Star Trek fans are the least optimistic group on Trek I've seen. I would not call their view "rosy."
Forbes article: ‘Snake Eyes’ Box Office Failure Is Terrible News For ‘Star Trek’
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Nothing looks rosy at the cinema. Covid etc.
And Trekkies tend to be... well, aside from the Axanar marks... smart enough to keep away from large public gatherings.
And Trekkies tend to be... well, aside from the Axanar marks... smart enough to keep away from large public gatherings.
I don't see why not.
Firstly, don't spread the fx thickly throughout the movie. Pick two or three key points and concentrate the budget in those areas. Simple travelling through space and establishing shots can suffice elsewhere.
Show the dramatic (combat, action etc.) from the characters perspective (bridge ?) interspersed with fx shots, rather than vice versa.
And make the fx easier/cheaper by the writing. You don't need complex "swarm" effects which seem so popular in Marvel movies and even Beyond. Besides, they already look dated. Make what you do look as good as possible - don't overstretch with grandiose ideas.
And use interactive LED studio screens wherever possible.
I think he's right about Star Trek having no future in feature films, unless they slash the budget like they used to in the 80s and 90s. With three films, Star Trek failed to become the blockbuster franchise that Paramount wanted to compete with MCU, Transformers, Fast & Furious, etc. The audience is just not that big for JJ Trek. Just scrap the films forever and stick to its rightful place on TV.
Star Trek is more than TV. Its ridiculous to box it in.
There's not a huge demand for any Star Trek movie.
An idle thought...
From the article:
Also, and at risk of stating the obvious... story. What the story is will determine everything. But starting with a new cast is a very good way to get attention.
They're rebooting Buck Rodgers. On the surface, maybe not all that interesting. It's Buck Rodgers. It's kind of cool, but yeah... it's older and deader than Star Trek ever was.
But wait, George Clooney is involved. Albeit, only in a producer capacity, but now you have attention and anticipation.
With Dune, the cast with Timothée Chalamet and the rest are a big selling point. And I guess if Denis Villeneuve had also cast Sting in a role, and any role, then that would have been a thing too...
Anyway, the cast may not save the movie from being the next John Carter box-office-wise, but it gets attention. And now we're back to story. And the story of Dune is the story, so you can't change that at this point, but the story (and how well it's received by today's audience) is what will make or break the movie.
I hope it does well. And I'm sure Warner Bros. knows that it will not make a great of money in the current climate, even coming out in October. And releasing it on HBO Max won't help the box-office either. Because I know I'm not going to the theater to see it. No, I'm reactivating my HBO Max subscription specifically for Dune; so they will still get money in the end, just not as big of a box-office number under normal circumstances.
As an aside, the other week they announced a new showrunner for the Bene Gesserit Dune: The Sisterhood HBO Max series. The show already had my attention, now even more so.
A new Star Trek movie though, starring hip new actors is the way to go, I think. Generate excitement that way. Because the creators involved aren't big names at this point. They're not a Quentin Tarantino or anything. So who the cast will be is what will build the excitement and anticipation, and then you turn it over to the story, and then that has to deliver... at risk of stating the obvious, again.
From the article:
This was somewhat interesting to me, because that's what I think they should go with, a new crew. And yes, bet on Star Trek as an IP. Because I'm not sure what else you can do at this point.
Also, and at risk of stating the obvious... story. What the story is will determine everything. But starting with a new cast is a very good way to get attention.
They're rebooting Buck Rodgers. On the surface, maybe not all that interesting. It's Buck Rodgers. It's kind of cool, but yeah... it's older and deader than Star Trek ever was.
But wait, George Clooney is involved. Albeit, only in a producer capacity, but now you have attention and anticipation.
With Dune, the cast with Timothée Chalamet and the rest are a big selling point. And I guess if Denis Villeneuve had also cast Sting in a role, and any role, then that would have been a thing too...
Anyway, the cast may not save the movie from being the next John Carter box-office-wise, but it gets attention. And now we're back to story. And the story of Dune is the story, so you can't change that at this point, but the story (and how well it's received by today's audience) is what will make or break the movie.
I hope it does well. And I'm sure Warner Bros. knows that it will not make a great of money in the current climate, even coming out in October. And releasing it on HBO Max won't help the box-office either. Because I know I'm not going to the theater to see it. No, I'm reactivating my HBO Max subscription specifically for Dune; so they will still get money in the end, just not as big of a box-office number under normal circumstances.
As an aside, the other week they announced a new showrunner for the Bene Gesserit Dune: The Sisterhood HBO Max series. The show already had my attention, now even more so.
A new Star Trek movie though, starring hip new actors is the way to go, I think. Generate excitement that way. Because the creators involved aren't big names at this point. They're not a Quentin Tarantino or anything. So who the cast will be is what will build the excitement and anticipation, and then you turn it over to the story, and then that has to deliver... at risk of stating the obvious, again.
