JJTrek may be a "gateway drug" to TOS for some folks - I'm sure Paramount would love to sell more of those DVDs - but probably most new Trek fans will just stick with the new version. One movie every couple of years seems to be enough to satisfy the appetites of the (mainly) youngsters who follow most big franchises.
How will Trek XI blend in with the rest of Trek
- Thread starter startrekrcks
- Start date
JJTrek may be a "gateway drug" to TOS for some folks - I'm sure Paramount would love to sell more of those DVDs - but probably most new Trek fans will just stick with the new version. One movie every couple of years seems to be enough to satisfy the appetites of the (mainly) youngsters who follow most big franchises.
It depends on how into the movie they are really. And if this movie doesn't provoke interest in TOS, very little will.
And if they want to stick just to the movie: that's fine.
Many of us have our niche when it comes to Star Trek: Which incarnations we enjoy vs. which we don't care for.
Even though I'm a big Star Trek fan, there are probably a lot of DS9 and Voyager episodes I haven't seen. Same for Enterprise.
There are some TNG fans who don't care for TOS.
Most of the big franchises around today, such as Harry Potter, are not based on a TV show with a 40+ year history behind it, so they only know the movies that exist.
If a Harry Potter TV series were to come along, it would probably be pretty popular. A Lord Of The Rings TV series based on the Movie trilogy might also be popular if done well.
Disillusioned
Commander
I've seen this assertion from several people here, but I have yet to see any compelling reason why that would be the case. From my perspective it comes off as you saying that the only way for Star Trek to be popular is for it to not be Star Trek, except for the names and certain trite quotes.
No, not really. And as far as general audiences go, whatever was done to establish whatever background was necessary for Kirk's childhood, that would be a way to get them interested and invested in his character. Same deal with Spock. And I'm pretty sure it could be something better than seeing Kirk get chased by Robocop and defying physics while wrecking a classic car, or Spock beating the crap out of some other Vulcan kid.
Shaky cam and lens flares are not innovative. They might have been considered that the first times they were used, but now they're just annoying.
So different that it didn't even look or feel like Star Trek.
The pacing is going to be different in every movie, as they all were. TMP was slow, TWoK was faster, etc. So this isn't anything innovative.
And it was a generic space action movie to me.
They tried to anyway.
And as I've pointed out before, that isn't the same thing.
You're essentially trying to argue to have it both ways here. A Star Trek movie is a Star Trek movie to Star Trek fans, and it's going to be judged that way by them. You even have those fans who have said that while it might have made a decent sci fi action movie it wasn't a good Star Trek movie. The thing about trying to say non-fans would only like it if it had been made the way it was doesn't really stand up considering that TWoK and TVH were both pretty popular with non-fans and they didn't have to do any such thing. If the movie is any good as a movie, non-fans will like it. That doesn't equate to making Star Trek into a generic sci fi action movie. That's like trying to argue that the ship design and that doesn't matter to non-fans, then trying to argue that they would only accept it if it was completely redesigned the way that it was, which would mean that the ship design did in fact matter.
It wasn't especially important, it was just one more lame thing to add to the list of reasons why this movie was bad.
It's pretty obvious from what I saw in the movie that everything was already an alternate reality before Nero and his giant space octopus every showed up.
You really think they're going to have anything other than a negative reaction to TOS after seeing and liking this movie. They're so different from one another that pretty much anyone would notice the contrast. And again, you're trying to have it both ways. If anyone would actually be interested at all by TOS then doing something like I was talking about would definitely work out better that way.That's the way I see it, provided the new people even stick with the new franchise. If STXI is someone's first taste of Star Trek and they actually liked it, I doubt that much of the original franchise would be to their liking, let alone TOS itself, and they'd just stick with the Abrams version.
And yet, we have more than a few recently-registered (since the movie came out) members here who had never before been particularly into Star Trek in any of its forms, and who saw the movie and liked it, and who from there decided that they wanted to check out TOS and liked that, too. Sure, they can see the contrast, but evidently that doesn't preclude them from being able to enjoy the stories and the characters of the series where this whole ride began.
As well, we've got quite a few who were into the Original Series long ago and drifted away somewhere during the years of reruns or the movies or the various Modern Trek series. They tried this movie, liked it and went right back to being enthusiastic TOS fans, bought the DVD sets, etc.
