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Harry's thoughts on the STAR TREK presentation in New York!
I rarely attend these types of events. Mainly because a studio gathers a large amount of Journalists into a room – they’re all shown the exact same footage and then you run to a computer to “BE FIRST” to post the book report retelling of what you just saw.
I suppose it is the job, it is the gig we’re all so lucky to have, but what about THINKING and CONSIDERING the footage, what was said and what it means to me as a viewer of said footage.
Let me gather up some of the comments I’ve found online, to get the overall sense of coverage from Fellow Online Journalistas…
Latino Review’s EL MAYIMBE’s coverage
Mike Sampson’s Trek Virgin’s Eye View of the Presentation as a complete Trek Tard
Cole Abaius’ Report from FILM SCHOOL REJECTS
The ever-present Jeffery Wells’ take
NY Times’ ArtsBeat writer Dave Itzkoff’s coverage
Wizard’s Andy Serwin’s coverage
AccessHollywood’s Jim Kiernan’s take
TrekMovie.com’s report
And you can find many more at this link
The point is – pretty much everyone was impressed by what they saw. As I told you last summer – this is STAR TREK on an entirely different scale of production. Many look at this footage and talk about how glossy and expensive the film looks, but fewer tend to really discuss what is underneath the footage we’ve seen and how it contrasts with the STAR TREK we’ve seen thus far.
First off, I like JJ Abrams despite his “I never liked Trek” and “I never really got it” routine. Sure, I can pretty much quote chapter and verse of the Classic Trek, the Animated Star Trek, The Next Generation and the entire film franchise – along with the first 4 seasons of DS9. That said, I’ve always had a very critical eye when it came to Star Trek. It’s a series that has had A-level Science Fiction and Intellectual thought – with B-level or less production values and sometimes far worse execution.
I get why, for the much larger audience, STAR TREK didn’t resonate. There’s the whole STARFLEET conceit to begin with. For Fans – we love this ultra-Liberal Military Conservative vision for the future of humanity. The tech has always been inspirational – from the communicators, universal translators, phasers, medical tri-corders, transporters and that elegant and beautiful Enterprise.
But for many that never saw their place in a Military Future – where the future of mankind seemingly is in uniform – it felt a bit distant. Is our future just a series of missions, fights and voyages?
STAR TREK never could really focus a whole lot on the non-Starfleet aspects. Pretty much all of future Earth we got exposed to was San Francisco based. And it wasn’t really about a world anymore.
When Trek visited other Planets – we were always meant to believe that you could beam down to a single point on that planet and the folks our heroes dealt with apparently represented the whole of the planet. And even within that one alien city, everyone was basically dressed in a variation – and aliens tended to have funky ears, brows, chins or nose arches.
Most of these aspects had to do with budget & time. The stories didn’t have the money or the narrative ambition to open up their vision to give us a complex vision of the future.
Is JJ changing that?
From what I’ve seen, absolutely.
In the opening scene, he takes us into a future bar. I’m not real sure where all of this fits in, but Chris Pine’s Kirk is non-Starfleet at this point of the story. He spots Uhura and decides he’s going to try to bed her. They’re both at the bar – and sitting on a stool between the two characters is… a character that never utters a word. In someways, this scene harkens to STAR WARS. It isn’t overflowing with Aliens. In fact, I can’t say that I remember any of them other than this one character that was trying to enjoy some peace and quiet along with his drink, while these two talk across him. The CG enhancement to this actor’s face was fantastic, but what was even better was the performance. It isn’t big. It’s tiny. It’s in his eyes and the quiet way his face moves – and often times he’s slightly out of focus. But it’s a completely throw-away effect. It’s just there to be alien atmosphere, it is subtle and exactly the sort of thing that STAR WARS did that STAR TREK didn’t do well.
More than that – you had characters not just in Uniform. And not in cheap fabrics that look like they came off the rack at JOANN’s. The vibe felt like an Iowan Future Shit-kicker bar. Kirk felt like a local. The Starfleet types felt like military cadets. And the scene worked.
