Orci strikes back

[Noname Given]

This doesn't make any sense. You get upset because someone you don't know lied to you about the contents of a movie? Just seems silly to me.

Orci gets upset (and abusive) when people he doesn't know talk about how they hate the movie. It that any less silly?

^^^
Actually, that's an over-simplification of what he was responding to.

Here's the original article (link)

Teaser (from the article):

All of the TREK movies, in order of worst to best, as chosen by the hardest core STAR TREK fans in the universe. You won't believe what came in at #7.

^^^
And this article was picked up and parroted by major web entertainment sites.

Of course it was found out later:

- Out of a Convention that had thousands of attendees; less then 100 were at the panel this poll was conducted at.

- The attendees DIDN'T put 'Galaxy Quest' on the poll per se; the person running the panel added it to the list of films himself.

It's already been shown by other Star Trek fan polls taken on sites like this one (TREK BBS) - STID doesn't come close to being rated as the worst Star Trek film ever. (On the Trek BBNS poll, I think it came in around 6th out of 12.)

So yeah, I'd say he has something to gripe about with regard to the validity of said article.

 

[Tosk]

And he's got just as much right to defend it. By saying he should get a thicker skin or stay out of forums, you've basically said that people that didn't like his work had the same option: Shut up and stay off forums that like the film. If they can trash talk him, he can sling it right back at 'em.

Of course he has the right to defend it. I didn't mean to imply he didn't...my comment was more meant as the options he had other than telling people to fuck off.

Of course, this was originally just about whether it was silly or not.

 

[SeerSGB]

And he's got just as much right to defend it. By saying he should get a thicker skin or stay out of forums, you've basically said that people that didn't like his work had the same option: Shut up and stay off forums that like the film. If they can trash talk him, he can sling it right back at 'em.

Of course he has the right to defend it. I didn't mean to imply he didn't...my comment was more meant as the options he had other than telling people to fuck off.

Of course, this was originally just about whether it was silly or not.

Just default to all 'net drama is silly and / or stupid at its root.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

First, there is a clear difference between a working title of a project, and denying something that clearly isn't true. No explicit details were released about "Blue Harvest," so your comparison is completely off.

They had posters, taglines ("Blue Harvest: Horror Beyond Imagination"), t-shirts, etc. all meant to give the impression that they were making a low budget horror film instead of the last installment of the original Star Wars trilogy. The reasoning was both to fool fans (with mixed success, just like the Khan campaign) both at home and who had gathered at filming sites, and to fool local vendors who would jack up their prices if they found out a big budget blockbuster was being filmed instead of a two-bit horror movie. So it was a creative and business decision, much like the decision to conceal and confuse Harrison's identity. They're not perfectly comparable obviously, but it's close enough.

Now, back to Trek. Saying that Cumberbatch isn't playing Khan is meant as a deception, and nothing more. They were trying to generate "controversy" or "mystery," or whatever they wanted to call it. But in plain English: it was a lie. And they knew they could do it, because they were just "fricking" with the public, and no matter what, they'd still make as much money regardless of what they said.

Yeah, and? Why do you feel entitled to know all the details upfront and not have a little mystery? JJ Abrams does this level of secrecy with many of his TV and film projects and it seems to be a successful formula for him so far, so why should he stop just because some spoiled fans think they are owed more? It's his opinion that knowing too many details about a film or TV show too early ruins the experience. I don't entirely agree, but who the hell am I to tell him he can't do that with his own projects? If I don't like it, I am free not to buy a ticket. I am not entitled to anything else beyond that.

Also, as mentioned, the involvement of Khan came later in production, so when they initially started out talking about the movie, it wasn't a lie (not even a little harmless white lie that it was later). If they said "no comment" to every reporter who asked a question about Khan, it would have been perfectly obvious that the movie was about Khan, and it still was to many people even with the fibs. So, are you saying that there's no room for keeping spoilers and they have to spill the beans on major character and plot points when people ask in interviews?

For all your accusations of me taking you too literally, you repeatedly keep bringing up the fact that there are no legal or financial consequences for Abrams and Orci's "lying" to protect a spoiler, so it gets a bit hard to call something subtext when you make it so overt. Clearly you think there should be consequences for their horrible deception about Khan, or else you wouldn't keep bringing that up:

Because I see Ocri and his ilk for what they are. They go to the press and say whatever is on their minds, regardless of its truth. If they want to mislead, they lie about something. As I've said, no one is going to take them to court over their statements. So why not?

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I suppose Abrams and co. should've just revealed the entire plot ahead of time so they wouldn't have to lie about anything. How lame is that?!?

 

[Commishsleer]

I'm glad Orci can be bothered to get upset by criticism.

That he's passionate enough to defend his work.

 

[Konata Izumi]

Might be too passionate to see its flaws though?

 

[SeerSGB]

Might be too passionate to see its flaws though?

I don't think it's people pointing out flaws, so much as it's 4 years of the same garbage. They listen to the fans, the fans bitch; they ignore the fans, the fans bitch. This didn't come out of the blue, it's just at the tail end of 4 years of comments that ranged from legit criticism to what could be called abuse.