You can just never can tell what people will decide they'll like, or when.
I've seen this assertion from several people here, but I have yet to see any compelling reason why that would be the case. From my perspective it comes off as you saying that the only way for Star Trek to be popular is for it to not be Star Trek, except for the names and certain trite quotes.
But it IS star trek. Just not to your taste (this again). So write it yourself, in outline form. Prove to me that one can create a great Star Trek origins movie without Old Spock and the Alternate Timeline, and tell me how this would help get Star Trek out of the post-Nemesis slump.
No, not really. And as far as general audiences go, whatever was done to establish whatever background was necessary for Kirk's childhood, that would be a way to get them interested and invested in his character. Same deal with Spock. And I'm pretty sure it could be something better than seeing Kirk get chased by Robocop and defying physics while wrecking a classic car, or Spock beating the crap out of some other Vulcan kid.
How exactly SHOULD they be introduced?
Shaky cam and lens flares are not innovative. They might have been considered that the first times they were used, but now they're just annoying.
Shaky cams? Most shots were not THAT skaky. Lens flare overload is one I'll give you. I wasn't annoyed by them, but JJ has admitted that he overdid it.
So different that it didn't even look or feel like Star Trek.
It did to me. Star Trek as a whole has had many different styles over time. This film took some bold risks, and for me, most of them paid off.
The pacing is going to be different in every movie, as they all were. TMP was slow, TWoK was faster, etc. So this isn't anything innovative.
And it was a generic space action movie to me.
It was an action-adventure movie with a lot of character. Generally in line with what TOS was.
They tried to anyway.
And as I've pointed out before, that isn't the same thing.
Tried? They did. You just didn't like WHAT and HOW they did.
You're essentially trying to argue to have it both ways here. A Star Trek movie is a Star Trek movie to Star Trek fans, and it's going to be judged that way by them. You even have those fans who have said that while it might have made a decent sci fi action movie it wasn't a good Star Trek movie. The thing about trying to say non-fans would only like it if it had been made the way it was doesn't really stand up considering that TWoK and TVH were both pretty popular with non-fans and they didn't have to do any such thing.
That was before franchise overload, Nemesis, and the masses of Star Trek Canon became offputting to general audiences.
This move, IMHO, is aimed at both fans and non-fans alike. A Trek move made for fans alone would not have cut it (Insurrection, Nemesis), and going to TV didn't help much (Enterprise).
If the movie is any good as a movie, non-fans will like it.
They do.
That doesn't equate to making Star Trek into a generic sci fi action movie.
That element has been in Star Trek since TWOK. Action Adventure is what Star Trek has been since TOS. Over TIME it gained more depth, but that's the format. Kirk got into a lot of fistfights, right from Where No Man Has Gone Before. So arguing the movie should not be a SciFi Action/Adventure film does not hold.
That's like trying to argue that the ship design and that doesn't matter to non-fans, then trying to argue that they would only accept it if it was completely redesigned the way that it was, which would mean that the ship design did in fact matter.
Of COURSE it matters. Non-fans seeing the TOS Enterprise, or something that isn't impressive visually, will blast the film for being some lame, unimaginative fanwank.
It wasn't especially important, it was just one more lame thing to add to the list of reasons why this movie was bad.
Or as something that was really too minor a detail to actually matter, or really affect the quality of the movie to any significant degree.
It's pretty obvious from what I saw in the movie that everything was already an alternate reality before Nero and his giant space octopus every showed up.
Fine. Enjoy the river in Egypt. It was NOT something that was obvious, because the Kelvin was something we simply had never seen before, or anything from that time period, the Narada was from post-Nemesis, and nothing contradicted Canon, once the Alternate Reality was explained as the cause of the change of events.
Note that this was a side benefit that has ACTUALLY HAPPENED. There is no Both Ways. There is only the truth.
That's the way I see it, provided the new people even stick with the new franchise. If STXI is someone's first taste of Star Trek and they actually liked it, I doubt that much of the original franchise would be to their liking, let alone TOS itself, and they'd just stick with the Abrams version.
You will get people in both camps. It simply hilights that stylistic tastes do change. However, in your hands, you might easily have your audiences walk out bored.
I NEVER said this was universal, but that it happened and that it was a good thing.
