Roberto Orci Offers Star Trek 2 Update

[UFO]

You can't compare a car to script writing. You at least have some idea of how a car works and can figure out where the problem lies.

I believe I can. The question is not where the problem lies, although that's not too difficult to work out, it's that there is a problem.

Screenplays are different. It's an art form, its a form of expression, it's writing.

I am aware of the differences but if a car and a screenplay both have problems, I don’t see that it is necessary to understand how either is constructed in order to say so.

People who want to be critical of a screen play and say that the person who wrote the script can't do their job and are piss poor at it then obviously knows how a screen play should be written and knows how to develop a story.

I think that’s an invalid conclusion. All they need are the results. It is possible to say whether a politician is effective or not, without having any idea how to be one, just by looking at what they achieve. In my view, in terms of STXI, the results were emotionally satisfying for most people (not myself overall) but clearly lacking in other areas.

If you're going to bash the story, how would you make it better. Don't just bash the script and the writer without stating how you would approach the story and make it better. And no, Kirk having blue eyes isn't an element to make the script better.

That may be how you would prefer people to make their complaints and I would agree with you, but that is a different argument to "requiring" someone be able to write a better screenplay before that have a right to express an opinion on someone else efforts. Ironically though, Saquist did seem to state what he thought was wrong with it in the general terms you might when complaining about a car breaking down (I am not saying I agree with him in that area specifically however).

 

[BillJ]

A broken officer?

Explain.

Obviously he would have done something wrong at some point in his career to get him drummed out of the fleet. The Enterprise would be going on a training cruise with a boatload of children and Kirk would be there as an observer/adviser at Pike's invitation.

Then the Enterprise is called to Vulcan due to the issues they experience in the film. Enterprise drops out of warp and finds itself in the same debris field and is attacked as well by the Narada. After the first attack Pike reactivates Kirk's commission and makes him executive officer due to the fact that he has far more experience in these types of situations than the cadets that are currently manning the Enterprise.

The idea is that you can finesse the problem parts of this film to make it adhere to common sense.

Like I've said many times... they were so close with this film, yet so far away.

 

[Merky]

That may be how you would prefer people to make their complaints and I would agree with you, but that is a different argument to "requiring" someone be able to write a better screenplay before that have a right to express an opinion on someone else efforts. Ironically though, Saquist did seem to state what he thought was wrong with it in the general terms you might when complaining about a car breaking down (I am not saying I agree with him in that area specifically however).

I think I just get annoyed with the generic fanboy rant of " The writer didn't know what he was doing, this is canon volition, blah blah blah " But they never give anything of value to the post. It comes off wanky and I hate that.

If you're going to hate like and denounce the skills of a professional then at least have something to back it up.

A broken officer?

Explain.

Obviously he would have done something wrong at some point in his career to get him drummed out of the fleet. The Enterprise would be going on a training cruise with a boatload of children and Kirk would be there as an observer/adviser at Pike's invitation.

Then the Enterprise is called to Vulcan due to the issues they experience in the film. Enterprise drops out of warp and finds itself in the same debris field and is attacked as well by the Narada. After the first attack Pike reactivates Kirk's commission and makes him executive officer due to the fact that he has far more experience in these types of situations than the cadets that are currently manning the Enterprise.

But then people would complain that they ripped that scene straight from TWOK.

In which, it is same exact scenario from TWOK. Kirk as an observer, gets in a crisis, assumes command and saves the day.

 

[BillJ]

But then people would complain that they ripped that scene straight from TWOK.

In which, it is same exact scenario from TWOK. Kirk as an observer, gets in a crisis, assumes command and saves the day.

But your seeing it from two different perspectives. In TWOK, Kirk is a position to dictate what went on around him. In Star Trek 2009, Kirk would've had things dictated to him. Until he takes command.

Besides I'm not sure lifting one more element would've made a hell of a lot of difference (except make the story stronger). They already lifted elements from Yesteryear, The Doomsday Machine, This Side of Paradise, The Wrath of Khan and some novels.

And if I went back and re-watched the film I could pick out some more.

 

[Merky]

From the sounds of it though, this movie is damned if it does or damned if it doesn't. I think it's never going to get the respect from a lot of die hard Trek fans because it's not their Trek.

I enjoyed it because I wasn't looking at the movie as " This is Kirk, Spock and the Gang ". I looked at it as " This is a new vision, a new look, a new interpretation ". That's why I'm not ripping it apart so much, that's why I don't try over analyze the movie. It's not TOS Trek and so I can't come into that movie with that mind set. It is its own movie with it's own story and these characters will have their own adventures.