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Now back last summer when I saw the 8 minutes that I saw – it filled some of the gaps from what we were seeing here – and from the recently released trailer. One sequence led exactly up to the point where the second scene began – and that scene was all about how Kirk first got aboard the Enterprise. That initial view – gave me a gorgeous look at the new interior of THE ENTERPRISE – and one of the aspects that I loved was how the vision of the tech and the design aesthetic and how the instrumentality of the ship worked… worked. Here I was given the rest of that scene… and how Kirk becomes a major player in the overall story – and how that story relates to the childhood kirk upon the USS KELVIN and the fate of his father… and how that sculpted the persona of James T Kirk. And honestly, it is kinda real cool.
Over the course of the 4 clips we were shown, it takes you from this kind of annoying… “That guy is supposed to be Kirk?” beginning to, “That’s fucking Kirk! Awesome!” vibe. That’s really what I needed to see. My main misgiving about this relaunch was my absolute blank feeling that I had about Chris Pine’s performance of Kirk in that initial footage I was shown. I always said that it simply wasn’t a strong Kirk scene – as that scene had other characters pulling Kirk around in a “helpless” mode. Once in Sick Bay – and on board the ship though – and when he hears something that makes him reflect upon what happened to his father, he’s a bull in a china shop – forcing his way into the thick of things.
I love the dynamic of Quinto’s Spock not liking or respecting this ‘instinctive and intuitive human’ that is Kirk. Kirk isn’t exactly a logical model, he’s action given form with great instincts and invention. And when Kirk is trying to convince Greenwood’s Pike of the reality of their situation and does a great job presenting his case, Spock sees the LOGIC of that moment. And that is a great moment – and the ever so slight up-turned corner of a smile belays the “human half” of our favorite Vulcan.
It is a great moment.
Even moreso, we got a very strong look at the eager and hungry versions of our favorite Star Trek characters. They are not jokey or ridiculous. They’re honorable interpretations of the characters. And through it all – the, “I’ve never been a fan of Trek,” shines through. This isn’t like any Trek I’ve seen before.
Seriously.
It isn’t on caffeine or speed or anything like that. It just isn’t stuck in the pattern that I’ve seen for the last 40 or so years. This is not ponderous STAR TREK, nor is it just a sit com version. This is an aggressive science fiction action adventure set in a very complex reinterpretation of the Star Trek universe. Not necessarily unlike say… the difference between Tim Burton’s BATMAN and Chris Nolan’s.
As geeks, film lovers… I’ve always loved speculative story tellings power to reinvent itself into becoming something that I’ve never seen before. Elseworlds, What If stories, strong creative and narrative story tellers that put a brand on something that perhaps has grown a bit staid. Like when Neal Adams took on BATMAN or Chris Claremont took on X-Men or Frank Miller took a stab at DAREDEVIL. In those three cases – a radical shake up proved to completely redefine the material. Now as a fan of STAR TREK, we know in the books, comics, animation, film and televised worlds – continuity has never been… well, heh… Paramount. Many completely different takes and visions have been applied.
I remember how reticent fans were at the idea of a Next Generation. How could you possibly replace everything? No Spock, No Kirk? That’s not Star Trek. But what the NEXT GENERATION proved was that STAR TREK wasn’t simply those awesome classic shows, but a playground for speculative story telling. A wonderful science fiction sandbox.
What happens when you invite a kid that doesn’t necessarily know what all the toys are?
Well, you can piss a lot of traditionalists off – but traditionalists need to be shook up from time to time. Tradition needs to be redefined and modified. Tones need to be shook up. Ideas need FRESH PERSPECTIVES if they are to survive.
I mean… I think a lot of us STAR WARS fans would give our left nut for someone to do to STAR WARS, what JJ is doing to STAR TREK. To come in, play with the original characters and give us new films in the world of the Rebellion versus the Empire. Remember how excited when we thought for a hot second that David Fincher was going to be directing one of the prequels?
When a franchise’s BIBLE leaves no room for reinterpretation, when it becomes strict doctrine – it alienates, instead of invites others to the table.
And LASTLY – Why is it important that STAR TREK succeed?
