Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof should not Return.

[BillJ]

Lazy writing isn't fun, in fact it can be a killjoy. I was rolling along with the flick, flaws and all, and then that scene happened and I started to cringe.

But there are many that don't think it's lazy writing and enjoy the callback to something they're familiar with.

If I was in charge of the films I'd be doing a remake of either "The Cage" or "Where No Man..." and I guarantee I'd be lifting whole fucking chunks of the original scripts and putting them in my film because they are that good. I have no issues with Abrams and Company thinking something is awesome and using it in a new movie. YMMV.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Really? No one [cares] that people don't like the film? There's a whole lot of protest going on here about it.

Whether someone likes something or not is a personal choice but I'm not sure what it accomplishes to constantly bang on it. If I really dislike something, I move on to things that I do like. Is it really necessary for me to go to the Voyager forum and tell them how shitty I think their show is? What exactly is the point of me pissing on something someone else enjoys?

The only time I really jump in is when there is a misrepresentation of what is actually on screen or the famous "Star Trek never did that!!!"

The difference is that with nuTrek it's very relevant. On the former you'd be going off about a series that ended long ago, but with the latter you can at least let your opinions be known and if there's enough criticism maybe the filmmakers will take them into consideration when doing the next film. Orci claims to keep an ear out for Trek fans when making these films, so we're letting him know how we felt, nevermind the mouth breathing haters that "choose" how they feel about the films rather than go with their own gut. I don't "choose" to dislike nuTrek anymore than I can "choose" to like TOS. If it could be as easy as making a decision to like something or not, I'd like all of Trek.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Lazy writing isn't fun, in fact it can be a killjoy. I was rolling along with the flick, flaws and all, and then that scene happened and I started to cringe.

But there are many that don't think it's lazy writing and enjoy the callback to something they're familiar with.

They're free to think that way. That doesn't mean I have to conform to that.

If I was in charge of the films I'd be doing a remake of either "The Cage" or "Where No Man..." and I guarantee I'd be lifting whole fucking chunks of the original scripts and putting them in my film because they are that good. I have no issues with Abrams and Company thinking something is awesome and using it in a new movie. YMMV.

I can see the appeal of doing those as films, because a budget can bring out so much more. I was very open to the idea of Gary Mitchell when those rumors popped out. So long as the new film did it in its own way and didn't lift too much out of the original pilot. It's taking a premise and doing something new with it, rather than remaking something very specific like what was done in STID with that scene in the chamber. You may have enjoyed it, but I found it cringeworthy, so I'll let that be known just as you'll let it be known that you thought it was cool.

 

[BillJ]

The difference is that with nuTrek it's very relevant. On the former you'd be going off about a series that ended long ago, but with the latter you can at least let your opinions be known and if there's enough criticism maybe the filmmakers will take them into consideration when doing the next film.

But actual criticism and what goes on here much of the time (all you have to do is look up a few posts and see someone calling Lindelof "mentally unbalanced") are totally different things.

"This didn't work for me and here's why", is far different than "I think Ken Biller is a (insert random hate) and I think he writes scripts with generic crayons". The latter is from loons who take this shit way too seriously, the former comes across as an intelligent (most of the time) critique that can be debated. We seriously have people going on about how Orci stole something from a prior Trek film yet we rarely hear those same charges leveled at much of Modern Trek that seemingly lifted stuff week after week from what came before. We have the big known offenders like Star Trek: The Motion Picture and "The Naked Now", but if we really went through all of Trek with as fine a comb as we've went through Star Trek Into Darkness we would find many, many similarities. We have people accusing writers of theft because of two minutes out of a 127-minute movie.

I simply think it's crazy.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

That's why I said "nevermind the mouth breathing haters". Just because guys like those exists doesn't mean I should plug my ears and think I'm doing no wrong. Those folks will always exist, it's just a matter of finding the right place with people writing down their thoughts and criticisms. It's too bad Orci had to respond to the "they're shitting in my christmas tree" criticisms at that one site.

 

[BillJ]

It's too bad Orci had to respond to the "they're shitting in my christmas tree" criticisms at that one site.

I think after fours years of abuse on the Internet, it was only human for him to lash out. I think some folks forget that he is a huge fan himself and the drubbing he's taken has likely pushed him over the edge.

Nobody's perfect.

 

[BigJake]

I prefer cornflakes with no urine, please.

You'll eat what we got, monkey boy.

(SRSLY, though. I think it's great that people say they don't care if people don't like the films. And I think once that's actually true these threads will be a lot easier to read.)

 

[MakeshiftPython]

It's too bad Orci had to respond to the "they're shitting in my christmas tree" criticisms at that one site.

I think after fours years of abuse on the Internet, it was only human for him to lash out. I think some folks forget that he is a huge fan himself and the drubbing he's taken has likely pushed him over the edge.

Nobody's perfect.

Have any of the other Trek writers done something similar? Ron Moore himself was mailed death threats for killing Kirk. Even for killing K'Ehelyr he got so much backlash.

 

[BillJ]

Have any of the other Trek writers done something similar? Ron Moore himself was mailed death threats for killing Kirk. Even for killing K'Ehelyr he got so much backlash.

Different people handle things differently. Plus, most of that happened before internet bashing ramped up to its current levels. Back then a few folks had 56k modems at best, now everyone is connected either via broadband or cell phone.

I'm sure Berman and Company would've been dealing with entirely different levels of Hell if they were producing Trek now.

 

[BigJake]

Basically if you're going to read and post on a fan-forum that discusses your writing, you need to have very thick skin. Otherwise it's best just not to go there. It's never excusable or professional to go off on your fans on a fan-forum, especially not in the circumstances Orci did.

Having said that, he's not the first writer it's happened to. Others have done much worse. It's just another data point for the general proposition that writers should usually steer clear of fan-forums about their work. (With a few exceptions.)