Sometimes, you assume too much.
We already HAD this conversation in another thread that was closed, and now we are having it again.
Do I bring up both critical and financial success?
Do I bring up the majority of fans who loved the movie?
No. Because despite the fact that they point to this being considered a good film, all of this is somehow irrelevent.
It depends on their tolerance for the many obvious production limitations of the original. The stories and imaginative approach of the show remain pretty damned impressive, so I'd expect that at least some folks who encounter it for the first time - regardless of how or why - will continue to be drawn to it. Twilight Zone, after all, is even more dated and in black-and-white to boot, but still attracts a few new fans because of the power of the storytelling.
Still, it is hard to imagine that someone who saw Abrams's version of the Enterprise first would be anything other than amused by the original.
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Disillusioned
Commander
No, it's Star Trek in name only, to use an old but accurate cliche.
This is something that would require considerable time and effort on my part, and I don't really have the time to do so. And considering my audience, I'm not really willing to make the time, either. Presuming I ever get the time, I'd probably do it simply for my own enjoyment.
Probably as children. Ironically I probably would have done something with Spock being bullied, too, but instead of having him beat the crap out of the bully I would have done something along the lines of what Amanda described in "Journey to Babel" in order to pull on the heart strings a little. Really I'd have to give it more thought, though.
It was shaky enough that at times I felt nauseous. Between that and the lens flares, it took me further out of the story than I would have been by all the cliches by themselves.
Not to me. If anything it felt like the Star Wars prequels to me.
The different styles can actually help to divide Star Trek up into different eras, at least as far as ship and set design go. Other than that, DS9 was the only real risk-taker.
Well, you're half right. It was an action-adventure movie, generally in line with movies like Star Wars and Starship Troopers.
No, they didn't. They remade Star Trek into something that was a shell of its former self. The only things left that are similar are the names.
No, I didn't.
What ruined Star Trek was bad writing, bad production decisions, and executive meddling from UPN and Paramount, not "franchise fatigue" or whatever catch phrase people are using these days. In point of fact a lot of the problems I have with this movie I also had with NEM.
This movie was mainly aimed at non-fans; Abrams said as much himself. The thing is, if you're going to make a Star Trek movie you should do so, and you just do a good job with it. It isn't "aimed" at anyone that way, and if you hype it up enough and market it well enough, people are going to go see it.
And yet things only ever go bad when they try to go over the top with them, like they did with this movie. They did it with NEM, too, but with that one the people willing to go see the TNG movies had swindled thanks to the previous outings.
Which is why the design would have to be updated, but that doesn't mean redesigned.
No, it did, just not as much as everything else. It was one more lame thing to add to the list of lame things.
I could say the same.
Actually we have, and it should have been more consistent with the TOS era if it was meant to be a new ship, or more consistent with the ENT era if it was meant to be an old ship. What it was consistent with was the design they came up with for the new Enterprise. But the Kelvin was hardly the only thing that indicated this was already an AU. Both Vulcan and Earth are inconsistent with what we know about them from that era. Ironically we know more about Vulcan than Earth during this time, but Nero's attack on one Federation starship doesn't explain the changes in the planet, its culture, or its dress. Really that attack doesn't explain much in as far as the changes seen in this universe anyway.
The giant space octopus doesn't make any sense as anything other than the terror weapon it apparently was supposed to be, and even as that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Spock's ship is also supposed to be from the future, but manages to contradict one of the basic tenants of Trek ship design, which is that the engines do not give off a rocket plume in order to propel the ship. That was one of the things that made the ships seen in TOS so innovative at the time it came out, because everything up until then looked like rockets. Looking at other contemporary designs, while they no longer look like the classic missile shapes, pretty much all other sci fi tends to use rocket engines as the main propulsion of their ships. Speaking of, I noticed that they also quite inappropriately added a rocket-like engine to the back of the warp nacelles. At first I thought it was just supposed to be a different take on what was done in TOS before the sphere end-caps, but when George Kirk hit the throttle it turned out to be a bloody rocket. And this is just a small fraction of it.
And how many? Do we have any statistical data?
Or not.
When you claim that everything had to be redone in order to keep audiences interested, isn't that a pretty big assumption itself?
From what I saw, the reason the other thread got closed is because it got too personal and too off topic.
