Will they go back to primeTrek after nuTrek finishes?.

There are no important matters of fact under discussion here. Your analogy isn't germane in any way.

 

Same. And I'm an old <wheeze> fan.

 

Exactly, it's a polite way to declare a truce when you get to the point where everyone is just repeating themselves.

And, of course, it depends on the issue at hand. And whether you're debating fact or opinion.

If the question is "Who played Kirk on the original series?" . . . well, of course, there's only one correct answer. Because that's a matter of record.

But if the question is something like "Who is the better captain, Kirk or Picard?" . . . there people can agree to disagree. Because there is no objectively "right" answer.

 

Apparently the Alien franchise which has been more or less dead for a while now is coming back. Not only is it getting a new movie but they are retconning away Alien 3 & 4 as never having happened. I certainly didn't expect that since I didn't hate Alein 3 or 4 as some people did. Just something interesting to note to those who say it's impossible to go back to an earlier point in a movie series.

 

Interesting, if the rumors are true.

Although it's not quite the same situation. It's not like they rebooted the franchise a few years ago, but have decided to go back to the previous continuity. They're just sweeping a couple of the lesser sequels under the rug, not reversing a reboot.

As I recall, the HALLOWEEN movies did the same thing, before finally biting the bullet and doing a full-on remake of the first movie.

 

You take that back! *smashes beer bottle*

 

I was responding in the context of The Mummy and The Mummy's Hand from Greg's experience.

 

It's not just rumor. It's a confirmed project. Blomkamp is directing and Ridley Scott is producing. It will be produced separately from and released after Prometheus 2. Retconning away Alien 3 and 4 has been my greatest wish, and probably so many others, but alas it is a bit of hyperbole. Blomkamp actually says he's not trying to undo Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. The only reason I would "hate" those films is because 1) they aren't nearly as good as 1 and 2, and perhaps more importantly, 2) the way they snuffed Newt, Hicks and Bishop. I have never considered them in my personal "canon."

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/n...-fox-with-director-neill-blomkamp-1201436551/

http://www.blastr.com/2015-3-2/why-...ot-trying-undo-alien-3-and-alien-resurrection

 

Oh, I'd seen some coverage of the movie, but I was referring to the rumor that the new movie was going to retconn Aliens 3 and 4 away. I didn't think that had been confirmed yet, although I admit I haven't been following the story too closely

 

To be fair, didn't Superman Returns pretend Superman III and Superman IV never happened?

It's not unheard of for studios to pretend that failures simply did not happen. But the definition of "failure" is important here.

For this to be relevant to this discussion, you'd need to convince people that Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek: Enterprise were as broadly loved among general audiences as Aliens, and that Star Trek '09 and Star Trek Into Darkness were as broadly hated among general audiences as Alien3 and Alien Resurrection.

Not extremist fan positions, but general sentiment - as evidenced by viewing figures, box office, critical opinion. I don't think - certainly not based on anything I've seen in this forum - that you can make that argument in a way that would convince an average film-goer.

I don't think it's a convincing comparison. Although it is interesting if true. (And I wonder how "hard" the "deboot" will be.)

Also, they're still pushing ahead with that Prometheus sequel, right?

 

Forgive me for beating a dead horse, but yes, such broad stroked, and highly presumptuous statements like Dar's are one of the many reasons I am no longer a fan of anything. I love Star Trek movies, and to me, they are all Star Trek movies...all a part of the same 50 year legacy. I don't like someone presuming to speak for me, to say that somehow I did not receive such and such a movie well.

 

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/35974/-alien-5-won-t-ignore-sequels-after-all

I guess the rumours aren't true, after all.

 

^I guess we'll just have to see how they get around the events of the last two Alien films if they want both Weaver and Biehn in it. Clones, hypersleep nightmare, simulation of some sort etc..

 

That's not a denial; it's an evasion.