I can only judge and rip apart the movie for itself. If this movie was set in the TOS timeline and this was the Kirk, Spock, and gang that I know and love -- of course I would rip the movie apart and tell the writers to go to hell. But they avoided that by building their own universe... and I really got to give them the credit for taking into consideration of ways to avoid pissing off this fandom.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

All I ask of Trek XII (what's this "2" jazz!?!?!?) :

1. More important than worrying when Kirk should become captain is to worry about him becoming a character who's worthy of our continued interest, which means dragging him along some kind of character arc, in which the smartass punk persona is just the initial phase.

2. Do something interesting and not too soapy with Spock/Uhura. Don't drop it like chickens! It's not automatically toxic. Finish what you started.

3. More screen time for McCoy. Let's see what Urban can do!

That's pretty much it, really. No opinion on the topic of the movie, amount of explosions, or what engineering looks like. They can have Khan show up wearing a costume made of tribbles and I wouldn't mind at all.

I should really bail from this place before the real spoilers start coming in...

Another poster, I think Kelso, came up with the idea of presenting Jim Kirk as a broken officer instead of a first time cadet.

Mmmmm...too complicated. You don't have a whole lot of time for complex characterization in an action movie stuffed with secondary characters all squalling for attention.

Here's the deal: Kirk starts out as a smartass punk, gets some sense kicked into him when he gets promoted via Peter Principle, and becomes a better leader for it.

 

[BillJ]

From the sounds of it though, this movie is damned if it does or damned if it doesn't. I think it's never going to get the respect from a lot of die hard Trek fans because it's not their Trek.

I enjoyed it because I wasn't looking at the movie as " This is Kirk, Spock and the Gang ". I looked at it as " This is a new vision, a new look, a new interpretation ". That's why I'm not ripping it apart so much, that's why I don't try over analyze the movie. It's not TOS Trek and so I can't come into that movie with that mind set. It is its own movie with it's own story and these characters will have their own adventures.

I can only judge and rip apart the movie for itself. If this movie was set in the TOS timeline and this was the Kirk, Spock, and gang that I know and love -- of course I would rip the movie apart and tell the writers to go to hell. But they avoided that by building their own universe... and I really got to give them the credit for taking into consideration of ways to avoid pissing off this fandom.

I'll be honest, Star Trek 2009 was the most anticipated movie of my life and I was 37 at the time. It was a film I desperately wanted to love... but the script just asks the viewer to make too many leaps of logic to keep me in that world.

While I thought the ship designs were a bit lackluster, I never held it against the film. I thought all the actors fit the roles with the exception of Pegg and Saldana and I thought Abrams did a good job directing the story he had.

But the story was just off.

 

[BillJ]

Mmmmm...too complicated. You don't have a whole lot of time for complex characterization in an action movie stuffed with secondary characters all squalling for attention.

I'm not sure it would've taken any more time than they spent showing him as a smartass punk.

 

[Merky]

From the sounds of it though, this movie is damned if it does or damned if it doesn't. I think it's never going to get the respect from a lot of die hard Trek fans because it's not their Trek.

I enjoyed it because I wasn't looking at the movie as " This is Kirk, Spock and the Gang ". I looked at it as " This is a new vision, a new look, a new interpretation ". That's why I'm not ripping it apart so much, that's why I don't try over analyze the movie. It's not TOS Trek and so I can't come into that movie with that mind set. It is its own movie with it's own story and these characters will have their own adventures.

I can only judge and rip apart the movie for itself. If this movie was set in the TOS timeline and this was the Kirk, Spock, and gang that I know and love -- of course I would rip the movie apart and tell the writers to go to hell. But they avoided that by building their own universe... and I really got to give them the credit for taking into consideration of ways to avoid pissing off this fandom.

I'll be honest, Star Trek 2009 was the most anticipated movie of my life and I was 37 at the time. It was a film I desperately wanted to love... but the script just asks the viewer to make too many leaps of logic to keep me in that world.

While I thought the ship designs were a bit lackluster, I never held it against the film. I thought all the actors fit the roles with the exception of Pegg and Saldana and I thought Abrams did a good job directing the story he had.

But the story was just off.

Yeah... I actually was those people that refused to see it in theaters because I couldn't wrap my mind over the fact that this was some sort of weird prequel... and hearing so many changes kept me away from the movie for almost an entire year.

