There will always be people in fanbases that will throw a huge fit about something that dares change what people are holding onto. Before the Lord of Rings came out, many people were up in arms.

[ChristopherPike]

Something that doesn't require the creation of a new universe, to cover up the fact it's making wholesale revisions. I don't really consider myself a canon Nazi or a purist. I look at the production design of the NX-01 and see technology at an earlier stage than the fantasy abilities of Matt Jefferies work. I just accept it and go with it. There was nothing about changing the look of Pike/Kirk's Enterprise that frightened me. What does scare me is a kind of enforced dividing line, between old and new. It's divisive and unnecessary. The story of how Kirk met Spock could've been done without seeking to split apart a fanbase, who for sure have their differences on spin-offs... but were united by a single fictional world at least. A good film is a good film, no matter how many fans could've picked apart the lack of resemblance in set design or actors cast. Highlighting those changes can only serve to alienate old school fans, who were excited back in 2006 when this project was announced and knew little of the plot detail.

A recast need not have meant a total reboot, imo.

I'll go back to lurking now and say no more.

[Sharr Khan]

To be entertained, and not talked down or condescended to.

Sharr

[THE CHEBB]

Starship Polaris wrote:

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Naked Hoshi Sato. That's my basic requirement for all Star Trek.

Word.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

THE CHEBB wrote:

---

Word.

Is that a rock under your sombrero, or are you just glad to see Naked Hoshi?

[Ptrope]

RobertScorpio wrote:

---

Well...what is it you nay-sayers want?

I want someone to have a better argument than calling us "you nay-sayers." Not everyone who has reservations about the new movie does so simply because it's "not exactly like TOS" or even because it eschews continuity as if that were the 'only way to tell a good story.'

RobertScorpio wrote:

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Star Trek XI has to get butts in the seats of those theaters.

Agreed. This is a basic hope for any movie, so it is, essentially, a moot point for this argument.

RobertScorpio wrote:

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To do this, the plot can not be mired in confusing scifi lingo.

Agreed. Nor is there any reason why it would have to be. Frankly, TOS never had a problem with that, at Roddenberry's insistence - the characters should act and speak as if they live in that universe; they don't need to explain everything to each other or to us. And most of TOS's writers had written dramatic plays long before Trek, so they knew how to tell a story without indulging in technobabble. It wasn't until TNG appeared that that started to be a problem, culminating in the senseless drivel that was the hallmark of VOY & ENT.

RobertScorpio wrote:

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It also can't look like a two-hour episode of a STAR TREK TV show (most TREK movies have this problem).

Also agreed. However, it also doesn't need to be yet another 'how they all came together' story; we had 4 wasted years of that with ENT. Let's face it: the main characters are familiar enough to even the average viewer that it's not necessary to spend half the film telling us who they are and how they all came together. Most good movies can introduce and develop characters over the course of 2 hours without blatantly indulging in this. I think the big problem here is that a) J.J. really doesn't know who the characters are, and he wants to establish that they're 'his vision,' and b) nowadays, many studios are trying to hang their fortunes on creating the 'next big franchise,' and they seem to all take the route of making the 'first' film an introduction to the characters instead of treating it like a single story and just getting the hell on with it. Just drop us in at a logical point in the story, and let the characters develop organically as the story progresses, so we see by their actions who they are, how they relate to one another, and what brings them to their particular resolution(s) to the obstacle(s) of the plot.

RobertScorpio wrote:

---

So...you nay-sayers. WHAT is your problem. And if your answers do not include the following;

1. What is your favorite TREK movie (so as to gage what you think is a good movie)

Then your answer is useless.

Bull$#!+ We don't need to use Star Trek as a gauge for what a good movie is - most of them aren't "good movies" so much as just fun romps. Or complete wastes of our time and money. If my only gauge of a good movie is a Star Trek movie, then I don't know what a good movie is.

First off, make it Star Trek. You can do that either by taking the core concepts, even the core characters, and dropping all of the fiddly continuity out, and just move forward with a good story that doesn't contradict the ideas and values of Star Trek - i.e. don't make it Star Wars or The Matrix with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock - or you can keep the continuity intact and merely tell a good, fresh story which, above all, doesn't need to contradict that continuity in order to function. Many fans don't seem to comprehend this very simple concept, that continuity exists without needing to bring it up every five minutes! If a character died, don't make him a pivotal figure in your story! If a certain ship didn't exist yet, don't hang the entire picture on that ship in order to tell it. It's not that flippin' hard to do, folks!

