Public perception of Star Trek?

[Joel_Kirk]

I'm boggled that they rejected a Phil Kaufman script.

The man who would go on to write (or co-write?) the legendary "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "The Right Stuff," and previously wrote "The Outlaw Josey Wales."

(I realized that he also would write the heavily flawed and dated adaptation for Michael Crichton's "Rising Sun," featuring my two favorite leads at that time: Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery).

Well, Kaufman never got to the script stage. He wrote one treatment in April 1977, and was still working on the story when the ax dropped on May 8, 1977, before he could actually finish a screenplay.

Also, Kaufman didn't co-write Raiders. He brainstormed it with Lucas and introduced the Ark of the Covenant to the story, etc., but he stepped away from it when they hired Kasdan to write it. That's why he shares a "Story By" credit with Lucas on the film but no writing credits per se.

Ahhh....

I stand corrected.

(I forgot Kasdan got the job for "Raiders" due to "Empire").

 

[thumbtack]

The public perception of Star Trek remains problematic, even now.

 

[Dales]

All the non Star Trek fans I know liked the movies but couldn't give two shits beyond that. All the Star Trek fans I know don't like the films.

That sucks. If only we could get more of a nice balance of both casual and committed fans. Though I'm a Trek fan and I did like the Abrams films, particularly Trek '09. I wasn't that big a fan of Into Darkness but I don't hate it. It was a well made, exciting film for the most part.

Even I myself was a fan of into darkness and I had issues with the film but I never thought the film would escalate to so much negativity that even JJ Abrams will admit the film had issues. star trek 2009 will always be the best to me. regardless of the outcome of star trek beyond, I will always take comfort in star trek 2009 when it comes to the trek reboots films

 

[DarKush]

^
Well I think it's big for JJ to admit that Into Darkness did have problems. I actually thought Trek '09 had problems too, but was telling more of an original story (if not heavily influenced by Wrath of Khan) but Into Darkness went too far with the Wrath of Khan homage.

I think post-Khan films tried to create a villain that was as formidable as Khan but never did. Into Darkness just said screw it and brought Khan back. Didn't care for that, and how it was done. But also the characters in Into Darkness weren't handled as well as they could've been, particularly Kirk, Spock, and Uhura.

 

[martok2112]

I still have to say... Two minutes of a reimagined scene does not too far of an homage make.

 

[Myko]

The scene where Kirk sacrifices himself in the engine room of the Enterprise is literally the only story moment lifted from Wrath of Khan.

 

[Mudd]

I haven't seen a movie that didn't "have problems."

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

The scene where Kirk sacrifices himself in the engine room of the Enterprise is literally the only story moment lifted from Wrath of Khan.

However, the manner in which Kirk ends up going into the reactor feels organic to the story. Kirk is there, he has to make a snap decision.

Whereas in TWOK, Spock's going down to engineering felt more like "whelp this is the part of the script where I go down there and sacrifice myself."

 

[dahj]

I'm reading the article "The Forever Franchise" in the latest Wired magazine, and there Marc Evans is quoted saying: "I often think about the areas of the Star Trek universe that haven't been taken advantage of. Like, I'll be ridiculous with you, but what would Star Trek: Zero Dark Thirty look like? Where is the SEAL Team Six of the Star Trek universe? That fascinates me."

Maybe someone should tell him to go watch Enterprise...

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I haven't seen a movie that didn't "have problems."

Even though CinemaSins finally did a version for "Empire Strikes Back," I still think that is a film that has least problems, if any.

"The Godfather" is pretty solid as well....as well as "Goodfellas."

 

[Ovation]

I haven't seen a movie that didn't "have problems."

At 7000+ films, neither have I.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Whereas in TWOK, Spock's going down to engineering felt more like "whelp this is the part of the script where I go down there and sacrifice myself."

Especially considering that everything the film had done up to that point was setting-up for a Kirk sacrifice.

It's almost like they had written two different scripts. In fact, I convinced myself a long time ago that Soward's original script must have had Kirk sacrificing himself in the end, and it wasn't until the Nimoy stuff happened that it was changed.

 

[mos6507]

The scene where Kirk sacrifices himself in the engine room of the Enterprise is literally the only story moment lifted from Wrath of Khan.

However, the manner in which Kirk ends up going into the reactor feels organic to the story. Kirk is there, he has to make a snap decision.

Whereas in TWOK, Spock's going down to engineering felt more like "whelp this is the part of the script where I go down there and sacrifice myself."

Technically, both scenes were contrived. Paramount thought Nimoy wasn't coming back, so they had to write a suitably poignant death scene, and they did. Well, the whole film revolves around his ultimate sacrifice, setting those themes up with the Kobayashi Maru.

