Has JJ Abrams ever watched any star trek episodes or movie?s

[Ryan8bit]

Yeah, that's kind of a weird way to phrase it or think about it.

I think the most probable thing is that they were fine with Star Trek, but they wanted to make it have more potential to grab audiences. The last few Trek movies really sucked at that, and overall the movies were never really blockbusters. Star Trek was badly hurt, and at that point it doesn't hurt to take a look at other successful space dramas to take a cue from them.

Because if they're going to make movies, they need to not make extended episodes like Insurrection. They need to ditch the TV show's talky parts, moral dilemmas, and slowness, and just focus on the whiz-bang action and character quips. That's just what Star Wars happens to be, and it works. I'm not sure there's any shame in doing that.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Because if they're going to make movies, they need to not make extended episodes like Insurrection. They need to ditch the TV show's talky parts, moral dilemmas, and slowness, and just focus on the whiz-bang action and character quips. That's just what Star Wars happens to be, and it works. I'm not sure there's any shame in doing that.

I agree. And you know it's not like character is sacrificed.. we already know their characters. We know when Spock speaks of his mother what that means, we know how much Kirk and Spock's friendship will mean to both of them so their initial clashing is poignant. These aren't flat dull characters whose fleshing out was sacrificed for action. These are already fully developed characters and every character point that takes place in the current of the swashbuckling story resonates and adds to what we already know.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

if j.j. wants to make "nu-trek" more like star wars eps 3,4,5 & 6, i'm fine with that if it means star trek will remain relevant to the next generation of movie goers. episodes 1 & 2, no thank you.

Abrams couldn't make a movie as bad as the SW prequels if he tried and Paramount wouldn't let him. The badness of the prequels is an unusual case that happened only because Lucasfilm is still a privately held company, with just one guy in charge, which allowed Lucas to blow millions on utter dreck, without any adult supervision. All the other Hollywood studios are public corporations, and nobody is allowed to run totally amuk.

A director working for a corporation with shareholders to answer to would have been slapped into shape by the bean counters before that happened. Bean counters may push movies to be unimaginative and cookie-cutter, but even a cookie-cutter mold will impose a certain level of competence in terms of plot and character. Even the most derivative Hollywood dreck is not total inept nonsense. Only Lucas is allowed to make movies that bad.

(However, with adult supervision, Lucasfilm can produce some reasonably good stuff, which is the case now with The Clone Wars. Obviously Dave Filoni has figured out how to control his boss and stop him from inflicting more garbage on the cosmos, hooray for him! )

 

[John Mason]

Ask him...

 

[Set Harth]

Even the most derivative Hollywood dreck is not total inept nonsense.

Sometimes it is. That's what makes it dreck.

 

[Greg Cox]

Let's be honest here. The only reason Star Trek is still a going concern is because of the success of Star Wars back in 1977. Thats what convinced Paramount to finally give Trek a second chance after it was cancelled back in the sixties. So Trekkies should be thankful for Star Wars and its popularity. If not for Star Wars, we'd still be watching nothing but TOS reruns (and, okay, the cartoon series).

And, no, they're not sports teams. You don't have to root for one over the other.

 

[Harvey]

I'm not sure that an absence of Star Wars (and Close Encounters of the Third Kind) would have meant a complete lack of Star Trek in the late 70s. What those films did was convince Paramount to back a major motion picture version of the series. If they hadn't have existed, I think a series of telemovies (which were seriously considered as the studio went back and forth between some sort of television presentation and some sort of movie) would have been a possibility.

A bit of a hypothetical tangent, though.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's my understanding that Paramount went from planned quarterly TV-movies (the first of which was called Planet of the Titans) to the Star Trek: Phase II TV series which would have been the flagship show of a new Paramount network, to retooling the Phase II pilot episode "In Thy Image" into a feature film after the success of Star Wars.

Star Wars is why we have movies. And snazzy warp-jump effects.

 

[Drago-Kazov]

Is he watching DS 9 now that Kirk will go Into Darkness?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Erm.... why DS9?

 

[Drago-Kazov]

Because that is the darkest Trek ever created.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I disagree. Enterprise's third season goes far darker than anything DS9 did. Earth is attacked, killing millions, Archer tortures an alien in an airlock, has a clone of his engineer made to harvest his organs, bombs an unarmed Xindi outpost from orbit, loses a third of this crew when the ship is nearly destroyed, T'Pol becomes an addict, Hoshi is captured, tortured and attempts suicide...

 

[BillJ]

I disagree. Enterprise's third season goes far darker than anything DS9 did. Earth is attacked, killing millions, Archer tortures an alien in an airlock, has a clone of his engineer made to harvest his organs, bombs an unarmed Xindi outpost from orbit, loses a third of this crew when the ship is nearly destroyed, T'Pol becomes an addict, Hoshi is captured, tortured and attempts suicide...

I still think TOS was the darkest of the Trek series.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I disagree. Enterprise's third season goes far darker than anything DS9 did. Earth is attacked, killing millions, Archer tortures an alien in an airlock, has a clone of his engineer made to harvest his organs, bombs an unarmed Xindi outpost from orbit, loses a third of this crew when the ship is nearly destroyed, T'Pol becomes an addict, Hoshi is captured, tortured and attempts suicide...

And Riker is a guest star.

Also, piracy.

 

[Sindatur]

I disagree. Enterprise's third season goes far darker than anything DS9 did. Earth is attacked, killing millions, Archer tortures an alien in an airlock, has a clone of his engineer made to harvest his organs, bombs an unarmed Xindi outpost from orbit, loses a third of this crew when the ship is nearly destroyed, T'Pol becomes an addict, Hoshi is captured, tortured and attempts suicide...

Boards a peaceful ship, steals their Warp Drive at gun point and leaves them stranded

 

[Drago-Kazov]

I had not watched the whole ENT.

 

[F. King Daniel]

...and now we've spoiled it for you.

Sorry.

 

[Drago-Kazov]

I don't care.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I disagree. Enterprise's third season goes far darker than anything DS9 did. Earth is attacked, killing millions, Archer tortures an alien in an airlock, has a clone of his engineer made to harvest his organs, bombs an unarmed Xindi outpost from orbit, loses a third of this crew when the ship is nearly destroyed, T'Pol becomes an addict, Hoshi is captured, tortured and attempts suicide...

And Riker is a guest star.

In the third season?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I'm pretty sure KingDaniel knew what I meant. And I'm pretty sure you know I know what episode he appeared in.