That film rocked! At least that's the way I, my wife and the 5 other people who saw it feel!
Oh boy! Is the May date changing again?
- Thread starter gastrof
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That film rocked! At least that's the way I, my wife and the 5 other people who saw it feel!
I'm not interested in punishing Abrams -- I'm just being honest that my interest has waned because of so much tease and so little strip.
Most of the movie is in the can and has been for weeks. Over the months, I've read many times about how "awesome" it is from the people who made it; seeing a little of that "awesomeness" would have gone a long way in helping to keep my interest. As it stands, I'm now bored with the teasing. The marketing strategy has had the opposite of its intended effect on me.
Exactly...If I find out that Nero being a Romulan was supposed to be a surprise (within the plot), and that surprise was spoiled 8 months ahead of time, then I will be a bit pissed that I found out before seeing the film.
ST-One
Vice Admiral
And I honestly would grow very weary of a 7 month long strip show (even a literal one, with women).
Although I do enjoy speculating about the film with fellow fans.
NEMESIS poor numbers on it's opening weekends could have been because TREK doesn't work for a lot of people like it once did. I know it's hard for a TREK fan to accept this, but blaming NEMESIS, or blaming leaked scripts that appeared on the internet seems like grasping for straws. The possible sad fact is, people just don't dig TREK anymore.
Just don't agree that SPIDER-MAN ever had a geek stigma like TREK has. TREK is so stigmatized, it's geeks even have a name--Trekkies. SPIDER-MAN does not. Plus, SPIDER-MAN was a comic book hero, which movies are hugely popular right now. Sci-fi isn't.
But all the information I quoted is official. Previous announcements by the director are pretty official.
That Nero's race is still a mystery is probably due to it being a mystery in the movie, hence the whole "What happened to his ear?" debate. I'm not expecting any "official" one-paragraph synopsis to identify Nero by race.
Balderdash. "Insurrection" had a highly successful opening weekend. It had a sharp fall off in numbers after that, as did ST V, and the reviews and fan opinions reflected that.
So you reckon everyone simply started hating Star Trek between "Insurrection" and "Nemesis"?
trevanian
Rear Admiral
The INS opening numbers were not anywhere near as high as expected after the (still weird to me) popularity of FC, and the best way to tell that is the Monday after it opened, Berman and co started saying the film's budget was 58 mil, not 65-67, probably hoping the film might approach a decent gross relative to the lower inaccurate figure.
The film was coming in right around 58 BEFORE the reshoots and the new ending, which required roundtheclock shifts at various fx vendors and probably contributed to some of the ineffectual fx work, since they had to stop finessing some shots in order to expedite new ones.
But it still won its opening weekend. "Nemesis" was ignored, by comparison.
Hardly Balderdash. NEMESIS wasn't a great film, but it was no worst than INSURRECTION or THE FINAL FRONTIER (clearly the worst). It's final performance at the cinema--and on opening day--just proved that the TREK franchise was no longer popular enough to support bad movies (meaning support from the general public and the casual fan).
Hate is a bad word, but to answer your question, yes. Bad movies, finally caught up with the TREK film franchise. INSURRECTION was just terrible and was more responsible for destroying the TREK film franchise than NEMESIS. TREKs habit of making bad, made-for-TV movies, finally caught up with it.
All areas of TREK; from conventions, to book sales, to TV series, to the movies, had been in rapid decline before NEMESIS appeared. My contention is it finally caught up with TREK around Insurrection and Enterprise on TV.
The notion that leaked scripts and bad internet rumors was a major reason why fans stayed away from NEMESIS--including on opening day, is silly to me; casual fans and the general public stayed away also, and the majority of them I bet didn't know the script was available on the web, or heard how bad the movie was suppose to be, so why did they stay away? I'll tell you why, 'cause TREK just doesn't interest them anymore and INSURRECTION didn't help matters.
The bottom-line is TREK is dead. STAR TREK 11 is perhaps Paramount's final, last ditch effort to milk their cash-cow, after years of unwisely strip mining it with way too much bad product, way too often, and excessively, in way too many mediums at one time.
The ST novels have not suffered a "rapid decline" at all. Pocket went from two books per month to one, but the average word count has essentially doubled over the years.
Without the huge swell of TNG fans watching new TNG on TV, and buying everything with a Trek logo on it, Pocket can no longer make hefty encyclopedias cost-effective, sure, but ST publishing is far from dead.
