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Abrams: ST is silly and ridiculous

So Abrams rises to the challenge of making something realistic and not at all like Galaxy Quest ... by making everything look like something out of Galaxy Quest? :wtf: I half expect some of the crewmembers to start sprouting tenticles...
 
That's not at all what he was saying. He implied that OTHER scifi is doable, but that Trek was a challenge because to start out it's "silly and ridiculous".
Did he really?
Did he not?
I don't think so, no, and your argument so far has been less than convincing.

Besides, isn't insisting that you know exactly what he really meant the same thing you're telling someone else they can't do, based on something you said right here?
...

I did understand what he said, and you don't know my thoughts down to the marrow at this very moment, do you? So how can you say what I did or didn't fully understand.

...
You can't have it both ways.

Also, that exaggeratedly fragmented posting style you've been (over-)using lately is getting a little annoying. I can see it being used in small doses effectively, but in the lengthy stretches you've been employing, it begins to look a little too much like taunting. Or, as it was employed by another poster in this thread, like complete nonsense.

I'd suggest losing it in favor of a more direct and clear format.
 
A self-confessed Star Wars fan who thinks Trek is silly?

Many ST fans have complained right here that their family and friends scoff at ST because it's silly and ridiculous. If JJ can please them then the size of the fanbase will grow.

We would have roasted B&B alive for making comments like that when ENT was in production.
They did get roasted alive. People called them "the idiots in charge".

Berman once called Andorians "hokey" and "stuck in the 60s" and ordered TNG's "Conspiracy" to be rewritten to remove the Andorian character and make him a Bolian.

But Abrams' arrogant comments do give me pause.
They will sound as arrogant as the journalist wishes to make them. JJ may just as likely have said it in jest, or was quoting what he's heard members of the general public say, or that parts of ST are "silly" and "ridiculous". And that'd be right.

Trek is Trek. Wars is Wars. Neither needs to be like the other.
SW is incredibly popular with young people. ST needs young fans, as the old ones have moved into a new demographic.
 
What can't we, the movies supporters, understand? The fact that some people seemed to think a $200 Million dollar movie in 2008 would look like a 1960's TV show? Cause thats why I keep hearing and laughing at.

Could the bridge have looked as much like the original as the uniforms do?

Did it have to be changed as much as it seems it will?
 
What can't we, the movies supporters, understand? The fact that some people seemed to think a $200 Million dollar movie in 2008 would look like a 1960's TV show? Cause thats why I keep hearing and laughing at.

Could the bridge have looked as much like the original as the uniforms do?

Did it have to be changed as much as it seems it will?

Judging by your avatar, your signature, and your worrying tendency to scour the forum for some more words to remove from their context and blow out of all proportion, it's clear you've lost all perspective and have let this film ruin your life.

Tried going cold turkey? It might help.

Just sayin :)
 
I can accept this as adifferent version of TOS but it should not be called a cononic prequil, that is all.

Let's just say JJ had stated in a media release that this film was not a "canonical prequel", and when it came out fans realised that nothing in the story clashed with existing canon. Then we'd have people saying that JJ lied to the fanbase and made us think that this new film was a complete reboot when, in fact, the story fits with the existing timeline perfectly.
 
What can't we, the movies supporters, understand? The fact that some people seemed to think a $200 Million dollar movie in 2008 would look like a 1960's TV show? Cause thats why I keep hearing and laughing at.

Could the bridge have looked as much like the original as the uniforms do?

Did it have to be changed as much as it seems it will?

Yes, it did. The bridge needed to be drastically updated to appear "futuristic" to the modern auidence. As it appears in TOS, it is seriously backward so far as an honest depiction of our future. The nature of the interfaces and displays are firmly rooted in the 60's. On a day-to-day basis, we utilise technology that appears far more advanced than the knobs, switches and dials seen on TOS. To the audiences of 1966, the design may have seemed adequate to suspend disbelief. Today? When we have items such as iPhones? Nope. Not a chance.

It's a matter of perspective.
 
I'm often reminded of the following From the below article

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2004/12/fandamentalism.html

Fandamentalist n. fans who violently believe the only valid interpretation of any entertainment source is a dogmatic adherence to their favorite version of that source. Any change to the smallest detail is inherently unacceptable (see also "heresy") and met with frantic scorn. See also Hal Jordan and Klingons, bumpy vs, smooth.


The defence rests your honor...
 
A little perspective, guys: sci-fi is inherently silly. Fantasy is silly. Escapism is silly. And that's what makes it worthwhile. Silly means you're able to think in very unorthodox ways and not be bogged down by the unoriginal. Silly means you're willing to explore things that few others would....