Yes, because what I saw was clearly a bad movie.
It'll get it's two sequels. Then the cast won't be young and sexy enough anymore. They'll be 'out of ideas' again, people will be told that they don't want 'Star Trek' anymore... someone else makes a new reboot three movies down the line, repeat the process until people just don't care anymore.
RE: Batman, Superman, and everything else.
RE: Batman, Superman, and everything else.
Are you always this depressing?
In MY fantasy a series begins after the second movie. It is a huge success and runs for 7 seasons.. in season 2 the third movie comes out. So awesome is this movie that another 3 movies come out during the run of this show.
After it is over a whole new Trek series begins, a spin off on some fantastic new characters which were developed during the first series. This too is an awesome success..
Two more than we had coming out of the old version, so not bad.
Sure, let them reboot Trek every ten years or so like Batman. That's produced some really good entertainment, and Star Trek is entertainment.
A
Amaris
Guest
And as always, if you don't like it, you still have piles of books, movies, television episodes and much, much more.
J.
No, this is how it works, really. It's not about being 'depressing', it's just how Hollywood likes to treat franchises these days. There's not going to be a 'rennaissance' of all things Star Trek, else it would have happened... it didn't. It's another 'big-budget blockbuster series' that relies heavily on looks and effects to push it.
Let's look at the long running James Bond series. Starts off with one or two really strong movies, then they have to top themselves off to get that 'mass audience', so they get dumb (really dumb, sometimes), more T&A, more ludicrous plots, wild effects... and people tune out. A few years down the line, they 'reboot' with a new (younger) actor and more down-to-earth story and start the cycle anew.
The thread wasn't about my 'fantasy' of what the movie will do for Trek, but what I really thought it would do for Trek.. the short answer? Not much. A couple of more movies, another gap, reboot again.
Disillusioned
Commander
That's not true.
Exactly...although an ever-increasing percentage of the books and other merchandise will be devoted or influenced by JJTrek.
For me it already has blended. The existence of AU's in Trek was established waaaaaaaay back in Mirror Mirror
I've always loved AU stories and wished we'd get more. My wish has been granted and I [*almost] couldn't be happier.
* Damn ugly Ship redesign. Oh well, cannot have everything.
I've always loved AU stories and wished we'd get more. My wish has been granted and I [*almost] couldn't be happier.
* Damn ugly Ship redesign. Oh well, cannot have everything.
I think if one lets go of this notion of a unified Trek canon, where everything is planned out (which it never was, really); one enjoys it a lot more. Like with the James Bond or Batman series. Trek is now bigger than one iteration or generation. Its a tale for the ages.
I was annoyed at first when I heard they were doing a remake, not a prequel. But I came to accept it, as I did with Batman Begins and Casino Royale. And like those two, Trek XI turned out to be a pretty damn good movie. I'd rather have new, different Trek than nothing at all.
I mean, were fans up in arms when Klingons suddenly had Mars bars on their foreheads in TMP? It's just a design change. Big deal. When you get over stuff like that, you enjoy yourself more.
I was annoyed at first when I heard they were doing a remake, not a prequel. But I came to accept it, as I did with Batman Begins and Casino Royale. And like those two, Trek XI turned out to be a pretty damn good movie. I'd rather have new, different Trek than nothing at all.
I mean, were fans up in arms when Klingons suddenly had Mars bars on their foreheads in TMP? It's just a design change. Big deal. When you get over stuff like that, you enjoy yourself more.
For me it already has blended. The existence of AU's in Trek was established waaaaaaaay back in Mirror Mirror
I've always loved AU stories and wished we'd get more. My wish has been granted and I [*almost] couldn't be happier.
* Damn ugly Ship redesign. Oh well, cannot have everything.
Exactly. From the MU, to 'Yesterdays Enterprise', to 'Parallels'; alternate timelines have always been a part of Trek. This film is no different. 'Why should this universe be any less proper than the other?' as Picard puts it in YE. Enjoy Prime Trek and nuTrek.
I'm sure there will be those who REALLY love the new film, and can't get enough of it. There's tonnes of previous Trek for these converts to get into, while they wait for the next one in 2011 or 12 or whatever.
And then there will be the majority of fans of the new film. Who will just wait until the next movie and not bother with the other 700 eps worth of stuff.
Exactly.
