Moments that really made you cringe or disliked

[trevanian]

If lensflares make you that upset, why do you bother leaving the house or turning on your TV?

Lens flares CAN be beautiful, when used with a light/smart touch, like DIE HARD. But not when you use them like a strobe light. That's like including a zoom in every camera shot to give some idea of motion when nothing is happening, amateurish and a pretty tragic disregard of film language.

 

[Sci]

1. The future bright thing sounds like lip service to 'technology unchained,' GR's thing about tech being so good that things can just look nice ... function can be fit into any nice form. THAT is entirely counter to the Abrams engine room.

So, in other words, you're claiming that it's inconsistent with an entirely separate concept ("clean-looking technology unchained") that you happen to associate with the idea of a brighter future, but which is not inherently linked to the idea of a brighter future.

In other words, you prefer a particular design aesthetic and will try to claim that other design aesthetics are illegitimate. Gotcha.

3. If you can handle the 'starship built on earth' angle happening in the STAR TREK universe (ANY star trek universe), then I'm talking to somebody who is not from my neck of the woods. So I'm through.

Why not? Federation starships are already capable of generating enough energy to negate the effects of gravity (for example, the Enterprise NX-01 flying above New York in "Storm Front, Part II," the U.S.S. Voyager landing and taking off) and of negating the effects of inertia itself in order to allow a ship to reach high percentages of lightspeed while on impulse power without being crushed by the G-forces of that kind of acceleration.

When ships are already able to do that, why couldn't they be built on the ground?

And for anyone who felt, as I did, that filming the engine rooms in breweries was a bad idea, you might be interested in this quote from ST09 Production Designer Scott Chambliss:

Those were choices based on the circumstance we were in with the budget. Both engine rooms were designed to be massive entire sound-stage filling sets that did not look at all what you saw on screen. But the realities of what we had to deal with made JJ And I go "okay, let’s find a location that has got to have huge scale…and see what we can find." I think that is the most vivid case where our original intention had to be modified to fit our budget circumstance.

ETA:

Amusingly enough, they have a built-in plot excuse for building a new, large engineering set for the next film: After ejecting all those matter/anti-matter reaction pods (interesting that their warp system uses multiple reaction pods instead of one large reaction pod as in TMP and TNG/DS9/VOY), they might already need a refit!

 

[number6]

If lensflares make you that upset, why do you bother leaving the house or turning on your TV?

Lens flares CAN be beautiful, when used with a light/smart touch, like DIE HARD. But not when you use them like a strobe light. That's like including a zoom in every camera shot to give some idea of motion when nothing is happening, amateurish and a pretty tragic disregard of film language.

Except they weren't used like a strobe light. I actually saw this film.

Film language evolves. This film may not be to your liking, but it's hardly amateur. The film doesn't fit your aesthetic. Maybe you should make one for us to judge, since you seem to know how to do it so much better.

 

[Cryogenic]

The TUC conference table is an ingenious and cheap solution for a movie that had more money problems than can easily be dealt with here

Yes, absolutely! And an ingenuity that's alien to the makers of STXI.

...the overblown engineering scenes in STXI, which primarily, to my way of thinking, exist to accentuate the film's very antithetical (not to mention anachronistic) "steam punk" look

As a lifelong goth/industrial musician who has three friends currently in a popular Los Angeles area steampunk band, I am pretty well versed on the steampunk aesthetic. I can assure you that filming in a brewery is not steampunk.

I think my citation is relatively accurate. Like most aesthetic movements, steampunk is quite subjective and very broad. Maybe "industropunk" or some variation thereof would be better, but I think my point can still be grasped. Abrams and his team did their level best to give ST a grungy, clangy, fetid look, totally contrary to the "future history" of ST, which, combined with the shaky camera work, now makes it feel more like Ronald Moore's reworking of "Battlestar Galactica", or Joss Whedon's short-lived "Firefly", than GR's inspiring parable of exploration and innovation. Then there are all the 20th Century-isms, from minutiae like cars and motorbikes, to characters saying things like, "Hi!" and, "Are you nuts?" but that's another discussion. Industropunk...

