Should Star Trek just give up?

[cardinal biggles]

Sec31Mike said:
I think they are barking up the wrong tree with their movie idea. Perhaps they should go on a 10 year hiatus. A big ticket movie is not an activity that rejuvenates a franchise. It is the result of an organic growth and explosion of a franchise.

You mean like The Motion Picture, which started out as various low-budget movies, then became a TV series for Paramount's attempt to mount a fourth network, then (on the heels of Star Wars and Close Encounters) became a big-budget movie? If it weren't for Star Wars, we'd have gotten a short-lived TV series on a short-lived network, and who knows when we'd have ever seen Trek again, if at all. Then it would have been remade in the 1990s as a big-budget movie that had about as much in common with the original show as the Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible films had in common with that show.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Sec31Mike said:
I think they are barking up the wrong tree with their movie idea. Perhaps they should go on a 10 year hiatus. A big ticket movie is not an activity that rejuvenates a franchise. It is the result of an organic growth and explosion of a franchise.

You don't know anything of the kind. These people know what they're doing, and have an infinitely greater chance of succeeding by following their own experience and intuition than they would by taking advice from trekkies like you.

 

[Lumen]

Sec31Mike said:
I think they are barking up the wrong tree with their movie idea. Perhaps they should go on a 10 year hiatus. A big ticket movie is not an activity that rejuvenates a franchise. It is the result of an organic growth and explosion of a franchise.

To the accurate comments made by cardinal biggles and UWC Defiance in response to your post, let me add this: how exactly are those two things mutually exclusive?

The buzz surrounding a film's rise in popularity is certainly organic, and nothing is more explosive than major motion pictures. A major motion picture meets your criteria.

In the past, you've qualified that statement by saying that they should pursue smaller ventures, which really just proves that you're completely clueless and have no idea what you're talking about. Insisting that the franchise would grow faster if they relied on video games, comic books and action figures instead of big-ticket items displays nothing but pure ignorance of how these things work. Those smaller venues are what you do following a successful, major motion picture — they capitalize on already extant popularity. They don't create it. No one is going to want to play a video game about heroes and stories they haven't seen on screen. No one is going to buy action figures about heroes they haven't seen in action. And so on.

You trotted out that ridiculous idea before, and I thought I'd point out again that you're completely clueless and have no idea what you're talking about. Frankly, it's encouraging that someone with notions as wrongheaded as yours is so critical of the very idea of this film. It bodes well for its success.

 

[xortex]

Well I thing in a sense, Gene Roddenberry's spirit was Star Trek. I'm just waiting for somebody to do what he did again which was to sythnesis so many talents into one vision.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Sharr Khan said:

Sec31Mike said:
I think they are barking up the wrong tree with their movie idea. Perhaps they should go on a 10 year hiatus. A big ticket movie is not an activity that rejuvenates a franchise. It is the result of an organic growth and explosion of a franchise.

No its not...

Sharr

How could anyone even passingly familiar with modern marketing not realize that TV and movie hits are utterly manufactured and have NOTHING to do with "grass roots" campaigns or anything so quaint. Most of these manufactured wannabee franchises frizzle, sure. That's where "we" come in, or perhaps I should say that random chance comes in. I sure didn't have any part in Pirates of the Caribbean or The DaVinci Code, not one that I would care to confess.

 

[Sec31Mike]

We're not dealing with a fresh, new, unexplored concept here. We're dealing with a property whose sayings and concepts have passed into the vernacular. 10 movies, 29 YEARS of TV shows, inumerable books, comics, and media references.

Am I the only one who thinks Trek has an UPHILL battle to fight in the general media?

People know what Star Trek is, and I think way fewer people know who JJ Abrams is, so how does it bode well for Trek to have HIS name stamped on it?

And I have found that the anime fans are die hard MONEY SPENDERS, the kind that would do Trek good, not just a $10 movie ticket from someone who just wanted something to do for a couple of hours.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Sec31Mike said:
Am I the only one who thinks Trek has an UPHILL battle to fight in the general media?

It depends on how good the movie is. Whether the general public knows who Abrams is or not, critics and entertainment journalists know who Abrams is, and therefore may be willing to give Trek the benefit of the doubt, as well as some good reviews, publicity, and word-of-mouth. If Hollywood gets behind this movie, trust me: anyone who didn't know who Abrams was before will know by 12/25/2008.

 

[stonester1]

People know what Star Trek is, and I think way fewer people know who JJ Abrams is, so how does it bode well for Trek to have HIS name stamped on it?

His name being "stamped" on it has nothing to do with it. In all the promotion material I've seen thus far, the only name I've seen is "Star Trek".

It has all to do with a successful storyteller lending his vision to this property, seeing if his vision can draw the public interest back to said property.

It's not about Abrams. It's about "Star Trek".

 

[Woulfe]

^ J.J. gets that, that's why the posters so far are screaming that "This Is Star Trek" you have to look real hard to see the Bad Robot logo and the Paramont logo on the posters we've had so far.

 

[xortex]

Well it is about Abrams redoing what Star Trek did.

 

[RookieBatman]

xortex said:
Well it is about Abrams redoing what Star Trek did.

No, it's about Abrams continuing what Star Trek did.

 

[xortex]

Yes, continuing TOS. It's the reinventing part that scares me. I hope that they could at least recreate it first.

 

[cardinal biggles]

So which are they doing, xortex? Redoing? Continuing? Reinventing? Recreating?

Not that you're under any pressure to decide... you've got until next Christmas to make up your mind.

 

[Woulfe]

Recreate TREK 100% for the 21st century ?

You're kidding right ?

Today's audiance won't buy cardboard sets with chirstmas lights on them, nore foam rubber rocks on soundstages, 'er planets.