But I caved in, watched it, and fell in love with the movie and Star Trek all over again. So I really have to give the movie it's credit where it is due. I don't think anyone could have handled a reboot well enough as well enough as Bad Robot and they brought life to a dead franchise -- plotholes or not.

This movie has some plotholes, it has some deus ex machinas, and it has some shoddy lines. But it wasn't enough for me to write the movie off as shit. I felt it kept true to the franchise and revitalized it where it was now cool to like Trek. It made Star Wars look like crap.

Now, I will be judging harshly when XII comes out. That is the movie where it's all or nothing. They've established so much in XI that it makes me wonder how they're all going to handle it in XII. There has to be a repercussion to Kirk's promotion, their has to be a fallback to the flagship being inherited by a bunch of cadets fresh out of the Academy...


XII needs to be Kirk's movie.

 

[TyberiusDeAngelo]

From the sounds of it though, this movie is damned if it does or damned if it doesn't. I think it's never going to get the respect from a lot of die hard Trek fans because it's not their Trek.

I enjoyed it because I wasn't looking at the movie as " This is Kirk, Spock and the Gang ". I looked at it as " This is a new vision, a new look, a new interpretation ". That's why I'm not ripping it apart so much, that's why I don't try over analyze the movie. It's not TOS Trek and so I can't come into that movie with that mind set. It is its own movie with it's own story and these characters will have their own adventures.

I can only judge and rip apart the movie for itself. If this movie was set in the TOS timeline and this was the Kirk, Spock, and gang that I know and love -- of course I would rip the movie apart and tell the writers to go to hell. But they avoided that by building their own universe... and I really got to give them the credit for taking into consideration of ways to avoid pissing off this fandom.

 

[Devon]

Here's where they're going to falter... taking fans way too seriously. Writing by committee is bad and a committee of myopic hundreds is worse still.

Agreed. It makes me chuckle when I see Bob Orci commenting over at the Trekmovie site but it worries me a little when he starts agreeing with some of commenters there. I don't know if he's trolling or rolling with it sometimes

Bob is classy enough to extend an olive branch to the critics, and some of them are not even grateful for that (as proven earlier in this thread) so he's better off with the more diplomatic ones. I think he's going to listen to general consensus things more than likely rather than specific complaints. He knows most of what he and everyone else did worked for most people, but probably wants to see areas of improvement since he doesn't get the opportunity to view the film from a fan's point of view. As the writer he's already biased on some decisions. But he's under no obligation to follow through with those comments.

 

[Rush Limborg]

It's good to know that Bob Orci genuinely cares about the interests of the fans.

But then, he's been there for us for the first one, too, to be frank. I personally LOVED Trek XI--and this is a Canon Purist speaking, who understands and approves of the alternate timeline.

Personally? I don't complain about the Beer Factory Engineering. I mean...the TOS Engineering had pipes and valves, for goodness sake!

However, I could go for Scotty overseeing an upgrade of the chamber, so it keeps the "down-to-earth" element, but looks more "in line" with the high-tech nature of Trek.


As for Kirk...I would say he's pretty much earned his captaincy, having saved the whole freaking FEDERATION from certain destruction by taking command and taking charge!

However...that being said...I would enjoy some more "earning" for Kirk--showing him prove his worth.

And...Yelchin should tone down his accent a bit--make it sound more subtle, more "natural". I'm sure it's supposed to be more "authentic" than Koenig's...but to be blunt--it sounds goofy, exaggerated, parody-ish. Chekov's supposed to be funny, yes--but not a clown. And that's what he sounds like in Trek XI, I'm sorry.

Show us more Sulu! The coolness factor was there--especially with the swordfight. So...more swordplay!

And PLEASE, Bob--if you're reading this--PLEASE give us Yeoman Janice Rand! And if it's not too much trouble...have her and Kirk help each other out in their emotional conflicts, and give us the romantic relationship between the two that always should have been....

 

[Saquist]

I'm pretty sure that this would have been a directive from the executives who hired him, not something Orci came up with himself.

I would like to allow for that but it just doesn't seem likely given the story he created. We always want to blme executives for story mechanics even on the slimmest data but nothing about that origin story seemed out of place with all the rest of the bad writing going on in the film.

Nero...
The Three Character Plot Convergence on the same Planet
The "I can see a Planet being gobbled up from another planet". I'm a Captain and I'm all of 23 years old. The stupidity of the film seemed pretty consistent. It didn't look like it was suffering from meddling Execs

allright...

