Spoilers STAR TREK BEYOND

[Malaika]

Trailer is coming soon.

You know, I realized how worried I'm for this movie when reading Justin Lin say we will get a trailer soon filled me more with fear than excitement... I guess as someone who loved the first two movies, with a new creative team it's inevitable for me to be irrationally scared about the unknown and the fact they might have made many changes. I prefer a trilogy to get developed and possibly directed by the same guy..but no such look with this one
Probably, my apprehension and feeling detached is exacerbated by the fact that, so far, I only have interviews by Pegg but we didn't hear that much from the director and the other writer. The Dubai press conference disappointed me on that regard. I wish I could get a clue about these guys and understand if they at least liked the first movies.



Anyway, I don't know if putting the trailer for stb before star wars is a good idea. Surely, it would be fitting and I can see why they'd do that..but while trek and star wars are different franchises, a lot of the people in the general audience still confuse them and think they are 'the same thing' (as a fan of both I don't know how many times I had to try explaining the differences to people I know ) so putting trek, or any other movie set in the space, before star wars could feel redundant.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's not like everyone was fired and replaced, Paramount weren't happy with the direction of ST3 (for whatever reason, I'm not gonna treat online rumours as facts) so they had another script written. That it was JJ Abrams who liked Pegg's pitch and gave the OK for him and Doug Jung to write the story says it's not going to be a hijacking and reimagining of the characters from the first two. Pegg's on record that he's very proud of Into Darkness, and quite infamously told fans who felt otherwise to "fuck off"

 

[Malaika]

yeah, but just because Pegg defended stid it doesn't mean he liked every aspect of the movies and doesn't have his biases. From some of the things he said, he surely doesn't seem to really get aspects I liked so that's one thing to make me concerned..
Of course, it doesn't help that when every new comment I read about this movie are only his, it gives the illusion he was the 'boss' and controlled everything and this kills my excitement.
I just wish I could get a clue about what the new director and the other writer think of the other movies.. some sort of hint about what might be the direction they wanted to take and how they approached the job. In short, I'd love to see if everyone who is telling me that Pegg isn't the only one making this movie and maybe the others are different anyway, is right.


*If his last comments about the star wars fans that liked the prequel movies are any clue about his personality (glad you have no respect for me Simon btw didn't know that liking those movies was a crime), he seems to be a 'my opinion is a fact' kind of guy and a fanboy of the worst kind (he reminds me the 'tos purists' among the reboot haters, to be honest, so it's kind of priceless he told those to shut up when he's worse than them in the star wars fandom) and I wouldn't put anything past someone who has that kind of mindset.

 

[Christopher]

Of course, it doesn't help that when every new comment I read about this movie are only his, it gives the illusion he was the 'boss' and controlled everything and this kills my excitement.

In Hollywood features, the screenwriter is never the "boss" unless they're also the producer and/or the director. Writers are pretty much at the bottom of the totem pole. In feature-film culture, directors and producers are seen as the leading creative minds, and writers are treated as merely hired contractors brought onboard to turn the director's or producer's ideas into script form. Most films are written by committee, with only a few of the contributing writers actually getting screen credit, and with the final script being grafted together from bits and pieces of countless different drafts by different people, then freely improvised on in shooting and restructured in editing.

On this film, Justin Lin is the director and J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk are still the producers. They're the ones with the real power. Pegg is credited only as screenwriter and actor, so at least on paper, he has no authority to override Lin's or Abrams's decisions. Maybe the reason he's the only one talking about it in the press is because he's the one with the free time to talk about it, while the others are too busy actually working on the film.

 

[Malaika]

that's why I used the word 'illusion'.
I'm unsure, though, about the new writers really having no influence in anything since they ultimately still are the ones that wrote the script.
Sure, when it comes to the story in general yes, probably they had to follow what the studio was asking them to do.. but when it comes to the details or more specific things like the characters and the dynamics between them? There must be something here where they had more freedom..
For me the characters are at their mercy, one way or another.
This being the 50th anniversary also concerns me because the least thing I want them to do is trying to pander to a side of the trek fandom that will NEVER like these movies no matter what.

On this film, Justin Lin is the director and J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk are still the producers.

from Pegg's own admission, though, JJ is too focused and busy with star wars right now so I doubt he had a much active role in making this movie like he did for the previous ones.

Maybe the reason he's the only one talking about it in the press is because he's the one with the free time to talk about it, while the others are too busy actually working on the film.

or maybe it's because of his name being more popular than the other writer and also the fact that he is promoting other movies he's in, so people get the chance to ask him questions about trek too.

