Justin Lin talks Trek 3

[Franklin]

One can rationalize it, but the point is that aliens can't be anything but human beings with exaggerated/de-emphasized characteristics. Apologies to Willie Wonka, but "pure imagination" doesn't exist - writers draw on experience to create characters; everything that exists in fiction is ultimately a recombination of what exists, some of it more novel than others.

I remember people talking when I was young about how awesome Larry Niven's aliens were - so I start reading him, and what he invariably does is select one or two human behavioral traits and carry them to one possible logical conclusion. Everything about Puppeteers grows from cowardice, for example. Protectors are aggressively parental and...well, protective (the Niven formula is really something like selecting a single trait and then motivating the character by a presumed-to-be-universal desire to control everything).

Precisely so. Even Tolkien, with his wonderful world building, still recognized that ultimately, his stories were about humans and how they respond to things. I can't recall the exact quote, but the essence of it was that his stories would eventually become about humans because that his how the reader identifies with the story and characters.

Even aliens will eventually have a trait that makes them more like us. Even Mr. Spock (who was even more logical and alien at first) is used commonly to illustrate one of Freud's concepts of personality (Freudian Trio, as the trope goes, apparently). If aliens are made more alien, then often times there is either a character who ascribes human motivation to it (bonus points if they are completely right) or they reveal something that we humans can identify with.

This is meant as no offensive to anyone, but Star Trek has shown some fairly alien life, only for it to have human characteristics (The Horta, for example).

I guess my point is that it isn't a bad thing. YMMV, I guess

We are actually surrounded by "alien" beings. Animals. In real life, we often anthropomorphize them, sometimes with tragic results. In literature, we use them to explain the human condition through parables and other forms of story telling. In reality, short of mind-melding with a tiger, we really can't know what life force is in them without explaining it from a human point of view. We have no common frame of reference with an eagle about how it thinks and how it sees itself in the world.

Within the story in TVH, Spock's mind meld with Gracie only served to make the whales seem more like us and turn them into sympathetic characters with a personal point of view and rights that had to be respected. Their "human" traits served the story just like any alien's in Trek.

I think the closest Trek ever came to a truly alien culture not understandable or explainable through any human traits or motivations were the Borg. And that didn't last long before human traits were seen in some of them.

 

[Mudd]

Exactly - whatever writers portray as a character, they portray using human and only human characteristics. Fables use animals behaving like human beings.

When the Borg were the equivalent of a shark or hurricane they required no human characteristics. As soon as they were used as characters they became human and only human.

The Horta was a mother and its motivation was explained entirely in human terms. In fiction there are no others.

 

[Smellmet]

I am excited about Lin joining the franchise, especially after this interview. He's clearly a talented guy, and has steered The Fast and the Furious franchise to box office gold. These are movies with an ensemble cast too. Who knows? Maybe Star Trek Beyond will catch this guy at the peak of his powers and deliver us a seriously kick-ass flick?

 

[thumbtack]

He sounds quite enthusiastic, but doesn't he realize there is no Star Trek 3? It's all a fraud. He's been duped!

 

[Nerys Myk]

Wait 'til he tries to cash the check. JJ cleaned out that account months ago!

 

[fireproof78]

Too bad he didn't ask for an advance. Poor guy

 

[Devon]

One and done.

 

[Campe]

No script. No budget. No movie.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Don't trust that ImDB, it's being manipulated by Bad Robot.

 

[BillJ]

Don't trust that ImDB, it's being manipulated by Bad Robot.

Seems like the entire movie industry, the Canadian government, the city of Vancouver and all those workers putting up sets are being manipulated by Bad Robot!

 

[Jedi_Master]

In Bad Robot we trust... lol.

 

[BillJ]

For all the folks who believe that there is no budget and no movie: someone is paying all these people and it isn't cheap. Paramount nor Bad Robot are just going to throw money away on some ruse.

 

[Franklin]

For all the folks who believe that there is no budget and no movie: someone is paying all these people and it isn't cheap. Paramount nor Bad Robot are just going to throw money away on some ruse.

It's all going to be for the 50th Anniversary Special, instead.

 

[BillJ]

For all the folks who believe that there is no budget and no movie: someone is paying all these people and it isn't cheap. Paramount nor Bad Robot are just going to throw money away on some ruse.

It's all going to be for the 50th Anniversary Special, instead.

Didn't you hear? J.J. Abrams stole that money to buy a back scratcher at the Dollar Store!

 

[Jedi_Master]

For all the folks who believe that there is no budget and no movie: someone is paying all these people and it isn't cheap. Paramount nor Bad Robot are just going to throw money away on some ruse.

It's all going to be for the 50th Anniversary Special, instead.

How much do interns make stringing together video clips on iMovie these days?

 

[Firebird]

For all the folks who believe that there is no budget and no movie: someone is paying all these people and it isn't cheap. Paramount nor Bad Robot are just going to throw money away on some ruse.

That's the problem, the internet is full of airmchair studio bosses that seem to know everything about film production, except for how movies are actually produced.

 

[Campe]

For all the folks who believe that there is no budget and no movie: someone is paying all these people and it isn't cheap. Paramount nor Bad Robot are just going to throw money away on some ruse.

It's all going to be for the 50th Anniversary Special, instead.

And the twelve different pitches, two of which will be chosen for TV. Which really, the GalaxyQuest series? It's actually a Star Trek series... IN DISGUISE*! Oh, and now we're 99% sure the movie won't happen now. Yet, we're what? Two, three weeks away from production? Doesn't matter. I HAVE YET TO BE WRONG**!!!! MWAHAHAHA!

That's the problem, the internet is full of airmchair studio bosses that seem to know everything about film production, except for how movies are actually produced.

What? You're telling me a film budget isn't decided by reactions on social media***?






*nevermind the fact that a Star Trek series would be produced by a different company than a GalaxyQuest series
**despite the fact I keep moving goal posts
***a real claim found on TrekCore!

 

[Ovation]

See? In a universe with a wide diversity of aliens.

There are no aliens in Star Trek and never have been. There can't be. There are only characters created by human writers that are identified for story purposes as "aliens" and usually required to embody some subset of human motivation and behavior in order to make them seem distinct. In every case they are less than human because they're not permitted to exhibit a full range of human behavior.

The Tholians, for example, are territorial and belligerent people - they exhibit no behavioral traits that are not human because human writers invent them to act in a dramatic story.

Precisely. All stories are human stories (until "real aliens"--patent pending--come and tell theirs).

 

[eyeresist]

I do want some Klingons, though. STID did set up the tension between the Empire and the UFP, and it would be a pity if they just decided to abandon that story line entirely.

I just read the prequel comic Countdown to Darkness, which set up tension with the Klingons nicely.

For all the folks who believe that there is no budget and no movie: someone is paying all these people and it isn't cheap. Paramount nor Bad Robot are just going to throw money away on some ruse.

If nothing else, they have to pay all those people to lie about there being a movie.