is Star Trek (1)4 happening?

Indeed!
Chris Pine was the one I had the most reservations about, but was most positively delighted how charming he turned out to be! In fact, Wonder Woman proved that he even can be an amazing damsel in distress/love interest

Zachary Quinto was chosen because he almost looks like someone carved the bone structure of Leonard Nimoy on a younger actor. The similarity is uncanny. His acting is fine, although IMO the biggest sin of the entire trilogy is the mis-characterisation of Spock as an angry violent sociopath unable to control his emotional outburst. That's... just not how you write Spock!

Zoe Saldana is... fine. Not bad. But nothing special either, and they mis-characterized her character as well (mostly in Into Darkness, where she starts relationship drama during a secret covert battle mission with her two superiours).

Karl Urban channels DeForest Kelley to an unbelievable degree. IMO he's the best actor of the cast.

Simon Pegg is a comedy legend, but IMO is the biggest fluke in the casting department. All other actors were at least somewhat convincable looking or acting as their original counterparts. He's a great guy. But a horrible Scotty.

Cho and Yelchin worked as the minor characters. They didn't exactly look their parts, but I fucking love Harold. Where's Kumar?

Ben Cross as Sarek though? Mark Lennard would be rotating in his grave if he saw how Cross botched this performance. James Frain does a way better job of channeling this certain character (and even looks the part!)

 

where did I personally insult you?
You are the one who replied to me. It seems that you got offended and agitated by my daring to state that Urban is overrated ...which resulted in you counterarguing and trying to antagonize me with...a rant of full, gratuitous, Uhura/Saldana bashing, complete with passive aggressive claims that she got her role just because of her star name in a moment when wasn't even a big name yet. Very mature too.
You are throwing hand grenades here and then running away to play the victim.

and I'm not personally offended by you. I don't care about getting labelled in a certain way just because I'm not placating you, and you apparently don't have real arguments to offer beyond a patronizing 'because I say so'.

It seems most of the audience, critics, and the original actress herself, were happy about Zoe. Her Uhura, as well as her dynamic, is considered one of the best things of this trek - and one of the things JJ actually improved compared to the original. Even with all the hate she gets, and the romance gets, and how by-default biased the trek fandom is about the boys and the male dynamics (slash fans included), it couldn't be more loved and popular than it was. Even in this board, most of the polls and threads about the romance had a majority of positive response. I don't remember all these people here having issues with Zoe either. Where are you taking your 'facts' from, exactly?
People everywhere were asking for more of her, not less. So I call your claims bullshit and having no relevance to my original point (besides being an attempt from your part to derail it)
You remind me those guys over trekmovie who pretend every trek fan hated the reboot, but they make no attempt to actually interact with the fandom outside of their own selective circle of people who share the same opinions.

And, again, Zoe's one of the few of this cast who gets nominated for her work in trek. People like Benedict (khan) or the guy who played Manas in beyond were gushing about how happy they were to meet Zoe and work with her because they love her as an actress.
Funny enough, when they asked the cast who they'd want to play (of the other characters of this trek) if they weren't playing their character, both Urban and Cho said Uhura.

I'm not saying she's the best or a Meryl Streep, but your opinion about her hardly is an universal problem everyone had with her, let alone the actual reason why she was sidelined in beyond. That's silly.

Besides, this argument that Urban is the best just because he basically makes an impersonation of DeForest is lame. They were hired to play an alternate version of the characters and they were supposed to make them different and their own. Yet, we praise the one who essentially failed the most when it comes to this goal and he just copies the original without doing what, basically, JJ asked them all to do? Not only it makes no sense, it hardly seems to be a fair argument made against his co-stars.

Mccoy is loved, but there is no denying that people talk about Uhura and her dynamics more than his (in part because they are more new and because, like I said before, McCoy loses by default against the two male protagonists and the main bromance) , that her actress gets attention that he doesn't get. While many wanted to see him and Spock interact more, there are also many who, since the first movie, were expecting to see more of s/u and the new trio too. That's why she's more prominent in posters even for beyond. That's why even the comics are handled in a certain way.
You obvioustly don't care about those people and you only see the ones who wanted more McCoy and the original trio, and it's fine, but you shouldn't speak for EVERYONE then, and you shouldn't make claims about the whole fandom and the audience that you can't backup.


