Reconsidering Nemesis...
- Thread starter Phantom
- Start date
And that reason is a lack of innovation and evolution.
If more come out badly written and executed like the new Fantastic Four, people will get sick and stop going pretty damn quick.
This isn't the 90s. The current audience is one that grew up inundated by these sorts of properties. Geek is cool. And if movies don't appeal to their target demo because of quality, people just won't go to see them. That has nothing to do with the genre.
This whole idea of thinking there's a bubble for comic movies, or there's such a thing as franchise fatigue is archaic
I'd have to respectfully disagree.
Pretty much every time I've ever seen a Trek good guy actor try to play a Trek bad guy or heavy, it's often been shite. Overly hammy, or otherwise being the Diet Coke of Evil....just one calorie, not evil enough. About the only exceptions I saw was Brent Spiner as Lore, or Leonard Nimoy as Mirror Spock.
Tom Hardy, in my humble opinion, rocked as Shinzon. Patrick Stewart is a fine actor, but I don't think he could've pulled off the subtlety that Hardy did.
They did make a movie on that level; that's sort of the problem. Now if they had made a GOOD movie, I don't think it would have failed, but it definitely wouldn't have gotten the numbers paramount would have wanted.
When has the expression "franchise fatigue" been used apart from Star Trek?
I watch car auctions quite a bit, and on a weekend there's definitely less enthusiasm for the 50th Ferrari to come across the block than there are the first few.
Star wars, comic movies, Stargate... Pretty much any successful genre franchise.
Is this really your argument? lol no response.
Whether you agree or not, the longer people are exposed to something the less enthusiastic they become for it.
If you change it too much, you lose a segment of your audience. If you don't change it enough, you lose a segment of your audience. That doesn't even count natural audience erosion, which happens with even the most popular TV shows.
If quality was the only issue at play, according to many fans, we'd be watching Deep Space Nine movies because it would've been the most watched Trek. If quality was the only issue at play, people would've came flocking back to Enterprise during the Xindi arc as many fans said there was a massive uptick in quality.
Quality isn't the only issue at play, if it was then Arrested Development would've never been cancelled and the Transformers movies would be box office bombs.
Call it franchise fatigue or don't, but at the end of the day people that love pizza can only eat so much of the stuff.
Can you cite a specific usage?
I've never really thought that, though certainly some of the deleted material should have made it in, and some things that were in the film should probably have been re-thought.
So basically, it is an OK movie, and in fact quite a fun space action movie (it's a hell of a lot better than Wing Commander for example, and it is no worse than Event Horizon, which is also a lot of fun but makes no sense in hindsight).
The sad fact is the studio wanted to make another TNG film, to quote RedLetterMedia "before the cast get too old, or someone dies" so they slapped it together a bit like GEN, and like GEN got a weaker movie as a result.
Trek was tailing off both in quality and popularity when NEM was made, I have to admit I watch it more than the other TNG films (except FC) because it is a solid action film, rather than a bit overlong and boring like INS or GEN.
I see why we disagree. I didn't see Hardy's performance as anything beyond average. Most would say that's because the story/script was lackluster. I submit that Stewart has superior acting chops and knowledge of the Picard character to not only pull off the "evil twin" role, but to make it truly memorable.
My main desire for seeing Stewart in that role instead, however, is because I didn't believe Hardy's version was Picard's clone. Not for a second. The big reveal of Shinzon fell totally flat because he doesn't really look like Picard or sound like him at all. The photo of Picard from his youth was laughable. It didn't work and it completely took me out of the story.
I'd definitely believe it if Stewart played the role, and I'm sure I'd care more about the story and even have more sympathy for Shinzon, feel a chill during the reveal scene, jaws would surely drop during Shinzon's death scene, the list goes on.
It's really hard to make an argument one way or the other though, I suppose, without actually having the alternate performance to compare, which we never will.
You want me to voice record people in conversation and quote old threads/other sites?
Just go look at any article written from the perspective of detractor of comic films. Or any detractor of the new Star Wars continuity.
That's a dumb quote.
Agree to disagree. I know if you produce a stale and outdated product, it will not be well received, whether it has the same brand or not.
Comparatively, if you produce something new and fresh, by proxy of evolving and being innovative, the brand will keep its appeal.
As a consumer society, our tastes evolve several times within each generation; for better or worse. If you don't innovate, or at the very least adapt to those changes, your brand will lose its power in the market.
If someone re-branded TNG right now, and re released it with the exact same formula, it would fail. There are specific tropes and styles that we as an audience expect from our entertainment today. It's not Star Trek that is stale, it's the formula that was used in the late 80's/early 90's.
The reason ENT and VOY were showing diminishing returns is because they didn't adapt along with the consumers sensibilities. nuTrek isn't successful because we got a 4 year break from Trek. Yes Only 4 years between ENT and Star Trek 2009. It was successful because its style appeals to the modern audience. We didn't get over our "franchise fatigue" after a 4 year break, which still included every series of Trek in syndication every day of our lives. JJ and Co. adapted Star Trek to suit the modern major demographic. Therefore it was a success.
Before anyone jumps down my throat about bashing prime trek... I do prefer prime trek. But I understand consumerism and marketing.
Agree to disagree. I know if you produce a stale and outdated product, it will not be well received, whether it has the same brand or not.
Comparatively, if you produce something new and fresh, by proxy of evolving and being innovative, the brand will keep its appeal.
As a consumer society, our tastes evolve several times within each generation; for better or worse. If you don't innovate, or at the very least adapt to those changes, your brand will lose its power in the market.
If someone re-branded TNG right now, and re released it with the exact same formula, it would fail. There are specific tropes and styles that we as an audience expect from our entertainment today. It's not Star Trek that is stale, it's the formula that was used in the late 80's/early 90's.
The reason ENT and VOY were showing diminishing returns is because they didn't adapt along with the consumers sensibilities. nuTrek isn't successful because we got a 4 year break from Trek. Yes Only 4 years between ENT and Star Trek 2009. It was successful because its style appeals to the modern audience. We didn't get over our "franchise fatigue" after a 4 year break, which still included every series of Trek in syndication every day of our lives. JJ and Co. adapted Star Trek to suit the modern major demographic. Therefore it was a success.
Before anyone jumps down my throat about bashing prime trek... I do prefer prime trek. But I understand consumerism and marketing.
Last edited:
Shinzon's line about what "a lifetime of violence" had done to his face was convincing IMO. I could believe that his nose and lips were the result of beatings (it helped that there was a makeup scar applied to his lip).
But that photo undid the effect. It shouldn't have been too much trouble to morph pictures of Hardy and Stewart together, or at least thin out Hardy's lips, which are the biggest physical difference. It's only a moment of screen time, but the photo's detrimental effect on the movie is quite large.