Superman Returns didn't "undo" the later Reeves movies either; it ignored them. Note that even the question of when Lois became pregnant isn't addressed unambiguously - one is free to assume that it was during the scene in the Fortress in Superman II, but if one wants to place it later one can.

 

Indeed. We went together. It was magical.

 

With regards to Superman Returns . . . exactly. For all we know, that version of Superman did run into Richard Pryor at some point or battle Nuclear Man, but there was simply no reason to mention those particular adventures years later. Returns wisely avoided mentioning those movies, but that doesn't mean they were "officially" stricken from the continuity--whatever that means.

In general, the internet tends to worry more about what's "canon" and not than the average moviegoer or even the filmmakers. Ninety percent of the time, there's no reason to formally "de-canonize" something; you just quietly agree not to talk about it anymore.

As for going backwards . . . PLANET OF THE APES provides a useful example. When the Tim Burton remake failed to catch fire, Fox did not decide to to back to the original continuity and pick up where BATTLE left off. Instead they simply rebooted the franchise a second time.

Which is what will likely happen with Trek. If and when the current cycle of movies runs it courses, we're more likely to see another reboot than a new series picking up where VOYAGER left off.

 

I would dare to say most fans of Alien *want* to "deboot" (great word) or decanon Alien 3 and 4. But there's an apparent taboo where the studio and director can't admit to practicing such a thing. "Shhh! We don't say those things here." Even if the majority wish it. Why? In my opinion, the stock in Alien 5 would rise sharply by overt marketing to the decanonization.

It would seem to be hypocritical of me to wish it for Alien and rail against it for the Abramsverse. But what they did to Alien with the reprehensible and reviled snuffing of Newt, Hicks and Bishop was loathsome to me; an abuse and violence done upon the franchise itself and perhaps to the character of the little saved girl too. What they did to Star Trek was *nothing* like that and deeply respectful and entertaining in comparison.

 

I'm not saying we're at a similar point in Trek, just that it could happen. All it took was Blomkamp wanting to return to an earlier point in the series, where as a different guy in charge might just pick up where Alien Resurrection left off or reboot it completely. Same thing could happen with Trek at some point down the line. Just depends on if they get someone like Blomkamp in charge that happens to want to go back to an earlier point.

Alien 3 & 4 have been disliked forever and the studios never did anything about it. Until recently they seem content to pump out movies such as AVP 1 & 2. So I doubt the studio is making this decision based on an awareness of the general audience.

I'm not sure they could really do anything with Sigourney Weaver and not retcon Alien 3 away. She's in that sleep pod thing between Aliens and Alien 3.

 

But we have to remember that the average moviegoer doesn't obsessively follow all the advance publicity and interviews leading up to a new movie's releases. For most people, a new movie doesn't really show up on their radar until the TV commercials start running a few weeks prior to release, so how are they supposed to know that a prior film has been "decanoned" if they haven't been reading interviews with the director in Entertainment Weekly or whatever?

If you make a big deal of contradicting the previous films, you're just going to confuse people. ("Huh? I thought he was dead?") Better, most of the time, to just quietly avoiding getting too specific about the particulars and move on . . .

As I recall, that's how H20 handled it. They didn't make a point of saying that all the latter HALLOWEEN movies (i.e. the ones without Jamie Lee Curtis) didn't happen. They just vaguely alluded to the fact that there had been unconfirmed rumors and sightings of Michael over the years, but basically left it to the viewer to decide which ones "really" happened. And if you had never seen any of the later movies, you could still enjoy the new one.

The idea being, of course, to make H20 accessible to people who fondly remembered the original movie, but hadn't necessarily seen all the sequels . ...

To be honest, I used the same trick when trying resolve continuity glitches in my DC comics novelizations. I would allude vaguely to previous storylines without getting too specific: "Wonder Woman had heard disturbing rumors about Mary Marvel," that kind of thing.

 

If Blomkamp has permission to erase canon, it points to an entirely different trend. Not one that involves "going back to a previous point", but one that appears to be in full swing in Hollywood right now.