Point is, I don't think the new creative team was listening to the fans, as you are claiming. More like, they selectively listened to a side of the fandom as a means to justify their own bias. And it backfired. Because their movie is the least successful.
I don't think they listened to Karl either. I think he was just lucky to find a team that agreed with him this time ( I take his claiming he wouldn't come back with a grain of salt)

Further debunking your argument is the fact that the first movies where Zoe gets more screentime ARE the more successful of this trilogy, while the one where McCoy did get more screentime (at her expense ?) is the least successful.

You prefer sour grapes?

Criticizing a female character for stuff you actually like when it comes to your favorite boys, or that you want them to have, is the definition of concern trolling. Trying to disguise your own sexist double standards behind 'concerns' for Uhura is exactly that.
This is nothing new. People dislike a female character and her relationship because they prefer other characters and dynamics, but instead of being honest about that, they pull the 'I dislike it because it isn't good for her and women' excuse, that inevitably paints them into a corner because they are making an issue for the woman stuff they actually glorify when it comes to the dudes.
And it's disingenuous, patronizing, pathetic.

And yet, here you are just attacking me and derailing the point. You didn't dispute what I said to prove me wrong, you din't prove that you don't have double standards for Uhura compared to McCoy.

You didn't do that because you can't. You accuse her of being just a love interest, all the while praising a male character that is much more defined by his dynamics than Uhura is. And he is; I can write essays about how everything that is being said about Uhura is equally or more valid for McCoy than her.
You are trying to tell me that Uhura getting less screen time for her dynamics and with the main guys is for her good, lol, all the while you lobby for McCoy to have a purpose in the story only through more screentime with the main guys and bromance. You can't get out of that one, sir, and it isn't my fault.

In the end, the only counter argument you can provide here is : 'I like what I like better, therefore it gets a pass and is ~different because my opinion is a fact'

But thank you for trying and participating.

I don't hate comparisons when they make sense and are in topic.
But yours are just a transparent attempt to bait me, and derail the discussion away from the actual point that hit your nerve, it seems.
Maybe next time, in another board.

One of her dynamics is central to the story in both sequels in a way 'McCoy the friend' subplot never was.
Your argument loses credibility when you claim her dynamics are less important than the contribution given by other secondary characters to the main guys.

Also, talk about shoe-horned: Spock was literally stuck with McCoy in beyond and hardly even allowed to interact with others. They were so desperate to sell it as a team and give McCoy more screentime through a dynamic with one of the main guys that they wrote him, a doctor during a time of extreme crisis, as someone who would act as action hero holding phasers and piloting alien ships instead of doing his job when it was the most needed.
But clearly, it's the 5 minutes total of screentime given to the romance with Uhura that are pretentious and shoe-horned in the narrative..
And clearly, I'm the enemy and annoying one here because I'm not here for your obvious hypocrisy.

Based on what facts, exactly?

Did you even read what the reviews were actually saying when stid came out?
Both movies are of course criticized too but, if anything, both on metacritic and rotten tomatoes Beyond gets scores that are lower than stid (both for critics and audience).
Beyond gets 84% of positive reviews (79% by top critics) and 3.9/5 by the audience, Into Darkess gets 86% positive by critics (80% by top critics) and a 4.2/5 by the audience.

Beyond being more critically acclaimed than stid is just another myth some fanboys are spreading, just like the one that stid was a flop.


As a fan of this trek, it's bad enough for me to have to reconcile with the fact that I may not get more movies with these characters because of Beyond's fault. You guys claiming that it's the best of the 3, and this delusion in making it seems it actually 'saved' this trek, when it actually is the movie that doomed it the most, is like a joke to me.

Truth is, the first two movies with the dynamics that you guys and Urban weren't happy about are still more successful than Beyond. The creative team going backwards to placate certain tos fans, and Urban's ego, actually contributed to Beyond's failure and, consequently, the failure of this trek. You can love beyond and pretend it's the opposite like you want, but we are babbling about nothing here simply because we have nothing new to talk about..

 

nope. an apple actually is an orange because of reasons.

Last time I posted all the links, numbers and evidence supporting the fact that stid actually is both more popular and critically praised than Beyond, someone told me that these things don't matter but, apparently, the opinion of a bunch of bloggers online who like Beyond more in their fanlists is proof that the movie not only is the best, but more successful than stid.

and for the record, they sold less dvds compared to the first two TOO. But, again, totally not relevant.
People be trying to make it seems that Beyond's lack of success is just an 'impression', or blame it on everything but the movie itself (such as bad promotion, bad timing etc etc).
This is a fandom with many myths about a lot of things.

