I strongly feel Star Trek 2009 will be better than Star Wars 7

[fireproof78]

Also, the movies, at least from the way this conversation was started, will be done after the next one, so what is the direction then? Novels and online games?

Pretty much. Not really sure how much more "direction" the franchise needs. Sure, we'd all love another TV series or even more movies, but all it would take for that to happen is for someone to pitch such a thing and if approved then they and their production staffs would develop that show or movie. All that can be accomplished without a ceremonial Leader of the Franchise Overall.

Ok, but that does little to encourage franchise growth or keep fans brought in by Abrams films to stay. And maybe nothing will, but I am always frustrated by the status quo of the Trek franchise, especially now that I am older and more aware of the reasons why such things occur.

Also, I'm not calling for a ceremonial leader, but rather someone that I, as a fan, can say, "Hey, what about this?" or "Why isn't this happening?" without the bureaucratic run-around. I might still get that, but I would at least feel some sort of indication of the state of the franchise. Personally, I don't want to go back to novels and online games. That strikes me, from a business standpoint, to be a rather limited market.

 

[eyeresist]

I agree with fireproof78. The current situation is too bitty, a group of cottage industries without coordination, while the suits at the top don't care about Trek and have no vision. That's why I mentioned Marvel before - when the movies and TV were being made by various studios just after a quick buck, the result was often mediocre, and certainly didn't lodge in the public consciousness as part of some big thing worthy of attention. When Marvel gained control of their own cinematic properties, they put people with real knowledge and vision in charge, which meant a new level of quality control, and of deeper coordination between the various iterations before the public.

 

[The Wormhole]

I agree with fireproof78. The current situation is too bitty, a group of cottage industries without coordination, while the suits at the top don't care about Trek and have no vision. That's why I mentioned Marvel before - when the movies and TV were being made by various studios just after a quick buck, the result was often mediocre, and certainly didn't lodge in the public consciousness as part of some big thing worthy of attention. When Marvel gained control of their own cinematic properties, they put people with real knowledge and vision in charge, which meant a new level of quality control, and of deeper coordination between the various iterations before the public.

Matter of opinion. Personally, I'm growing weary of the MCU and how unified all its productions are. Really, it's headed down a path of oversaturation which will lead to burn out. How long before we get in a situation where someone watching a Marvel movie is going to be confused about a character and his backstory, leading to the explanation "well, he was introduced in Age of Ultron, which picked up on several story threads established on the previous month's episodes of Agents of SHIELD. After that, he later returned in a time travel story arc of Agent Carter which also featured the Guardians of the Galaxy, which laid important groundwork for the last Captain America movie, which this is continuing from." To which our bewildered moviegoer will just reply "but this is a Thor movie. I saw the other Thor movies, that should be all that's necessary. Why should I also catch up with movies from separate series, plus watch two TV shows just to understand this movie?"

Is this the kind of vision and direction Star Trek should go in? If so, I'd rather watch Enterprise back in the days when their regard for continuity was so low they did episodes featuring the Ferengi or the Borg than have Trek fall down this pitfall.

 

[Smellmet]

Somewhere between the two would be nice. Another couple of movies (assuming ST3 does well and the cast returns) or a TV series based in this universe, which leads to another movie(s) would be just great.

I can't say I'm particularly excited for Age of Ultron either, it's starting to feel like over saturation to me to be honest. I don't see what this film can deliver that we haven't already seen in all the other movies.

 

[TheSubCommander]

As much as I am critical of Abrams, Super 8 proved he could successfully ape an 80s Spielberg film, and Trek 2009 really proved he wanted to do a Star Wars-like film, and I think demonstrated he could pull it off. With Star Wars 7, Kasdan is writing it, who wrote the best star wars movie bar none, TESB, and Abrams also has the benefit of GL as a consultant, and Disney bankrolling the whole thing. SO, I think SW7 is going to be a pretty good, and very successful film, and I think based on the sneak view, its presentation will be an amalgam of the OT, and Trek 2009. Will it be better than Trek 2009? Maybe, but if so, it will be because he is applying what he learned making the previous films, and the team assembled and money going into it.

 

[eyeresist]

Matter of opinion. Personally, I'm growing weary of the MCU and how unified all its productions are. Really, it's headed down a path of oversaturation which will lead to burn out. How long before we get in a situation where someone watching a Marvel movie is going to be confused about a character and his backstory, leading to the explanation "well, he was introduced in Age of Ultron, which picked up on several story threads established on the previous month's episodes of Agents of SHIELD.

Obviously this is something they will have to keep an eye on. But general Hollywood wisdom is that every sequel has to be accessible to newbies, and I assume Marvel will be no different.
I've been watching Agents of SHIELD, and when everyone was saying "It got so much better since it tied into the Winter Soldier movie" - well, I haven't seen Winter Soldier but I didn't feel I was missing anything. Everything I needed to know was explained in the TV show.

 

[fireproof78]

Somewhere between the two would be nice. Another couple of movies (assuming ST3 does well and the cast returns) or a TV series based in this universe, which leads to another movie(s) would be just great.

I can't say I'm particularly excited for Age of Ultron either, it's starting to feel like over saturation to me to be honest. I don't see what this film can deliver that we haven't already seen in all the other movies.

Yeah, I'm all for balance. It doesn't have to be full Marvel, but neither does it have to be what we currently have, which is not a whole lot for incoming fans. I'm sorry, but its not, and this is coming from someone who has been a Trek fan since he was 8.

Sorry, I don't think it has to be a full Marvel situation for Trek to be successful, and is a bit of a false dichotomy. Those are not the only two choices. Right now, the Trek franchise feels very directionless, due to all the in-fighting, licensing and the like. Maybe there doesn't need to be a spokesperson for the Trek franchise, but it would help.

