I enjoyed Lost in Space too, but it didn't accomplish what it was trying to do. That's my concern.
The Sobering Effect of the Star Trek XI Trailer
- Thread starter Samuel T. Cogley
- Start date
I enjoyed Lost in Space too, but it didn't accomplish what it was trying to do. That's my concern.
Cause this movie isn't going to be to his "liking".
Ah. So you mean "like Berman" not in plotting, story, tempo, style or editing but in some other, non-quantifiable manner. Good.
Why are we debating this, again?
I'm so tired of this in Every fandom out there. it happens in the Bond fandom (BTW Having seen every Bond Film I can (Including the original Casino Royale(The bond spoof) I can say Craig is a worthy Bond. His bond is more a return to the Connery era of Bond where it was less gimmicks and more action. Casino Royale was one hell of a film, and Craig made Bond come to life better than Bronson's "MY Bond is just a better dressed Remington Steele" But hey that's just my opinion, Your mileage may vary.
I go into every movie I watch expecting to be entertained. I have yet to be compeletly disapponted, but then again I never have held Star Trek up as the end all and be all of Sci Fi... Now Anything By Arthur C. Clarke, Issac Assimov, or Ray Bradbury yeah that's intrquing sci fi, but Roddenbury was and always has been at best a TV show creator, a writer for the small screen who had one major success that wasn't a success until near a decade after he created it. In other words a mediocre creative talent that created something a bunch of people embraced even though it was oft times mediocre itself...
So why should we expect more out of a Mediocre product now?
Nobody expects KISS to write a rock opera... (even though they did)
Nobody should expect Trek to be more than Entertaining. Which is all I've been saying for quite some time now. Trek is the light reading of sci fi, good for a quick fix, it's stories good enough to stand the test of time, but never more than a light snack intellecutally. I'm sorry if I hold The Martian Chronicles, and H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds in Higher standing that Trek, but the sad truth is they are light years more engaging than Star Trek ever was, though it has tried and will continue to try, and that's all I ask of it.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Sorry, but I indeed look at Star Trek, and especially TOS and DS9 up there with HG Wells and Ray Bradbury. It's just sad that Voyager and Enterprise were just lightweight bullshit, and the especially the latter couldn't even reach "entertaining" anymore, and yet the creators went on and on about how "Star Trek" it was, when it wasn't.
Trek at its best managed to edge into cerebral territory and be a rousing good adventure. Is it really so much to expect that it can be that again? Or have we all become so jaded about both creative producers and the audience that we think the only thing that can be successful has to be dumb? Especially after the amazing success of The Dark Knight, which like Trek at its best, managed to be intense, engaging, entertaining - and contain some pretty hefty metaphorical material.
Really, when did that become too much to ask of Star Trek?
So, I've seen the trailer. Read the breakdowns. Read the fan reactions. And had time to reassess my thoughts on Star Trek XI.
I am visiting a friend in another part of the country, and I showed him the Star Trek XI trailer last night. His tastes are similar to mine. After viewing the trailer, he responded: "Feels like 'Lost in Space.'"
And, for me, he nailed it.
Now, first, let me tell you where I stand on 'Lost in Space.'
I saw it as a visually re-imagined, updated-for-modern-times version of the original. While it was not financially as successful as had been hoped, I found it to be a satisfying action/sci-fi movie with beautiful visuals. I was glad I watched it, but I'll be fine if I never see it again. And it didn't beg a sequel, much as it tried to set one up.
So, back to Star Trek XI. The visuals looks fantastic, if not a little too busy. The casting seems to be inspired. But something is missing. It just doesn't feel like Star Trek to me. Granted, I have not yet seen the movie. And what, exactly, is it missing? I can't be sure. Nor is it my burden to figure out what that is. So don't ask.
Now, before you try to put me in a box...
I am absolutely going to watch this movie.
I am excited about this movie.
