Since it doesn't look like we are getting another Kelvin Universe movie for the foreseeable future, I thought it would be interesting to talk about lessons to learn from the Kelvin Universe movies. This franchise was popular at first, but lost steam over time and here is some things are worth looking at in that regard, I think these films did some things right but made some errors that cost them in the long run:
1. Strike while the iron is hot: There was a 4 year gap between Star Trek 09 and Into Darkness, which I think killed the momentum of the first film, next time the filmmakers should not let a gap like that happen again.
Momentum is part of it. STID had some very stupid moments (e.g. magic blood, hack rewrite of the character death and "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" which doesn't hold up to any narrative standard, never mind the magic blood because NuMcCoy was just being bored one day (on top of the pointless nostalgia throw-in of having the one NuTribble there for no reason except NuMcCoy)...
2. Better plan your franchise, I think there should have been an overall plan how this franchise would proceed and link the films in continuing story, these films seemed like random adventures rather than parts of a greater whole, while the original Star Trek movies from 2 to 4 had a story thread that continued throughout the series, elements of which were picked up in 6. Planning the franchise better would allow for tighter storytelling and give people more incentive to show up for the next film.
I somewhat disagree, not just because the makers of ST09 were not sure it would take off the way it had. It's also not like Star Wars' movies (the original 1977-83 run) had any tightly written plans, either... or wasn't made up as it went along. So it happens.
3. Do not over mine nostalgia: Here is the big problem with the second film, they brought in Khan too quickly and wanted to hit beats from Wrath of Khan so hard, they recreated an entire iconic scene from it. I do not mind a few callbacks or nods to other parts of the franchise, but that was overkill. They could have done anything, instead, they did the greatest hits version of Star Trek and brought back Khan. Into Darkness is my least favorite film of this series because of that.
Already mentioned that but callbacks are ubiquitous in every franchise nowadays regardless of while milestone number the movie isn't at. It was cute in "Die Another Day" for James Bond but not for every movie since, callbacks and nostalgia detract from the story and if there's a strong story then callbacks feel even more hackneyed as the movie then wants you to hawk as it screams "hey look at me, I'm a nod to the past, look at how cool I am!" The only thing more... inane, for lack of appropriate epithet... is self-aware shtick like in Dr Who where he puts on a fez and acts like a coked up toddler in saying they're cool!
Wait-- check that for anniversary movies, a few callbacks for their own sake are okay - it's all celebratory self-congratulatory fun, especially if the underlying script is
better than a bag of callbacks. Callbacks and nostalgia are not easy to do regardless of form, not to mention weaving them into the story in a way that don't scream "TACKY!" to those who understand the reference, or to those who might not get the callback but would otherwise see the scene as relevant to story narrative flow. One GOOD example of a callback is in the 1979 Buck Rogers show when they got Buster Krabbe back. I never saw his Flash Gordon stuff and the references flew over my head at the time, he's just a renowned officer who's cool. People who knew the references liked the homage, which isn't overly done or hammering it over the heads of the audience with. Compare to a Doctor Who story from 1988 where there's a French revolution book is shown sitting on a desk in a science lab, which just screams "Tacky!" as it's early on in the story, which doesn't make use of the detail being given rather protracted time on screen. (Obviously they're callbacks to the original companions from 1963 and we're supposed to think the scene is clever by nodding at us so jarringly... which is a shame since the actual story is first rate, then comes the occasional callback that jars and disrupts the flow. But YMMV.)
4. Reign in the Budgets: I liked some of the special effects in these films, but sometimes it felt like they were throwing money at the screen hoping that would make the audience come in droves. There is a panning shot in Star Trek Beyond that is a beautiful shot of the York Town space station and we can see how much money they spent on it, it looks nice but adds nothing to the story, it looks like they blew the budget on something that could have been cut back. If some of these films were cheaper, they would have been more profitable.
Apart from using a beer factory as starship sets to cut costs of making new sets that likely couldn't be redressed and used elsewhere - which in some ways is actually very clever and anyone who has seen MST3K will have seen far, far worse "big budget" movies filming in the most interesting of places... a little more redress may have helped obfuscate the real life origins, but to rein in the budget and purdy f/x isn't going to happen, audiences have "expectations", which is just a euphemism for "we want big posh eye candy 'events' at the expense of everything else, once we get done whining about the high cost of tickets cuz we have no clue that's where the money goes or what's involved or like anything, and where's that merch." On the plus side, if the actual plot and characters are bad then the shorter length to accommodate the budget for the f/x turns out to be an unintentional plus as you're done with it that much quicker and less treacle to sit through.
