If you read RJ's statements earlier in the thread, he lumps "nuTrek" in with the D&G fad, so don't expect any kind of agreement.
The appeal of Torture-Porn and Popcorn?
- Thread starter TheMasterOfOrion
- Start date
If you read RJ's statements earlier in the thread, he lumps "nuTrek" in with the D&G fad, so don't expect any kind of agreement.
If you put NuTrek into the dark and gritty cabinet you're stretching the term where it comes completely meaningless, to be honest. You'd have a better argument for it as an example of the popularity of shakycam or realness or being hip or any other perfectly sensible trends; but of grit and dark it has none.
^I've argued that with him repeatedly, and I'm no Trek XI defender. But for RJ, "D&G" really seems to be code for "I don't like it," given how nuTrek gets lumped in with this supposed trend, while films like The Mist get a free pass just because. So there's no arguing with him on any of the terms or definitions.
^^ Maybe, in a Johnny Test, sensory overload kind of way; but it was also MST3K-level stupid.
I don't really understand how a rewriting of the Star Trek Universe that includes not only the deaths of the major characters' parents but the destruction of Vulcan and the near extinction of the race can be considered anything besides dark. The entire movie was nothing but an exercise in violence and stupidity. This is optimism? Has the audience really been desensitized so much?
The Mist doesn't get a free pass. It was a horror movie that was pretty faithful to the source material, although the change in the ending was unnecessary and unfortunate.
I don't really understand how a rewriting of the Star Trek Universe that includes not only the deaths of the major characters' parents but the destruction of Vulcan and the near extinction of the race can be considered anything besides dark. The entire movie was nothing but an exercise in violence and stupidity. This is optimism? Has the audience really been desensitized so much?
Tone.
Let's take the original Star Wars as an example: Luke's foster parents are brutally killed and the entirety of Leia's home planet is blown the heck up. Oh yeah, and then Luke's mentor dies too. Is Star Wars a dark movie?
Hardly. It's a feel-good action-adventure spectacle romp.
Now, if Kirk or Spock had spent a lot of time moping and angsting over the events, rather than becoming the good guy heroes and laying a smackdown on the bad guy while making a bromance to last through all time, you might have a leg to stand on. As it is, though, calling the new Star Trek dark and gritty is patently absurd.
^^
Yeah, in the first Star Wars movie, a genocide is committed by blowing Alderaan up. However, "The Empire Strikes Back", which doesn't contain anything remotely genocidal, is considered a much darker movie than the first one..
Yeah, in the first Star Wars movie, a genocide is committed by blowing Alderaan up. However, "The Empire Strikes Back", which doesn't contain anything remotely genocidal, is considered a much darker movie than the first one..
The fact that Princess Leia watches her entire planet destroyed, is subsequently tortured and then goes skipping off happily to breezy adventures always creeped me out; but with a fluffy kids' movie like Star Wars, it doesn't really bear thinking about.
Star Trek was always intended for adults. It's the fact that it was remade into a mindless popcorn movie for tweens where parents and planets can be cavalierly destroyed and forgotten about is exactly what I'm talking about. Yes, turning the optimistic five-year-mission into an unprecedented holocaust qualifies nu Trek for D&G status.
Star Trek was always intended for adults. It's the fact that it was remade into a mindless popcorn movie for tweens where parents and planets can be cavalierly destroyed and forgotten about is exactly what I'm talking about. Yes, turning the optimistic five-year-mission into an unprecedented holocaust qualifies nu Trek for D&G status.
Turning Kirk into the kind of guy who torpedoes someone who'se already being crushed by a black hole, and Spock into someone who disapproves of a mild gesture towards humanity, puts Star Trek very much in the modern mode where the heroes are killers. It just doesn't pretend to old fashioned moral values. Kirk is a winner, winner, winner from the first moment when he's a kid who beats Thelma and Louise at their own game. "Dark and gritty" hands out a lot of emo over the heroes' inevitably justified descent into barbarity, so that they can be suffering heroes as well as conquering heroes. I suppose the refreshing novelty of Star Trek was to skip the fake angst.
So like I said: it's code for "RJ doesn't like it."
Right, so point one: Star Wars is not dark and gritty, because it's a breezy adventure and this is defensible because it's a kids movie.
Point two:
Isn't that exactly what you're calling Star Wars? Aimed at a younger audience, mindless popcorn fare where planets can be cavalierly destroyed. Either the first paragraph is 'yes, Star Wars is dark and gritty!' or you are literally making no sense.
No, I said what I said. Star Wars is held to a lower standard because it's fluff, although it did creep me out, and Star Trek was intended for adults before it was re-imagined as adolescent dreck.
Yes you did.
There are three steps here to your argument here, and apologize if I'm not clearer:
1. Star Wars is for kids.
2. Star Trek is not.
3. Except the new movie which is for 'tweens/adolescents'.
Ergo, step 2 is irrelevant. We're not discussing the rest of the Star Trek franchise, just this specific movie.
So, you're apparently saying if a movie features a home planet destroyed without incident and the audience is under 12, it is not a dark and gritty movie, even if the idea is creepy - but if they're tweens or adolescents, and it's presented in the same manner, it's dark and gritty.
Now, Star Trek has had its dark and gritty phase, as I've observed. DS9 bears pretty much all the hallmarks of this, and was itself a precursor to nuBSG. "In the Pale Moonlight" is a gritty and grim bit of Star Trek; the new movie is not. One has to be at a fundamental disconnect I think not to grasp that.
