Now, if you keep up with the common sense what are we going to talk about for the next year?
"Why The New Star Trek Must Ignore The Trekkies..."
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Now, if you keep up with the common sense what are we going to talk about for the next year?
You may be right.
Abrams in 2007 has more good will going for him than Berman in 2003.
Abrams in 2007 has more good will going for him than Berman in 2003.
HEAR HEAR!Samuel T. Cogley said:
It seems to me that we have roughly five main camps of Trekkies here. (I said roughly, dammit.This is not all inclusive!)
1. We have the fans that are sure that Abrams and Co. are going to make sweeping changes, and this camp is very much looking forward to that.
2. We have the fans that are sure that Abrams and Co. are going to remain very faithful to the original series, and this camp is very much looking forward to that.
3. We have the fans that are deathly afraid that Abrams and Co. are going to make sweeping changes, and this camp is very much horrified by that.
4. We have the fans that aren't sure what the movie will be like, but are optimistic (often cautiously) that the movie will entertain both themselves and others, and revitalize the franchise at the same time.
5. Indifferent.
What fascinates me the most is those fans that are sure about what kind of movie we are going to get. We have very little information about anything.
We have a rough time period. We have one leaked, vague (and questionably accurate) plot spoiler. And we have a cast of mostly unknown actors, with no clue as to how they are going to be instructed to portray our familiar characters.
In other words, we got next to nuthin'.
Yet we are all experts on not only exactly what this movie is going to be, but also the exact formula of what will and won't work in a Star Trek movie. We are all just too damned smart for our own good.
I would venture that just about every Star Trek movie ever made had the agenda of appealing to as many people as possible, while still appealing to the fan base. Why would they do otherwise? "Listen, Paramount, my plan is to minimize profit on this one by catering to the narrowest audience we possibly can. Are you with me?"
And while every movie has thrown in touchstones and "canon" references, every movie has also made sweeping changes to some aspect of the mythology and/or the design elements. The only time I ever felt like TPTB had decided to just crank out a cookie-cutter product that was the same every week was with "Voyager" and "Enterprise" (others will disagree, settle down). And even those series made sweeping changes in design and premise and character.
We do this same dance every time a new Trek product is being made. We project our hopes and desires onto it. We project our optimism or our pessimism onto it. We project our independence; our clinginess; our expectations; our demands; our deference; our trust or distrust onto it.
Then we do it all over again when the next product starts to materialize.
This one is no different. The major variables here are the new creative team and the new cast. But there is nothing inherent in those variables or their combination that guarantess success, failure, or mediocrity. The key here is how closely Abrams and Co. have their finger on the pulse of today's audience. That's all the success of any movie of any genre really comes down to. And only time will tell on that one.
But every movie has tried to be a success. Every moive has tried to appeal to the Trekkies. Every movie has tried to be as successful as possible. Every movie has tried to keep the flame or revitalize the franchise. No movie has ever been a slave to the "hard-core fandom." To do so is an impossibility. There is no consensus among that group, however you choose to define it.
Star Trek XI is no different in those respects.
And when any of us says "they should ignore the Trekkies," we are really only saying "they should make the movie that I want, not what others might want, nevermind that I'm a Trekkie, too."
We are saying: "Keep the stuff I like the same. Change the stuff I don't like (but change it in the way that I wantit to be changed!) Those who disagree with me are backwards (or radical) dirty, flthy Trekkies. But I'm not one of those. I have a star on my belly."
I now return you to our human predictability, already in progress...
Nicely stated...
Professor Moriarty said:
I love trekmovie.com (although I'm NOT loving the glacial pace at which the server move is being DNS propagated
Ignore them.
I'm sure Abrams will.
J.J. is no fool; he won't bring The Shat onboard if it doesn't serve the plot of the movie.
once the BBKers figured out that some people from the film hang out on TrekMovie.com they have been all over it...i have had to ban a couple and discipline others who try and divert every discussion to their pet cause. But they are just a loud handful...and by no means the majority there and certainly not the majority of trekkies.
I love the shat as much as the next trekkie, but some people have taken their fandom to what I consider a very unhealthly level of worship.
RE: Must ignore trekkies
That of course is stupid. However I have always said they must not be dictated to by the trekkies either, and I agree that the new audience is at least as important. Trek must be made to appeal to a new generation...there just arent enough trekkies to support the franchise above anything more than a niche right now.
And lets face it...all the trekkies will go see it, regardless of what they type on message boards. It is a couple hours of your life and 10 bucks to see a megabudget trek film. Hell I have seen ever single trek film on the big screen and I knew half of them were going to be less than stellar. To refuse to go because they didnt cast who you wanted as Pike or shoehorn shatner in or change the color of the bridge railings...come on. That is just an unhealthy obsessive view of the world...it is just a movie.
How about not going because it looks like crap? (To early to say now, but if and when it does become possible to ascertain, a lot of us won't see it--a lot of us didn't see Nemesis during its initial theatrical run.)
In other words:
In other words:
I don't see why a deeper message couldn't exist in the movie. It happens all the time. I just don't know what the makers are planning.
What, you mean another Trek movie like all those they did with the TOS crew? Damn.
ancient said:
Starship Polaris said:
What, you mean another Trek movie like all those they did with the TOS crew? Damn.
Not to take anything away from the old Trek movies but Trek XI will have to make a shitload more money than they ever did, given it's current budget.
Absolutely Right(TM). It's going to have to do a lot better than even the most accessible of the old features, TVH, and in a much more competitive climate than the late 1980s.
Abrams has his work cut out for him.
