First Contact Vs. Star Trek XI

[trevanian]

To me, the Trek XI premise is so weak that had it been a TNG film or something from Enterprise it would have been mercilessly ripped to shreds.

It would be only be ripped by the same people who are ripping it now. And everyone else who likes it would be saying the same things they're saying now.
.

Hardly. With no attachment to the followup series, and no feeling of them as being really good, there's much less to bitch about for dissenters like me if they had screwed a TNG flick in this fashion. Bui

 

[Brutal Strudel]

True. TOS purists didn't feel betrayed by Nemesis in the way they do with Trek XI. The emotional connection to the material just wasn't there.

 

[Kegg]

See that's the thing. I knew this would have to be the kind of film it was to really restart this whole thing.

I see the sequel to this being the Dark Night..
I felt the same way about Batman Begins as you do about this film.

What does 'this kind of film' mean?

A reboot of the franchise. Granted, stuff like Batman Begins and Casino Royale are far more unapologetic about being reboots (even if the latter keeps on Judi Dench as M, but hell, if you could have Judi Dench in your movie wouldn't ya?), but all three basically fit this label.

Star Trek's rather odd way of going about it can be chalked up to how the franchise evolved in the previous decades. With the future of the franchise entrusted to a different set of characters with each series - making the universe the one consistent element in Star Trek, not the characters - a reboot that shifted us back to the original crew and focused on them, these characters, as the headlining concept of the Star Trek brand, felt it needed to genuflect towards those whom the universe had become important. They did so by way of re-emphasizing the original characters - through the original, Prime Universe version of Spock.

The Batman and Bond pictures, since they've always been about Batman and Bond, and not Nightwing, the Birds of Prey and whoever the crap else is tangentially related to Batman (or Bond's nephew Jimmy Bond), have never had the problem of reconciling universe and the original characters. The Batman films have also tended to distance themselves from the DC Universe canon, avoiding the sticky issues that would ensue from that entanglement. So for them Leonard Nimoy was unnecessary, although we can all agree if Christian Bale's Batman had met Leonard Nimoy as Spock Batman Begins would be a better movie.*

Trying to please the implacable Trekkies and a general audience is no easy task, and I think Orci & Kurtzmann navigated this Scylla and Charybdis of overwrought metaphor surprisingly well.

True. TOS purists didn't feel betrayed by Nemesis in the way they do with Trek XI. The emotional connection to the material just wasn't there.

Eh. I've rarely felt like that, and yet I felt exactly this way about Star Trek: Generations. Say what one will about Simon Pegg as Scotty, but at least they did not have Scotty spout reams of technobabble.

As a TNG fan, though, I was pretty pissed at NEM, but this is neither here nor there.

*This could work for any film: Add Spock and it becomes better. The Seven Samurai and Mr. Spock? Make it so.

 

[STR]

Even by your adjusted numbers, it ain't a huge profitmaker, given that you need 2.5 to 3 times your investment to get a return on a feature film.

2.5 times to 3? Ridiculous, on multiple levels. A return is anything greater than cost. If a movie cost $40 million to make, and say $20 million to market (and that assumes those numbers weren't combined in my source) $60,000,000 + $1 is a profit, a positive return. $125M revenue over $63M in costs is a large return.

 

[trevanian]

Even by your adjusted numbers, it ain't a huge profitmaker, given that you need 2.5 to 3 times your investment to get a return on a feature film.

2.5 times to 3? Ridiculous, on multiple levels. A return is anything greater than cost. If a movie cost $40 million to make, and say $20 million to market (and that assumes those numbers weren't combined in my source) $60,000,000 + $1 is a profit, a positive return. $125M revenue over $63M in costs is a large return.

If you're going to quote sources, then read the stuff that comes with them. Prints, advertising, INTEREST on the amount originally borrowed, PLUS the split with theaters, sometimes 70-30, many times something else ... Kubrick has offered a formula that shows it likely a film can still not break even at 7 times its negative cost, but I'll leave you to hunt that up on your own.

 

[Amaris]

Even by your adjusted numbers, it ain't a huge profitmaker, given that you need 2.5 to 3 times your investment to get a return on a feature film.

2.5 times to 3? Ridiculous, on multiple levels. A return is anything greater than cost. If a movie cost $40 million to make, and say $20 million to market (and that assumes those numbers weren't combined in my source) $60,000,000 + $1 is a profit, a positive return. $125M revenue over $63M in costs is a large return.