 

Beyond definitely has a lukewarm reception by the general audience. Into Darkness is unquestionably more critically acclaimed and did better financially than Beyond. That being said, Into Darkness is a flaming bag of dog shit. I chalk up its popularity over Beyond as the general populace being full of fucking morons as evidenced by many other happenings also in the world these days.

 

While I wouldn't go that far.. its abit ironic that STID was more Trek & The Furious than Beyond (STID was far more anticipated/buzzy and was a far more exciting cinema experience than Beyond imo.. as the general audience seemed to find too)

 

TL; DR


If you want to know where I got annoyed:

Let me get that straight: I compared SMG's Burnham (a female black lead character that works) to Zoe Saldana (one that doesn't). And that somewhow makes me a racist sexist because... I compared a black female actress to another one?

Like, doesn't that kinda' comes with the whole deal of stepping in Nichelle Nichols shoes, who's Uhura was a feminist/equality icon? You know, if someone plays Superman, I will always compare them to 1) The guys that played Superman before (all straight white guys) and 2) to people I would rather like to see in that role (also probably white guys). The same if someone plays Sulu, I'm probably going to compare him to another Asian actor. I fail to see what would make that audacious.

Again: Antagonizing everyone that doesn't share your enthusiasm for a specific actor/actress and insulting everyone won't either make you friends or convince other people of your opinion.

In fact, right at this moment, I'm not sure if you are honest, or just a spoiled 13 year old white brat in front of a computer trying to "troll" people on the interwebz by starting useless race-bait.

 

Or a difference in tastes in entertainment, rather than suffering from some sort of mental deficiency.

I liked Beyond just fine, but I certainly found more rewatch value in ST ID than I do Beyond. I love Kirk's arc and think it is one of the best done in Star Trek. Beyond has great moments but as an overall narrative, it isn't as memorable to me.

 

I think "Into Darkness" suffers a bit of the same problem as "Batman v. Superman": Both are very successful movies that made a ton of money. But both took more than a few liberties with the source material. Resulting in a big backlash from fans of the original. And the studio feeling the need to "overcorrect" it the next time: Both "Beyond" and "Justice League" are better (at least, more faithful) adaptions than their predecessors. But the original fans are already unenthusiased about your product, and fail to energize the fanbase and mainstream audiences for the next outing. And as a bonus, the producers also put off the new fans, who specifically liked the new direction the movies took, by resetting everything to the original status quo. As a result, both movies (JL, Beyond) felt a lot more eager to please, but without really satisfying either the new fans or the fans of the original, and as a result had a much more disappointing box office.

Personally, I don't think we will see another Trek movie with the Kelvin-universe crew. Which is a shame, ST09 did more things right than wrong, and most of the actors were a nice fit. But the franchise as a whole failed to find a satisfying direction, and as such, I'm content with the trilogy we got.

 

There is a lot of F&F in beyond, though maybe not as much as some expected.. lol
And I don't absolutely love neither stid nor beyond, but I wouldn't call people idiots just because they liked a movie I don't like.


@Rahul: You getting annoyed by what I said =/= me actually insulting and attacking you.
You may need to look into the mirror a bit here because it doesn't seem to me you follow what you preach, AT ALL (
e.g., 'I'm not sure if you are honest, or just a spoiled 13 year old white brat in front of a computer trying to "troll" people on the interwebz by starting useless race-bait.' - want a cookie?)

On the point:
1) you are doing the most with so little. I suggest you to read my posts again and if you still get self-conscious and defensive on the whole 'sexist, racist etc etc' thing without anyone actually accusing you of being like that, maybe you gotta ask yourself why.

2) I fail to see what's your purpose with that comparing Uhura to Michael (let alone how it can be relevant to the original point in the thread).
It's literally apples and oranges here: Michael is the protagonist of the new series, while Uhura is a secondary female character who is getting more screentime and a personal life (and a first name!) explored for the first time in 50 years of trek canon! On top on being very different characters, whose stories are also told through very different narrative formats (a tv-show vs a movie), I don't see what's to compare here. It is no less far fetched than comparing Michael to Chapel or.. McCoy.
Of course, it may seem like the only things in common between Uhura and Michael, thus the only reason you even compare them, is the fact they are both black and females.. which is lame, honestly.

If you prefer Sonequa as an actress it's one thing but it has little relevance to what I was saying and the thread so it seems like just derailing.
I find Zoe equally good as actress and, again, it seems most - including Nichelle Nichols - like her Uhura just fine. There are other actresses of color (Candice Patton, to name one) who actually said she's an inspiration to them, so I think she'd doing pretty good.