But, after digesting the trailer, I have placed it on the back burner of "one of a handful of movies I want to see next year." I no longer need to obsess about every detail. It has become just another (hopefully great) summer movie that comes out next year.
I also realize that this is a real opportunity to reinvent Star Trek for a new generation, and I am excited about that. It's their time now, and I hope they embrace it wholeheartedly. (Not timidly, like they did with 'Lost in Space.')
A poster here said that, while watching the trailer in the theater, some of the crowd laughed, and not in a good way. I sincerely hope that is the exception to the new audience, not the norm. Star Trek XI looks to have the makings of a big hit. And I wish it well.
But it doesn't really feel like my Star Trek.
Thankfully, I still have my Star Trek on DVD, so there's little to worry about.
There's a magic that I feel when watching the original series. It feels as if I have come home, and I am among close friends. There was a time in my life -- strange as it may sound -- that I felt as if they were my friends. (And I have seen those sentiments echoed here many times over, so I know I am not alone.)
When I saw the new trailer, I realized, those are not my friends. They belong to a new generation.
But they still have to earn it. And I hope they do.
I am not among the camp that insists that everything must follow perfect canon. (Although, I can certainly see why those people exist, especially since Paramount exploited that concept, like some greedy Pied Piper, to keep us all on the hook and entice us to buy lots of merchandise, no matter what 'long road' that canon tried to force us down. So the willingness of many fans to let that slide should make Paramount very happy.)
I am also not among the fans that are so excited and loyal to a movie they have never seen that they will insult and mock the more cautious (or disappointed) fans, in some bizarre defense of a product that has yet had the opportunity to earn our trust.
So, in summation: The trailer looks great. The movie looks fun. I will definitely see it. However, it doesn't feel like a Star Trek movie to me. It appears that my hopes and dreams -- unrealistic as they probably were -- may not be satisfied by this film, as was probably going to be the case no matter who made it. So I'll watch it and hopefully enjoy it. But like a proud father who hands a favorite toy to his child, I am all the more hopeful that whatever Abrams has done will keep the concept alive for future generations.
And maybe, just maybe, Abrams will prove me wrong, and I'll come running back here on May 9th to say how he nailed it. And how this is my Star Trek.
Hey Sam I hope this can help make this feel like you might be more like your Star Trek
From Abrams new recut of the trailer BEHOLD
Everyone can now continue with their regularly schedualed fan war.
Really? I tend to hold H.G. Wells, Bradbury, Clarke, and others at a higher regard than Roddenberry, because other than Trek what was he known for. He wrote many many things and none of them got very much success. Sure you can argue Earth Final Contact, or Andromeda, but those were made after his death and written mostly by others and had his name attached.
Star Trek is one of the most successful science fictions shows ever, up there with Rod Serlings Twilight Zone, well I actually have to edge Rod out above Gene because Serling actually wrote MOST of the Twilight Zone episodes while Gene penned 13 TOS episodes total. BTW I find both series to by entertaining, I just think that Star Trek was never at the level of Bradbury's and other more accompished writers works. It endures because it is a small easily digestible capsule of Sci Fi that doesn't need hours to mull over, I'm glad for that and they don't need to make it more than that in any respect. Keep it simple, keep it Entertaining, and keep it fun. Those are my hopes for the movie.
Hey Sam I hope this can help make this feel like you might be more like your Star Trek
From Abrams new recut of the trailer BEHOLD
Everyone can now continue with their regularly schedualed fan war.
Yeah, I still have chills from watching that. That's my old friend that I miss.
And now it's starting to feel like a Star Trek movie.
The key will be in how well the new meshes with the old.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
For once you were serious about something and for once I agree with you 100% I get what your saying I just hope Nimoy play's a bigger role than just a short cameoSo, I've seen the trailer. Read the breakdowns. Read the fan reactions. And had time to reassess my thoughts on Star Trek XI.
I am visiting a friend in another part of the country, and I showed him the Star Trek XI trailer last night. His tastes are similar to mine. After viewing the trailer, he responded: "Feels like 'Lost in Space.'"