Flexible ribbed pipes (i.e. vacuum cleaner pipes) draped clumsily over the edges of shuttlecraft? Check. Errant patches of water in 23rd Century shuttle bay hangars (and 24th Century Romulan mining vessels)? Check. Painted walls made of bricks? Check. Fluorescent lighting and flip switches? Check. Scratched hulls, bars, boxes and other metal items? Check. Red and yellow industrial signage on hazardous edges? Check. Heavy beams and pipes with visible nuts and bolts? Check. And ALL a part of Starfleet, which has NEVER had these attributes before (barring Nick Meyer's equally stupid 20th Century kitchen look in STVI). Even the film's logo is completely ludicrous: a scorched metal 3D rotating monstrosity that's a total rip-off of Michael Bay's "Transformers" (the one *in* the film, after the teaser). Coincidence?

http://chrisallensite.com/wordpress/images/poster_transformers_new1.jpg

And for anyone who felt, as I did, that filming the engine rooms in breweries was a bad idea, you might be interested in this quote from ST09 Production Designer Scott Chambliss:

Those were choices based on the circumstance we were in with the budget. Both engine rooms were designed to be massive entire sound-stage filling sets that did not look at all what you saw on screen. But the realities of what we had to deal with made JJ And I go "okay, let’s find a location that has got to have huge scale…and see what we can find." I think that is the most vivid case where our original intention had to be modified to fit our budget circumstance.

What a load of horse sh*t! They had a production budget of $150 million, the highest in Trek movie history (TMP, adjusted for inflation, cost approx $100 million, so they were playing with 50% more than a film that's often accused of being wildly expensive and a bloated mess). To put this into a modern context, each LOTR movie and Star Wars prequel cost around $90 million and $120 million respectively. This film was NOT cheap. Yet they ran out of money to build at least one set for Main Engineering, one of the most iconic places on board the Enterprise, in a film meant to relaunch ST? Words fails me.

Anyway, thanks for the link. From the same page:

Things wrapped up with some audience Q&A followed by a special credits reel made by Mike Okuda, crediting everyone who worked in the art department on Star Trek over the years, followed by a very candid unaired interview with the late Harold Michelson, Production Designer on Star Trek The Motion Picture.

Video for the evening, both the panel as well as the clips shown, will be made available by the Art Director’s Guild in October. The above is only a small taste of the full event which went on for around 2 hours, so when the video is available TrekMovie will post it.

*squee*

 

[trevanian]

If lensflares make you that upset, why do you bother leaving the house or turning on your TV?

Lens flares CAN be beautiful, when used with a light/smart touch, like DIE HARD. But not when you use them like a strobe light. That's like including a zoom in every camera shot to give some idea of motion when nothing is happening, amateurish and a pretty tragic disregard of film language.

Except they weren't used like a strobe light. I actually saw this film.

Film language evolves. This film may not be to your liking, but it's hardly amateur. The film doesn't fit your aesthetic. Maybe you should make one for us to judge, since you seem to know how to do it so much better.

You going to give me 15mil to do a down and dirty indy flick? Fine, I can use an existing script of mine, something I actually shot part of before spending myself broke on it in the 90s. The results would blast your socks up off your toes so the tubes slide up and become thigh-wedgies (probably creating a striking new fashion look for you in the process.)

Film language DOES evolve; however, what is present here (in the 7min I've seen online and in ads) is a massive step backward, not sideways or forward, in visual communication.

This ain't Welles in TOUCH OF EVIL using lenses everybody else would be afraid of, this is more like Richard Rush (a good filmmaker at times) making a huge movie-long error with rack focus in GETTING STRAIGHT.

 

[JarodRussell]

Yeah, those guys saying "Why don't you do it better" are idiots, unless they give away the actual money to be able to do it better. I'm sure there are many guys around here who would have been able to write a much better script (either from scratch, or as a revision of the Orci draft), and many who would have been able to direct a far superior movie with that budget.

