How epic should a Star Trek movie be?

[eyeresist]

Some people have said the JJ Arbrams films focus too much on spectacle, but something like Star Trek Insurrection tried to be cerebral, but was underwhelming and felt like a bad two part TNG episode, rather then a cinematic experience.

But INS was actually intended to be epic. Remember when the Enterprise is being pursued and they dump the warp core? Picard battles the baddy inside a doomsday weapon, which then explodes. Also, the stuff on the planet: the village being attacked by drones; refugees streaming into the wilderness. That could have been awesome. Apart from the stupidities of the script, INS was sabotaged by directing that lacked vision and energy. Point is, "epic" is really the responsibility of the director, not the writer.

 

[OpenMaw]

It's really the responsibility of both. Epic really isn't the visuals per se. It's the ideas, and even there the ideas do not really lead to the scope they could have. The ramifications of the planet's special properties both intimate and large are only touched upon very briefly, and it should have lead to much more internal conflict for the crew. There should have been schisms forming, and that would have been the source of truly epic moments that tied into the larger Trek tapestry.

 

[woodstock]

The Star Wars movies seem to be successful by being suitably epic, but Star Trek is not Star Wars and has to do its own thing.

Star Trek started out as a TV series and then more TV series. Unlike Star Wars, any movie is going to be automatically compared to the shows. What makes for an epic Star Trek movie would obviously be higher production values and better special effects, but the story has to prove itself worthy of being a great episode of the show. A lot of people complain that some of the movies are just long episodes that could have been on TV instead, so I think epic would mean: "I'm so glad they made this idea/story a movie instead of just an episode!"

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

How epic should a Star Trek movie be?

Depents on the story, but as other people said a Star Trek movie should feel like a cinematic expierence.

 

[Anji]

Use fishing wire and bubble gum....I don't care. Just gimmie a good story. That's all that matters.

 

[suarezguy]

I think the only movies that really tried to be epic (at least compared to the series) were VI, FC, V (and most thought the latter was majorly, if not unavoidably, anticlimactic) and maybe II; III and Generations feels pretty small-scale and TMP, II and IV feel significant but less so when superweapons and time travel-related catastrophes had certainly occurred on the series.

 

[Amasov]

Somebody made a post some weeks ago about how they thought the new Star Trek films should aim for the scale of The Martian.

Personally, I really like that idea. That's what I would love to see Star Trek do.

 

[AdmiralShran]

How epic should a Star Trek movie be? Some people have said the JJ Arbrams films focus too much on spectacle, but something like Star Trek Insurrection tried to be cerebral, but was underwhelming and felt like a bad two part TNG episode, rather then a cinematic experience.

If you have to blow up 3 planets to get your audience's attention - you've gone too far - WAY too far.

This is all Nicholas Meyer needs to do to get pretty solid reviews - from fans and critics - on his movie:

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[captainkirk]

I love the new movies, but I also really want to see a Star Trek movie like this:

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[JohnD]

I'm not sure if this topic should be here or the other movie forum, but since this forum deals with new movies, I put it here.

How epic should a Star Trek movie be? Some people have said the JJ Abrams films focus too much on spectacle, but something like Star Trek Insurrection tried to be cerebral, but was underwhelming and felt like a bad two part TNG episode, rather then a cinematic experience.

The Star Wars movies seem to be successful by being suitably epic, but Star Trek is not Star Wars and has to do its own thing.

The mark Mr. Abrams is mostly making is what I call a BASF PRODUCTION. "At BASF we don't make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better." Remakes, rather than originals. This is what Hollywood has come to specialize in because this is what the public more readily buys. And within the "better" new depictions come improvements.

Star Trek and Star Wars are two entirely different science fiction vehicles. One is more along the lines of a realistic secular future. The other is a swashbuckling fantasy with Buddhist undertones.

 

[RandyS]

How epic do you want it to be?

 

[Kor]

I see that we still don't have a consensus on what exactly "epic" even means in the first place.

Movies like ST:TMP and 2001 (and more recently, Interstellar) are plenty epic without being fast-paced action pieces.

Kor

 

[shapeshifter]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epic

IIRC, J.J. referred to ST09 as epic, but given the definition it doesn't take much to be qualified as such. Many films we might not think of as epic may actually be, given the definition.

 

[RandyS]

I see that we still don't have a consensus on what exactly "epic" even means in the first place.

Movies like ST:TMP and 2001 (and more recently, Interstellar) are plenty epic without being fast-paced action pieces.

Kor

When people use the word "epic" today (typically, the kids), they usually mean huge, big on the action, etc. When I was a kid, it refered to large prose work, or a miniseries.
I have no idea when the meaning changed, or even why.

 

[eyeresist]

When people use the word "epic" today (typically, the kids), they usually mean huge, big on the action, etc. When I was a kid, it refered to large prose work, or a miniseries.
I have no idea when the meaning changed, or even why.

So you were a kid before Ben Hur was a movie?

 

[RandyS]

^Heh.

 

[Kor]

I think the word gets thrown around these days without a good sense of what it actually means. One of my younger friends described a falafel sandwich as "epic."

I always considered "epic" films to be those with large and sweeping scope, and often with more intellectual and deliberate pacing. Examples include 2001, Doctor Zhivago, Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia and the like.

Kor

 

[eyeresist]

Important events, across a variety of impressive and far-flung landscapes.