And, for me, he nailed it.
Now, first, let me tell you where I stand on 'Lost in Space.'
I saw it as a visually re-imagined, updated-for-modern-times version of the original. While it was not financially as successful as had been hoped, I found it to be a satisfying action/sci-fi movie with beautiful visuals. I was glad I watched it, but I'll be fine if I never see it again. And it didn't beg a sequel, much as it tried to set one up.
So, back to Star Trek XI. The visuals looks fantastic, if not a little too busy. The casting seems to be inspired. But something is missing. It just doesn't feel like Star Trek to me. Granted, I have not yet seen the movie. And what, exactly, is it missing? I can't be sure. Nor is it my burden to figure out what that is. So don't ask.
Now, before you try to put me in a box...
I am absolutely going to watch this movie.
I am excited about this movie.
But, after digesting the trailer, I have placed it on the back burner of "one of a handful of movies I want to see next year." I no longer need to obsess about every detail. It has become just another (hopefully great) summer movie that comes out next year.
I also realize that this is a real opportunity to reinvent Star Trek for a new generation, and I am excited about that. It's their time now, and I hope they embrace it wholeheartedly. (Not timidly, like they did with 'Lost in Space.')
A poster here said that, while watching the trailer in the theater, some of the crowd laughed, and not in a good way. I sincerely hope that is the exception to the new audience, not the norm. Star Trek XI looks to have the makings of a big hit. And I wish it well.
But it doesn't really feel like my Star Trek.
Thankfully, I still have my Star Trek on DVD, so there's little to worry about.
There's a magic that I feel when watching the original series. It feels as if I have come home, and I am among close friends. There was a time in my life -- strange as it may sound -- that I felt as if they were my friends. (And I have seen those sentiments echoed here many times over, so I know I am not alone.)
When I saw the new trailer, I realized, those are not my friends. They belong to a new generation.
But they still have to earn it. And I hope they do.
I am not among the camp that insists that everything must follow perfect canon. (Although, I can certainly see why those people exist, especially since Paramount exploited that concept, like some greedy Pied Piper, to keep us all on the hook and entice us to buy lots of merchandise, no matter what 'long road' that canon tried to force us down. So the willingness of many fans to let that slide should make Paramount very happy.)
I am also not among the fans that are so excited and loyal to a movie they have never seen that they will insult and mock the more cautious (or disappointed) fans, in some bizarre defense of a product that has yet had the opportunity to earn our trust.
So, in summation: The trailer looks great. The movie looks fun. I will definitely see it. However, it doesn't feel like a Star Trek movie to me. It appears that my hopes and dreams -- unrealistic as they probably were -- may not be satisfied by this film, as was probably going to be the case no matter who made it. So I'll watch it and hopefully enjoy it. But like a proud father who hands a favorite toy to his child, I am all the more hopeful that whatever Abrams has done will keep the concept alive for future generations.
And maybe, just maybe, Abrams will prove me wrong, and I'll come running back here on May 9th to say how he nailed it. And how this is my Star Trek.
The scene where Old Spock gets his Viagra Pon Farr on with Zoe Saldana should help.
No but I think people elevate the cerebral part of Trek farther than it really was in the show's run. Yes it had some great moral commentary like with "Let this be your last battlefield" on Racism, and even "The trouble with Tribbles" was way before it's time in talking about the introduciton of non-native species into new areas where their natural predators aren't there. (Even though that is my least favorite episode) But many of the fans of the cerebral part of trek forget that it mostly ended on the note of our three main characters yuking it up later on the bridge as they travel to there next adventure. Star Trek was alwasy light and campy(and CAMPY is not equal to BAD) and even though the Dark Knight and Batman Begins worked as dark material (the original batman comics were awefully dark) Trek has always had a fun aspect to it. I think it's more important at this point to recapture that fun, and add the deeper intellectual stuff later once the wounds to the franchise are fully healed.
I used to be serious quite a bit.
Where did it all go wrong?