What you don't do is say, "I don't know Star Trek and the audience doesn't know Star Trek, so we can't make a Star Trek movie, but we have to make a Star Trek movie, and the fans want a Star Trek movie, so let's use time travel as an excuse for changing everything so it's 'not' Star Trek and I can tell 'my' story and the audience who don't care about Trek will love it and the fans obviously love time travel because it's 'hard core sci-fi' and we'll give them all kinds of nods in the story to let them know we really, really love and admire them, despite the fact that they're a lunatic fringe whose numbers can't justify the cost of making 'my' movie." You don't sit there, as Paramount, and say, "Gee, Star Trek sure is in the toilet, but we own the name, so let's make another film, even though we've got plenty of evidence that the people who do love Star Trek can't pay for it, and the audience that can pay for it won't pay for it because, well, they're not clueless geeks who live in their parents' basements like our research shows us, but they really did dig that stuff that Lucas did that started with "Star," so obviously they're hungry for more and, well, we want that money." This whole thing is seriously schizophrenic - they desperately want Star Trek to make money, and they think that people who've already dismissed the franchise are their core audience, while the core audience is more of a nuisance than a business model. They'd be far better off starting a new franchise, or, frankly, just creating one solid film, and if it takes off, then consider doing a follow-up. Lots less baggage that way.

In the same way that I don't think it's even difficult, let alone impossible, to tell a good Star Trek story that fits easily into the existing material, I also don't think it's possible to tell a good story that tries to serve so many masters, the story itself being the least of them. If you think the old visual styles won't work with the modern audience, change them and really mean it - redesigning the ship because 'the old one just won't work with today's audience' is no good excuse when you make it so similar that 'today's audience' can't, frankly, tell the difference; if you can make the "almost right' design look good on the big screen, then by God you can make the right one look great! And if you can't, then start with a fresh piece of paper, just like you did with the story - none of this half-assed 'compromise' stuff. And lest someone say I'm ragging on the new design because it's not the original design, that's not the case at all - I just don't think the new design is very good, from a design standpoint. IMO, the original looks better because it is better, not because it's the original.

If you think the old characters and their places in the universe don't work, create new characters, instead of trying to shoehorn the 'fan favorite' aspects of the originals into completely different characters. It's easier on you as a creator, and it's easier on the audience - the mainstream audience either don't care, in which case it's effort wasted, or they don't understand why these odd moments exist, in which case the characters don't make sense; to the fans, it just seems like pandering when what they want to see is the characters that belong there, instead of other characters pretending to be them.

The story should be one that can stand on its own - it doesn't need prior knowledge, and it doesn't need a sequel to tie up its loose ends. In a galaxy as big as the one in which Starfleet supposedly exists, it's pretty stupid that they keep focusing on the same species, even the same characters, and that's for the fans - it's just idiotic to do it for the non-fans, because then they've got to explain that, too. Just come up with a good story, with a protagonist and his supporting characters, an antagonist and his supporting characters, and build a plot that takes both of them through their particular, intertwined journey. If the antagonist is an alien, make him an alien that doesn't need prior knowledge and doesn't need to be explained to the audience, although there's nothing wrong with explaining him to the characters if it is important to the story's progress. Make him believable, not a megalomaniac who just "hates Kirk" for purely selfish reasons (or, as in Nemesis, who just 'hates Picard' for purely selfish reasons - let's be honest: MiniJeanLuc had no good reason for his psychotic desire for revenge on his DNA donor nor on the Federation - he was a cartoon villain).

See? I don't want the new movie to be 'like' any existing Star Trek movie. But I do want it to be Star Trek - I want it to look and feel like Star Trek, and I can accept a 'modern' visual style if it makes sense, and doesn't try to be both 'modern' and 'original' at the same time. I want it to have strong characters, and if they claim to be the originals, then I want them to be the originals (not the actors, obviously, but don't go changing the characters just because The O.C. and Twilight are the so-called 'standards' for 'modern' characters now ). I want it to have a strong story with drama and excitement and hope, and which, if you took everything that was Star Trek out of it, would still be a strong story with drama, excitement and hope.

The biggest mistake they ever made with the Star Trek franchise was falling into the rut, in which they still wallow, of first asking, "What's a good Star Trek story to tell?" instead of asking, first and foremost, "What's a good story to tell?" and then fitting it into the framework of Star Trek.

[btflash]

^
wow! great response,ptrope. also , one of the longest!

[donners22]

I want it to be at least one of two things.

1) I want to be entertained, and feel that it is a valid and worthy part of Trek lore. It should not dismiss that which has come before it - which is totally compatible with taking a new approach if done right.

2) I want it to not just be successful in its own right, but to open the minds of viewers new to the series and encourage them to explore previous Star Trek offerings.

My favourite is The Undiscovered County, a film which is able to poke fun at the characters without ever mocking the series.

Star Trek XI has to get butts in the seats of those theaters.

I think that will be near-meaningless if it does not encourage those butts (or their attached brains) that it is worth checking out other Star Trek shows and movies. I would think there is far greater profit, and benefit to the fanbase as a whole, to have new fans who embrace more than just one or two films. That's why I really hope they don't dismiss what has come before.

But they have all mentioned at one time or another that TREK just stopped being fun...and they are right.

I enjoyed Enterprise and Nemesis at least as much as most other Trek, and I'm not the only one.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Naked Uhura would be cool too - as long as it's Saldana we're talking about - but that's not bloody likely either.

[urbandk]

Trek in the Buff. New frontiers to be explored.

btw +1 for Rob Scorpio for sure.

[Hober Mallow]

I'm no naysayer; I'm definitely going to see this movie, I'd just like a completely unapologetic reboot with no time travel crap to explain it.