Star Trek 4 Reportedly Shelved

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies: Kelvin Universe' started by PixelMagic, Jan 8, 2019.

  1. DarKush

    DarKush Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I'm of the opinion that Trek works best on television. That's where it started, and that's the format that allows for it to do the kind of storytelling that allows for greater exploration of characters, as well as social and scientific issues, that a film franchise-especially one with blockbuster ambitions-just can't allow. Star Wars, started as a film franchise, provides that kind of big, sweeping, mythic, action-adventure (and back in the day, not every year) that makes it work better as a blockbuster. Star Trek is more nuanced, more deliberative, and a television series allows for that better than a film franchise.

    I definitely get why the Kelvin films pushed big action, big emotions, big special effects, because they had to, and for the most part, they did them well, but it was going to be hard to get the kind of stories the television show did well in blockbuster films. (I liked the Kelvin universe. But at the same time I feared even before the reboot became a reality that the focus would be on making popcorn entertainment at the expense of the deeper kind of character development or scientific/social exploration of the various series. Not every Trek episode was some deep intellectual thing to be honest, but it was a mix of the profound and the less profound. It's harder to pull that balance off in a blockbuster franchise).

    I don't think as much Trek as possible is necessarily a good thing. I certainly am okay with the Picard show in theory, iffy on the new animated cartoon (though I've long wanted them to do a cartoon that could potentially broaden the audience, but I was thinking something more along the lines of an action-adventure cartoon like Cartoon Network's Clone Wars or Justice League), and would like to see what the crews from the previous Treks have been up to, but I don't like the idea of overdoing it, because that could lead to Trek fatigue. I think Star Wars is starting to feel some fatigue now, and had to change its every movie a year plan because it was just too much and would lead (or IMO did lead) to poorer offerings.
     
  2. DarKush

    DarKush Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    True, but it does provide an opportunity to rearrange them in interesting and new ways, to play around with them, and give the audience a fresh insight into these characters. Trek '09 did this in a way that it felt fresher, like we were on the verge of seeing a new take on Trek, even though it remixed familiar characters and tropes to do it. A brilliant way to do something new while also adhering to what had come before. (I wasn't expecting Spock-Uhura, but it worked. Kirk and Spock butting heads worked. The destruction of both Romulus and Vulcan worked for me as well. The 2009 film shook things up, but still kept things pretty true to the spirit of what came before).

    Into Darkness mangled that. While it did do some new things with Khan, Carol Marcus, Kirk, and Pike, it didn't do them well enough, and it eventually just started taking things verbatim from The Wrath of Khan, a sign to me of it's creative bankruptcy. And that sucks too because the idea of Khan working for Section 31 is not a bad idea, but how that was often portrayed was off. I was watching some of Into Darkness last night and that's just not Khan. Cumberbatch is a good actor, that's a good villain for the story, but it isn't Khan. I don't think Into Darkness got the spirit of Khan right, and to some extent just repeated the character beats for Kirk and Uhura in particular from the 2009 film.

    Beyond did a better job spreading the wealth when it came to putting more spotlight on the other characters, though I feel Sulu and Uhura got put to the side to focus on Jaylah. Jaylah was a good addition to the Kelvin/Trek universe, but looking back, having Uhura and/or Sulu talking/debating with Krall could've fleshed out that character and explored his motivations more and provided the intellectual grist for the film. As it stands, Krall, despite a solid performance from Elba and a cool look and backstory, just became yet another Trek revenge seeking villain with a superweapon of doom. It was good Earth wasn't in danger this time, but that starbase was basically an Earth-stand in.

    The blockbuster pretensions seemed to constrict the kind of stories Paramount was willing to pay for and Bad Robot felt able to tell, IMO. And that sucks because I was very impressed with how well cast the Kelvin series's crew was. Long before the reboot I didn't think the magic of the TOS crew could be recreated, and while it wasn't quite recreated, they got pretty darn close, and I liked this crew, and wished to see more of them, though Into Darkness especially soured some of my interest, but I was still there for Beyond, which was a nice film, but not a game changer.