If you're going to quote sources, then read the stuff that comes with them. Prints, advertising, INTEREST on the amount originally borrowed, PLUS the split with theaters, sometimes 70-30, many times something else ... Kubrick has offered a formula that shows it likely a film can still not break even at 7 times its negative cost, but I'll leave you to hunt that up on your own.

Well sure, but that's because no films break even in Hollywood. They all fail to make a "real" profit.

J.

 

[Shazam!]

What does 'this kind of film' mean?

A reboot of the franchise.

Well, yeah, that bit's a given. I was more asking if he meant he knew it should be a convoluted alternate travel time universe parallel film as opposed to just a straight reboot.

 

[Harvey]

Even by your adjusted numbers, it ain't a huge profitmaker, given that you need 2.5 to 3 times your investment to get a return on a feature film.

2.5 times to 3? Ridiculous, on multiple levels. A return is anything greater than cost. If a movie cost $40 million to make, and say $20 million to market (and that assumes those numbers weren't combined in my source) $60,000,000 + $1 is a profit, a positive return. $125M revenue over $63M in costs is a large return.

First of all, much of the theatrical receipts go to exhibitors, not Paramount (the distributor). When I say "much" it varies, but it can be as high as 50%. Second of all, advertising budgets (generally 50% of the production budget) are almost never reported, and are not part of the reported $45 million budget figure. So that is not a true expression of the film's total cost, which is closer to $70 million. If exhibitors are taking 50% of grosses, then the film would have to gross $140 million for Paramount to break even theatrically, assuming there are no members of cast and crew earning a percentage of the gross (This is rather unusual and often reported if it were the case; it was not reported).

 

[CaptainStoner]

Please stop referring to FC as a "blockbuster" with "crossover appeal". It did 92 million. Some of you are so good at rewriting the past, you could work in politics.

ST:FC made (in 2008 dollars) $125,062,798 domestically and $203,844,944 world wide. It was made for the 2008 equivalent of $62,512,449.59, about 45% of ST11's budget. That's very successful, and certainly a blockbuster for a mid-range budgeted movie. The only movie released in 1996 with a smaller budget and a bigger take than ST:FC was Scream. (src: Box Office Mojo, excluding only productions without a published budget)

I don't know about "crossover appeal," that's a vague Hollywood spin term.

It is a spin term, but FC has it, through largely the same device as STIV: using "modern humans" interacting with our Star Trek characters. It also has crossover appeal in way the Borg were like Zombies. You don't have to know anything about the Borg to get the gist.

I don't dislike STXI, and I think there will be a successful run of films launching from it, with more dramatic opportunity coming down the line. But I stand by the point that STXI is pretty "lightweight", and I look forward to the next few films.

 

[number6]

To me, the Trek XI premise is so weak that had it been a TNG film or something from Enterprise it would have been mercilessly ripped to shreds.

It would be only be ripped by the same people who are ripping it now. And everyone else who likes it would be saying the same things they're saying now.
.

Hardly. With no attachment to the followup series, and no feeling of them as being really good, there's much less to bitch about for dissenters like me if they had screwed a TNG flick in this fashion. Bui

How would you know that they "screwed" it at all? You still haven't seen it. I stand behind my remarks. Those who intended to hate it anyway are now finding all kinds of flaws in every little thing. It doesn't matter what they put on the screen.

What does 'this kind of film' mean?

A reboot of the franchise.

Well, yeah, that bit's a given. I was more asking if he meant he knew it should be a convoluted alternate travel time universe parallel film as opposed to just a straight reboot.

I didn't find it convoluted at all. It was exactly what I expected: Star Trek-reinvented for a new audience.

 

[STR]

Even by your adjusted numbers, it ain't a huge profitmaker, given that you need 2.5 to 3 times your investment to get a return on a feature film.

2.5 times to 3? Ridiculous, on multiple levels. A return is anything greater than cost. If a movie cost $40 million to make, and say $20 million to market (and that assumes those numbers weren't combined in my source) $60,000,000 + $1 is a profit, a positive return. $125M revenue over $63M in costs is a large return.

First of all, much of the theatrical receipts go to exhibitors, not Paramount (the distributor). When I say "much" it varies, but it can be as high as 50%. Second of all, advertising budgets (generally 50% of the production budget) are almost never reported, and are not part of the reported $45 million budget figure. So that is not a true expression of the film's total cost, which is closer to $70 million. If exhibitors are taking 50% of grosses, then the film would have to gross $140 million for Paramount to break even theatrically, assuming there are no members of cast and crew earning a percentage of the gross (This is rather unusual and often reported if it were the case; it was not reported).

