STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]
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I think TFF also explores interesting themes and can be very thought provoking if you want it to be. And judging by the reaction to TMP and TFF, it doesn't sell well. TUC also deals with interesting dilemmas.
INS and NEM try to be thought provoking, but fail miserably.
Star Trek needs an outsider that's not so smart. Spock, Data, Odo, Seven, Phlox... they were all so smart! C'mon, give us the dumb outsider so we can answer this question!
Star Trek needs an outsider that's not so smart. Spock, Data, Odo, Seven, Phlox... they were all so smart! C'mon, give us the dumb outsider so we can answer this question!
Worf comes across as not very bright, especially in S1. "Lieutenant! Do you intend to blast a hole in the viewscreen?"
Backing up a bit, the complaint that modern Trek is not "cerebral" enough tells me that it has enough action to attract a somewhat more pedestrian audience. As if bringing in people who aren't on the same intellectual level as existing fans will invade their space. New fans will dilute the gene pool, so to speak, and water down fandom so as to become mainstream,thus taking something away from them.
I call these fans Sheldons.
Star Trek is big enough for everyone. If you don't like the new stuff, ignore it and be happy.
"Cerebral" is what nearly shut Trek down before it started. Dialing it back is what made Trek what it became. Be glad for what we have and celebrate the fact that it lives after nearly 50 years.
Now, enough serious talk. I'm going back to making fun of people and looking for spoilers.
I call these fans Sheldons.
Star Trek is big enough for everyone. If you don't like the new stuff, ignore it and be happy.
"Cerebral" is what nearly shut Trek down before it started. Dialing it back is what made Trek what it became. Be glad for what we have and celebrate the fact that it lives after nearly 50 years.
Now, enough serious talk. I'm going back to making fun of people and looking for spoilers.
Worth noting is that FC, which is pretty much a mindless popcorn flick, was a big hit with critics, mainstream audiences and Trekkers, and the most successful Trek film since TVH. INS and NEM tried to explore "issues" and were such miserable failures they almost killed the franchise.
It has been repeatedly reported in this thread that Khan survives. I've seen no explicit mention of the fate of the other Augments, but they remain on the Enterprise due to the torpedo switcheroo, so presumably they survive as well.
BTW, how is Khan caught so completely off guard by the switch? How does the genetically engineered superior intellect fail to anticipate that threat?
BTW, how is Khan caught so completely off guard by the switch? How does the genetically engineered superior intellect fail to anticipate that threat?
It's kind of sad when we geeks get a hipster mentality. I'm kind of loving the larger fan base, I get to share the things I'm geeked out about with that many more people.
Well, cerebral outsiders, perhaps?
Star Trek needs an outsider that's not so smart. Spock, Data, Odo, Seven, Phlox... they were all so smart! C'mon, give us the dumb outsider so we can answer this question!
Worf comes across as not very bright, especially in S1. "Lieutenant! Do you intend to blast a hole in the viewscreen?"
Ah, very good. Anyways, it was most likely that BillJ was absolutely right about that anyways. Because we had intelligent insiders like Wesley and his mom, and they were hits!
...
I liked Star Trek when Jeffrey Hunter was the Captain. Star Trek is so 1966.
FC isn't mindless at all, though. If it's done well, you can just enjoy it as a flick, and dig deeper if you want to. TWoK is certainly like that. It's not really contradictory. I think that's obvious if you look at films in other genres. For some reason, at least in certain discussions about Trek, there is this false division between the product being intelligent and the product being entertaining.
Like, for example, with comic book movies, often fans *want* the movies to be intelligent. I guess a lot has to do with perception. Superhero comics are perceived as lowbrow and maybe a bit childish, so fans want the movies to be taken seriously. Trek is perceived as nerdy and cerebral, so fans want it to be cool and shed the nerdy label. Something like that. (And maybe both are right, at least partly.)
Anyway, intelligent movies are often the most entertaining.
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Actually, ST:TMP sold extremely well!
I'm afraid ST VI left me slightly underwhelmed. Too many elements felt like a colour-by-numbers painting. It was like I could hear the round table discussions by the creators as they put it all together. (Plus whoever wrote the captions under the pics of Cinefantastique's film coverage felt the need to spoilerize the identity of the Enterprise's traitor! I'd chosen not to read the article - which was safe, it turned out - but only the captions. Grrrr.)
It was just that people who knew the original series didn't find enough of the other things they liked about ST.
I came to TMP as a newbie, with only scant knowledge of ST via TAS and some random eps of TOS. While I tried to find someone who wanted to go and see TMP with me, I bought and devoured the novelization in a weekend, and then raced off to see the movie. I cannot convey the incredible immersive feeling of seeing TMP for that first time. I was in that movie. From the moment of walking down the curtained art deco corridors of the cinema, to Ilia's Theme being piperd through the foyers, to the visuals on the screen.