 

[number6]

Lens flares CAN be beautiful, when used with a light/smart touch, like DIE HARD. But not when you use them like a strobe light. That's like including a zoom in every camera shot to give some idea of motion when nothing is happening, amateurish and a pretty tragic disregard of film language.

Except they weren't used like a strobe light. I actually saw this film.

Film language evolves. This film may not be to your liking, but it's hardly amateur. The film doesn't fit your aesthetic. Maybe you should make one for us to judge, since you seem to know how to do it so much better.

You going to give me 15mil to do a down and dirty indy flick? Fine, I can use an existing script of mine, something I actually shot part of before spending myself broke on it in the 90s. The results would blast your socks up off your toes so the tubes slide up and become thigh-wedgies (probably creating a striking new fashion look for you in the process.)

Film language DOES evolve; however, what is present here (in the 7min I've seen online and in ads) is a massive step backward, not sideways or forward, in visual communication.

This ain't Welles in TOUCH OF EVIL using lenses everybody else would be afraid of, this is more like Richard Rush (a good filmmaker at times) making a huge movie-long error with rack focus in GETTING STRAIGHT.

Where do you get the idea that I need to give you money to be a genius film maker? ...And you have the gall to tell me you're just going to give me some random garbage you did 20 years ago and assume it's going to "blow my socks up my toes." That's not how it works. If you want to make all these high and mighty proclaimations about your utter brilliance, why not post a link to something you've done.. C'mon.. Surely you can give us a youtube link or something.

And for the love of God, stop it with the name dropping. It makes you look cheap!

 

[Cryogenic]

Lens flares can be artistic, naturally. But they can also be abused/overdone. Like anything. I think there's an attraction to flares and a tendency to overdo them. Here are a couple I took with my phone's cheap camera recently:

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/0Cryogenic0/?action=view&current=nature_1.jpg

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/0Cryogenic0/?action=view&current=nature_2.jpg

 

[number6]

Yeah, those guys saying "Why don't you do it better" are idiots, unless they give away the actual money to be able to do it better. I'm sure there are many guys around here who would have been able to write a much better script (either from scratch, or as a revision of the Orci draft), and many who would have been able to direct a far superior movie with that budget.

Insults aside..

I think my point here is that many fans here think they could write a script, or direct a movie, but the fact is that instead of doing something brilliant, they're simply here bitching about it. They didn't get the gig, nor do they really deserve it, and they want to use teh intrawebs as their bully pulpit to tell everyone else how it all should have been done. I don't think any one of these "armchair" hotshots would last a day on a film set, otherwise we would have heard about their exploits in Variety by now.

 

[JarodRussell]

Where do you get the idea that I need to give you money to be a genius film maker? ...And you have the gall to tell me you're just going to give me some random garbage you did 20 years ago and assume it's going to "blow my socks up my toes." That's not how it works. If you want to make all these high and mighty proclaimations about your utter brilliance, why not post a link to something you've done.. C'mon.. Surely you can give us a youtube link or something.

And for the love of God, stop it with the name dropping. It makes you look cheap!

LOL, you're nuts. You say "do it better than the 150 million movie you are criticizing", but at the same time you don't want to see how one needs money to actually make a movie. If you don't need money to make a movie, why is there so much money spent on making movies? Why do youtube videos taken with a home video camera worse than a Hollywood production? Right, because of the money.
There's a line where talent can't go any further unless there's a huge amount of money to let the talent live. You can't paint a picture without colors or a brush. You can't have an orchestra play your compositions if you can't afford the orchestra. And you can't do an good looking science fiction movie without a budget just based on talent, sorry, but that's the truth.

 

[number6]

Lens flares can be artistic, naturally. But they can also be abused/overdone. Like anything. I think there's an attraction to flares and a tendency to overdo them. Here are a couple I took with my phone's cheap camera recently:

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/0Cryogenic0/?action=view&current=nature_1.jpg

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/0Cryogenic0/?action=view&current=nature_2.jpg

So what? Anyone who has actually seen the film hardly notices the lens flares.

You were doing a better job with all that "industropunk" stuff.