Well, thank you for giving some reasoning. I guess the problem is the useless way Hollywood reports its successes.

 

[trevanian]

It would be only be ripped by the same people who are ripping it now. And everyone else who likes it would be saying the same things they're saying now.
.

Hardly. With no attachment to the followup series, and no feeling of them as being really good, there's much less to bitch about for dissenters like me if they had screwed a TNG flick in this fashion. Bui

How would you know that they "screwed" it at all? You still haven't seen it.

I saw the trailer, fer chrissake. Starship built on Earth, screenplay written by folks who haven't yet generated a film I could get through, and a final product enjoyed most of all by Trek-lemmings, the least discriminating of devotees. All the signs are present.

 

[Amaris]

Hardly. With no attachment to the followup series, and no feeling of them as being really good, there's much less to bitch about for dissenters like me if they had screwed a TNG flick in this fashion. Bui

How would you know that they "screwed" it at all? You still haven't seen it.

I saw the trailer, fer chrissake. Starship built on Earth, screenplay written by folks who haven't yet generated a film I could get through, and a final product enjoyed most of all by Trek-lemmings, the least discriminating of devotees. All the signs are present.

You should know trailers never truly represent the final product. I highly recommend you see it before you criticize. At least then you'll have a foundation for criticism rather than criticisms based on circumstantial evidence, which holds no weight at all.

J.

 

[trevanian]

How would you know that they "screwed" it at all? You still haven't seen it.

I saw the trailer, fer chrissake. Starship built on Earth, screenplay written by folks who haven't yet generated a film I could get through, and a final product enjoyed most of all by Trek-lemmings, the least discriminating of devotees. All the signs are present.

You should know trailers never truly represent the final product. I highly recommend you see it before you criticize. At least then you'll have a foundation for criticism rather than criticisms based on circumstantial evidence, which holds no weight at all.

J.

I do know that, but they are indicative, and just the idiot science -- make that blatant disregard for science -- and the LCD approach to popularizing the characters infuriates me.

I've already stated many times I'll try to watch it on 2for1 night on dvd, but I seriously doubt I'll get through it, just on the lens flare issue. I've seen the first few minutes on youtube, and even with that low-rez image, the lens flares were appalling, it looked like something shot by a child. And that's not even getting into the actual movie ... geez, folks say that is the BEST part, and if so ... then it is a lot worse than even I expect it to be.

 

[Gepard]

You should know trailers never truly represent the final product. I highly recommend you see it before you criticize. At least then you'll have a foundation for criticism rather than criticisms based on circumstantial evidence, which holds no weight at all.

I second that; I mean, from the trailer, I was expecting the film to be good.

 

[Cyke101]

Trek-lemmings, eh?

"I'm not the one that's crazy! It's the whole world that's crazy!" The last time we had a film cater to a broader audience, the franchise churned out a spinoff that itself churned out three more spinoffs. Disliking the film is one thing, but to accuse people who liked it as half-assing their love for Trek is a bit extreme. As if they don't know what they like and need someone in authority to tell them what they should like.

 

[Amaris]

I do know that, but they are indicative, and just the idiot science -- make that blatant disregard for science -- and the LCD approach to popularizing the characters infuriates me.

I've already stated many times I'll try to watch it on 2for1 night on dvd, but I seriously doubt I'll get through it, just on the lens flare issue. I've seen the first few minutes on youtube, and even with that low-rez image, the lens flares were appalling, it looked like something shot by a child. And that's not even getting into the actual movie ... geez, folks say that is the BEST part, and if so ... then it is a lot worse than even I expect it to be.

If you expect it to be bad and hold out no hope, then it will be bad and have nothing worth seeing. By the way, in the theater, the lens flares didn't bother me a bit. I didn't even notice them, to be honest.

I second that; I mean, from the trailer, I was expecting the film to be good.

Some see a trailer and think it will be poor, and others see the same trailer thinking it will be awesome. Not everyone is pleased with the final outcome, while there are those whose expectations are exceeded. To each his or her own.

J.

 

[Harvey]

2.5 times to 3? Ridiculous, on multiple levels. A return is anything greater than cost. If a movie cost $40 million to make, and say $20 million to market (and that assumes those numbers weren't combined in my source) $60,000,000 + $1 is a profit, a positive return. $125M revenue over $63M in costs is a large return.

