Did J.J. fix Star Trek or doom it?

[darkshadow0001]

If you're a bean counter, I have no doubt you'll be happy with this film. I just hope TOS enthusiasts will be too. Is that too much to hope for? It'll be a great movie but a lousy story. I hope I'm the first one to say I knew I was talking out of my ass.

I think I'll be happy with the film. I'm not gonna discredit anything yet about it, the only thing I'm not crazy for is the whole "re-imagining" idea. Only for the fact we watched twenty some years of established Trek history and now it's going to be somewhat "different" all of a sudden. My biggest fear is if more films are going to be made of this story line that they don't keep re-casting people. Shatner is an icon, and I don't know if anyone can replace him as Kirk. (I'm not a die-hard TOS fan, but it did start it all). (Yeah I know, I'm dissing the film a bit myself ) but it's mainly because I'm worried that they might start re-casting original characters instead of creating something new.

 

[xortex]

My concern is more like their changing the universe and the characters.

 

[trekkerguy]

It would be irrelevant if he totally changed it but he's half changing it and twisting a Star Wars hybrid out of it, which doesn't have to be a bad thing.

If that was actually what he was doing, it may not be a bad thing.

Since it's not, whether or not it's bad is moot.

 

[Sci]

I find his approach incredibly refreshing. Love the bright bridge. Not too crazy about the tapered nacelles but there is an escape valve - TT. Things could eventually change for the better while some things will stay the same. He's doing something without being locked into it which I think is very clever and gives him alot of freedom and wiggling room. He's not trapped by his designs. I don't think the story will be that great, I hope I'm wrong and I probably am, but at least the universe seems somewhat intact and I think we'll be all happy with and alternate origin story knowing that it could always change. I've always dreamed of creative risk taking direction since TNG started. We haven't really seen this universe in a long time. Even though it is different, it will still be comforting.

I don't know how we can possibly know whether he saved or doom Trek until the film is released.

 

[jb.9731]

These are the same questions that fans were asking when they first heard about Star Trek: The Next Generation. Will it kill the franchise or destroy it? How can they make Star Trek without Kirk, Spock, et al? The Enterprise looks different...sacrilege!

TNG started out sucking, got good near the middle, and ended up sucking again. Ditto the movie series. Maybe JJ's version will do the same. In that event, in about 6 years we should have a really kick-ass Trek movie!

Just as with the original movies? II, IV, and XI averaged out to be the good ones. That is where the features ended replaced by longer running episodes. What can be derived from budget vs. expectations for these better movies? With II, it had the budget of the TV episode, but grossed much better, well paced, interesting, and it exceeded expectations.

 

[jb.9731]

re TMP: All the marketing and hype could not save this feature. Let’s then consider the much more frugal next feature.

It took longer than Paramount would have liked, sure, but ST: TMP is still one of the ST franchise's most successful films. Even though it had the budget for a failed TV series tagged onto it, it still made a huge profit for Paramount, and almost as much internationally, which is what ST II and III were unable to emulate. I seem to recall the VHS version of TMP doing extremely well, too, in the then-fledgling home video market, and again when the "special longer version" was released.

The critical success of the "frugal" ST II unfortunately convinced Paramount that "frugal=less risky", which meant that ST movie budgets are often rather small when compared to other films being made around them.

But this pattern has been broken with JJ.

II:TWoK made something like $97m worldwide, but cost $11mil. It was still more profitable...as a percentage.

 

[jb.9731]

Speaking of redux such as Batman and other examples of what is new is old. BatMan had been redone several times. Sometimes good. Sometimes, not so. How many actors casted as Wayne vs. Kirk?

>People forget that Spock was played by five actors in ST III and I don't recall this being an outrage at the time.

First of all. This is silly comparison. Have one actor play different age ranges from a boy to adult, in this era was not possible. Second, we saw several Bruce Waynes. I do not think anyone is saying there cannot be a new 'Kirk'. I was simply pointing out that bigger budgets, hype, and all that sometimes lead to a diappointing product and I hope they have the sense to learn from their mistakes.

>We've had two Saaviks, and they switched appearances at a point in time that is rather weird for anyone watching ST II and ST III back-to-back. (Didn't a similar thing happen with Marty's girlfriend in the "Back to the Future" movies?)


Saavik was new minor character, not to mention. Back to Future? Hmmm. OK and overall - these types of sequels are never as good. I suppose they replaced characters in Police Academy series too, but I really quit counting.

>These are the same questions that fans were asking when they first heard about Star Trek: The Next Generation. Will it kill the franchise or destroy it? How can they make Star Trek without Kirk, Spock, et al? The Enterprise looks different...sacrilege!

...yeah and when I saw 'blunder at farpoint', I thought these critics were on to something. It got better.

>These are similar questions that fans were asking when they first heard about Star Trek: The Mlotion Picture.

...from the Director of West Side Story, and the incredibly non action packed Andromeda Strain direct Star Trek on the heels of Star Wars? No offense, but not the best idea.

 

[M'Sharak]

...

Just as with the original movies? II, IV, and XI averaged out to be the good ones. [...]

...

II:TWoK made something like $97m worldwide, but cost $11mil. It was still more profitable...as a percentage.

