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What's keeping me out of the theatre....

What it comes down to, ultimately, is this: do you want Master and Commander or do you want Pirates of the Carribean? I want the former, actually, but I can grin like a chimp at the latter if I have to.

I liked both of them a lot, actually. I think Trek should be more like the former, however.

My only real problem with the Pirates movies is that they are waaaaaay too long for the trifles that they are. They're like a Thanksgiving dinner comprised of nothing but cotton candy. Do you prefer pink meat or blue?

To be fair, I didn't make it through either of the sequels. Overwrought and boring, they were.

But the original was a lot of fun and had a good, even pace throughout. Honestly, it should have just ended with the first movie. That would make the most sense plot-wise and thematically. It was the Pirate's Sunset, after all.
 
Yes, ticket sales are posted every chance possible. I completely understand the argumentum ad populum being implied.

So what?
 
I'm glad you saw the movie Warped9 but I'm sorry that you didn't find any aspect of it entertaining.
 
Is it possible you're mixing up demographics with Nielsen? Demographics had TREK appealing to the buying viewer, but ratingswise, it was almost never above the 50s, and that was when there was what, 70 shows on? Those kind of numbers let ODD COUPLE stay on awhile, but ODD COUPLE didn't have a huge optical budget.

From what I remember reading, NBC was deliberately putting Star Trek in worse and worse slots in order to kill the show, and let them out of the contract 'with an excuse'. Like I said, they really, really wanted to get Trek out of there due to all the hassles with cast and crew. There were shows doing worse in better slots, after all, that DID get renewed, and without letter writing campaigns. :)
 
Not to single you out in particular, but as a sentiment, please do get over yourself.

Dumb? Star Trek? W T F

Warp 10 Salamada? Do klingons take prisoners or what? Is there a barrier at the edge of the galaxy? There is? Bollocks!

The smart fans want to see the Enterprise gang having more outings, and if it takes dumb entertainment to do that, why not? Entertainment is entertainment is it not?

No, it is not, or else you'd be a fan of everything.

Kudos for replying to an unintelligible post.

Grammatically flawed definitely, but unintelligible? Not quite a master of the snooty insult yet, but I'll give you points for trying.

And, you wouldn't be a fan of everything. Wolverine was Entertaining, I'll watch a sequel, but I'm not a fan. The new film is as dumb as anything else in TOS and should be judged on its own merit, not some elitist rubbish about TOS being intellectual.
 
Uh, Brutal, TOS's ratings were actually middling to good throughout it's original run - and, of course, it was legendary once it was in syndication. The only reason it's considered 'lower rung' now is because it's been played pretty much non-stop in some capacity for forty years running. Not even shows like the Twilight Zone can quite make that claim.
Good point.

I'm tired of hearing the old "smart SF doesn't sell." More nonsense. We're not talking about diamond hard SF. We're talking about giving your story and elements of it a sense of credibility.

Set aside all the periphral elements I dislike. Look at the Kirk arc in this film since he's a central element of the story. This interpretation of Kirk has little to nothing but a smarmy, smartass attitude and no self-discipline. He later stows away aboard a ship where he has no standing and no position. After Pike acts outraged he then enlists the stowaway's help. Throughout the entire thing this Kirk never demonstrates any evidence of ability to command and lead and displays no substance to show why others should respect and follow him. And by the end of the story he gets command by an organization that apparently doesn't have very demanding standards.They give command to a hotshot neophyte who hasn't done anything of substance to show he's earned the prize of one of Starfleet's best ships within a very few span of years..

That's all up on the screen and none of it bears any resemblance to a believable scenario. The only reason this Kirk gets his captaincy is because that's where Abrams wanted the story to end up despite the fact that nothing in the preceeding two hours logically supports that conclusion. It's all nonsensical. And to make it all worse this portrayal of Kirk isn't likable. He's all swagger and smartass without one iota of roguish charm. He's I punk I wanted to kick from pretty much the onset. It isn't easy to cheer for a hero who shows little evidence of likability. It's made all the more worse by a portrayal that is essentially one dimensional with next to no nuance. Give us a different interpretation, yes, but give us something of substance. Instead of that approach why not show us a Kirk learning and earning his way? Show us someone developing the abilities and scars of leadership over the years--that's credible. Instead they portray an over-the-top caricarture of Kirk rather than a nuanced believable one.