As a brief aside, I love all the Marvel movies independently, and Captain America is my favorite. I did not enjoy Avengers any less or more because I had not seen Iron Man (at the time, I had not seen it). Trek 09, in my opinion, struck a similar chord, for me. It had a lot of things from Trek that made me smile, or get a chuckle, and yet it was still accessible to non-fans, such as my wife. I think Age of Ultron will be a lot of fun, because Joss Whedon tends to do that.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

As much as I am critical of Abrams, Super 8 proved he could successfully ape an 80s Spielberg film, and Trek 2009 really proved he wanted to do a Star Wars-like film, and I think demonstrated he could pull it off. With Star Wars 7, Kasdan is writing it, who wrote the best star wars movie bar none, TESB, and Abrams also has the benefit of GL as a consultant, and Disney bankrolling the whole thing. SO, I think SW7 is going to be a pretty good, and very successful film, and I think based on the sneak view, its presentation will be an amalgam of the OT, and Trek 2009. Will it be better than Trek 2009? Maybe, but if so, it will be because he is applying what he learned making the previous films, and the team assembled and money going into it.

He definitely succeeded in capturing 80s Spielberg but that was mostly surface level and beyond that it didn't have a lot of the heart and depth that Spielberg's films were known to have, even the ones he produced back in the 80s. Having people like Kasdan and Kennedy makes me confident that Abrams will do a better job of succeeding.

As for his work on Trek, I don't think any of that should be used as an indicator of how he'll approach STAR WARS. It'll be a totally different kind of film. With Trek, he had enough distance from the franchise to be able to do the kind of things he did, like how he handled the character Kirk in particular. I could never see him play the same kind of notes in STAR WARS because he genuinely loves that franchise in a deep way that he never had for TREK. Plus he doesn't have his usual Bad Robot posse involved (unless he gave them uncredited work...)

 

[TheSubCommander]

Be that as it may, I am really pulling for SW7 TFA to be AT LEAST as good as Trek 2009. If it is, then it's a win IMHO. I like both franchises, and it has never been an either/or thing for me.

 

[drt]

I'm not sure Star Wars needed 'saving'.

Yeah, Star Wars keeps expanding and adjusting its market, especially gearing towards the younger demographic with Clone Wars and Rebels, as well as the merchandising and novels. Star Wars is a juggernaut of a franchise, that hardly needs the reintroduction that Star Trek benefited from.

Even with the rebranding of the EU and books, there is still a vibrant market for Star Wars, and across many age groups.

This is something that Star Trek has failed on, on so many levels - and for a long time. It could be because of the legal layers associated with Trek, I don't really know, but on the whole I have complained about Star trek's marketing for years. I am continually impressed with the amount of merchandise available for Star Wars and the 'shelf space' that is devoted to it - in either books or toys. The appetite is still very much there and I believe their marketing style must have something to do with it.

I'm not sure there's that much of an appetite for Star Trek, particularly with the younger set.

So I wouldn't say it is the marketing of Star Trek, it's as fireproof points out, Star Wars is inherently more of a kid-friendly property in the first place plus it makes the effort to get kids interested, which is why there's a market for Star Wars toys, while Star Trek is tchotchkes for older folks.

Hasbro has the master toy license for Star Trek, they could release a complete toy line tomorrow if someone would buy it, but their research obviously indicates there isn't much interest.

wonder what Shatner would've cooked up had TFF been blessed with The Abyss' budget? Rockmen, Gargoyles, DevilGod, epic battles, FX of the finest quality etc

That alone would have lifted the movie no end, the dreadful FX are what kills TFF stone dead for me.

From what I understand Shatner was given a pretty healthy budget for a tentpole film but wasted it. He wasn't money wise, if his insistence on shooting on location at Yosemite says something.

It wasn't the location shooting in Yosemite, it was that Shatner used a third of the budget for his and Nimoy's salaries, which were like $5 million each.

The budget for FF was $33 million, while the Abyss was over twice that at $70M. FF is on par with Lethal Weapon 2 and Batman, which had budgets of $25M and $35M, respectively, but neither of those required that much in the way of expensive special effects. To put things in perspective, they spent $46 million on TMP ten years previously (not even correcting for inflation), which is why it's the only original cast movie that doesn't look low-budget.

 

[eyeresist]

^ With TMP, you have to allow that they folded development costs for Phase II into the total announced budget.

 

[Maurice]

Ralph Winter has said that Shatner basically wasted the budget. He moved the whole company hundreds of miles to shoot at Owen's Dry Lake bed where they built this big Paradise City set which we barely even see. They shot at Trona Pinnacles and Yosemite, and they even had a bigger effects budget than TVH, and still ended up with crap. Yes, there was a teamsters strike and some other concerns, but the money wasn't spent where it needed to be.

^ With TMP, you have to allow that they folded development costs for Phase II into the total announced budget.

Also, they fired visual effects house RA&A and had to hire both Trumbull's group AND Dykstra's Apogee to do a big time crunch on the visual effects, which amounted to months and months of overtime and millions of dollars above and beyond what had been budgeted for.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Ralph Winter has said that Shatner basically wasted the budget. He moved the whole company hundreds of miles to shoot at Owen's Dry Lake bed where they built this big Paradise City set which we barely even see. They shot at Trona Pinnacles and Yosemite, and they even had a bigger effects budget than TVH, and still ended up with crap. Yes, there was a teamsters strike and some other concerns, but the money wasn't spent where it needed to be.

^ With TMP, you have to allow that they folded development costs for Phase II into the total announced budget.

Also, they fired visual effects house RA&A and had to hire both Trumbull's group AND Dykstra's Apogee to do a big time crunch on the visual effects, which amounted to months and months of overtime and millions of dollars above and beyond what had been budgeted for.

Interesting...