 

[Christopher]

that's why I used the word 'illusion'.
I'm unsure, though, about the new writers really having no influence in anything since they ultimately still are the ones that wrote the script.

They're among the people who wrote drafts of the script. In many cases, they're just following the instructions of the director. And scripts are not even slightly respected in the feature industry as any kind of inviolable blueprints. They're just grist for the mill. They can be rewritten top to bottom by uncredited script doctors or grafted together with fragments from a dozen other script drafts by other uncredited writers, and they can be rewritten at a whim during filming or post-production editing and dubbing. It is difficult to grasp just how unimportant the Hollywood feature industry considers scripts and screenwriters to be.

For instance, a few years back, there was a spec script called Nottingham that everyone in Hollywood loved -- a revisionist take on Robin Hood whose hero was a heroic Sheriff of Nottingham doing a CSI-style investigation of the "terrorist" activities of Robin Hood and his outlaws. It was considered a brilliant, innovative take on the Robin Hood legend. Then Ridley Scott was assigned as its director, and he essentially tossed out the entire script except for a few bits and pieces, because he preferred to do a conventional Robin Hood movie, and we ended up with one of the most by-the-numbers, unimpressive, poorly regarded Robin Hood movies ever made. Because writers are powerless in the Hollywood feature industry. Directors have absolute freedom to throw out every single word in a script. It's the complete opposite of the television industry where writer-producers are in creative control. In features, there is nothing that writers can do to protect the integrity of their words, except to produce or direct their own scripts.

 

[Malaika]

that's why I used the word 'illusion'.
I'm unsure, though, about the new writers really having no influence in anything since they ultimately still are the ones that wrote the script.

They're among the people who wrote drafts of the script. In many cases, they're just following the instructions of the director. And scripts are not even slightly respected in the feature industry as any kind of inviolable blueprints. They're just grist for the mill. They can be rewritten top to bottom by uncredited script doctors or grafted together with fragments from a dozen other script drafts by other uncredited writers, and they can be rewritten at a whim during filming or post-production editing and dubbing. It is difficult to grasp just how unimportant the Hollywood feature industry considers scripts and screenwriters to be.

For instance, a few years back, there was a spec script called Nottingham that everyone in Hollywood loved -- a revisionist take on Robin Hood whose hero was a heroic Sheriff of Nottingham doing a CSI-style investigation of the "terrorist" activities of Robin Hood and his outlaws. It was considered a brilliant, innovative take on the Robin Hood legend. Then Ridley Scott was assigned as its director, and he essentially tossed out the entire script except for a few bits and pieces, because he preferred to do a conventional Robin Hood movie, and we ended up with one of the most by-the-numbers, unimpressive, poorly regarded Robin Hood movies ever made. Because writers are powerless in the Hollywood feature industry. Directors have absolute freedom to throw out every single word in a script. It's the complete opposite of the television industry where writer-producers are in creative control. In features, there is nothing that writers can do to protect the integrity of their words, except to produce or direct their own scripts.

oh my, not even Russel Crowe could make Ridley Scott's Robin Hood less boring. It's not a terrible movie overall, but I had the distinct feeling that the story would never end and I'd never get out of that theater

anyway, back to the point, I guess Kurtzman and Orci were lucky in the first movie then (or maybe them being producers too made the difference) because the 2007 draft of the script is basically the movie we saw, deleted scenes included.

 

[Christopher]

anyway, back to the point, I guess Kurtzman and Orci were lucky in the first movie then (or maybe them being producers too made the difference) because the 2007 draft of the script is basically the movie we saw, deleted scenes included.

That's partly because they were producers, but mainly because the film was shot during a writer's strike, so the script couldn't be rewritten during filming the way it normally would be. Abrams had to wait until post-production to change things in editing or by dubbing in new dialogue. (They actually used digital effects to alter Leonard Nimoy's mouth movements in some shots to fit the new lines. But other lines were dubbed in the old-fashioned way, by having the speaker off-camera -- like Pike's clumsily written line about the Federation being "a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada," which wasn't in the script or in the early version of that scene released online. Presumably Abrams realized at the last minute that he needed to define the Federation for novice viewers.)

For a counterexample, look at the second Transformers movie. Orci and Kurtzman were the credited screenwriters there, but they had none of the creative control they had on Trek, because they weren't producers there. The writers' strike was underway while Bay was developing the film, so he basically came up with the action set pieces himself, and then when the strike was over he had Orci and Kurtzman write a script that would string those sequences together into a semblance of a narrative. Which is why the film ended up as just a bunch of action sequences strung together with a minimal story. It's a classic example of a movie where the credited writers were just hired help following the director's instructions.