Abrams has gone the route of an adolescent fantasy where the kid believes if he's macho and heroic enough he'll get to lay the girl, or in this case win command of the Enterprise.

This story is also about nothing but trying to force-fit two characters into a "destiny." Quinto's Spock has next to no range while Nimoy was adept at telegraphing so much through eyes and facial expression. But the whole point of this story is to get two cardboard cutouts together.

Now add back all the other things I disliked and you have a film that fails my definition of good Star Trek. Dismiss me as a regressive purist if you like, but you're making a TOS era film then I'm going to judge it by the show that established and defined that era. And even if you prefer a different series or film version of Trek you cannot deny that TOS is the genuine article.

But what really burns my ass is what happens when you elect to take a dissenting position. I'm not the only one, but anyone around here who is the minority positon of not accepting something TPTB proffer gets roasted and jeered for having an opposing viewpoint.

Everyone takes something different from a show based on their likes and dislikes. If your Trek doesn't take itself seriously than that's the Trek that'll make you happy. But if your Trek does strive for a good measure of credibility then that's what you'll look for. And the fact is TOS often made an effort to convey a sense of credibility in ideas, in chracterization and often in story.

This film doesn't make any such effort.
 
Never said it didn't sell, I said it had a hard row to hoe. It sells, my friend, sometimes, but it never sells as much as the dumb stuff. Tell me I'm wrong.

And as far as Trek not being diamond hard SF: I agree. There was a lot in TOS at its best that jettisoned any attempt at rigor in order to entertain. However, there was a line--nebulous it may have been--that it would not cross and that line made it a tough sell to the GP. That line made it a tough sell to J.J. Abrams.

If we were to think of the intellectual heft of various SF propoerties as a spectrum, with tripe like Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century at the red end and the novels of Stanislaw Lem at the violet, I'd put those 30 episodes of TOS that best represent the show at the right-hand end of the green. This movie would be solidly yellow--maybe a little orange. That's all I'm saying.

Sheesh, now I have everyone pissed off at me. Must be doing something right.
 
We all draw a line at what we accept. For me TOS is the standard and any successive Trek project will be judged by that standard while allowing for extrapolation and building on what came before.

You cannot be faulted if you perceive that a work doesn't meet a standard previously established. And you cannot be faulted for rejecting something that doesn't satisfy or entertain you on the levels that your distinctive individual tastes are accustomed to.
 
I had a lengthy discussion with a younger coworker yesterday about this film. One thing after another he questioned me on each point raised about why I disliked the film. More often than not he had a thoughtful frown and expressed that he could see why I was disappointed. He related it to his own disappointments with films that had disappointed him. We even agreed on many points about the film, particularly that the viliian Nero was shallow and a poor villian.

But he doesn't carry the same perspective of Star Trek as I do, and so his satisfaction level was wholly different from mine. I used the analogy of Law & Order, a show we both like for similar reasons and often discuss to try to more clearly illustrate my disappointments.
 
That's okay, I'm sure the movie didn't find Warped9 entertaining either. :)

Thinking this movie has a brain sounds like a pretty huge assumption.

Seen it yet?

No. But since people make evaluations of a movie in large part on the trailer ... (also you might want to look at the thread comments by one of the other regulars, who also says he can tell if a movie is shit by the trailer, so he certainly won't bother. Wasn't talking about trek, but he did know his own mind.)
 
Warped, forgive me for pointing this out, but the name of this thread, which was started by you, is "What's keeping me out of the theatre..." So you knew you didn't want to see this movie. But you went anyway.

Now, I have no problem with people not wanting to see the movie. I am going to see it, long-time (and I do mean "long") fan who enjoys continuity though I am, but I can understand why other people wouldn't.

So...why did you go? You just couldn't stand not seeing it for yourself? But you knew you were going to hate it, so why did you go? I'm not criticising you...I'd really like to know why.

The thread title only means that he wouldn't see it in the theater, not that he wouldn't see it at all.

But at this point, where else could he see it except in a theater? I know DVD sales move pretty fast these days, but not this fast, I'm thinking. ;)
 
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