What a sad, stupid and ignorant explanation for the mess he put on screen. If I hear "it's an origin story" again anytime, for bad writing, it will be too soon. Only an idiot attempts give an origin for every character in one movie....

What a colossal fool.

you don't have many friends, do you?

Oh for God's sakes do you count your friends on face book or something? Do you even know them all, counting complete strangers as your so-called friends? Please tell me you're not one of those. Like it's badge of honor or something...

I clean out my friend list.
If we don't talk you're gone, I don't want a bunch of random nobodies spamming me with COWS and RADISHES, sharing my personal information, I don't care who you're a friend of a friend of....or what picture you want to see. You gotta have the right kind of friends. People that will stick up for you and who you don't mind going out on a limb for. This is definitely a Quality issue not Quantity. I'd hate to be so desperate as to believe otherwise.

 

[Merky]

 

[Saquist]

I am SO HOBBES....

 

[Pauln6]

It's good to know that Bob Orci genuinely cares about the interests of the fans.

But then, he's been there for us for the first one, too, to be frank. I personally LOVED Trek XI--and this is a Canon Purist speaking, who understands and approves of the alternate timeline.

Personally? I don't complain about the Beer Factory Engineering. I mean...the TOS Engineering had pipes and valves, for goodness sake!

However, I could go for Scotty overseeing an upgrade of the chamber, so it keeps the "down-to-earth" element, but looks more "in line" with the high-tech nature of Trek.

As for Kirk...I would say he's pretty much earned his captaincy, having saved the whole freaking FEDERATION from certain destruction by taking command and taking charge!

However...that being said...I would enjoy some more "earning" for Kirk--showing him prove his worth.

And...Yelchin should tone down his accent a bit--make it sound more subtle, more "natural". I'm sure it's supposed to be more "authentic" than Koenig's...but to be blunt--it sounds goofy, exaggerated, parody-ish. Chekov's supposed to be funny, yes--but not a clown. And that's what he sounds like in Trek XI, I'm sorry.

Show us more Sulu! The coolness factor was there--especially with the swordfight. So...more swordplay!

And PLEASE, Bob--if you're reading this--PLEASE give us Yeoman Janice Rand! And if it's not too much trouble...have her and Kirk help each other out in their emotional conflicts, and give us the romantic relationship between the two that always should have been....

Kirk earned a promotion but it's wrong to say he earned a captaincy. Many officers receive temporary senior positions during a crisis but they don't often keep them afterwards. He has no diplomatic experience, no adminstrative experience, no command experience, and no experience - period. He's talented, he could be groomed for command, but no way is he ready right now. Pointless to close that stable door now though.

As for Chekov, for much of TOS and many of the movies, Chekov WAS the clown (comparatively speaking).

I'll give a big thumbs up for Janice but a thumbs down for making her Kirk's unrequieted love interest for now. One romance between officers already covers this ground. If it's necessary to give Kirk a love interest it would be better to make him/her external to Starfleet at this stage.

A few meaningful/jealous glances between them would be fine and very easy to do if she is portrayed as his yeoman/attache standing at his side on landing parties - a nice little nod to TOS - but any romance should be delayed for years if at all.

 

[Amaris]

Thanks to Bob Orci, now I can't wait any longer. I demand that he hurry up and finish the script, as well as casting, principal photography, special effects, and possibly catering.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I can't wait until we see the first blurry phone-cam leaked pics from the set.

 

[Rush Limborg]

As for Chekov, for much of TOS and many of the movies, Chekov WAS the clown (comparatively speaking).

Again--he was funny, but not a slapstick goofball.

"GOO-GOO-GOO-GOO-GOO! I KEN DO DAT--I KEN DO DAT!"

That is so not Chekov, I'm sorry.

I'll give a big thumbs up for Janice but a thumbs down for making her Kirk's unrequieted love interest for now. One romance between officers already covers this ground. If it's necessary to give Kirk a love interest it would be better to make him/her external to Starfleet at this stage.

A few meaningful/jealous glances between them would be fine and very easy to do if she is portrayed as his yeoman/attache standing at his side on landing parties - a nice little nod to TOS - but any romance should be delayed for years if at all.

You have a good point--make it a step-by-step thing, make it natural. Still--I've long been a big Kirk/Rand shipper. So...Mr. Orci, let's have it!

 

[Alex1939]

I don't care what they use for Engineering.

What if engineering were the inside of a restroom at Red Lobster? And you hit the button on the hand dryer to start the warp engines?

I bet you'd care.