Whether it was cerebral or not, I didn't care. I've always wanted to recapture that feeling in a cinema again, of being totally consumed by a movie and popping out the other end feeling like I'd been on an incredible journey, and only a few films have done it for me as successfully. "Superman: The Movie" (almost), "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" and, more recently, both of Bad Robot's Trek efforts!
(On a tiny b/w TV, as a teenager in the 70s catching random movies during all-night movie marathons, "Silent Running", "Barbarella" and "Godspell", were almost just as immersive. How I wish I'd seen those on the big screen first...)
So I don't really care how "cerebral" a film is, I want it to suck me in, make me forget I'm in a cinema, and to spit me out the other side with a blissful grin on my face. And to retain memories that stay with me forever.
Well, I was made to feel exactly that in 1980. (Not by everyone, but some.) That if only I'd been there at the beginning, like they were, I'd feel differently about ST:TMP. I'd realise why it was not good "Star Trek".
A few years later, I was president of the club and us (now-so) newbies tried to be more open to the influx of new newbies who were swept into the fold by first ST IV and then the juggernaut that was TNG.
You realise, of course, that for the first four seasons, Wil Wheaton got more fan mail than anyone else, followed by Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner.
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Therin, I saw TMP when it opened in '79 and I felt the same way. I'd been waiting for years for new Trek, and there it was on the big screen. I was right in the middle of the film, soaking up every second of it. Though it didn't quite hit the mark, it was Trek and it was new. Every time I watch the movie it takes me right back to that place.
Unfortunately, my girlfriend did not appreciate the experience and that was pretty much the end of that. Ah, well. Life goes on.
Unfortunately, my girlfriend did not appreciate the experience and that was pretty much the end of that. Ah, well. Life goes on.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Well, you're counting all those doctored packets of Kool-aid sent in by fans, aren't you?
(honestly didn't know that about Wheaton. Can't imagine it being the TEEN BEAT/TIGER BEAT crowd, and everybody else was doing the 'ways to waste Wesley' game. But I remember really loving that near-subjective moment when Picard lets him get close to the chair in FARPOINT - in fact, it might be the only moment I enjoy in FARPOINT.)
Apparently it was buoyed by them, yes.
Which the young Wheaton found extremely hard to reconcile.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I would definitely put THE ENEMY WITHIN in there. The duality aspect with needing the negative to be a complete functional person was not something you'd see on DRAGNET or BEVERLY HILLBILLIES or even TWILIGHT ZONE, AFAIK. It's actually a notion and episode that has come back to me unbidden many times when I'm trying to figure out if being altruistic and ethical is really holding me back in certain ways. Shatner has represented the Matheson script (which presumably was worked over heavily by GR) as being just a JEKYLL & HYDE that they 'elevated' on set, which I choose not to believe, but however they got there, it worked.
Even though the rest of the ep is just a run of the mill hoot, PRIVATE LITTLE WAR's showdown between Kirk & McCoy over arming the villagers was good, and perhaps it was downright amazing given that VietNam was still only getting out of hand; the episode's coda where Kirk just gives up on the situation and leaves is probably the TOS ending that sticks with me as much as ANY other. It's something TNG strove to duplicate with the end of SYMBIOSIS, but so much that went before in that ep was so unmemorable or embarrassing that Picard's "I don't care" as far as course setting, while it has a sting, just doesn't come close to "Serpents ... serpents for the garden of Eden. We're very tired - beam us up home."
For the 'thought-provoking' category, I'll submit an odd one: BREAD&CIRCUSES. This is practically postmodernism before the term was even mainstream, what with all those throwaway insults about TV ratings and the proconsul's "oh but there's that prime directive in the way again!" It's probably as close to eavesdropping on a Coon / GR conversation as we'll ever get.
WHO MOURNS FOR ADONAIS as well; Von Daniken wasn't in the domestic consciousness yet (that was early 70s after Serling narrated IN SEARCH OF ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS, and TREK predates that by 5 years), so the extraterrestrials as gods notion was just magical to me when I first heard it (and probably why I like RETURN TO TOMORROW as well, though when I was younger I could not be in the room during the 'risk is our business' speech ... now I relish it, but I could only see the ham in it initially, not the steak.)
I'm doing this on the fly, but if I get back here in the next couple of days, I'll probably have a few more thoughts along these lines. In the meantime youse can tear me one over the above comments.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I imagine after a few years it probably became the old John Wayne story about him doing Shakespeare to laughter and then shouting 'hey I didn't write this shit.' It was like shooting the messenger (or fish in a fishbowl) to pick on Wheaton.
I actually didn't mind Wesley and liked his character, probably because he and I are about the same age. But I understand there is a ton of vitriol toward his character. Wheaton himself even understands this and uses it to his benefit for comedic purpose. So given all that, why the know-it-all attitude?
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