Nope, he didn't. But he strikes me as far more of an intellectual than Orci, Kurtzman, or Abrams. That's one of the big reasons that he got it right.
Moore and Braga vs. Orci and Kurtzman -- Who Do You Prefer?
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He was. He got it right. He made a movie on a limited budget that carries its own almost 30 years later.
I don't find TWOK all that "intellectual". YMMV.
I find it difficult to believe that anyone would think that this film had any of the dramatic or emtional depth of Star Trek 2.
I agree. I will say that I don't find TWOK an "intellectual" film per se, but IMO, when compared to the new movie it certainly is. Meyer brought "chops" to the film that the new guys just don't have. That's why it was not only very entertaining but also had more depth and was somewhat poignant.
But Generations and TUC made roughly the same amount of money, yet people complain much more about Generations than TUC. When TMP was made, fans were divided right down the middle (MUCH more divided than they are now) but it was still a blockbuster. So no, I'm going to disagree about $$$ convincing the mass fandom what is and isn't good.
While I would agree with you that Nemesis was poorly marketed, it could have been a blockbuster in terms of home video and DVD sales... and yet it wasn't. It was just a poor movie, and word-of-mouth and online criticism had a great deal to do with the film's financial failure.
Aside from the cynicism, why is it so hard to believe that Star Trek XI was profitable because people liked it? Occam's Razor... sometimes the simplest explanation is the answer. If people were drinking the kool aid, just how did this film rack up a 90% rating on rotten tomatoes?
But anyway, I don't think anyone here is blindly raging and following the pack (esp. since the voting block is more or less evenly split right now). Let's put things into perspective: for every Star Trek: First Contact, you'll have a dud like Mission Impossible 2. Likewise, for every critically acclaimed film like Star Trek, you'll get a Transformers 2. Every film writer, from David Goyer to Woody Allen, will have their ups and downs.
I think the Kelvin scenes equal the dramatic and emotional depth of TWOK all by themselves. And manage to so so with characters we are meeting for the first time.
TWOK is still my favorite Trek, though.
So, let me get this straight (from your point of view).
Paramount came to JJA and said, "Hey, we love you, and we like what you did with MI3. If you sign with us, you can pick any project that you want to do - any project - and we'll pay you to do it."
Then, JJA, knowing he could pick anything that he wanted to do chose Star Trek because he hated it.
You are not making any sense as he would have gotten a lot of money no matter what he picked.
But Orci definitely gave a couple of fucks. Either that or he seriously did his homework - he had a pretty solid grounding in the Trek franchise's enormous corpus, as his interviews proved. If not a Mike Sussman level of nerd-on-the-inside, he's a far cry from the guy who identified Star Trek as the show with the guy with the ears and who, to make himself interested in the project, added as much Horatio Hornblower as he could.
Voted "equally good", though I guess Braga and Moore probably edge it. It's hard to isolate their movies only though, and not consider all the other great work they did for TNG and DS9.
Oh, there's no doubt that Orci really cared and that he is a Trek fan. But that doesn't necessarily make him a more effective storyteller. For me, and I realize that I'm in the vast minority on this, Orci and Kurtzman didn't really get the characterizations right. Especially with Spock and Scotty, but also with Kirk to a certain extent. It might have something to do with Orci being more of a TNG fan, I don't know. Sometimes it's better to go in knowing nothing and educating yourself rather than having preconceived notions that could turn out to be wrong.
I agree many of the characterizations are a bit different, but I don't see that as a bad thing. They're being interpreted by new actors, and for a new era. And plus it's kind of cool seeing a different shade to these characters I think.
Besides, even though Spock may have more of a sarcastic edge, or Kirk may be a bit more brash than the original, they still feel recognizably enough like Kirk and Spock to me in the end.
I don't think there's any doubt that TWOK was a deeper and more emotionally complex film, but that's not what ST09 was trying to be. It was just trying to be a fun, action-packed thrill ride, and I thought it succeeded really well at that.
Judging just from Lost, I'm quite sure this creative team could make a deep, meaningful, and character-driven Trek movie if they wanted to. But FIRST they had to inject some life and energy back into the franchise and get people excited about it again.
Sometimes I don't think fans really appreciate how important and necessary that really was.
I'd say they got Scotty wrong (I'll forever maintain that Star Trek V irreperably damaged him as a comic foil), but not Spock and Kirk. with those two, we would have to see their growth into the characters they would become (Kirk moreso as the circumstances of his life were radically changed). It's good to see that not all of our mythical heroes were always such bastions of goodness. Heck, Kirk's arrogance was a theme in TWOK and TSFS. And Spock seems to be arrogant more along the lines of ENT's portrayal of Vulcans, so to see a reconciliation between them and the wiser, older Spock of TOS was pretty neat.
That's a valid point.
Well, at least we agree on Scotty.
You're right about Kirk and how it's understandable that he would be somewhat different, and I did see flashes of Kirk in Pine's performance, but I think that was due more to his acting than what was on the page. As far as Spock, I just thought they got it completely wrong. The writers got it wrong on the page and Quinto got it wrong in the performance. I couldn't see Spock behaving the way he did in the movie no matter how much younger he was and I'm talking about both before and after the destruction of Vulcan. I'm not trying to convince anybody and I don't begrudge anyone who enjoyed the character in the movie (there's a whole lot of you), I'm just saying that it didn't work for me.
That's a valid point.
Well, at least we agree on Scotty.
Eh, who knows? It could be that Amanda Grayson *and* Kirk both help to temper Spock in both the film and in pre-TOS. The guy's a supergenius who's constantly suppressing his emotions -- I don't blame him for acting the way he does in the film
Nowhere Man
Commodore
I didn't like the choices. I lkied Manny Coto,I thought he was starting to bring Enterprise around. I'm not too keen on Braga, but RDM is good. I have to agree that Berman and Paramount put the writers on a short leash. Orci and Kurtzman are good at writing comedy and good with charachters, but not on drama and substance. They also have not done much original stuff, just reboots. Alias sucked completely. Don't get me wrong, I liked the new movie and I liked MI. 3 and Transformers, but they have only done one star trek project. Braga and RDM had more time to work on star trek. I'd like to see what they all could do if they colaborate together, I think we'd get a really good movie with humor and good character, drama and substance.Shall we dare say the perfect Star Trek movie.
Manny Coto never wrote a Star Trek film. We've got two teams of writers who've written Star Trek film(s) being compared here, so it makes sense.
It's not about who's the best screenwriter overall in the Star Trek franchise, just which team of two you prefer.
Also:
Aside from writing for two shows that were the spinoff of another show and some movies based on one of those spinoffs, Ron D. Moore is best known for... what?
1. A staggeringly original concept that thwacked the universe upside the head with its sublime uniqueness and caused an epileptic seizure of sheer creative thought to flow forth like milk and honey mixed with mead and ichor and maybe a little pepto-bismol because that sounded a trifle special
2. A reboot
Hey, fair's fair.
There's a lot I didn't like about the new movie. And, truth be told, I've never seen a film written by Orci and Kurtzman I would describe even as good.
That said, I still prefer them hands down to Moore and Braga. If the choice were between Moore/Braga and Ed Wood, I'd pick Ed Wood.
That said, I still prefer them hands down to Moore and Braga. If the choice were between Moore/Braga and Ed Wood, I'd pick Ed Wood.
But... why do they get credit for the STORY in MI:2 if it was only a "pitch"?
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