That's not at all what he was saying. He implied that OTHER scifi is doable, but that Trek was a challenge because to start out it's "silly and ridiculous".

Actually, I'd say that's exactly why he would do it. If other scifi is doable, then what's the challenge? If something is doable, then it's pretty boring. How about going for a challenge? If you really love something, you tend to push it to its limits. If you think about it, much of Trek's best episodes and movies are stories that really really pushed the envelope, as there was nothing like it before. Something innovative. The creators didn't go for what was "doable," they didn't go for "safe," they took risks and tried something different and unique and, dare I say, silly. What TNG did to Picard/Locutus, TOS would never do to Kirk, for example (which also shows that sometimes Trek innovates itself, but it always do so by going beyond the established).

Do we really want Abrams to safe and stable and stale? That route sure didn't help the last couple movies, or a season or two of Enterprise.
 
"For me, the costumes were a microcosm of the entire project, which was how to take something that's kind of silly and make it feel real. But how do you make legitimate those near-primary colour costumes? How do you make legitimate the pointy ears and the bowl haircut? It's ridiculous and as potentially cliched as it gets. How do you watch Galaxy Quest and then go make a Star Trek movie?"

J.J. Abrams on Trek, from Empire Magazine Website (http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=23519)

To chime in here, Abrams, imnsho, is acknowledging Trek's kitsch qualities. Simple as that.
 
Re-read that quote. It is only about how TOS looks are dated and would look "silly" to modern audiences and the new viewers they're trying to lure. He doesn't say the stories were silly. Or the characters were silly. Just the looks. The '60s esthetics. Even Roddenberry realized he couldn't just put the sets and models from the show and put them on the big screen.

And "Galaxy Quest" mocked the whole Star Trek paradigm... So his challenge is to make a Trek movie that doesn't come off like, say, the awful Starsky & Hutch movie. He wants to make a "serious" Trek movie, not a parody of the original that makes people feel like they're watching Saturday Night Live.

Get over your indignation and actually read what Abrams said.

Amen...


Does everything we say feed their paranoid delusion? Is the best thing to let them have their delusion of Abrams destroying TOS?

Seems like it's a yes and yes...
 
Whenever I read that quote it always says to me that hes saying things like the costumes and the bright colours are silly.

For a group of fans who love to critisise and scrutinise all of the little details why do you find it so bad that someone else does it, or does his and millions of other peoples opinions not matter in the slightest because they have confessed 'not' to be fans.
 
Whenever I read that quote it always says to me that hes saying things like the costumes and the bright colours are silly.

For a group of fans who love to critisise and scrutinise all of the little details why do you find it so bad that someone else does it, or does his and millions of other peoples opinions not matter in the slightest because they have confessed 'not' to be fans.
It's no secret that a lot of these obsessed fanboys and fangirls have an extreme sense of entitlement when in it comes to Star Trek, particularly TOS.
 
It wasn't in relation to Trek, but this is probably the truest thing I've ever
heard, I wish I could remember who said it.

"If you want to grow your audience you have to betray your current audience..."

The reasoning: "Because you have to change what you're doing to expand
your audience... and that's scary for us because as we change it someone's
gonna get pissed off."

In a sense it's a cleaning of house, something Trek has needed for years and it's finaly here. :)
 
Well... it was.

You can like the show all you want, but explain how travelling thousands of light years from Earth to recreate the O.K Corral isn't silly or ridiculous.
Gastrof, give it up, they can't understand. My real queation is how many so called sequals are they going to do ? They seem to be all ready to do another one. But to tell you the truth, I'm not troubled, if they think they can negate and run over Star Trek, let them try. They'll just be two Star Treks - the movie versions and the t.v. series.

What can't we, the movies supporters, understand? The fact that some people seemed to think a $200 Million dollar movie in 2008 would look like a 1960's TV show? Cause thats why I keep hearing and laughing at.

I was about to say the exact same thing. Not agreeing isn't the same as not understanding. I think us, the supporters, do understand exactly what the nay-sayers mean.... we just don't happen to agree.

And oh, I am a huge Trek fan, I like all the series and I own all films on dvd, just for the record... and as much as I love TOS, I too think it's a bit silly and that the 60s look would fail miserably were it brought to the big screen today. Miserably.

It was great then, and I love watching it still. It would not be okay nowadays, and that's that. Changing the bridge doesn't negate anything that's come before, I honestly don't see why that's so upsetting to some of you. Really.
 