I think Trek's biggest problem as a movie franchise is that it relies on both nostalgia and novelty--of which it has very little of each now. The first four Trek movies had the benefit of being the only new source for filmed Star Trek. In a way, they really couldn't help but all be successful, even to varying degrees. But with each new TV iteration of Star Trek, the nostalgia and novelty of a Trek movie diminishes until they do something radical like introduce a new cast. And even then, that brief resurgence will be temporary as it won't be very long before its sequels become "just another Star Trek movie" with not much more than Trekkies wanting to go see it.
Here's the thing-I don't think it has been really tried to be very novel. I do agree that nostalgia the main reliable factor, largely owning to the current climate of longing for the good old days. I think that introducing a new crew inside of the Kelvin Framework would work very well. What ID did was stumble back in to the reliable Trek lore, rather than forge a new frontier. And so, Star Trek became the same insular place for people to go for the safe and familiar rather than appealing to a new frontier.
The Yorktown starbase is the perfect launching pad for a Kelvin movie, divorced from familiar beats. It can be action and adventury like ST 09 while introducing a whole new crew. It can pull a Prodigy and have Pine or Sulu as the commanding officer but the rest are entirely new and different and able to explore out there.
The limit is in expecting fans to hate it and going back and trying to mollify them as if they were infants and not adults.
The Yorktown starbase is the perfect launching pad for a Kelvin movie, divorced from familiar beats. It can be action and adventury like ST 09 while introducing a whole new crew. It can pull a Prodigy and have Pine or Sulu as the commanding officer but the rest are entirely new and different and able to explore out there.
The limit is in expecting fans to hate it and going back and trying to mollify them as if they were infants and not adults.
A Trek film introducing a whole new cast of characters with little ties to what came before would actually be pretty ballsy and admirable. Much like how TNG was when it first hit the airwaves (aside from that touching cameo with Bones).
That said, I think Paramount would sooner make a film with Tarantino's ideas rather than make such a bold move.
That said, I think Paramount would sooner make a film with Tarantino's ideas rather than make such a bold move.
Tarantino would be the worse move.
Naturally, Paramount will do it.
Naturally, Paramount will do it.
Looking at the last three films, I think Tarantino would exceed them positively.
I do not.
No surprise.
I'm nothing if not consistent.
Hopefully the next filmmaker doesn't say something along the lines of making his film more like TOS!
It would be nice if that would be let go. It continues to stager my mind how much a franchise that is about new frontiers in the future constantly holds on to its past. That's why I think ST ID failed (in part). They looked immediately to Khan, and Urban hinted at other possible bad guys Cumberbatch was supposedly as a means of distraction. But it illustrates in great detail what is expected that Khan "had to" happen or some other classic villain.
I don't think a full reboot is necessary but the insistence of "this is the best since TOS" is a non started comparison. Knock it off and just write a good story that is action/adventure with some social commentary and positive view of human growth.
I think it just comes with the territory. As bold as one may want the nuTrek films to be in pushing forward, they're still ultimately a riff on TOS and the films that came after. Justin Lin at one point said that before conceiving the Yorktown one of Abrams' suggestions was that Earth needs to be in peril. That just says to me that Abrams has a very formulaic approach to things. I accepted TFA as being a partial riff on ANH just as a way to kickstart a new line of films. And IIRC, that was basically the MO from LucasFilm back in 2015. Abrams' film can do his tip of the hat to the original film, but then the next films would move forward and become their own thing entirely. But then Abrams comes back for the 9th installment and the best he can do is replaying the beats of ROTJ? As enjoyable as the film itself is in a vacuum, it's a creative disappointment in the grand scheme of things.
If the Star Trek reboot was to be something drastic, it probably should have taken a cue from Ron Moore's BSG. I don't mean in the sense of going dark and gritty, but rather that it's a total reworking of the original concept with no ties to any of the previous iterations of Trek. Honestly, I would have preferred that for a restart of Trek back in 2009. One of my least favorite aspects was dragging Leonard Nimoy along, as if the filmmakers weren't confident to do their reboot without having one of the old stars come and pass the torch.
If the Star Trek reboot was to be something drastic, it probably should have taken a cue from Ron Moore's BSG. I don't mean in the sense of going dark and gritty, but rather that it's a total reworking of the original concept with no ties to any of the previous iterations of Trek. Honestly, I would have preferred that for a restart of Trek back in 2009. One of my least favorite aspects was dragging Leonard Nimoy along, as if the filmmakers weren't confident to do their reboot without having one of the old stars come and pass the torch.
There was novelty is bringing the TNG cast to the big screen, but that wore off after awhile. The same could be said for the recasting of the TOS crew for the Kelvin Timeline. Some people went to see them out of initial curiosity and to see if they could pull it off, but I don't think a lot of them came back for subsequent films...
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