Did you just make that up?

 

[JarodRussell]

Interesting, where did your post go that I just quoted? *edit* Ah, nevermind, found it.

 

[trevanian]

Yeah, those guys saying "Why don't you do it better" are idiots, unless they give away the actual money to be able to do it better. I'm sure there are many guys around here who would have been able to write a much better script (either from scratch, or as a revision of the Orci draft), and many who would have been able to direct a far superior movie with that budget.

Insults aside..

I think my point here is that many fans here think they could write a script, or direct a movie, but the fact is that instead of doing something brilliant, they're simply here bitching about it. They didn't get the gig, nor do they really deserve it, and they want to use teh intrawebs as their bully pulpit to tell everyone else how it all should have been done. I don't think any one of these "armchair" hotshots would last a day on a film set, otherwise we would have heard about their exploits in Variety by now.

That's a lot of crap, and you're much more the fool than I ever thought if you don't realize it deep down. Plenty of people don't 'make it' or 'catch on' regardless of talent. It could be money, it could be leaving town or the industry to take care of a sick relative (Robin Curtis springs to mind) ... hell, I remember John Carpenter mentioning often in articles that the best filmmaker he ever knew couldn't ever break in. (and no, numbthoughts, that isn't namedropping as you put it, that is INFORMATION ... you know, 'we want information.')

But the difference is that I did try for more than 15 years, while holding down fulltime work and taking care of other people. And I still work on the non-spendy (i.e. spec writing) end when time allows. So I don't have anything to prove to myself in this regard, and in terms of proving anything to you ... get real, bub. You want something of mine other than what you see here, you pay for it. And if you don't like what you see here, there's some kind of ignore function, isn't there?

 

[number6]

Where do you get the idea that I need to give you money to be a genius film maker? ...And you have the gall to tell me you're just going to give me some random garbage you did 20 years ago and assume it's going to "blow my socks up my toes." That's not how it works. If you want to make all these high and mighty proclaimations about your utter brilliance, why not post a link to something you've done.. C'mon.. Surely you can give us a youtube link or something.

And for the love of God, stop it with the name dropping. It makes you look cheap!

LOL, you're nuts. You say "do it better than the 150 million movie you are criticizing", but at the same time you don't want to see how one needs money to actually make a movie. If you don't need money to make a movie, why is there so much money spent on making movies? Why do youtube videos taken with a home video camera worse than a Hollywood production? Right, because of the money.
There's a line where talent can't go any further unless there's a huge amount of money to let the talent live. You can't paint a picture without colors or a brush. You can't have an orchestra play your compositions if you can't afford the orchestra. And you can't do an good looking science fiction movie without a budget just based on talent, sorry, but that's the truth.

So wait a sec. You're saying that in order for people to be truly creative and gifted they need a bucket of cash??

That's completely absurd.

All I am saying is, hey if you're so brilliant, show me what you've done that validates your claim.

If someone wanted to hear my recording skills or read my writings or see a performance, I would direct them to a website. Many of my friends who are amateur film makers have all kinds of stuff posted somewhere. Many musicians bypass the studio process completely and record their own albums at home. It doesn't take money to be talented, it takes talent to be talented. All this bluster from some fans about how they could do this and that so much better, and we never see a story, or a drawing, or a clip..

There was one guy who used to bitch about Enterprise and decided to put up his own story about how it should be done. You know what? Yeah, it was rubbish, it was over analytical, it was militarily accurate, it had all the tech explained, it had all the science.. It was boring. But AT LEAST HE DID SOMETHING!! Something that said, "Hey look at what I can do and tell me what you think."

You don't need a big wad of cash. You need an idea and the intestinal fortifude to show people what you're made of.

This is something I have yet to see from some of those people who think they know better.

 

[JarodRussell]

I'm sure that many of the actual Trek tie-in authors would have been able to write a much better script, for instance. But they simply haven't been asked. Making a movie has always been an unfair game actually, because there is only one movie, but thousands of talents. Who decides who gets the gig? Right, the producers. That's the business. But that doesn't mean that there is no one but Orci, Kurtzman, Abrams who are able to make a movie. MANY people would be able to make a great movie, if they were given the opportunity, budget and support. Not everyone, but a lot. That's just common sense.