 

[Kor]

Great, an hour of trailers...

8 trailers comes to 16 minutes, 20 at most.

I was being hyperbolic...hell, 20 minutes is way to long for trailers imo. For a lot of films that 20 minutes would be 1/4 of the features run time. I HATE sitting through more than 3 trailers prior to the feature I paid to see.

Yeah, good times.

The movie start time is 7:00, but the movie doesn't actually start until 7:20.

But if you show up closer to 7:20, then there are no more good seats.

Kor

 

[fireproof78]

Trailer is coming soon.

You know, I realized how worried I'm for this movie when reading Justin Lin say we will get a trailer soon filled me more with fear than excitement... I guess as someone who loved the first two movies, with a new creative team it's inevitable for me to be irrationally scared about the unknown and the fact they might have made many changes. I prefer a trilogy to get developed and possibly directed by the same guy..but no such look with this one
Probably, my apprehension and feeling detached is exacerbated by the fact that, so far, I only have interviews by Pegg but we didn't hear that much from the director and the other writer. The Dubai press conference disappointed me on that regard. I wish I could get a clue about these guys and understand if they at least liked the first movies.



Anyway, I don't know if putting the trailer for stb before star wars is a good idea. Surely, it would be fitting and I can see why they'd do that..but while trek and star wars are different franchises, a lot of the people in the general audience still confuse them and think they are 'the same thing' (as a fan of both I don't know how many times I had to try explaining the differences to people I know ) so putting trek, or any other movie set in the space, before star wars could feel redundant.

Redundant, how? Generally speaking, trailers are selected to go before certain films, often of a similar genre. For instance, I saw a trailer for "Chronicles of Riddick" right before a "Return of the Kings" showing. Both are genre films and the match up makes sense.

I think that Star Trek and Star Wars are now large and diverse enough for audiences to know the difference.

 

[Christopher]

But if you show up closer to 7:20, then there are no more good seats.

I usually wait a few weeks to see a movie, or go to a matinee, so this is often not a problem for me. Although lately I feel I have to see Marvel movies in their first week, since I know Agents of SHIELD will be referencing them afterward.

 

[Ryan8bit]

Or just do what many theaters are now doing with reserved seating. So good.

 

[ozzfloyd]

Shouldn't a 'trailer' actually trail the feature not show prior to? Just wondering the etymology of the term... :-)

 

[Franklin]

In my day, a movie, or "moving picture show" as we called them, cost a nickel, and for that you got a ten minute newsreel of domestic stories, five minutes of world news, an eight minute cartoon, an eighteen minute short, the coming attractions, then the movie, and we didn't complain. It was a full evening of entertainment.

Actually, I like watching the coming attractions. Thing is, by the end of the movie, I tend to have forgotten all about them.

I said this a long time ago, but if the STB trailer is shown before "Star Wars", maybe I'll go long enough to see the STB trailer, then get up and walk out.

 

[Kor]

Shouldn't a 'trailer' actually trail the feature not show prior to? Just wondering the etymology of the term... :-)

Perhaps this might be informative:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns...ailers-if-theyre-shown-em-before-em-the-movie



Kor

 

[FormerLurker]

One aspect they all seem to overlook is the fact that "Movie Night" in the early days of cinema was often going out to see a double feature, and the 'coming attractions' previews "trailed" the first film.

 

[Christopher]

^I think they covered that in the piece, that the trailers were meant as transitions between the films in the program, to give audiences a chance to enter or leave.

 

[eyeresist]

On twitter.

J C P - @jpelc2 "is JJ going to do a solid and put a trailer before #TFA? Would be perfect audience to target - everyone!"
Lin liked his comment.

I'm beginning to believe that the trailer for Star Trek Beyond will debut before Star Wars.

What would be better: Before or on SW debut?

I can't help worrying hardcore SW fans would boo...

 

[FormerLurker]

One aspect they all seem to overlook is the fact that "Movie Night" in the early days of cinema was often going out to see a double feature, and the 'coming attractions' previews "trailed" the first film.

^I think they covered that in the piece, that the trailers were meant as transitions between the films in the program, to give audiences a chance to enter or leave.

I got that part easily enough. But the way they describe it, it reads more to me they're just talking about successive showings of the same film. Maybe I'll read it again later.

 

[Christopher]

I got that part easily enough. But the way they describe it, it reads more to me they're just talking about successive showings of the same film. Maybe I'll read it again later.

No, they were specifically talking about the tendency of theaters at the time to cycle through a whole program of films -- presumably a couple of features, a short, a cartoon, a newsreel -- and show them in a continuous loop so that people could come in any time and get the whole program, just not necessarily in the same order.