Besides, you making it seems that Zoe stole the role of Uhura from Sonequa is silly. Aside from the fact that it never was a competition, while there is no doubt Uhura is an iconic role, I don't think the protagonist of Discovery has anything to complain about here in terms of getting a big opportunity.
In the end, for his own trek JJ chose an actress that he felt would be perfect as his Uhura and you can't dispute his reasons just because you disagree with his choice. It isn't up to you to establish why Zoe was chosen.
And, really, you can't automatically assume that Sonequa, or others, would have been good choices FOR HIM too.

Yes, you prefaced your opinion by stating it may be 'personal preference', but it's disingenuos when everything you said after that is passing your personal opinions as facts and the opinion of 'everyone' , and to the extent you even made specific assertions about JJ's motives for casting Zoe as, seemingly, a condescending attempt to belittle her.

 

Well, as soon as I mentioned how much they mishandeled the character of Uhura (starting relationship drama on a covert mission, asking favours from her superiour officer she's sleeping with, ...) it's "concern trolling". Nevermind that I have problems with the characterisations of the white dudes in the movies as well (Spock's rage outbursts, Kirk's fast-lane promotions). No. That get's ignored. But as soon as I critize what they did to Uhura, it's "bromance loving male biased, white-dude-bro-loving, passive agressively claiming she must have slept with the director to get the role, projecting my bias and double-standard" All of which you said in your very first(!) post regarding me. Excuse me for thinking you were blatantly trolling and race-baiting at that point. Nevermind that I put more blame on the director for how Uhura was handeled than on Saldana. I think she's not that great an actress, but she doesn't have story input in the creative process.

YOU started the comparison. I just mentioned I'd rather have another actress than Saldana for Uhura - someone like SMG. That this actress should be both black and female kinda' comes with the role. I also think someone else than Simon Pegg should have played Scotty. Paul McGillion would have been perfect. Guess what? He's a white male. Like the original was. Shocker.

If you're talking about recasting iconic roles, you kinda' have to consider picking people from the same sex and gender. Was JJ. Abrams a male-biased sexist white-dude-bro because he only ever casting scouted for black females for the role of Uhura?

What the...? Is this your real argument? I... don't even... what?

Yeah. I don't like a lot of other choices JJ Abrams made as well. Especially planet-to-planet beaming rendering starships obsolete, and superblood reviving the dead. Both are IMO more severe than some sub-par acting. Tell me what secret biases are shown here? Although, don't. I'm not going to respond to it anymore anyway.

 

Not to cherry pick, but they really don't do those things.

 

This thread has become toxic

 

Eh. Into Darkness does. Luckily, Beyond retcons/ignores most of it. They don't even mention the transwarp beaming OR that they still have a frozen Khan with superblood that could treat every type of radiation death somewhere.
Which was IMO a good call.

 

No, it really doesn't. Any more than the transporter can cure rapid aging, thus prolonging someone's life.

"Superblood" (I use that term loosely, since it is ridiculous) makes more sense than the transporter.

 

"Beaming" is something actual physicists are researching right now, and already have made plenty of experiments with, using quantum tangled particles.

The "superblood" (-quote by McCoy) was used to resurrect Kirk from the dead. Not a half dead. Not even deadly poisened. No, medically dead. For hours. It also healed the little girl in the prologue that was ill (and surely not radiation poisened) In fact, it even revived the Tribble from the dead. Which has had been dead for a whole time longer than Kirk, didn't die of radiation poisoning, and probably didn't even has human blood! This is just a magical "revive all dead characters"-potion.

 

Kirk was "barely dead" (McCoy's quote), a tribble isn't a human being and the transfusion took weeks to revive Kirk.

But, sure is miraculous given that Kirk went in to a coma and it cured an unknown illness that Federation medicine couldn't cure.

Also, how do we know the girl wasn't radiation poisoned?

 

"concern trolling" is people deliberately misrepresenting Uhura's scenes with Spock ('asking favours from her superior she's sleeping with' eta: when the actual scene has her rightfully calling Spock out on his shit for interfering with the ship assignment she had deserved just to placate his own insecurities) to criticize her using sexist arguments under the guise of calling the writers out on their own sexism and/or for 'writing her bad'.

"concern trolling" is criticizing Uhura for everything the fandom gives the male characters a pass for, or even praises them for (e.g., Mccoy sneaking his best friend aboard the ship with him, Pike showing favoritism towards Kirk in both movies, Mccoy and Kirk being constantly insubordinate and arguing with their superiors, dudes getting praised for their arguments with Spock because it's 'character development' and 'challenging him to be more human' - all the while Uhura is the whiny girlfriend because she argued with him ONCE in 3 movies when he seemed to have a death wish).

