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I Like Abrams
- Thread starter USS Triumphant
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Each to their own - I much prefer the TOS that actually was, with imperfect humans, conflict, money and a Kirk who called himself a soldier to the latter-day Roddenberry's vision of it. Roddenberry disliked the racism of STVI, believing Starfleet officers to be evolved beyond it. It often seemed to me that in TNG they were going out of their way to make the characters as unrelatable as possible. Taking the humanity out of the human adventure, so to speak.
And I'm right in the middle. I want to watch Star Trek to see an optimistic, less militarized future where humans are more apt to solve their problems with words, but I don't want to go the extremes of TNG where people stop acting like humans. Deep Space Nine was the perfect middle ground.
I feel like I see a lot of people who are prone to tendentiously reading comments this way that make no personal claims about Abrams or anyone else.
For example, say my name were Devin Faraci and this was how I felt about Star Trek: Into Darkness:
The infamous purveyor of Hatorade said:
Now, even if my feelings about it were that strong (and I'm not laying claim to Devin's opinions word-for-word, I actually happen to think STiD is the better of the two AbramsTrek films), still: notice how all those things said there are about the movie and not about claiming that Abrams rapes kittens and steals Meals-on-Wheels money from sweet old grannies?
It's still just an opinion about a film, not an opinion about whether you should hang out and have a beer with the filmmaker. Nor even by extension an opinion about what sort of person you must be for liking such a film.
More people should get a real handle on that kind of distinction.
[FWIW, I have no particular personal opinions about J.J. Abrams, on account of I make a point of trying to avoiding speculating in this way about people I don't know. As a filmmaker and television producer I would say his work seems a very mixed bag and much overrated -- though Cloverfield is solidly in the plus column for me and Super 8 was pretty good.]
I have one, and while you're correct that *most* comments are about the material, I have definitely seen more than a few that make rude assumptions about the people involved, themselves. Enough that it prompted me to start this thread, which, strangely enough, has seen comments that are mostly about how people don't completely hate the material, rather than about the sort of comments I was referring to in the first place. But I'm not bothered - I said what I wanted to say, and people are free to take the conversation in whatever direction they desire from there.
I believe you. I'm simply sounding the cautionary note because I've seen some pretty major miscues around this; I remember (for instance) a conversation from that nuTrek forum in which someone spent several thousands of words trying to make the case that the phrase "lazy writing" or "lazy plotting" was a direct personal attack on the writers.
No, that's valid critique. An example of what I'm talking about is when I have seen people imply or outright say that because Abrams is a Star Wars fan that he had malicious intent when taking on doing the Trek movies. That sort of thing rises to the level of character assassination.
If someone's doing that, it would certainly sound somewhat overboard.
I don't know if we'll ever know what that meant in the article. I doubt it would mean no older merchandise being sold. Clearly Abrams wanted to build up the new Star Trek and create a behemoth like Star Wars. That's always going to be a mixed bag, with schlock as well a great merchandise offered.
The result would have been a vastly more popular Star Trek due to advertising, going great guns and making a new series, etc. Instead they balked and he left for greener pastures.
I know some hardcore fans see him as the ruining the franchise. I'm definitely not in that camp. I was pleased to see a new film made and so glad for a second film in 2013.
You can't expect dated media to continue to have a draw for young people. Young people have no sense of nostalgia until they get much older. Sure, the many series ran in syndication, but was it hugely popular in their demographic? Those were popular to us.
There might be some folks who think breathing life into older media is terrrible, but I'd rather have new series anyday as well as other diverse projects like books to keep it alive.
But it's true in a way. He wouldn't dare to redesign the Milenium Falcon, because he loves it. But he hesitates no second to redesign the Enterprise, because he doesn't care.
All the arguments they brought up during Star Trek, like that they need non fans at the helm for greater audience appeal, is suddenly not true with Star Wars, where all of the involved are fans. None of them would dare to say stuff like “Yeah as a kid I never got Star Wars, I thought it was boring.“
They all show greater respect for the Wars source material than when they worked on Trek.