 

[Smellmet]

Trekmovie has just become thousands-long posts of petty, childish arguing, some if it getting out of hand if you ask me, Orci has had to put up with endless people being complete and utter tossers to him, he had every right to tell them to f*** off like anyone else has on there. We're lucky we have this level of interaction with one of the writers of these new movies, but some people think that's just a green light to be nasty to the guy - do I think there could have been improvements made to ST09 + STID? Hell yes, but I'd rather listen to the guy's insights, like I do on here, not be rude and disrespect him.

Me? I'd rather be on BBS, no question. It's Trekmovie thats broken, not Star Trek.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Might be too passionate to see its flaws though?

That would only be the case if he was...
a) getting angry about constructive, non-personal, non-hyperbolic criticism (which he wasn't),
b) like most writers, more critical of and willing to examine his own work than most fans would be,
c) responsible for all the choices made when he had a co-writer (Kurtzman), a follow-up writer (Lindelof), a director/producer (Abrams) and executive producers from the studio providing their own script revisions and changes in direction.

TV is a writer's medium. In film, writers are more of a cog in the machine. Which is not to say that they aren't a vital part of the process and don't greatly influence the outcome, but at the same time they have a lot more bosses to answer to and hoops to jump through, so it's unfair to lay all of the blame at their feet.

He didn't get mad at someone for saying "I found the dialogue in such and such scene a bit weak" or "It's a plot hole for the Enterprise to do this." He got mad because he was being blamed for breaking Star Trek among other things, after objectively delivering two of the highest grossing, most critically acclaimed, and most viewer acclaimed films in the franchise. Now some numpty is going to say "But that's not the definitive gauge of whether a film is good" but then, what metric are we supposed to judge success on if not box office receipts, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic critical review aggregators, and exit/phone polls of viewers?

You're free to say a film was horrible in your opinion, but objectively you don't have much of a leg to stand on if you're going to say a couple of huge box office successes that are critical and viewer acclaimed and liked by most fans broke the franchise. That's when people start coming across as fanatical.

 

[RAMA]

Reaction to the movie..oversimplification: The people who didn't like it: The mostly small number of Trekkies who already are convinced STID wasn't any good simply repeat the mantra to the point small news items get other reactions like the article from Trekmovie.

Human beings tend to react more to negative information rather than positive, and apparently a large number of Trekkies are neurotics, and exacerbate the issue. You can repeat all the positive (factual) things about the movie and not get the same reaction. Simple.

RAMA

 

[JWPlatt]

I don't buy the apple in the Kobayashi Maru scene being a coincidence. Maybe Abrams didn't know the connection but the screenwriters did, it was either in the script or they suggested it to Abrams. And it was used too much, got kind of annoying after a while.

TVTropes.org says, "Cavalier Consumption: Kirk during the Kobayashi Maru test is shown casually munching on an apple while destroying the simulated Klingon attackers with trivial ease thanks to hacking the sim computers. The gesture was added by Chris Pine because he heard once that eating an apple makes you look more cocky."

But TVTropes could also have gotten that from the same rumors or commentary. I don't remember it said in the commentary; I'll have to go check sometime. But even the "word of god" (TVTrope term for authoritative source) can be wrong sometimes. I still find it extremely unlikely as a coincidence.

 

[SalvorHardin]

It looks like Orci has been doing some apologizing

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Truly, history's greatest monster.

 

[BillJ]

Truly, history's greatest monster.

 

[Borgminister]

Orci shot Kennedy!

 

[Set Harth]

And may be 25% alien.

 

[Opus]

He was playing the 'Evil Bob Orci' from 'The Enemy Within'.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Wow, just what is it with those guys. They knew the fanbase was very vocal. Now some of them don't like the film and the writer reacts all butthurt. That's hilarious.

I read the original editorial expecting something truly scathing in order to get Orci's reaction. The editorial, in fact, is well-thought-out and perfectly reasonable. I don't necessarily agree with it, but there's nothing in there that calls for such an unprofessional and childish response.

The writer of the editorial calls for new Trek writers. Here's how he begins that part:

A lot of critical barbs were aimed at the writers of Star Trek Into Darkness about the script and plot of the film. I won’t join in that chorus, because writing a multi-billion dollar film is something I have never had to do. The pressure must be IMMENSE, and there are many hoops that you have to jump through to produce a script for such a project. That being said, Star Trek at its best has always had top-notch writing, no matter the series.

There's nothing unreasonable there.

Here's Orci's response:

...frankly, your tone and attidude make it hard for me to listen to what might otherwise be decent notions to pursue in the future. As I love to say, there is a reason why I get to write the movies, and you don’t.

Oh, and don't forget this gem:

FUCK OFF!

Christ, what a petulant child.

 

[SeerSGB]

Who has gone on to apologize for his reaction.

Spend 4 years hearing the same entitlement mindset garbage from the vocal members of the fanbase, some of it bordering on abusive, a good portion the sort of stuff that would get a person kicked from a messageboard on most counts, and see what mood you're in at the end of the day. The overreaction to this just reeks of some of the fanbase being mad that the hired help back talked them.

Not saying he couldn't have worded better, but he had every right snap back at the people snapping at him. Hell, I applaud him for both standing up for his production and having the balls to apologize.