To put this another way: The original Battlestar Galactica was glib and cavalier about the annihilation of the twelve colonies when compared to the moping and soul-searching it caused in the new series. Was the original dark and gritty, then, simply because the genocide of mankind was its opening act?
No, we're discussing how this movie relates to the Star Trek franchise. By the standards of a Saturday night Sciffy movie, it might be okay; by the standards of Star Trek, it's garbage. Either way, it falls into the D&G category.
No. For one thing I said Star Trek is supposed to be for adults, not kids or adolescents. Secondly, the standards for Star Trek and Star Wars are different. When Old Yeller is killed, it's a tragedy; when the Coyote falls into a canyon and raises a mushroom cloud, it's funny. Thirdly, the destruction of a planet is pretty dark either way.
It's true that Trek got grimmer and more visually boring as it went along, in response to changing audience tastes; it's unfortunate, but at least they almost always managed to maintain a high level of quality. "In The Pale Moonlight" is grim and gritty. nuTrek far more so.
Again, original Galactica was a Star Wars rip off-- perhaps even more childish-- so the standards are different. But, yes, their cavalier treatment of near-genocide was very disturbing, as far as I was concerned.
The question we're arguing is whether or not it falls into the 'D&G category', so your last sentence contradicted the first, because 'either way' this is the result.
Since 'either way' it is 'dark and gritty', we can dismiss the logic that Star Trek is adult and therefore it must be dark (and the further implicit assumption that it's adolescent but we'll judge it as if it is not).
In other words there are three gaping, practical and obvious logical flaws in this reasoning and I'm just getting started.
But hey, let's ignore those for a moment, just for the sake of argument. If the new Star Trek was made for an adult audience, it's still a fun, flashy film filled with good times, witty one liners, character banter and nostalgia. While the destruction of Vulcan may strike a discordant cord, it isn't enough to outweigh the general positive feelings and Star Wars-ish attitude of high adventure the film rather obviously conveys.
Presentation. Just because a planet blows up does not a dark and gritty make; and you can have a significantly smaller death toll (or none at all) and still have a dark and gritty film. Tone is enormous in determining that.
This line practically speaks for itself.
The new movie is a fun romp, whatever the moral reservations one may have; it is clearly a little cheeky in places and has its fare share of knowing, nostalgic winks; "In the Pale Moonlight" is deathly serious, sombre, and grim. One would have to have a very peculiar mode of perception indeed to decide Abrams' flashy summer blockbuster was a darker affair then Sisko's soul-searching.
Disturbing, but does that merit their consideration as dark and gritty? In fact, dark and grittiness in BSG's case was a clear reaction to the cavalier treatment of the scenario in the original series; people are laughing and going to the casino planet shortly after genocide - not on RDM's watch, that is certain. BSG is very helpful here in establishing an example of how tone and attitude of characters can change what is, broadly speaking, the same series of events - the annihilation of the Colonies by the Cylons - from the starting point of an action-adventure to a post-9/11-style catastrophy.
Evil Dead I & II are more violent than all of Saw I-VI, and Hostel I & II. If you think the latter two are bad, you couldn't handle The Evil Dead movies. Both were NC-17. (Heck I think even Army of Darkness was!) Those movies make Hostel and Saw seem like They're rated G.
Except I'm saying the exact opposite. The whole point of the D&G fad is to appeal to adolescent grimness. Whenever you see something promoted as "dark," "edgy," "kickass" et cetera, you know the target audience is teens of all ages who want to feel like tough guys. Adults aren't afraid of variety or positive characterizations or the sense of wonder or interesting ideas or having fun. It's the Impossible Man story.
Again, not made for an adult audience. It is, as you say, all flash and no substance; I don't see any nostalgia whatsoever. And rewriting the story to include the destruction of Vulcan, and the deaths of of the main characters' parents, is enough to outweigh anything good about the film; and pretty much the only good thing about the film was the cast.
It's a little strange to think of a movie as a fun romp when the whole point was to corrupt the characters and undermine the basic concept. Did the writers sit down and say, "What will make this movie a fun romp? I know! Let's blow planet Vulcan the fuck up and kill everybody's parents?" Or did they say, "Let's do something horrible and grisly because this is what appeals to the current audience?" nuTrek fails on many levels, but it's dark & gritty because it was intended to be dark & gritty.
Well, this may be splitting hairs. The genocide in the original was almost a toss-off line that was quickly forgotten, which makes it more eerie than anything else, like nuSpock's psychopathic characterization in nuTrek. So have it either way. In any case, when I refer to D&G, I'm specifically citing the cultural trend that began in the Reagan Era and has continued to intensify to this day.
You're completely missing the point of Kegg's argument. You've essentially said that Trek XI and Star Wars are adolescent & kiddy-targeted films with a planet getting blowed up real good. So let's take your argument here, plug some Star Wars terms into it and compare it to what you said earlier, shall we?
Mirror Universe RJDiogenes said:
vs.
Nope. No contradiction there at all.
Aside from fixating on the destruction of Vulcan and your (subjective) assessment of nuSpock, you still haven't given a decent argument for why Trek XI is "dark and gritty;" the bulk of the flim is filled with color, humor, adventure, silly antics, and fast-paced action. 90% of the film itself is an argument against your position, yet we're supposed to take your word on the writers motive's anyway? Please. And I think it's pretty damn closed-minded of you to insist on acting like you can read Kurtman and Orci's minds by claiming their intentions must fit into your obsessive little paradigm, when they on record discussing everything but the motive you've just claimed for them.
Honestly, you should stick to attacking BSG; at least there you can get some traction. This argument is just insane.