Well… Let me give a stab at this.
At its heart, STAR TREK is a bold vision for the future of we peoples of Earth. It isn’t some fanciful fairy tale in space, it isn’t some dream of humans before they got stuck on Earth. It is supposed to represent where we’re headed.
That future shows a humanity working together, that seems to have solved the major problems we have that are plaguing our society today. It’s a future that has inspired innovation and our present – and we need a hopeful vision for the future that we as a people can change and be more than what we have been.
I think that’s why Obama likes Star Trek (he apparently once greeted Leonard Nimoy spontaneously with the LIVE LONG AND PROSPER greeting, including the hand thing!) STAR TREK attempts to give us hope that all of us can work towards a better tomorrow and it seems quite evident that THAT aspect of STAR TREK, that core value, is absolutely in place.
It’ll be interesting to see of culturally, the world is at a better place to have that message layered into an action science fiction version of Trek. From the reactions in New York, from Fan and Non-Fan, it seems it is possible.
On a strictly geek level, damn it sure looks cool as hell! The only real question I have left is this… How long till I get to see the whole thing? I know that prior to this, I was a full on lapsed Trekkie. Yeah, I never really cared for that “Trekker” re-brand. I’ve never had the ears, but I’ve had a lot of the toys… going back to that Flashlight phaser my parents bought me in the Seventies. It sure would be cool to have STAR TREK be COOL in the mainstream. It has only had glimpses of that, this time Paramount is giving the franchise the full A treatment. Let’s see what happens.
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YOU WILL NEVER GET LAID IF YOU KEEP HITTING REFRESH ON THIS PAGE. GO WORK ON YOUR BICEPTS
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but fuck this movie in it's little bastardly ass. I'm not a Star Trek geek. I like the show and i thought it was fun, but I don't know who did the art direction in episdoe 11 of the 3rd season or anything. But this movie is just absolute childhood rape. Made by a pretentious dick who claims to not even like the original show... Then go make another bloated over hyped POS like Cloverfield or Lost and leave this stuff alone. I hope you get Shatnered upon!
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Because Spock is the only sentient being with bigger, goofier-looking ears than his!
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Never liked Star Trek on t.v. and only like WoK on the big screen. J.J. may just convert all those like me. I dig the early buzz...
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how could you only want the first 4 seaons of DS9 harry??!? WTF?
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is that do they get the character dynamics right? I'm all for a reboot of the ideas of STAR TREK, but what kept me coming back, and what made for terrific drama, is the interactions between Kirk and Spock and McCoy, with Spock and McCoy acting as the polar opposites of Kirk's nature. From the clips of the trailer, I'm not sure. That Kirk/Spock bit had me worried. That said, I thought Karl Urban was wonderful in the brief moment in the trailer.
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i meant WATCH
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It was so dry and analytical, there was almost no heart, or emotion...it was cold.....like.....space..........
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We wanna know about the REAL biggie of 2009.
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I thought you could.
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Nov 19, 2008 3:21:53 PM CST
I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks that way about Star Wa
by dastickboy
Lucas needs to loosen his grip on the reins and say to someone - "here's a universe, go tell your story." I want that more than a TV series.
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Trekkies and Trekkers are two separate groups. Trekkies are the fans of TOS only while Trekkers are fans of the entire franchise. Or so I'm told.
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Obama must masturbate to Ferengis then.
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None of the later movies really did it for me but after seeing the tiniest bit of this (can't stand seeing all the advance promos)I'm starting to get some excitement.
Very nicely written Harry (I've been getting so used to your midnight rambling that I'd forgotten you can turn a phrase!) -
I always thought that Trekkie came before Trekker, and Harry seems to agree. I always thought of "Trekker" as a ret-con kind of word. Anyone know differently?
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Is that there are so many characters, worlds, ships, etc. to choose from, why bother going back to reboot? Especially using the same characters. ST:TNG would have failed absolutely if they tried to recast the original series characters. They knew this and moved forward. There are plenty of other stories to be told without "recording over" beloved stories and characters.
