My gravest movie misgivings: toy writers

[The Laughing Vulcan]

It isn't anything specific that is turning me off from Star Trek XI, it's the general tendency for Hollywood to churn out complete and utter crap of late. Everything is formulaic, everything is fine tuned in terms of demographics, and it all comes off a conveyer belt of mediocrity.

Star Trek will have to buck a big fucking trend to be halfway watchable. I'd be more excited if it was a cheap Indie production.

 

[Bishbot]

You know they have said it was hard getting into Trek after writing Transformers because they're completely different animals... does that help at all?

 

[Outpost4]

Yeah, TLV, that last James Bond movie was a piece of shit.

I shouldn't be so dismissive of your concerns, Warped9, Brutal and TLV. Your comments are all very valid. It's just that I can't be as cynical as you guys. It isn't in my nature. Call me a Pollyanna but I always at least hope for the best.

I also have to put a melancholy spin on Warped9's remarks. I find it depressing that a series that preaches a positive future can inspire such jaded, fatalistic attitudes. That's just sad.

 

[Green Shirt]

BriGuy said:
Funny... Trekkies making fun of Transformers fans. Which is what's being done by calling the writers of the hugely successful Transformers "toy writers." I believe they've already been greenlighted for two sequels. Trek could be so lucky.

P.S. Nimoy voiced Galvatron in the cartoon movie, not Megatron.

"Sigh", if only Trek was lucky enough to have ever had any sequels.

 

[Blake]

I've never seen any of the new writers work,they claim to be big Trek fans,but they don't seem to be interested in casting McCoy (no publicity)or having Shatner in it.And to bring a new audience to trek will probably mean more violence and space battles.

 

[USS Mariner]

Outpost4 said:

I also have to put a melancholy spin on Warped9's remarks. I find it depressing that a series that preaches a positive future can inspire such jaded, fatalistic attitudes. That's just sad.

It's not the show that inspires jaded fatalism, it's the world that fails to deliver any of those dreams. Optimism is best sheltered with measured skepticism, though even the most cautious actions aren't going to save you from carpet bombing.

Still, just like in the new Potter book, everyone dies (eventually ,) so the best route would be to just take things as they are.

The movie isn't even in pre-production, so I think accusing the thing of sucking without even the script leaked is not only jumping the gun, it's pulling a 180-backflip, landing flat on your feet onto shore.


(Poetic and somewhat ludicrous, but I think it fits the bill.)

 

[USS Mariner]

Blake said:
I've never seen any of the new writers work,they claim to be big Trek fans,but they don't seem to be interested in casting McCoy (no publicity)or having Shatner in it.

Casting a good McCoy is hard. DeForest practically made the character, so we may not even hear about it just before they film.

And to bring a new audience to trek will probably mean more violence and space battles.

I really think that tactic was outdated as a "feature" even before AOTC came out. I really can't recall any movies recently (I haven't seen Serenity yet, though) that really gigantic space battles as their staple (discounting the SW Prequels.)

If it does exist in any form today, it's in giant ground battles. That I would expect to be used in some fashion, if any cinema "trends" do appear in XI.

 

[jayrath]

^ ???

Ground . . . the final frontier . . .

 

[USS Mariner]

jayrath said:
^ ???

Ground . . . the final frontier . . .

Well, land battles are something we haven't seen, and there is the instance of that "Civil War" in Whom Gods Destroy that sounds pretty damn important.

Perhaps that explains why Kirk gained promotion so fast.

 

[Outpost4]

Ooohhh! Maybe we can have cloned robots fighting them!

 

[USS Mariner]

Outpost4 said:
Ooohhh! Maybe we can have cloned robots fighting them!

"They may take our lives, but they'll never take our EYELINER!!!!!!!1"

 

[AC84]

"Redshirts.....TONIGHT, WE DINE IN HELL!!!!!!"

 

[Temis the Vorta]

A beaker full of death said:

UWC Defiance said:

jayrath said:
Hercules, Zorro and Xena?

Oh, yes; giants of screenwriting.

Well, at least two of those series kicked DS9's butt in the syndicated ratings with some regularity back in the 1990s - so...

This is exactly the problem. What a sad statement. It's something I'd expect from a network suit.
Crap is ALWAYS going to be popular. This is a question of quality.

You can't ignore the bottom line. If Trek XI isn't a financial success it will be a huge setback. Of course, we also want it to be good quality, but that's not what's going to determine its survival.

However, I don't think Trek needs to be Hercules or Xena to be a success...

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Outpost4 said:
Yeah, TLV, that last James Bond movie was a piece of shit.

I shouldn't be so dismissive of your concerns, Warped9, Brutal and TLV. Your comments are all very valid. It's just that I can't be as cynical as you guys. It isn't in my nature. Call me a Pollyanna but I always at least hope for the best.

