The Final Frontier vs. Star Trek XI

[Kegg]

3. I doubt we can take the polls comparing Star Trek to Khan or First Contact seriously because of this poll and reason number two.

We can take them completely seriously as indicative of the opinions of TrekBBS members who visit this forum and bother to vote in the polls.

I'm also surprised TFF is doing so well, but then, the film isn't quite as universally hated as Nemesis and there understandably more than a few TOS fans who weren't keen on the remake at all.

So, an alternate reality story fails to qualify as science fiction...because?

It wasn't a particularly good idea.

'Madman hijacks Enterprise and searches for 'God'' is a brilliant premise.

'Man is accidently sent back in time and decides to blow up planets because his planet was blown up in the future. Oh, and an alternate timeline was created because... it just was' isn't.

You can parse the premises any way you like to make whatever point you wish.

Let me try:

'Zealot hijacks Enterprise to find God, discovers evil alien instead, also brainwashes people using touchy-feely pain-removal'

And:

'The origins of Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise as they chose they rise to the occasion to face of a seemingly unstoppable foe'.

See? It's pretty easy.

But I'm not sure why a film about trying to find God and getting a godlike alien instead is being held up as such an ambituous, provocative sci-fi idea. It's bread and butter for Star Trek, though, which I guess is the appeal. But then, so is saving Earth from alien threats.

Hell, Shatner's original idea - that they find Satan - is more ballsy but is most definitely not inherently a sci-fi idea.

 

[Shazam!]

'Zealot hijacks Enterprise to find God, discovers evil alien instead, also brainwashes people using touchy-feely pain-removal'

That still sounds awesome.

 

[Shazam!]

But I'm not sure why a film about trying to find God and getting a godlike alien instead is being held up as such an ambituous, provocative sci-fi idea.

I think it's more to do with the fact that the 'God' they do find is some alien knobhead knocking around on a rock world which through Star Trek and various other TV shows and movies is something I've always identified as quintessentially 'sci-fi', more so than time-travel and/or saving the Earth which has been done to death in a bunch of genres.

 

[Myasishchev]

Star Trek. Anyone who cares more for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is still nursing sour grapes over Abrams' take on the franchise. Shatner's film has laughable special effects, several broad misfires at comedy, and a rickety premise. What it could have been is irrelevant in this case.

I dunno. I'm one of the special few who really enjoyed TFF. I also really liked ST11. Really, TFF has a better plot, and ST11 is more fun to look at. Kind of a draw, really.

 

[STR]

Honestly, if the film had been given a major re-write, if the visual effects had been handled with the same level of professionalism as the previous films, and if Paramount properly funded the entire proposition, it could have been great. I understand that two of those problems were unavoidable if they wanted to make the release date--the writer's strike and a dearth of available VFX houses were just plain bad luck. But the last has been an affliction of every Star Trek film outside of TMP and ABrams' film, and Shatner just didn't know how to deal with it.

Look at it another way, TFF was almost a great movie, but was handicapped from the beginning. ST11 had all the advantages of money, technology, and unchained creative staff and was still only marginally better than TFF.

I also don't think a major rewrite was necessary for either movie. You could throw Nemesis in there too. Star Trek movies, for all their ups and downs, have never been utter concept-to-end #### ups. It's always a little bit away. Change 10 minutes of Nemesis and it would have been the grand farewell ST6 was. Change just the special effects and make it seem like a slight challenge for Sybok to brainwash (or even conquer) the Enterprise and you got something that holds a candle to the fantastic character moments.

While I'm on character moments, ST5's single scene with McCoy choosing to end his father's life had more meaning, more emotion, and more weight than all of ST11. The scene of Spock dealing with his father's shame makes the contrasting "I love you Spock" scene from ST11 seem like after-school-movie schlock. Condemn ST5 to the trash can. Damn Shatner out of Hollywood, but by god that's some good movie there. And that entire sequence didn't cost $10 million either.

 

[Chimpy Chompy]

I like them both.

For me Final Frontier has some wonderful character moments and explores the bond between the three lead characters better than any other movie. And I agree with Shazam, the concept behind it is quite sound. Even if the implementation fell down in some ways.

Trek11 is on the other hand a highly entertaining action movie.

 

[DevilEyes]

But I'm not sure why a film about trying to find God and getting a godlike alien instead is being held up as such an ambituous, provocative sci-fi idea.