If you experience an erection that lasts more than seven years, see a doctor.
To me, the lack of intellectual stuff is the major wound VOY, ENT, Insurrection and Nemesis inflicted on Trek. What else is there to heal? And it's not a matter of light or dark. Batman is as pop culture as Star Trek is, and comic books as a medium are even more built for the lightest possible treatment of, well, anything of substance, than tv is. The point is pop material can contain "heady" stuff, and Star Trek always has. It's what makes Star Trek, Star Trek, as opposed to any other SF space adventure.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
I used to be serious quite a bit.
Where did it all go wrong?
Don't know, you were here before me?
No I disagree. Batman started out as a very dark character in the 1930 he even used a gun. He was campified back when the comic companies adopted the Comics Code Authority. This campifying was one of the major reasons he was given a boy sidekick. The Original Batman is nothing like the one we got in the sixties, in the 70's cartoons. On TAS he was a much darker conflicted character, still not quite back to his roots, but dark enough that he worked.
Trek ever since the introduction of the Borg has been trying to Darken itself up. All of this is shown true in the set lighting. DS9 had mainly darkly colored sets, it was acceptable because DS9 was a Cardassian space station that the Federation had seized. But the Bridge of Voyager and even the Ent-e were darker. The stories lacked the fun aspects of some of the better episodes, because Berman and Braga thought that that darkness sold better. The characters seemed more depressed because woah is me I'm on an exploration vessel which is far away from home. I don't know when we'll get home, ANGST ANGST ANGST. Yes we get it they are in a different quadrant of the galaxy, something that was never explored or mined in depth for potential stories... Mind you it was the home Quadrant of the Borg...... and we hardly saw them with any regularity. The fun was gone, the intellectual stuff was still there at times, but played down, they didn't try and get rid of it entirely. They just did it in a more juvinile way. Both are wounds, but to return to a more mature intellectual scope you first have to attract fans back, suddenly returning to the levels of intellectual stories with the current fanbase now would alienate even more of the general public, most people don't want their entertainment making them think. That's why TOS did so well with it's messages, because even though they'd go "Hey these two guys are killing each other over the color of their skin" in "Let this be your last battlefield. They did it in a way where you weren't blugeoned over the head with the message. They rolled the fun aspect out first, then sprikled in their messaage. That's what Trek writers had done will before the Berman Braga era. That's what it needs to get back to. Losing the fun was the biggest wound to the franchise, cause noone is going to sit and listen to a sermon unless the preacher tosses in a few jokes.
I think Voyager would have done better had they tossed the Angst, and worked on serious contemporary topics, like how our culture can be percived by another culture and vice versa. There was more to explore with racism and more to deal with on other social issues, but they went with a formulaic approach of current crisis + Angst about getting home + Sexy Borg girl shots + Deus Ex Machina weekly ending. They never once stopped to see what was in the quadrant, they never once had a good laugh, and they turned Janeway into the biggest girl scout you had ever seen.
Batman premiered in Septmebr of 1939. Robin was introduced in April 1940. The dark Batman you are referring to lasted 8 issues, and only in two of those did he use a gun. The Comics Code was introduced in the 1950s. In the 1970s there was a concerted effort to recapture the early tone of the character under the writer Dennis O'Neil and the artist Neal Adams. In TAS he was not a particularly conflicted character, though he was rather psychotic in the comics of that period. TAS did have a "Dark Deco" aesthetic in its art, but the character himself was pretty even keel.
I'm not really sure what any of that has to do with Star Trek, but being as big of a Bat-geek as I am a Trek-geek, I felt the need to put up my point of view on it.
Have you ever seen the TOS episode Balance of Terror in which Kirk angsts something mighty about the pressures of command? Or The Naked Time where Spock openly cries over his inner conflict which has been exposed by the virus? City on the Edge of Forever is one of the angstiest SF tv stories ever told. TOS was plenty angsty.