While general US cinema audiences hadn't been reading "Nemesis" scripts online, they were certainly hearing the then-upcoming movie getting bad worth of mouth from ST fans. The film did win its opening weekend here in Australia, but it wasn't timed against the same films as in the US. Our traditional opening day for "Lord of the Rings" films wasn't until the Boxing Day (26th Dec.)
Interestingly, the first release of "Nemesis" on DVD did win its weekend of US first-release. So it turned out to be a movie many were still curious about, and wanted to own (even knowing that a two-disc set was imminent), but just not worth their while to go to a cinema.
I'm sure with the high profile promotion ST XI will have, it will garner some nice long queues on opening weekend, and hopefully good reviews and postive word of mouth will continue the momentum.
I distinctly remember reading book sales of the TREK novels had taken a nose dive, so cutting production is a sign of that.
I can remember going to my local bookstores and seeing a whole shelf devoted to TREK books (just above the STAR WARS book shelf.) Well, STAR WARS books have held their own ( there has been some decline). TREK books have diminished considerably, and in a lot of stores, all but disappeared.
We can go back and forth on this forever, but that's not my style. I would probably agree with yours (and others) position, if NEMESIS was an opening day failure/overall failure and sales in all other TREK mediums (movies grosses, TV ratings, etc.) had not crashed--or, at least had held steady. They did not. They have not. My god, even The STAR TREK: THE EXPERIENCE in Vegas, closed a month or two ago.
In my book, it's more consistence and plausible, that NEMESIS' failure was contributed more to a reduced interest in TREK and a poor movie, that while better than INSURRECTION and a few other TREK films I could name, just wasn't good enough for fans or the general audience to spend a lot of money on in a movie theater. I'm not saying people have a total disinterest in TREK, just that it's no where near where it was.
Renting a DVD is a lot cheaper. If people choose to wait for the video, that's a sign of disinterest in the movie, but when you see the decline in TREK in other area, you have to factor in lack of interest in the franchise as well.
While the internet is a good source of influence, in this case, I just don't think a bad script, (or rumors of a bad script picked up by the general public) floating around the internet, as the major cause of NEMESIS woes. Did it contribute? Probably, but definitely don't see it as a major cause for why the general public stayed away (for reasons I mentioned earlier) and hardcore fans stayed away. Hell, hardcore fans were probably the only ones who went to see it.
Spiderman had the benefit of being the first big hero movie after 9/11. People always forget the New York/911/Spiderman thing.
Spiderman also appealed to kids...A LOT. A lot of those massive numbers had to do with parents taking kids. There was no geek stigma for kids. Comic book movies found the right blend of comic nerds and kids, and the success of those movies attracts the general audience to see what the fuss is about.
Spiderman 2 was an incredible movie and deserved everything it got at the box office and than some.
Star Trek has the geek stigma that it will never get rid of. It had a niche audience that has been eroded due to horrible TNG movies along with Voyager/Enterprise. Nothing is going to change that. It doesn't have the kid factor to help it either.
The franchise needed a longer rest and recovery. This is far too soon and its going to get slaughtered at the box office because of it.
Spiderman also appealed to kids...A LOT. A lot of those massive numbers had to do with parents taking kids. There was no geek stigma for kids. Comic book movies found the right blend of comic nerds and kids, and the success of those movies attracts the general audience to see what the fuss is about.
Spiderman 2 was an incredible movie and deserved everything it got at the box office and than some.
Star Trek has the geek stigma that it will never get rid of. It had a niche audience that has been eroded due to horrible TNG movies along with Voyager/Enterprise. Nothing is going to change that. It doesn't have the kid factor to help it either.
The franchise needed a longer rest and recovery. This is far too soon and its going to get slaughtered at the box office because of it.
I don't agree it's going to get slaughtered at the box office, but I definitely see your point. However, my hope is a good movie will solve any set of problems including the geek factor, a niche market, and a host of bad TNG movies.
I think the movie will do well domestically, it's the possible failure in foreign markets that will be the movies undoing--something TREK has never been able to solve.
I think the key will be this: If past TREK films did poorly internationally because TREK films have, let's face it, been severely under-produced, almost made-for-TV like, and if this film looks and moves and resembles the current, dumbed-down, over-produced escapist movies, currently coming out of Hollywood, I think it will be a financial success. The next question becomes: will hardcore TREK fans accept this kind of TREK film? From my perspective, as along as it revitalizes the franchise, I can live with it, even though I loath the current crop of genre films coming out of Hollywood.
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