 

[CorporalClegg]

Really? No one [cares] that people don't like the film? There's a whole lot of protest going on here about it for no one caring.

No. No one cares that people don't like the film. Some do care, however, those people go about distributing their message.

It's not what you say, it's how and why you say it.

I'm often asked why I'm vegan. I tell people that I disapprove of the inhumane practices often instituted by modern, corporate farming. As a lover of animals, I personally don't find it necessary to eat them in the modern world. I have never, however, said "Meat is murder!"

See the difference?

That's why I said "nevermind the mouth breathing haters". Just because guys like those exists doesn't mean I should plug my ears and think I'm doing no wrong. Those folks will always exist, it's just a matter of finding the right place with people writing down their thoughts and criticisms.

This is a bit disingenuous coming from someone who just invoked the "lazy writing" clause. Hating is exactly what that does.

It implies Orci and Kurtzman don't work hard. That's such a ridiculous thing to even suggest that how else are people supposed to take it but hateful?

It's the same problem I have with SUPERMAN RETURNS where it has a bunch of throwbacks to the original Donner film that feel completely unnecessary and only remind you how much better the older film is.

And here's another popular choice of bait: Old Trek is so much better than nuTrek.

By all [unbiased] empirical and critical evidence, the difference in quality between TWOK and STiD is negligible at best. If there's any doubt, open the respective RT pages and do some reading.

but with the latter you can at least let your opinions be known and if there's enough criticism maybe the filmmakers will take them into consideration when doing the next film.

No.

 

[BigJake]

This is a bit disingenuous coming from someone who just invoked the "lazy writing" clause. Hating is exactly what that does.

No. Describing is what that does. It means that there's something in the writing that with minor edits -- from the reader's perspective -- could have been made to work better but was not, for whatever reason, fixed.

This has nothing to do with the writer's process. Maybe they made the edits in a version that didn't get used. Maybe the studio overruled suggested edits. Maybe they sweated blood over a version that rivalled the transcendent mastery of Tarkovsky and were ignored. Maybe none of those things happened. There's no way to know, and none of that is what "lazy writing" refers to. It refers to the quality of the writing.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I don't consider the assertion that "Absolutely nothing in STID is a rip-off of TWOK" to be an extreme position. I consider it to be a statement of fact. One reason that I do, among others, is that TWOK and STID, both being Star Trek films, are two films in the same series. That alone makes it erroneous to characterize any intentional copying of elements from the former into the latter as a rip-off. The implication of the use of the term rip-off is that some sort of theft has occurred. That's simply impossible in this case.

Legal theft? No.

Creative theft? Dramatic theft? Indication of lazy writing? Yeah, I'd say so. And before somebody goes off on a "You must be a Berman fan" rant again, I wasn't impressed with "The Naked Now," either.

So, then, I guess we can accuse TWOK and TUC of the same thing, in their case having characters appropriate or adapt lines from literature to their dialog ("I'll chase him...", "Tickle us...").

TMP is largely "just" an adaptation of The Changeling, so its hands aren't clean.

Each of TSFS, TVH, and GEN actually reused footage from its immediately previous film.

Gee, whiz, counting STID, we can tar over half of the Trek films with same brush of laziness.

 

[BillJ]

So, then, I guess we can accuse TWOK and TUC of the same thing, in their case having characters appropriate or adapt lines from literature to their dialog ("I'll chase him...", "Tickle us...").

TMP is largely "just" an adaptation of The Changeling, so its hands aren't clean.

Each of TSFS, TVH, and GEN actually reused footage from its immediately previous film.

Gee, whiz, counting STID, we can tar over half of the Trek films with same brush of laziness.

But... but... but... Abrams... childhood... raped... Orci... lazy... thief...

 

[CorporalClegg]

There's no way to know, and none of that is what "lazy writing" refers to. It refers to the quality of the writing.

No English dictionary in the world equates "lazy" to a measurement of quality.

 

[BillJ]

There's no way to know, and none of that is what "lazy writing" refers to. It refers to the quality of the writing.

No English dictionary in the world equates "lazy" to a measurement of quality.

Exactly. Lazy means lazy.

 

[Nerys Myk]

So including an homage to a previous installment of the series is "lazy writing"?

 

[BigJake]

No English dictionary in the world equates "lazy" to a measurement of quality.

"Lazy" can however be (and often is) a description of the writing and not the writers.

When someone says that the use of a god-being in the first episode of Voyager was a "lazy trope," they are not describing the writers. Nobody cares how many man-hours they spent on that lazy trope, the point is that the trope itself is unimaginative, uninteresting, not doing the work it should be in the script. The same is true when someone describes a piece of writing as "tired" or "uninspired." They're not describing the writer's process. They're describing the text. This should not be a very difficult point.

So, then, I guess we can accuse TWOK and TUC of the same thing

Do you really believe adapting material from elsewhere to a script is the same thing as mirroring an entire sequence beat-for-beat from another movie's script?

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you do not really believe that.

 

[BillJ]

So including an homage to a previous installment of the series is "lazy writing"?

Apparently so.

 

[Nerys Myk]

No English dictionary in the world equates "lazy" to a measurement of quality.

"Lazy" can however be (and often is) a description of the writing and not the writers.

When someone says that the use of a god-being in the first episode of Voyager was a "lazy trope," they are not describing the writers. Nobody cares how many man-hours they spent on that lazy trope, the point is that the trope itself is unimaginative, uninteresting, not doing the work it should be in the script. The same is true when someone describes a piece of writing as "tired" or "uninspired." They're not describing the writer's process. They're describing the text. This should not be a very difficult point.

I for one expect a godlike alien in my Trek pilots. Enterprise failed because there wasn't one in "Broken Bow".