I think it's more to do with the fact that the 'God' they do find is some alien knobhead knocking around on a rock world which through Star Trek and various other TV shows and movies is something I've always identified as quintessentially 'sci-fi', more so than time-travel and/or saving the Earth which has been done to death in a bunch of genres.

Oh right, time-travel and/or battling crazy antagonists bent on destruction is not a Star Trek concept at all, and has not been done in it at all.

And of course, unlike the search for God, time-travel is not a SciFi concept at all.

FYI, you can't "use time-travel in a bunch of genres", because the moment you introduce time-travel, it becomes science fiction. Because, unlike the search for God, time-travel is an inherently SF concept.

 

[DevilEyes]

Honestly, if the film had been given a major re-write, if the visual effects had been handled with the same level of professionalism as the previous films, and if Paramount properly funded the entire proposition, it could have been great. I understand that two of those problems were unavoidable if they wanted to make the release date--the writer's strike and a dearth of available VFX houses were just plain bad luck. But the last has been an affliction of every Star Trek film outside of TMP and ABrams' film, and Shatner just didn't know how to deal with it.

Look at it another way, TFF was almost a great movie, but was handicapped from the beginning. ST11 had all the advantages of money, technology, and unchained creative staff and was still only marginally better than TFF.

You must be kidding.

TFF was awful in every respect. It has a stupid plot, awful characterization, bad humor, abysmal effects, a lot of bad acting, amateurish direction, and it makes caricatures out of the TOS characters to the point of being offensive to some of them. How anyone who likes TOS can like this movie is beyond me. How anyone at all can like this movie other than in the "so bad it's good" way is beyond me.

McCoy's flashback scene is the only good thing about the movie. But Spock's "flashback" scene is stupid, unless you intepret it as a result of Spock's imagination rather than a memory, and even then, it's threading all ground, and not in a particularly good way. Sadly, while being stupid, it is still probably the second best scene in the movie, which tells you what the rest of the movie is like.

Basically, Nichelle Nichols's fan dance v. Zoe Saldana in her underwear, yes?

It was a close call.

Now that you mention it - I wonder which one makes more sense and is less cheesy? A woman undressing in her room, assuming that there is nobody there to see her than her female roommate - or a woman doing a naked fan dance on top of a hill to distact a bunch of yahoos, who have apparently never seen a naked woman despite living in some kind of 'colony'?

But it has to be said that TFF beats STXI in one respect: STXI was one nominated for any Razzie awards. TFF won three.

 

[Shazam!]

Oh right, time-travel and/or battling crazy antagonists bent on destruction is not a Star Trek concept at all, and has not been done in it at all.

And of course, unlike the search for God, time-travel is not a SciFi concept at all.

FYI, you can't "use time-travel in a bunch of genres", because the moment you introduce time-travel, it becomes science fiction. Because, unlike the search for God, time-travel is an inherently SF concept.

LOL Way to respond to things I never actually said.

I never said that time-travel wasn't sci-fi, and I never said that the search for God was sci-fi.

I said I found the idea of finding a wacky alien on an alien planet to be more of a sci-fi idea than time-travel because the concept of time-travel has been diluted through countless movies and genres.

 

[Chimpy Chompy]

. How anyone at all can like this movie other than in the "so bad it's good" way is beyond me.

Well that's whats great about the internet, you can learn a bit more about other peoples' perspectives.

 

[Shazam!]

it makes caricatures out of the TOS characters

LOL And Trek XI didn't do that with Chekov not being able to pronounce his Ws/crowbarring some Sulu sword fighting/Scotty the typical wacky Scottish engineer etc?

 

[DevilEyes]

Oh right, time-travel and/or battling crazy antagonists bent on destruction is not a Star Trek concept at all, and has not been done in it at all.

And of course, unlike the search for God, time-travel is not a SciFi concept at all.

FYI, you can't "use time-travel in a bunch of genres", because the moment you introduce time-travel, it becomes science fiction. Because, unlike the search for God, time-travel is an inherently SF concept.

LOL Way to respond to things I never actually said.

I never said that time-travel wasn't sci-fi

You didn't?

I think it's more to do with the fact that the 'God' they do find is some alien knobhead knocking around on a rock world which through Star Trek and various other TV shows and movies is something I've always identified as quintessentially 'sci-fi', more so than time-travel and/or saving the Earth which has been done to death in a bunch of genres.

