Have to say I'm with Chem on this one.
Star Trek: Axanar
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Have to say I'm with Chem on this one.
Pretty dull, pretty talky - as Dennis mentioned first time around would fit well with the Enterprise period.
As with the other material the special effects are fantastic given the budget and Vulcan looks great.
This is actually a great summation of one of the problems with Trek fan productions.
"Hi, we're starting a new Star Trek series. Here's a billion images of our ship.
Oh, and we'll have some characters and a story or whatever..."
Which is one of the reason's Axanar appeals to me. It's clear they're really building their characters up and telling a solid story.
Which in no way validates your attitude towards my evaluation of the last two films or my preference for Axanar.
I will accept your proffer that your intent was not to be demeaning and dismissive, but that's the way it came across.
I don't care about budgets, or pixels/inch, or any of those other inside-the-industry stuff. I care about the aesthetic presented on screen, and Axanar's aesthetic, if not perfect, is far superior to the visually harsh, un-pleasing to the eye, overly-distracting JJ-verse aesthetic.
Axanar has both! Win-win! Or should I say "Drip, drop"?
It's never been established that that particular saucer design originated with the Constitution class. Starfleet designs are to a large degree modular.
You find two characters discussing events that are about to doom free civilization throughout an entire quadrant of the galaxy "dull"?
I suppose you'd rather have another scene of ships going "pew pew" at each other instead...
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Some folks misinterpret the scene in toward the beginning of Prelude to Axanar that shows a Klingon ship following the single-nacelled Federation ship in to the asteroid field. It wasn't that one shot took the Federation ship out. It was that there was an unseen exchange and the Federation ship tried to get a bit of cover and even the odds a bit by going in to the asteroid field. Sadly it didn't work, as we saw on screen. Logically, most folks work that out, because on equal footing, or at least close odds, why would any ship venture in to an asteroid field if not for tactical benefit. =)
Our thought process is that the Federation simply wasn't prepared, either through lack of intel or simply not being able to keep up in the starship inventory department, for a Klingon assault of proper magnitude. Also, Klingons are warriors, rather grumpy, and constantly train for battle and even engage in battle with other species beyond the Federation. So, using that logic, our thought process is that the Federation didn't possess as many strategic or battle tested captains, so those poor souls were picked off early in the war which left only the captains that survived due to superior tactical knowledge.
As for the 2009 film's opening scene, which is prime universe canon, opening the door to a new or update ship design aesthetic, I believe that I've covered this in a previous post. But, the short version is that when Axanar was in the fetal stages of development, the early team was working out a way to bridge the gap between the more modern aesthetic of Enterprise, and the retro/simple/smooth aesthetic of TOS. When the 2009 film happened that problem was solved with the Kelvin, and the other older classes shown once the timeline skewed to the JJverse. Could we have gone TOS retro designs? Sure. Did we want to? No. The Connie in TOS will be the proper TOS canon design, and Tobias' mesh of that ship class is frickin' brilliant in detail, but we really didn't want to be pigeon holed in to being stuck with a 50 year old view of what the future might look like and we're actually rather pleased that the 2009 film opened up the doors that it did. =)
What is wrong with finding something dull. Sometimes people find some thing's simply dull.
After six hundred hours of people mostly talking at each other, I'd rather have the "pew pew". Are Star Trek fans allergic to fun or what?
To be clear: Servo described his attitude as
"Independent films aren't in the same league as big budget blockbusters because of the huge disparity in resources" coupled with "stop parading around that I'm giving backhanded compliments and dissing their work."
The fact that he actually WORKS in the industry does, in fact, validate that attitude (as if an "attitude" actually requires validation). You have made various attempts to claim that Axanar is of similar or superior quality to big-budget films using a subjective "I like it better!" reasoning. While there's no accounting for taste, it is OBJECTIVELY true that Axanar isn't being as closely scrutinized by the moviegoing public, nor is it being filmed for ultra-high def where tiny visual errors would be more obvious to the eye.
In short, by all OBJECTIVE standards, Axanar has a much lower bar to clear. Your personal preferences don't really factor into that equation; it's like saying that the Rasberry Pi is a better computer than a Macbook Pro because you think Apple is annoying.
I disagree. I think the visuals from the last two films surpassed anything that came before it and that Axanar would do well to aspire to that quality.
That, of course, is a subjective opinion that utterly fails to take into account their vastly different resources and expectations. Likewise: I prefer the taste of Taco Bell's Chalupa Supreme to the tacos made by the "authentic mexican cuisine" at the more expensive restaurant two blocks down the street. That's just a matter of personal taste, but I'm not about to claim that Taco bell produces a superior product to a Zagat-rated family-owned restaurant.
If those are our only choices? *I* certainly would.
Exposition is important in the development of any storyline, but only in the same sense that eating your vegetables is important for a balanced diet. It's tricky to combine exposition with character development or even genuine emotion, but not impossible, even for Vulcans.
Folks can think of Axanar being like this -- more TNG's Yesterday's Enterprise and less TNG's The Child. Will there be pew-pew's? Sure, and some really great ones, but the story isn't about that. The war is just a setting for the character drama, much as Band of Brothers was a story about the characters/people that just happened to be in a war setting.
TWOK wasn't about pew-pew's. It was about the characters and the conflict created the drama. Axanar doesn't conceit to compare itself to the masterpiece that is TWOK, but hopefully that analogy lands and sets expectations on what we're going for.
I guess maybe some Star Trek fans actually liked that Star Trek was talky.
So it goes.I do find myself sometimes nonplussed at the seemingly automatic "Oh God, people talking, boring!" reactions. The content and the context matters to me; the belief that having two people on screen talking about something is inherently "dull" doesn't reach with me.
It's funny, when I was younger I had no issue with Trek being talky, for good or ill. As I've gotten older, my tolerance for it in Star Trek has declined precipitously.
Probably too much of the Berman years where so much of it was nothing but talk.
^ Funnily enough, the Berman years went south for me when they tried getting more action-y about things, starting with DS9. 
Of course having someone really suited for action cinema behind the cameras does matter -- like or dislike Abrams, you can't fault him as a thrilling action director -- and in fairness the action turn of later Bermaga on small screen and large wasn't always all bad.
Of course having someone really suited for action cinema behind the cameras does matter -- like or dislike Abrams, you can't fault him as a thrilling action director -- and in fairness the action turn of later Bermaga on small screen and large wasn't always all bad.
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This is actually a great summation of one of the problems with Trek fan productions.
"Hi, we're starting a new Star Trek series. Here's a billion images of our ship.
Oh, and we'll have some characters and a story or whatever..."
Which is one of the reason's Axanar appeals to me. It's clear they're really building their characters up and telling a solid story.
Yep. To horribly mangle Maurice's sentiment, starting with a solid script is the best and cheapest way to make a great movie.
It's Star Trek that happens every day - it's mundane
Yes because they are our only two options - mindless action or really dull exposition nothing else exists...
Ah, yes. Those were mostly awful, I agree.
Well...
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02LgdXVkXgM[/yt]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02LgdXVkXgM
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