"concern trolling" is claiming that the writers made Uhura just a love interest and you wish she got more solo moments (or stuff that she actually has already but is ignored e.g., her negotiating with aliens, her showing her skills), all the while overinflating and praising a character like McCoy when he's just the friend of hero and much more defined by his relationships than Uhura is by hers in this trek (and Uhura has a more central role in all the movies, for the general plot, than him. Not to mention her skills being showed, and used more, to the extent they even made canon some stuff that was only in tos novels but never showed in the show e.g., her being a linguist too)

"concern trolling" is expressing ~concerns over the female character being made 'weak' by her one relationship (first time in 50 years she even got something about her personal life TOO beyond being defined by her job), ALL THE WHILE glorifying male dynamics that are 50 years old and that, according to some**, seem to be the only thing giving a purpose to certain male characters. (** and Urban himself since he apparently believes his character 'wasn't in stid' at all just because he didn't have enough scenes about the bromance. And he loves beyond now just because he has more screentime for.. bromance. His idea for what he'd like to see for McCoy in a fourth movie? him saving the day? nah, he wants to bring his ex wife back and focus on his ex-romance drama)

"concern trolling" is complaining that the relationship with the female character isn't developed enough in the same breath you are complaining that said relationship is forced and 'shoehorned' too much in the narrative, and she's reduced to a love interest because they gave 5 minutes of screentime to her dynamic.
(and this all the while actually forced scenes between the dudes get a pass in the name of nostalgia)

"concern trolling" is having expectations for the female character and her relationships that you don't have for the guys and their dynamics.

This double standard, this blatant hypocrisy, is the issue here and I won't be sorry for pointing that up.
Aside from getting defensive, and trying to shut me up using the same derailing tactic ( btw, I'm here to express opinions, not to make 'friends' through popular opinions. And I could care less if I have to pass as the obsessed fan of X just because I'm being argumentative, annoying, and I'm not placating you) everything you provided as a counter-argument to what I said is basically something along the lines of 'it's 'different' for McCoy just because I like him and his dynamics better' which, ironically, just proves the double standard I was mentioning all the more.

who cares about what you think of Kirk or Spock when you are hypocritically praising and defending McCoy for stuff you are criticizing Uhura for.

I love that people magically claim they have issues with the guys too only when they get called out on their double standards, and yet it's always just Uhura they criticize.

what a cute out of context collage, and nice (desperate) try.

and I still love you get offended and see my opinion as being insulting when the only one here who has made over the top personal attacks is you. You have no room teaching others about how they should behave in a discussion.

and your point-derailing OT comments about Uhura (and Jaylah) and Zoe and Sonequa as a response to what I said about Urban were so blatantly baiting it isn't even funny.

~Uhura isn't bad, she's just written like that. also the actress sucks and got chosen just because of her name and prettiness ~ #nobashingjustsaying

I get you now forget your own arguments too, but please don't give me credit for your own stuff.
I never compared Uhura to Michael. You are the one putting them and their actresses into a competition, which is completely irrelevant to what I was talking about.


The only relevant point you made that seemed to vaguely reply to what I was actually saying, and that got easily debunked already, is your claims that beyond apparently sidelined Uhura and went backwards with the dynamics of the first movies because 'everyone' (everyone) wanted less of her and more Mccoy/bromance, and Beyond delivered a more successful movie than the first two because of that choice (except when Beyond is the least successful of the 3 and the reason why we are babbling about nothing here instead of having a fourth movie to talk about)

I perfectly understand the feeling.
Perhaps, it isn't wise to reply to arguments or points that which we don't even understand.

 

Yeah, this is bait. I'm not going to answer to that.

 

Well. He said that to Kirk. But he was clearly lying. Kirk acturally, truly died. Like his Tribble:



(at 0.46 the Tribble revives, which has been dead all along. At 2.28 they put Kirk in a cryo-tube to stop the decaying of his brain - but the blood truly "revived" his dead body)


Anyway, all of this was discussed already plenty, and has not much to do with this thread. It just serves as a reminder of the myriad of problems that plagued Into Darkness, and why it was necessary for Beyond to ignore almost everything that happened in it. But also why Beyond then felt so disjointed from what has had happened before, and why that leaves a potential next Star Trek movie in a bit of a mess, plotwise. The filmmakers simply wrote themselves into a corner there.