With Into Darkness, though, the scene is there solely as an audience call-out, similar to the repeated riffs in

Spoiler: SPOILER for The Force Awakens

Force Awakens, like Han walking the catwalk over to Kylo Ren,

etc... It would not have been written that way had the scene in Khan not taken place, therefore it doesn't stand on its own at all.

I understand that to some people, the fan-service stuff isn't a problem, but for others it rips them right out of their suspension of disbelief. The movie broadcasts that is self-aware that it is a movie. That kind of post-modernist spin is fine, but it's not normally what we expect when walking into a (presumably, serious) Trek film. In fact it risks being interpreted as an intentional self-parody, like Galaxy Quest. That's why Spock yelling "Khaan!" was the worst moment in Into Darkness because it was riffing on a moment that had become a comedic internet meme in a way that makes more sense in a spoof.

This is also why I think there's been a backlash over the new trailer. Because there's really nothing you can do to reinforce the idea that nuTrek is brain-dead popcorn fare that panders to a young demographic than to have Beastie Boys and motorcycle jumps. In fact, had someone wanted to parody nuTrek, it's hard to imagine how it could be parodied more effectively than the Beyond trailer.

Sometimes creative choices just plain backfire.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Whereas in TWOK, Spock's going down to engineering felt more like "whelp this is the part of the script where I go down there and sacrifice myself."

Especially considering that everything the film had done up to that point was setting-up for a Kirk sacrifice.

Yep, it was baked into his character arc.

It's almost like they had written two different scripts. In fact, I convinced myself a long time ago that Soward's original script must have had Kirk sacrificing himself in the end, and it wasn't until the Nimoy stuff happened that it was changed.

The biggest problem with TWOK: Kirk is so passive during the Genesis countdown. He takes no action. He sits on the bridge while Spock goes to engineering. Like TMP, Kirk is once again sidelined in the climax of the film.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Whereas in TWOK, Spock's going down to engineering felt more like "whelp this is the part of the script where I go down there and sacrifice myself."

Especially considering that everything the film had done up to that point was setting-up for a Kirk sacrifice.

Yep, it was baked into his character arc.

It's almost like they had written two different scripts. In fact, I convinced myself a long time ago that Soward's original script must have had Kirk sacrificing himself in the end, and it wasn't until the Nimoy stuff happened that it was changed.

The biggest problem with TWOK is that Kirk is so passive during the Genesis countdown. He takes no action. He sits on the bridge while Spock goes to engineering. Like TMP, Kirk is once again sidelined in the climax of the film.

Exactly.

Kirk: man of action is literally just sitting on his ass.

 

[Shazam!]

Are we doing that thing of retroactively deciding that old Trek is a steaming pile of shit? I thought we stopped doing that in 2014.

 

[M'Sharak]

Are we doing that thing of retroactively deciding that old Trek is a steaming pile of shit?

Yeah, I'm not seeing anything which fits that description.

I thought we stopped doing that in 2014.

This looks a lot like drive-by mini-modding, though.

 

[DarKush]

I still have to say... Two minutes of a reimagined scene does not too far of an homage make.

Reimagined with dialogue verbatim from TWOK. That's more than an homage, that's like plagiarism. I didn't think they needed to do that, to go there. It wasn't earned, like Spock's sacrifice in TWOK. It just felt like a cheap knockoff that was overturned by the end of the film. And I thought Into Darkness was influenced by TWOK and "Space Seed". I felt there were shades of the Augment arc from Enterprise too. To me Cumberbatch's Khan felt a little like ENT's Malik.

 

[Trekkin]

Malik was a Khan knock-off. I think the script (which I've read and now can't find to actually back myself up) actually notes 'Seem familiar guys?'.

The bit where he pulls his completely mangled head and shoulders up onto the console for his last words and suicide, makes it pretty obvious what the writers were aiming for. The only real difference is Malik was even more two-dimensionally evil than even was Khan in TWOK.

 

[Paradise City]

Whereas in TWOK, Spock's going down to engineering felt more like "whelp this is the part of the script where I go down there and sacrifice myself."

Especially considering that everything the film had done up to that point was setting-up for a Kirk sacrifice.

Yep, it was baked into his character arc.

It's almost like they had written two different scripts. In fact, I convinced myself a long time ago that Soward's original script must have had Kirk sacrificing himself in the end, and it wasn't until the Nimoy stuff happened that it was changed.

The biggest problem with TWOK: Kirk is so passive during the Genesis countdown. He takes no action. He sits on the bridge while Spock goes to engineering. Like TMP, Kirk is once again sidelined in the climax of the film.

That's not only isn't the biggest problem, it isn't a problem at all. Is Kirk an engineer? Kirk beavering around down there does sweet FA.

The biggest problem with Kirk is his dithering in not putting the shields up around a very dodgy behaving Reliant which is apparently code of the starships or something. That was this film's stupid moment.