THAT'S the problem right there, because the modern audiance is used to how sci-fi looks now on the big screen, thanks in part to Trek itself from TMP forward, you can't make it look 100% like it did in the 1960's, there will have to be changes, there's no way around it.

Sure you can keep the basic designs the same, but you'll have to add more details, today's movie goers demand it, the hallways won't be as spartan as they were back in the day for starters.

no more planetary soundstages, heck they'er going to film in Iceland, gee I wonder if Iceland will be a planet, could be.

The bridge might have the same layout, but all the jelly-bean buttons, gone, never to be seen on the big-screen, ever, we might see computer keyboards in thier place.

All the static screens on the bridge, gone as well, replaced by actual flat screen monitors, yes, it won't be 100% like it was in the 1960's, so what do you call it ?

Reinventing perhaps ?

- W -
* 12/25/2008 can't come fast enough for folks to find out these things out for themselves *

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Woulfe said:
Recreate TREK 100% for the 21st century ?

You're kidding right ?

Today's audiance won't buy cardboard sets with chirstmas lights on them, nore foam rubber rocks on soundstages, 'er planets.

THAT'S the problem right there, because the modern audiance is used to how sci-fi looks now on the big screen, thanks in part to Trek itself from TMP forward, you can't make it look 100% like it did in the 1960's, there will have to be changes, there's no way around it.

Sure you can keep the basic designs the same, but you'll have to add more details, today's movie goers demand it, the hallways won't be as spartan as they were back in the day for starters.

no more planetary soundstages, heck they'er going to film in Iceland, gee I wonder if Iceland will be a planet, could be.

The bridge might have the same layout, but all the jelly-bean buttons, gone, never to be seen on the big-screen, ever, we might see computer keyboards in thier place.

All the static screens on the bridge, gone as well, replaced by actual flat screen monitors, yes, it won't be 100% like it was in the 1960's, so what do you call it ?

Reinventing perhaps ?

- W -
* 12/25/2008 can't come fast enough for folks to find out these things out for themselves *

"More details" is not the same as "more convincing."

You need to keep those two issues separate. You can have a VERY convincing set that is fairly sparsely detailed. You can also have an extraordinarily fakey-looking set with TONS of detail.

The trick is not to add detail, it's to make the detail that is there be as convincing as possible.

Nobody is talking about cardboard sets and christmas lights. Of course, the sets in TOS weren't made out of cardboard and weren't lit with christmas lights, either. So let's avoid the hyperbole, shall we?

The trick is to take the details that are already there, and "polish" them to be more convincing. There's nothing inherently unconvincing about the set designs from the original series. By improving the functionality of the switchboards (NOT by making them "touch panels", which if you've ever used 'em, are inherently inferior to actual tactile controls, by the way). By improving the sorts of functional displays present (while still keeping the same artistic STYLE used in the TOS-era displays). By giving us chairs that look more functional than the TOS-era chairs yet still look like the original ones if you squint a little bit. By replacing "walls of blinkies" with fully-digital panels with various animated indicators. By giving the Engineering "rows of tubes" a more energetic appearance (ala TMP, but red?). And so forth.

Not by ADDING DETAIL... but by showing us what the original details were really just "rough approximations" of, limited by 1960s technology and TV series budgets. And of course, remembering that whatever we can do today is STILL just a "rough approximation" of what you'd really have if you were building a ship in the 23rd century...

 

[xortex]

I like sparten corridors and togle switch controls, but to be clear it is the writers themselves who say they are indeed 'reinventing' Star Trek, what ever that means. I'm just wondering if it means the premise too.

 

[Sharr Khan]

'reinventing'

Is a tricky word and might mean one thing to someone using and another to someone hearing it. We can be assured that simply that Leonard Nimoy has been cast this isn't a total redo in the manner of BSG. Were it that, leaving Leonard Nimoy *as Spock* out would have been the more likely choice.

Once agian, I doubt the premise of Star Trek is in danger - if anything its going back to the original premise... that "Wagon train to the stars" I mentioned before.

Sharr

 

[Cary L. Brown]

xortex said:I like sparten corridors and togle switch controls, but to be clear it is the writers themselves who say they are indeed 'reinventing' Star Trek, what ever that means. I'm just wondering if it means the premise too.

Can you show me the DIRECT QUOTE... that is, where either the producer or the writers used that word?

I don't take a comment written by a "Rolling Stone" reporter which reflects HIS BELIEF to be the same as a direct quotation. And while I've seen articles which say that, I have not personally seen a direct quote from anyone where this is what's said.

"Reinvention" or "reimagining" or whatever are highly loaded terms. The folks doing this film have been quite cautious about their use of terminology. They've carefully sidestepped this issue, stating that they intend to respect what came before but to also create their own film with their own vision.

Those who want things to be "totally unchanged" can read into that whatever they want. And those who want things to be totally redone (or who FEAR that this is what's going to happen) can read that in as well.

It's actually a pretty smart tactical move... the folks doing the movie have said a lot without REALLY saying anything.

All we know for certain is that Abrams is telling a story he's had in mind for many years, and that he's always wanted to tell. And that the story involves Kirk and Spock, and in some fashion involves an older version of Spock, and that at some point, in some role, we'll see the 1701.

Everything else is pure conjecture unless you're (1) involved in the production yourself, or (2) have read a draft of the script (and it's a safe bet that any of us who've read a draft of the script are already out-of-date!)

 

[xortex]

I think Orci said it at Star Trek.com - 'reinvent' that is. I have no idea what it means nor would I conjecture to guess.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Could you provide a link? I think a lot of people said a lot of things, but unless I can solidly back it up...