First of all, much of the theatrical receipts go to exhibitors, not Paramount (the distributor). When I say "much" it varies, but it can be as high as 50%. Second of all, advertising budgets (generally 50% of the production budget) are almost never reported, and are not part of the reported $45 million budget figure. So that is not a true expression of the film's total cost, which is closer to $70 million. If exhibitors are taking 50% of grosses, then the film would have to gross $140 million for Paramount to break even theatrically, assuming there are no members of cast and crew earning a percentage of the gross (This is rather unusual and often reported if it were the case; it was not reported).

Well, thank you for giving some reasoning. I guess the problem is the useless way Hollywood reports its successes.

Oh, the way Hollywood reports box office results today is ludicrous. They don't adjust for inflation, so every big movie that comes out is setting some sort of "record." Never mind that the actual number of ticket sales is usually fewer in number than the last record holder. It's just ticket prices that have increased. And not only that, but the box office reported is never ever indicative of how profitable the film is. For that, you need to know the actual production budget (often reported production budgets are low), the cost of advertising and distribution (studios never release this information, so one can only estimate), and a whole boatload of other information.But the box office earnings are a lot flashier, so instead of substance, that's what we get.It stands to reason that Star Trek: First Contact was a big success, though. It earned enough money to break even in its theatrical run. Consider DVD sales and other ancillary forms of income related to the film (toys, books, other merchandise, etc.), and you can only see what must have been a sweet deal for Paramount.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Hardly. With no attachment to the followup series, and no feeling of them as being really good, there's much less to bitch about for dissenters like me if they had screwed a TNG flick in this fashion. Bui

How would you know that they "screwed" it at all? You still haven't seen it.

I saw the trailer, fer chrissake. Starship built on Earth, screenplay written by folks who haven't yet generated a film I could get through, and a final product enjoyed most of all by Trek-lemmings, the least discriminating of devotees. All the signs are present.

Least discriminating? I am very picky about my Star Trek, I didn't like the similarities between DS9 and Babylon 5, I thought they could have done something different in a war plot. Voyager was mediocre at best with little thought to the condition of Voyager which was always in tip-top shape when it should always have been in bad condition, always low on fuel, Janeway should have been stronger as a Captain, and no I don't think people would have thought of her as a b*tch, really the series as a whole felt like TNG with even more technobabble thrown in to resolve story which is just lazy, plus the directing was shoddy at times let alone the writing. Enterprise is the show that my non-Trek friends point to when they say: "This is why I don't like Star Trek" and the critique is legit, it was a show with bad directing, bad acting, no chemistry between actors, lots of filler episodes during season three which is supposed to be the best season of the series, and as a Trekker I was very angry at how they chose to depict Vulcan's as emotional duchebags, I mean how the hell were the humans supposed to respect them and learn from them, they were even racist at times, it was terrible.

With all that said I liked Nemesis, though now I would have preferred if they had focused on the Romulan's instead of the Reman's.

Star Trek (XI) had emotional depth, was very dramatic, with a talented caste it had incredible performances by everyone, the interaction was better than standard "everyone is perfect" TNG mannerisms which were based, I now know, on flawed humanistic BS which prevented a lot of Trek from aging as well as it could. The special effects of the film were perfect and at no time took me out of the film with any "wow look at that CG effect". I have already grown attached to the characters of the new film and have seen that those who didn't like the idea of the film went in expecting not to like it and obviously did not, and why "as you think so will you be".

Don't put your opinion and taste above anyone else who liked the film, its arrogant, egotistical, and stupid. I am very well spoken, damn near a genius in intellect (I could probably learn physics if I worked at it but that's not me, I am a psych major) and I also like this new film. I understand you don't like it and respect your opinion, but don't forget it's just that; an opinion.

 

[trevanian]

Trek-lemmings, eh?

"I'm not the one that's crazy! It's the whole world that's crazy!" The last time we had a film cater to a broader audience, the franchise churned out a spinoff that itself churned out three more spinoffs. Disliking the film is one thing, but to accuse people who liked it as half-assing their love for Trek is a bit extreme. As if they don't know what they like and need someone in authority to tell them what they should like.

If you're so inclined, reread what I wrote. I believe the lemmings part was clearly aimed at the ones who MOST like it -- not all of the people who like it, so it is focused on the segment of fandom that IS like lemmings, flocking from the one new thing in the franchise to the next without regard for quality.

There are plenty of smart people here who somehow like this movie, and there are people here who I find to be utter jerks (mostly the ones who somehow don't get warnings in the Abrams forum) who also like the movie. I cannot place either of these groups in the 'lemming' category, much as I'd like to with the latter, because it would be wrong to characterize them as such. But to say that there aren't wholly undiscerning fans out there is more wrongheaded than anything I've posted here.