    I still would like to see the Kelvin universe live on, but as I've written before, I'm okay with more comics and some novels. An All Access series set in the Kelvin universe would be fine as well.
     
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  3. Qonundrum

    Qonundrum Vice Admiral Admiral

    2/3rds of which were easily superficially fishy... :rommie: (nothing to do with the nonsense of "they keeled me childhood", but modern sci-fi writers could take a few cues from the people who write 'The Orville" in terms of tighter, more compelling storylines that have deeper characters that rely on other than the most superficial stereotypes and nostalgia.)
     
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  4. picardjean-luc

    picardjean-luc Captain Captain

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    "The Orville's" definitely one of them:hugegrin:;);). IMO it's success can be attributed to the fact that it keeps the spirit of classic Trek such as exploration, discovery, and promoting understanding between different species, while adding humor and exploring new issues classic Trek series were unable or unwilling to address in depth (last week's 'Primal Urges' is one example).

    I also look forward to the new Picard series. However, I'm of two minds about it. While excited about an old childhood favorite returning (and I admire Sir Pat's acting), I'm also concerned that once again, the show-runners is going to screw it up, just like STD and the last two JJ Trek movies :confused::confused:.

    I guess the jury's out whether CBSAA's plan to have "year-round" Trek with 5 to 7 separate series screened at different times going to excite the fan base or whether it'll only make old-schooled Trekkies tuned out due to fatigue, while failing to bring in new fan base to keep the franchise thriving and the $$$ coming...
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2019
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  5. picardjean-luc

    picardjean-luc Captain Captain

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    Great. Another Trek movie with dark storylines, uncensored profanities, and lots of blood and gore :confused::confused:.

    Sorry to say this, but Gene Roddenberry would've rolled on his grave if this pilot ever comes unto fruition :confused::confused::confused:
     
  6. Malaika

    Malaika Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Honestly, I don't care about TV trek right now.
    I'm over the prime reality, I already got more than a show and plenty of movies about it so I'm at peace with it and I don't need it to give me anything else because I already got so much from that reality. I may even watch new things still but a part of me is default unimpressed.
    I wanted to see more of this reality because that has more potential to me, and I wanted to see more of these characters we barely know still. This cast deserved better and I can't help but feel like both them and the fans of these movies got the short end of the stick.
    Irony is that discovery seems to want to be kelvin trek so badly but it's stuck in retconning prime trek and tos Spock' story (And people complained about his alternate self being in love with Uhura. I'd hope they get some perspective about kelvin trek now because for all its faults, it developed the 'what if' factor in the most respectful way by making this another reality instead of a tos retcon. You can't get a more respectful reboot than that, in that sense they are placating old fans since day one)
    I honestly think that discovery was made in large part because of the success of this trek.
    Now Kurtzman is essentially trying to do with TV trek what JJ had wanted to do with this trek but they wouldn't let him (he wanted to make it a cinematic universe with spin offs and TV shows featuring this reality).

    In the end, the studio had always been the biggest problem. Paramount is one of the most obtuse and unreliable studios ever. They wasted their own successful thing where other studios would've probably done much more with it. They are hopeless.
     
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  7. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Agree to disagree. I'll take Kirk and Spock's arc and the characters in Kelvin Trek over a lot of modern scifi.

    Orville has its moments, but it hasn't compelled me.
    Depends on whether it made money or not.
     
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  8. BurnhamAll

    BurnhamAll Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    No it's not.
     
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  9. BurnhamAll

    BurnhamAll Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    There was no problem with the release date, STID made TONS of money. Highest grossing Trek film of all time. The problem was that the film wasn't well-liked.
     
  10. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    It really, really didn't. I've seen this so many places I wonder if people actually watched the movie or are just parroting what they've heard online.
     
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  11. MakeshiftPython

    MakeshiftPython Commodore Commodore

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    I think it’s simply that recreating the radiation chamber sequence and with dialogue lifted was simply too much for some fans. You can argue it’s just a three minutes, but it’s a pretty pivotal three minutes for them.