Abrams certainly went out of his way to make a point about his indifference to Trek (and there's a certain cynicism to that, and I think his "resurrection" of the brand with the distinctivenss of Trek excised is ultimately a saddening sight), but while I can see that rubbing people the wrong way, it doesn't rise to the level of "malice". It's also likely as much about the development executives' priorities as his own.
The reality was that Trek was trying to reinvent itself to appeal to new audiences after years of mismanagement; I wouldn't be surprised if Abrams had been specifically asked to make his indifference to the old franchise and its fans a talking-point as a way of playing that up. Star Wars' situation isn't the same.
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Amaris
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I just find it odd that when some people don't like a certain brand or style of Trek, there is this idea that the producer/director/actor/studio behind it hates their precious, and that they must have made a terrible film on purpose, because they hate the fans, and want to punish them for... something.
Okay, as a film and TV producer, how would you go about making the second and third Star Trek movies, and how much better would you make them than you think Abrams didn't?
Apparently you don't have to have passion or respect for Star Trek to make a film palatable to fans as proven by Nicholas Meyer's TWOK and TUC.
Nick Meyer introduced many naval allegories but took "Hornblower" a little too serious, IMHO.
With Abrams I can't shake the feeling that his latest film was too derivative and he tried to re-envision elements from TWOK too often.
The Khan scream is the most prominent example but there are also details to consider.
Nick Meyer essentially recreated the Titanic's iceberg collision in TWOK (right down to the cogwheel mechanism of the engine room bulkhead door).
What does Abrams do? He tries to top that with allusions from "The Poseidon Adventure" where you have crew members hanging or falling from high places.
And where did we see such images before? Right, in TWOK and TUC, both directed by Nick Meyer.
Bob
Nick Meyer introduced many naval allegories but took "Hornblower" a little too serious, IMHO.
With Abrams I can't shake the feeling that his latest film was too derivative and he tried to re-envision elements from TWOK too often.
The Khan scream is the most prominent example but there are also details to consider.
Nick Meyer essentially recreated the Titanic's iceberg collision in TWOK (right down to the cogwheel mechanism of the engine room bulkhead door).
What does Abrams do? He tries to top that with allusions from "The Poseidon Adventure" where you have crew members hanging or falling from high places.
And where did we see such images before? Right, in TWOK and TUC, both directed by Nick Meyer.
Bob
I don't much care for "JJ. Abrams, director of Star Trek who couldn't stop saying how much he didn't get (like?) Star Trek". I like "JJ. Abrams who helped shape Lost". Actual person JJ. Abrams? Never met him. Kinda reminds me of Leonard from The Big Bang Theory. Cool glasses.
Okay. Who cares? People are going to have opinions you and I may judge as stupid. So what?
You wouldn't have started this thread if you weren't bothered.
Like much of the creation of TNG.
The precedent for redesigning the Enterprise every few years was set long before Abrams became involved. His incarnation looks much closer to the original than most of the redesigns.
I would make them a gajillion times better, obviously, because my movies would feature Rapebear as the villain and everyone would be a talking cat. Who doesn't love talking cats*?
Yeah, I'm not seriously going to pitch you an alternate bloody script as the price of admission for Not Liking a Thing You Like. Doesn't work that way.
Some of the redesigns reflect an evolution from NCC-1701 (mid 23rd Century) to NCC-1701-D (mid 24th Century), so differences had to be / were expected.
I therefore assume a fair comparison needs to be limited to the TOS, the TMP and the nuTrek Enterprise: http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints/new-enterprise-size-comparison-chart.jpg
I'm sorry but I can't agree with your statement. The nuTrek Enterprise looks like she can't decide whether she wants to be related to the TOS or the TMP version. The set back connecting dorsal is a feature neither the TOS or the TMP version has which deprives her of an elegance the TOS and TMP version do have, IMHO. Especially the nacelles look somewhat cartoonish to me. Would have been a cool design for TAS, though.
Bob
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