I also have to put a melancholy spin on Warped9's remarks. I find it depressing that a series that preaches a positive future can inspire such jaded, fatalistic attitudes. That's just sad.

Eh. Don't be sad. I look at it this way: Trek has gone on far longer and enjoyed more success than we fans had any right to expect. If Trek XI is good (and it could well be) than that will be great and I'll enjoy it with gusto. But if it sucks (and it most likely but not most certainly will suck) then what have I lost? The price of a ticket and a couple of hours I may have otherwise spent searching the net for pictures of Lindsey Lohan's vagina or Claire Danes's nipple? The Great Bird's optimistic vision of tomorrow is safe so long as Bush keeps the flag-draped coffins off the air and we continue to pretend Darfur isn't happening. Oh yeah, and the mass extinctions we're causing that put the death of the dinosaurs to shame--we need to ignore them, too. I can do that.

Now let's see, Google: Danes Nip Slip... Oooh, plump...

 

[payndz201]

A couple of amusing notes about the Transformers script: Kurtzman and Orci write out two Decepticons (Bonecrusher and Brawl/Barricade) with a vague stage direction that doesn't bother to confirm if they've been destroyed or not, and when Bumblebee (in robot mode) 'introduces' himself to Sam and Mikaela, they don't even remember to have him transform back into car mode before he opens his doors and they get in. Which makes me imagine this scene:

Sam: This is so cool- [transformation noise] AAAARGH! EEEAAAGH! [squish]

I hope this isn't representative of their attention to detail in the Star Trek script...

 

[Deleted 2]

payndz201 said:
A couple of amusing notes about the Transformers script: Kurtzman and Orci write out two Decepticons (Bonecrusher and Brawl/Barricade) with a vague stage direction that doesn't bother to confirm if they've been destroyed or not, and when Bumblebee (in robot mode) 'introduces' himself to Sam and Mikaela, they don't even remember to have him transform back into car mode before he opens his doors and they get in. Which makes me imagine this scene:

Sam: This is so cool- [transformation noise] AAAARGH! EEEAAAGH! [squish]

Like this?

 

[Dusty Ayres]

The Laughing Vulcan said:
It isn't anything specific that is turning me off from Star Trek XI, it's the general tendency for Hollywood to churn out complete and utter crap of late. Everything is formulaic, everything is fine tuned in terms of demographics, and it all comes off a conveyer belt of mediocrity.

Star Trek will have to buck a big fucking trend to be halfway watchable. I'd be more excited if it was a cheap Indie production.

By the Lords Of Kobol, please no!

If you're talking about the Sundance people, they can't do much except navel gazing shite like Your Friends & Neighbors, Welcome To The Dollhouse, and a whole lot of kitchen-sink crap. Star Trek is supposed to be about the human race moving past all of the crap like that (or at least Starfleet officers), and to see them tackle Star Trek in any way, shape or form would turn me off completely, like what they do usually does now.

Maybe Danny Boyle (Sunshine) could do a Star Trek movie....maybe. Something like Star Trek:Auroramight be something that one of them can do. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING,[/i, concerning the 23rd or 24th centuries. If these fucking mundanes can't handle it, let them do Battlestar Galactica or Children Of Men, or Outland-that's up their alley.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Let's see...two of the writers of the much heralded Star Trek 6 wrote the hideous Superman 4.

The writer of A Beautiful Mind and Cinderella Man also gave us Batman & Robin.

Wait and see what these writers of the new Trek can deliver. And while Ellison, Sturgeon and Bloch all wrote episodes of Trek, they only did a very few each. The rest of the series was written by lesser known writers, regular series guys and the most of them were rewritten by Roddenberry, Coon and Justman.

Besides, What Are Little Girls Made Of and Catspaw are classics? Those are from Bloch. You never know who's going to give you what. Most fans love Tribbles and that was Gerrold's first script. Ever.

Watch the moive, then decide.

 

[Admiral2]

Obviously, no one else will say it, so I will.

All this hand-wringing over Kurtzman and Orci is misplaced. They're not the real issue. The Director is.

In Transformers, they delivered the screenplay Michael Bay wanted as the framework for his movie. For Trek XI, they will deliver the screenplay that JJ Abrams wants as the framework for his movie.

So, for me, the real question is, will Kurtzman and Orci go from having delivered a movie that actually entertained me to delivering a movie based on the will of the guy that created the La Femme Nikita knockoff, the Gilligans-Island-with-Polar Bears soap opera and gave us Mission: Tom Cruise-looking-intense-while-stuff-blows-up Three?

My worry is that the answer is YES.

Of course, anyone who likes JJ Abrams should not have any problem. K & O will deliver.

 

[A beaker full of death]

ssosmcin said:
Let's see...two of the writers of the much heralded Star Trek 6 wrote the hideous Superman 4.

Actually, the guys whose names appeared as writers of STVI had almost nothing to do with it, per Nimoy's I Am Spock.

And frankly, I didn't care for STVI.