Star Trek neads deep thinkers, not tinkerers! Something made it great, now they're trying to change that. Well he said they are respecting canon, right. If he makes the ship look like a dark and gritty submarine with visable hull plating and alot of reakky neat gadget's instead of brightly illuminated fiberglass I will see him as a lying, cheating, scoundril. that's just the way it is.
Likewise, baby, and right back at ya!
Umm ... I don't think Trek was ever about the ship. The ship was the background, and real ships aren't made from fiberglass. Just from watching the oldest version of trek, before the treknobabble, it seems to me nobody was interested in nacelles and bussards or warp physics. Scotty wasn't explaining how the ship worked -- ever.
It seemed like it was more "This is the ship. It goes really really fast, and all the stuff on it works. Now enjoy the story." So why put more importance in the ship than the creators did?
Of course I'm more interested in the story so if that's not your thing, feel free to ignore me. I think I'd rather have a great science fiction story and turn the Enterprise into a giant can of A&W Rootbeer than have a crappy story and have the ship look perfect down to the number of bolts holding the hull together.
Starship Polaris said:
Now, if you keep up with the common sense what are we going to talk about for the next year?
Oh, shit! I forgot that common sense and the internet don't go hand in hand. Scratch that, if this movie, like the previous Superman film, doesn't gel with my rigid, preconceived notions then forget the whole damn thing.
Screw rigid, preconceived notions: the last Superman movie was simply bad. It completely wasted Lex Luthor, hired an empty skirt to play Lois (when Margot Kidder couldn't spell basic words it was because she was neurotic genius who couldn't be bothered; when Kate Bosworth couldn't, it was because she was an airhead) and it couldn't decide if it was a sequel, remake or re-boot of the 78 film.
I waited a long time for that movie and it was a big disappointment--Brett Rattner did a better job with X-Men and that wasn't very good. I also waited for Spider-Man 3, only to be underwhelmed by the reviews and previews and so I didn't even bother to see it.
Even the much-loved Batman Begins left me rather cold, with its overloaded contingent of villains (Qi Gon Ghul was a snooze--the primary villain should have been Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow), fortune cookie/Mystery Men banalities about fear and--again--an insubstantial pretty face as the nominal "love interest."
See a pattern forming?
So many "rah rah, more Trek" Trekkies have decideed that the sole reason a lot of us others are less than enthused is because we're hung up on minutiae. But if you'd actually listen, you'd hear that we are, as often as not, fans of genre films who've been burned way too often. And it's also funny how quickly the boosters start to attack the detractors personally (see Warped 9's thread) and how rarely the detractors respond in vicious kind.
That should tell you something, too, Sparky.
I waited a long time for that movie and it was a big disappointment--Brett Rattner did a better job with X-Men and that wasn't very good. I also waited for Spider-Man 3, only to be underwhelmed by the reviews and previews and so I didn't even bother to see it.
Even the much-loved Batman Begins left me rather cold, with its overloaded contingent of villains (Qi Gon Ghul was a snooze--the primary villain should have been Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow), fortune cookie/Mystery Men banalities about fear and--again--an insubstantial pretty face as the nominal "love interest."
See a pattern forming?
So many "rah rah, more Trek" Trekkies have decideed that the sole reason a lot of us others are less than enthused is because we're hung up on minutiae. But if you'd actually listen, you'd hear that we are, as often as not, fans of genre films who've been burned way too often. And it's also funny how quickly the boosters start to attack the detractors personally (see Warped 9's thread) and how rarely the detractors respond in vicious kind.
That should tell you something, too, Sparky.
^
Or, to borrow and misquote a phrase from a famous American:
It's the script, stupid.
And the words 'script' and 'stupid' are symbiotically intertwined into the past works of O&K. Among their many accomplishments, let's not forget The Island, an unauthorised remake of The Clonus Horror.
If the script isn't good, the film can't be saved. It's that simple. As I've said, my opinion is mildly pessimistic - people are claiming the team have produced a good script this time. Maybe they have, but I'm not jumping to any conclusions.
Or, to borrow and misquote a phrase from a famous American:
It's the script, stupid.
And the words 'script' and 'stupid' are symbiotically intertwined into the past works of O&K. Among their many accomplishments, let's not forget The Island, an unauthorised remake of The Clonus Horror.
If the script isn't good, the film can't be saved. It's that simple. As I've said, my opinion is mildly pessimistic - people are claiming the team have produced a good script this time. Maybe they have, but I'm not jumping to any conclusions.
I am over quality than quantity and if you've read my previous post, you'd know that if this movie, like some Superman productions (the last few years of Smallville, for example), doesn't impress me or entertain me then I'll ignore it and remember that Trek which I loved more, the original series. Another is the last Trek-fest of Nemesis, I didn't care for the movie but that did not taint my appreciation for the original series or the episodes of TNG I did enjoy.
I've followed the circular logic that the so-called keepers of the flame spout, and find that damning a thing before it even hits the screens is counterproductive. It's not minute that those folks are hung up on, it's the memory of that which they cherish. It's seems as if all those against something before it hits, and allow themselves to be burned by sticking to that rigid, glossy memory of what was instead of remembering what is.
And, if you read what I had posted, you would've seen that I didn't booster any attack on any specific detractor but simply stated my position as those same people have been doing in various threads in various forums. Hell, everyone is entitled to their own opinion after all they are like assholes, everyone has them.
That should tell you something, Sparky.
That is true--you have been remarkably civil on the whole. I'm sorry that I tarred you with a broad brush.
I stand behind everything else I've said, however.
I stand behind everything else I've said, however.
Who the fuck is this Sparky guy? He looks like he needs defending.
And I know a good lawyer...
And I know a good lawyer...
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