Then you should try to better communicate what you mean to say.

it makes caricatures out of the TOS characters

LOL And Trek XI didn't do that with Chekov not being able to pronounce his Ws/crowbarring some Sulu sword fighting/Scotty the typical wacky Scottish engineer etc?

Oh right, because Chekov has never been known to have a silly Russian accent or mispronounce his Ws He is presented as far more competent and serious than he ever was in TOS. And Sulu sword fighting is so terribly offensive to the character

About as much as having him and Uhura act like morons who get brainwashed after a few minutes with a new age guru, to the point of betraying their captain and the Starfleet. How great was Sulu's role in the movie: mucking about on a holiday and trying to avoid duty, followed by being immediately brainwashed with touchy-feely talk into betraying the Starfleet. Only Uhura's role beats that: getting brainwashed with touchy-feely talk into betraying the Starfleet, in between doing a naked fan dance, and acting crazy and horny and sexually harassing a terrified Scotty. Really the movie you should be playing to people who haven't seen TOS, to make them understand why those two were held as role models and positive representations of minorities in the 1960s.

 

[Shazam!]

LOL Way to respond to things I never actually said.

I never said that time-travel wasn't sci-fi

You didn't?

I think it's more to do with the fact that the 'God' they do find is some alien knobhead knocking around on a rock world which through Star Trek and various other TV shows and movies is something I've always identified as quintessentially 'sci-fi', more so than time-travel and/or saving the Earth which has been done to death in a bunch of genres.

Then you should try to better communicate what you mean to say.

What I said was as clear as day. At no point did I say that time-travel wasn't sci-fi and at no point did I say that looking for God was sci-fi. There is literally nothing confusing about what I posted : |

We can make a poll if you want, though.

 

[Shazam!]

About as much as having him and Uhura act like morons who get brainwashed after a few minutes with a new age guru, to the point of betraying their captain and the Starfleet. How great was Sulu's role in the movie: mucking about on a holiday and trying to avoid duty, followed by being immediately brainwashed with touchy-feely talk into betraying the Starfleet. Only Uhura's role beats that: getting brainwashed with touchy-feely talk into betraying the Starfleet, in between doing a naked fan dance, and acting crazy and horny and sexually harassing a terrified Scotty.

Whan you put it like that, it actually sounds like the greatest movie ever.

 

[DevilEyes]

About as much as having him and Uhura act like morons who get brainwashed after a few minutes with a new age guru, to the point of betraying their captain and the Starfleet. How great was Sulu's role in the movie: mucking about on a holiday and trying to avoid duty, followed by being immediately brainwashed with touchy-feely talk into betraying the Starfleet. Only Uhura's role beats that: getting brainwashed with touchy-feely talk into betraying the Starfleet, in between doing a naked fan dance, and acting crazy and horny and sexually harassing a terrified Scotty.

Whan you put it like that, it actually sounds like the greatest movie ever.

You mean like this?

 

[Harvey]

Look at it another way, TFF was almost a great movie, but was handicapped from the beginning. ST11 had all the advantages of money, technology, and unchained creative staff and was still only marginally better than TFF.

And that's where I stop reading. The thread asks which film is better. It doesn't matter to what degree Star Trek exceeds over Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Of course, I think Abrams' film is head and shoulders above Shatner's mess, but that is solely my opinion.

 

[JarodRussell]

If the new movie had visual effects as substandard as TFF, nobody would even think about praising it.

 

[Kegg]

If the new movie had visual effects as substandard as TFF, nobody would even think about praising it.

See, I thought there were other good things about the movie. Like the acting and pacing, the character dynamics, that sort of thing. The music is also good ("Enterprising Young Men" gets regular relistens from me.)

Hell, as SFX-shows go, the new Star Trek is far less reliant - and less SFX-heavy - than, say, the Star Wars prequels.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

If the new movie had visual effects as substandard as TFF, nobody would even think about praising it.

I would still rank XI of V because of the better written script and the great performance by the new cast rather than what I saw in V.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

I walked out of TFF in shock at just how lousy a movie it was. Subsequent viewings have allowed me to appreciate certain isolated elements of it--Luckinbill's performance, Goldsmith's score, some of the cinematography--but I still come away thinking that the characters are rendered as bad fanfic cliches and the story is astoundingly stupid. I just don't like it.

I walked out Trek XI in shock at just how much fun I had. on paper, the movie seems at least as stupid as TFF but, for some reason, it didn't bother me--well, no more than to kvetch around here about them from time to time.