So wait a sec. You're saying that in order for people to be truly creative and gifted they need a bucket of cash??

You are not listening. I said there is a line somewhere in between. You can just go so far and then you are forced to stop. You can be as talented as you want, but if you want to do a complex thing like a movie you can't just pull it out of your own ass. If you don't realize that, then I can't help you.

Of course there are many who would totally crash, because they are hacks. But there are also many who would actually do a great job.

 

[number6]

I'm sure that many of the actual Trek tie-in authors would have been able to write a much better script, for instance. But they simply haven't been asked. Making a movie has always been an unfair game actually, because there is only one movie, but thousands of talents. Who decides who gets the gig? Right, the producers. That's the business. But that doesn't mean that there is no one but Orci, Kurtzman, Abrams who are able to make a movie. MANY people would be able to make a great movie, if they were given the opportunity, budget and support. Not everyone, but a lot. That's just common sense.

Ok so where are the ideas, then??

Who would have written a better story and based on what?
Show me a link. Write an outline.. Show me a short story...

Don't tell me what "the business" is. I know. You obviously don't.

You are not listening. I said there is a line somewhere in between. You can just go so far and then you are forced to stop. You can be as talented as you want, but if you want to do a complex thing like a movie you can't just pull it out of your own ass. If you don't realize that, then I can't help you.

Of course there are many who would totally crash, because they are hacks. But there are also many who would actually do a great job.

Ok.. Name one.

You are totally missing the point. On the one hand there are all these talented people who know things, but then you tell me that they can't show me what they're good at without a whole bunch of money?? That's complete rubbish.

When someone says, "yeah I could do a better job with that film," they should be able to illustrate HOW. If it happens to be someone with a great deal of experience, then they should be able to show something. It's not like they wouldn't have a demo reel.

People who are dying for a chance to pitch their ideas have a portfolio, or a demo reel, or a website, or at least SOMETHING to show that they have real skills. Otherwise it is just mindless bluster. You can tell me about all these wonderfully talented people who just need a chance..Where were all these guys and gals, pitching their ideas, or showing storyboards, or writing outlines?? Who are all these brilliant, overlooked people you speak of??

 

[JarodRussell]

Ok so where are the ideas, then??

Who would have written a better story and based on what?
Show me a link. Write an outline.. Show me a short story...

Don't tell me what "the business" is. I know. You obviously don't.

Oh so this is the perfect movie now that no one could have made better? LOL. You are funny.

 

[number6]

Ok so where are the ideas, then??

Who would have written a better story and based on what?
Show me a link. Write an outline.. Show me a short story...

Don't tell me what "the business" is. I know. You obviously don't.

Oh so this is the perfect movie now that no one could have made better? LOL. You are funny.

Nice deflection. How about addressing my point??

That's right, you can't. You don't know how.

 

[Shazam!]

Of course there are people out there who could've written a better script, produced a better movie etc... Hell, there are even people out there would've made a better Spock/Kirk/Sulu etc. To presume otherwise is amazingly shortsighted.

Just because people aren't name and link dropping doesn't mean that those people don't exist.

 

[JarodRussell]

Where were all these guys and gals, pitching their ideas, or showing storyboards, or writing outlines?? Who are all these brilliant, overlooked people you speak of??

Do you mean where they were when the movie was about to be made? I didn't know Paramount was making an open call to script writers and directors out there. I thought they were specifically choosing Abrams & Co, without looking for alternatives. Now if that in your opinion totally excludes the possibility that there are people out there who could have come up with something better, then well... as Shazam! said, that's very shortsighted. Heck, if you ask me, Nicholas Meyer would have done a better job. James Cawley, to name a fan, would have probably been better. I really wonder what he would be able to do with 150 million dollars. Who knows? Are you going to give him that money to see the outcome? Christoper L. Bennett, to name a tie-in author, would have probably written a better script.