Then why did The Dark Knight do so well? Everyone talked non-stop about how thought-provoking it was. One critic said it turned "pop into dark poetry".
I don't know. Let This Be Your Last Battlefield was incredibly ham-fisted with its "racism is bad, m'kay?" message.
First, I don't think it's true that people have to have something thought-provoking sugar-coated with humor and fun. I do think they don't want sermons in their entertainment, but I also believe a significant number of people do want smart material. Secondly TOS, TNG and DS9 all managed to be fun adventures with thought-provoking metaphors. TNG is generally considered the "talkiest" of all the Treks - and it was by far the most popular.
I just think that there's a lot of SF out there which is empty action adventure - not that there's anything wrong with that. I love The Fifth Element, and Armageddon is a guilty pleasure. I've enjoyed dozens of light, fun, shoot 'em ups in space. But Star Trek at its best has always been more than that. I don't see why we shouldn't expect and be able to get that with any new Trek.
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3D Master
Rear Admiral
Star Trek was never campy, it didn't even come close. Neither was it always light.
Angst? Star Trek and angst? You're not from a parallel universe, are you?
If only there were more episodes like "The Siege of AR-558" and its follow-up. Star Trek, especially Voyager and Enterprise, needed genuine drama, instead of talking heads.
White on one side, black on the other, and in reverse sides you call "not bludgeoning over the head". That's as bludgeon as you can get. And that episode didn't have any fun from what I can remember - if it was, it'd tiny bits and pieces.
Voyager would have worked if it'd been a genuine drama show that didn't toss its premise by the end of the fourth episode. The result would have been a show that had continuing story-telling, with a lot more "angst" - it would be Farscape in tone essentially.
I think Dark Knight did so well because it IS Batman, they kept true to what Batman's character is, what his conflicts are and ultimately who he becomes. Heath Ledger also had alot to do with it's success. His Joker is Phenomenal, and that's not taking anything away from Caesar Romero, or Jack Nicholson. I think it was the right movie at the right time and after all the bad puns of the movies before Batman Begins (Which didn't do as well as TDK but set up the universe for this new film series splendidly) I only hope that Star Trek can be the same for it's next movie A splendid set up for the universe this film and any possible sequels set up.
As for the Angst in TOS there was some, and if 3d would take his rose colored glasses off there was camp. Lots of camp in TOS. (Like I said I don't think Camp is bad which is what 3d implies by denying it's existance.) But the angst wasn't over done. It didn't become the focus of the series. It was used where it was needed for it's dramatic effect not because "OH MY GOD we have to remind everyone were stranded in this alien quadrent"
I tought let this be your last battlefield was very subtle for it's time, sublte enough that such a controversial issue in the time it was being talked about was actually let through. The point that Kirk and his crew had to be explained by Gorshin's character what the war was all about made that point all too clear. It wasn't obvious because the outside observer would think that they are the same race. Just like some aliens from another planet would see a black man and a white man standing together an see that we are the same race, just our skin colors are different, they'd study it see that one has more melonin in their skin than the other and shrug wondering what the big deal is.
We have to face the facts on why people go to the movies. I mean I go to be Entertained, I think most of the general viewing audiance do the same thing. They want to escape from the boss and the job and the stress of their lives. Not everyone has time to sit for hours on end looking at their stomachs and contemplate their navels. Most of them work really hard, some at more than one job to make ends meet anymore. So really what they want is to shut off for two hours, enjoy a show absorb it and maybe come away with something more once they process it.
I think the people who look down on them forget these are the people who fix your car, work on your house, make sure your pet is healthy, make you food when you go out, and pour your beer in the pub. When you look down on them you look down on your brother. They aren't any dumber than you are and the certainly care less about whether a movie sticks to canon, as long as it entertains them and helps them to destress after a long day's work.
And here alot of people are stressing over a fictional (No matter if it's Sci-fi or not) world because they feel some sense of entitlment over said fictional work.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Nope, there was no camp. Camp is deliberately over-styling, over-doing something in order to make it funny, to highlight it and essentially mocking it. TOS NEVER did that. Galaxy Quest was camp. TOS was not, not ever.