:brickwall:It's like watching a dog chase its tail.

Is that what you're doing?

Funny how someone expressing sincere feelings strikes you that way, but you expressing yours...

Should others view you the same way?

Are you being respectful, or trying to silence someone when you just don't care for their point of view?

I'm a little unclear on what your post means.
It means several things.

One--your INTERPRETATION of what Abrams said is flawed and demonstrates that you are looking for "insults" that are not there. Within the context of the intended audience for his statement, as well as the context of trying to revive a moribund franchise, his statements make a reasonable point. If he WAS making something other than a Trek film and he chose to give the characters those costume colours--it would be seen as silly by movie-goers (it may yet be so anyway). The bowl haircut--same deal. And after Galaxy Quest, it IS more difficult to make a "straight" TOS-era Trek movie (hell, it became more difficult after Ackroyd and Belushi in the 70s). He is expressing his concern with the challenges of keeping the "silly bits" and succeeding in making a "straight" Trek film--legitimate concerns to someone in the "real world" of filmmaking. If that pisses off an anally retentive minority that thinks of itself as the "guardians of true Trek" or some such nonsense--too bad. He has more than a few hundred OCD afflicted "trekkies" as his principal audience in mind.

It also means you keep repeating, over and over, based on a statement (the context of which you are either ignoring or not understanding) that Abrams is not a "true fan". Who made you the arbiter of fandom? There are more intense and less intense fans, obviously, and he has NEVER stated that he is a hardcore fan. And that is more than fine--I want a competent filmmaker to make a film, not a hardcore fan who thinks he speaks for "fandom" (unless he also happened to be a competent filmmaker--and even then, I'd prefer it if he'd focus on filmmaking first, thank you).

You are entitled to your opinions--as is everyone. I respect everyone's right to express an opinion. The opinion itself, however, does not automatically merit respect. It has to earn it. So far, the "Abrams hates Trek" opinion is without foundation and thus does NOT merit respect.
 
Oh god. So, in order to like something, I have to like everything about it? Here's something. I'm a fan of Star Trek. I am fan of about 20% of the stories, I think the other 80% are crap. I think the sets and design are pretty crap by today's standards. Bowl-cuts and primary coloured costumes are ridiculous and silly. The stories that really shine, the times the dialog really works between the characters - those episodes that rise above TOS's inherent silliness and camp - are what make me a fan of the series.

Since I can't improve on this I'll just say, agreed.
 
ST is silly and ridiculous
Well... it was.

You can like the show all you want, but explain how travelling thousands of light years from Earth to recreate the O.K Corral isn't silly or ridiculous.

Wasn't that a story element, rather than part of set and costume design?


Well... it was.

You can like the show all you want, but explain how travelling thousands of light years from Earth to recreate the O.K Corral isn't silly or ridiculous.
Gastrof, give it up, they can't understand. My real queation is how many so called sequals are they going to do ? They seem to be all ready to do another one. But to tell you the truth, I'm not troubled, if they think they can negate and run over Star Trek, let them try. They'll just be two Star Treks - the movie versions and the t.v. series.

Umm...I didn't say either quote. :confused:

As for your point, I'm not going to stop the film. I know that.

I'm going to see the film. I want to.

I'm disappointed they SEEM to have the intention of making the existing TOS era invalid. and I'm still hoping there's a way to make this new thing still be a part of the ongoing story we already have.

Time will tell, but it WOULD have been possible to make a bridge that looks as much like the original as the uniforms do, and still make it work for today's audience.

That's a given.

Why didn't they? :(

Nothing from 1960's tv would work now.

Not even the god damned Batman. Which had the same look and feel and wasn't even set in the future..
 
Robert Wise didn't need to be familiar with TOS because he had the show's goddamned creator and executive producer producing ST:TMP! Jeezus. :rolleyes:

TGT

While I understand what you're getting at, I don't know about that. Stuart Baird and everyone involved with the Nemesis production acknoledged that he had no clue about Star Trek whatsoever, and that turned out to be a huge mistake of massive proportions. The idea was to introduce fresh blood, but it was fresh blood that didn't care to learn about, do his research on, or try to understand anything having to do with the massive franchise he was entering.

He didn't know the characters, didn't understand them, didnt care to understand them, didn't understand the world or the message or anything. He thought Geordi LaForge was an alien. Rick Berman produced Nemesis but the Director had ultimate power to change/veto things. And turned it into a mess.

I know, I opened a can of worms here, no debates about what sank Nemesis please, I'm just saying that's up for debate.
 
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