    I think the grossest example was SUPERMAN RETURNS repurposing plot points and dialogue. STID never went that far thankfully.
     
  12. BurnhamAll

    BurnhamAll Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    This I'd agree with. I think their first mistake was focusing too much on the action and FX than the characters. There was a lot of potential in that story, derailed by a focus on big set pieces.

    The problem for me with that film (and I enjoy it) is that the story doesn't make a lot of logical sense. One more draft could have easily fixed that, and it's astounding to me that with 4 years in between films they couldn't get the story any tighter.

    This has ALWAYS been true as far back as TMP and one of the reasons I'd agree that Trek works best episodically.
     
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  13. BurnhamAll

    BurnhamAll Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    For example, the story should not have been about Khan being used as a weapon by S31. The story should have been about S31 *trying* to use him as a weapon in the budding war against the Klingons, but Khan-- being Khan-- outsmarts them, and runs amok. S31 tries to sweep the whole thing under the rug, but it's too late, and Kirk ends up unknowingly uncovering the whole thing, coming into conflict with Khan, Marcus/S31, and the Klingons, but ultimately averts a war.

    There's a message in STID about the danger of military overreach, and provides a more clear opportunity for a different, but more powerful current-events-related message: a statement on the use of foreign insurgents as allies, such as the Taliban, who we trained and funded in the 80s against the Soviets.
     
  14. WarpFactorZ

    WarpFactorZ Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Um.... That's exactly what happens in STiD.
     
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  15. BurnhamAll

    BurnhamAll Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    No. The movie is about the conflict, and makes Khan look like a chump. What I'm suggesting is opening the movie with S31 having utterly failed at manipulating Khan, and trying to cover it up, rather than trying to start a war with the Klingons.
     
  16. Qonundrum

    Qonundrum Vice Admiral Admiral

    I hear ya, on all counts - and, yeah, Kelvin Trek is better than others...

    Orville does have its problems, and I can see why it wouldn't be compelling to more people. Especially on some episodes more than others. And I'll admit, even some of the sci-fi that fares worse than the Kelvin movies are trying something original and less partial-rehash in what Orville has done... And Orville's CGI is great if it were made a decade ago when TOS-R was done. They're not entirely off-putting but they're almost bare bones,
     
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  17. CorporalClegg

    CorporalClegg Admiral Admiral

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    Too bad for him, then.

    Pro tip: invoking The Almighty Gene doesn't win one a lot of brownie points around here.
     
  18. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    The Orville actually uses physical models and CGI. And I find the effects work is superior to what we've gotten from Discovery, so far.
     
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  19. PixelMagic

    PixelMagic Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I know people who do VFX for The Orville. I assure you the physical model shots are extremely limited. It was mainly because A) Seth thought it was cool do to models, so he wanted to. B) To use it as a "practical effects omg!" marketing gimic.

    There are 2-3 stock shots of Orville flybys done with the physical model, but 90%+ is all CG. As I've stated before, CGI starships can match and surpass the realism of physical models if enough time and talent is put into it.
     
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  20. mos6507

    mos6507 Commodore Commodore

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    IMHO, that's a whole different animal.

    When JJ started he had become the new official caretaker of the Star Trek franchise. The Pope, basically. Therefore the stakes are higher. That's why when he rammed his aesthetic (i.e. lens flare, pulse-phasers, brewery engine room) and other sensibilities into Trek it felt sort of out of place. Alex Kurtzman has carried over much of what JJ started in Discovery which now feels like a permanent pollution of the Prime timeline.

    The Tarantino film on the other hand would be a one-off. He comes in, does his thing, and leaves. There would be no need to reconcile it against canon. It's an experiment.

    The thing is, Tarantino had been in talks with Bad Robot. It sounded like they wanted to do this on the cheap by having it sort of be an alternate alternate universe and leverage the existing sets, assets, and talent. If they let Bad Robot go they will probably also have to strike the sets and any Tarantino movie would have to spool up tabula rasa and I don't think Paramount has the cash for it these days.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2019