Voyager's "angst" wasn't over done, there wasn't enough drama. THAT was the problem. They wrote the episodes as if Voyager was cruising around in the backyard of the Federation like the Enterprise-D did. Thus, there was NO drama, NO true exploration of being lost, the writing never EXPLORED being lost and alone; so they had to remind us artificially with contrived dialog, that "yes indeed we are lost, don't forget it folks; I know you would since we're not writing it as if we are lost, so..."
No, it was not subtle for it's time, it was every bit as ham-handed and sledge-hammerish as it is now. The fact that it was let through, was because those who determine ratings and censorship were bunch of morons who went, "SF kiddy stuff" and barely looked at it. If no bad words, or other truly nasty things were on the screen, let it through.
No, that's not subtle, that the sledge-hammer. See, us evolved 23rd century people wouldn't even THINK of worrying about pigmentation in the skin. It drove those who did wory about it's ideas only further into the ground at how ridiculous it is.
No, they ARE the SAME race/species. We would think they are the same race/species, just like we SHOULD look at all of us as the same race/species. And then you hear them go on about how the position matters, and it slams our noses into how stupid those of us who still think like that are. And to those who did think like it, maybe it'd be a wake-up call.
Which would be the big sledge hammer that slams us over our heads.
Uh, you're the one who is looking down on them. You're the one claiming they wouldn't come to a TDK, yet they all went to TDK. Which means that Star Trek wouldn't have needed to be a meaningless, unchallenging pile of emptiness.
No I said if you READ (I work as a Karaoke host people who refuse to read what's written really irk me and that's what your doing on purpose and willfully being ignorant.) I said TDK and Trek are two DIFFERENT Creatures who worked for different reasons. Batman IS a dark Character. That's what he was created as. Trek is an optimistic property that's what it was created as.
But I really can't expect you to understand you've already made up your mind that you're not going to listen to anyone else because you're an expert on everything so I'm not going to even bother with you anymore.
Thanks for such a terrific and thoughtful post, Sam--you've really summed up a lot of my feelings about the film.
I became a fan of Trek during the 70's glory days--syndication, conventions, novels that sometimes had only a passing resemblance to Trek Proper, and many speculative conversations with other fans-- and "my" Trek is very much informed by the context in which I first saw it. While Trek to me has always been Kirk and Spock (not to say I haven't enjoyed other iterations), it also was this very wonderful, fluid, dynamic creature in ways that it hasn't been in a very long time. I hope that some of that vibe is informing the new Trek the same way it did the old.
Besides, I can remember when there was talk among fans back before TMP of (gasp) recasting the leads and I look at it this way: we're getting the best of both worlds. We've been able to see Trek evolve and grow for over forty years, and that Trek isn't going anywhere. But now we're also getting a taste of what might have been if TPTB had taken a different path and recast Trek way back when--we're getting to see what the characters might look like as icons as opposed to the actors. It may work, or it may not, but it will be interesting to see.
I became a fan of Trek during the 70's glory days--syndication, conventions, novels that sometimes had only a passing resemblance to Trek Proper, and many speculative conversations with other fans-- and "my" Trek is very much informed by the context in which I first saw it. While Trek to me has always been Kirk and Spock (not to say I haven't enjoyed other iterations), it also was this very wonderful, fluid, dynamic creature in ways that it hasn't been in a very long time. I hope that some of that vibe is informing the new Trek the same way it did the old.
Besides, I can remember when there was talk among fans back before TMP of (gasp) recasting the leads and I look at it this way: we're getting the best of both worlds. We've been able to see Trek evolve and grow for over forty years, and that Trek isn't going anywhere. But now we're also getting a taste of what might have been if TPTB had taken a different path and recast Trek way back when--we're getting to see what the characters might look like as icons as opposed to the actors. It may work, or it may not, but it will be interesting to see.