...

First of all. This is silly comparison.

...

XI hasn't been released yet, so it's impossible to say at this time where it averages out.

jb.9731, please watch your use of Quote tags; some of the passages you've quoted aren't being properly attributed to the people who wrote them. Also, please be careful not to post more than twice in a row in the same thread. If you wish to reply to several posts at a time, click on the Multi-Quote button for each and then hit Reply, which will allow you to put all of your answers into a single post.

 

[scotthm]

How many have become hooked on the original Mission: Impossible TV series because of their interest in the M:I movies? My guess would be, not many.

I love it when people completely ignore the example in the post in favor
of the one that suits them better. Nice job.

Wasn't the original Mission: Impossible TV series produced in the mid-1960s for American television? Weren't Abrams, Ocri, and Kurtzman involved in recent M:I filmmaking? Do you really need to roll your eyes at my analogy?

Of course, analogies aren't going to correspond 100%, but this one is about as close as I can get.

Having said all that, Abrams didn't doom Mission: Impossible (though I haven't watched the movie and I have the TV series on DVD), so I don't expect that he'll doom Star Trek either.

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[RandyS]

No way to know until I've actually seen the movie.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I don't no if J.J. fixed or doomed Trek I asked the magic 8 ball and it told me to ask again.

 

[xortex]

There was a second Mission Impossible t.v. series that was great but they cancelled it. Another short sighted decision, I guess. With Greg Morris' son. The movies just don't do the original justice. Talk about miscasting Tom Cruise, wow.!!

 

[Brutal Strudel]

That much is true. VOY, at least three of the four TNG movies...

DS9 didn't do it any favors in the public mind either - people stopped watching that in droves.

Can't really argue with that. Of course, no one watched The Wire, either, and that was a better show than all of the Star Treks combined. So--since I don't own CBS/Paramount stock--the public mind means very little to me: to give another example, Titanic was a bloated, manipulative piece of cliche-ridden garbage and it made box office history; how many movies, later hailed as materpieces, flopped originally? Going back to tv, TOS was famously a victim of bad ratings.

But I'm not going to go the mat defending any Trek spin-off at this point; imao, DS9 was merely the best of the lot. When your competition is VOY, ENT and even TNG (which had a handful of great hours among a lot of execrable-to-forgetttable dross; again, I don't care how many people watched it, a lot of people watched Beverly Hills 90210, too), that's saying next to nothing.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I'm fine with the aesthetics being changed. I knew they'd have to do that, just to avoid being laughed off the screen.

As for the rest, as far as I've been able to glean, canon will remain largely unchanged. Granted, I haven't delved deeply into storyline - trying to avoid spoilers.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

There was a second Mission Impossible t.v. series that was great but they cancelled it. Another short sighted decision, I guess. With Greg Morris' son. The movies just don't do the original justice. Talk about miscasting Tom Cruise, wow.!!

I think most of the fans of the old show were more concerned that the main character from the 60s shows was the BAD guy.

 

[shapeshifter]

Did J.J. fix Star Trek or doom it?

I don't no if J.J. fixed or doomed Trek I asked the magic 8 ball and it told me to ask again.

The Magic 8-Ball told me, Yes.

 

[Therin of Andor]

There was a second Mission Impossible t.v. series that was great but they cancelled it. Another short sighted decision, I guess. With Greg Morris' son.

Well, you realise, of course, that the 80s M:I series got caught up in the same writers' strike that shortened Season Two of TNG, and some of the scripts they used were actually from the 60s series, IIRC. So Greg Morris's son was saying some of Dad's lines.

 

[M'Sharak]

There was a second Mission Impossible t.v. series that was great but they cancelled it. Another short sighted decision, I guess. With Greg Morris' son.

Well, you realise, of course, that the 80s M:I series got caught up in the same writers' strike that shortened Season Two of TNG, and some of the scripts they used were actually from the 60s series, IIRC. So Greg Morris's son was saying some of Dad's lines.

The biggest problem with the 80s Mission: Impossible was that it tried to be the 60s series and managed only a pale imitation. The movies didn't try at all to be the 60s show and were more successful. (Going back to where the Trek movie crew's M:I connection was brought up: they were only involved in the third movie, and had nothing to do with the first two; it was their work together on M:I:III that led to them being offered the 2009 Star Trek project.)

 

[ChristopherPike]

...as far as I've been able to glean, canon will remain largely unchanged. Granted, I haven't delved deeply into storyline - trying to avoid spoilers.

Yes, well I remain unconvinced by that. They're breaking the traditional rules of time travel in Star Trek by allowing massive changes to go uncorrected. Yes, the established timeline is being respected, by vertue of the fact that's where old Spock and the villain come from... not sure where the heck they're planning to dump us at the end of the film though.

 

[MisterPL]

You seem to have gotten lost. This is the forum as it existed early in 2009. Before the movie came out.

You're looking for the future internet. Just down the hall, second door on the left.

Holy shit.

I just got back from the future internet and, while I still can't honestly tell you if Abrams doomed the franchise, I've got a wicked headache and a nosebleed that won't stop.

I'm gonna go lay down...