That said, I do hope this lives up to the hype and is actually worth a darn. -
Why only the first four seasons? DS9 was by far the best Star Trek series to ever be broadcast.
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Harry, this is one of the better thought-out articles you've posted this year. Well done.
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This looks like you're writing a direct response to the serious lukewarm reaction to the Star Trek 90210 trailer defending your budy JJ.
"Hey Harry, JJ Abrams here, listen there seems to be some negative reactions to the trailer that was just released. Mind doing me a favor seeing as how I let you see early fottage last week...thanks..oh and I can't wait to approve the first draft of your review" -
There turning Star Trek into Star Wars.What next Superman into Batman...just wait a see kiddies.
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I am a big fan of most sci fi, and while I never was a fan of any of the Treks I have to admit that I am very interested in seeing this. And I certainly was not expecting to.
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gimme a break. it was okay. but it was static. the premise of them being based on a space station made the adventures static, so they had to use over-curving storylines in the background to keep people interested.
The Next Generation was the best one by far, simply because, in spite of several flaws (the entire cosy carpet coffee-lounge vibe), it had some of the strongest mind-bending hard SF ideas and stories. -
Nov 19, 2008 3:41:55 PM CST
God, it's already turning into "This is what Star Wars" should'v
by starwarsredux
I'm sorry, I just can't buy that argument at all. "Star Wars" always belonged to one guy-- George Lucas. "Star Trek" never even belonged entirely to Rodenberry even when TOS was on the air-- it went through a changing series of different writers, showrunners, directors, etc. Lucas was an auteur behind-the-scenes, even on the episodes he wasn't a credited director for. So frankly, NO, I would never want to see somebody play around with his universe. Not even David Fincher. "Trek" is open to that kind of reinterpretation, because seriously-- for the better part of the franchise's lifespan, that's what it's all been about. It's closer to the way a comic book gets handed down from one writer to another, as opposed to a graphic novel. Lucas is to Alan Moore as J.J. Abrams is to Gerry Conway, re: Stan Lee. Reinterpretation might work here, but it wouldn't work for the GFFA.
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That's all you had to tell me.
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You have no fucking idea if Obama like's Trek because it's shows us all working together, that's just a nice little thought in your brain that helps fuel the notion that you all think he's the second coming of Christ. He's been President-elect Obama for 2 weeks, and he has done a damn thing to illicit his message of change, just appoint a bunch of Clintonites to his cabinet.
that being said, the trailer rocked. and im excited for this new trek. perhaps it will fill that void that has been left by no more star wars movies. we shall see. on both accounts. -
I've bitched and complained about this project for well over a year now, and I figure I might as well keep my damn mouth shut because no matter how much I bitch this movie is coming out, whether or not I want it to. I'll just add three final complaints (which I've regurgitated over and over again): 1) I wish Abrams had absolutely no involvement with Star Trek and 2)I love kirk & crew to death, but I'm fucking tired of them and 3) the timeline is completely fucked now...even more so than it already was.
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Pine as Kirk. Harry, your initial misgivings have given me hope that he'll be just fine.
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Good to hear a perspective from a full on Trek geek. I feel a bit better about this now. You sure have a talent for generating anticipation (justified or not). That character in the bar sounds like that one from DS9 that never had a line, but was a popular recurring character (Morg or something). I remember him being in an interrogation scene and just shrugging. Funny character. Anyway, while I hesitate to say that DS9 was the 'best' Trek show, it certainly was the most unique. I have to disagree with the assessment that the space station made it boring. On the contrary, having the show be static brought a whole new dynamic to the universe. Instead of the 'mission' setup, where characters would visit a world and then move on, DS9 investigated what happened afterwards. What happens when you stay. While the classic Trek set up was vaguely about exploration and a kind of colonialism, DS9 dealt with the issues of colonialism and post-colonialism head on (way more of a postmdodern show than even STNG). With the Cardassian/Bajoran tension, the show allowed for a much more complex and dark political scene to emerge. It may not have been as 'utopian' as Roddenberry's vision, but it added a dose of reality. Dealing with issues of terrorism and genocidal war before 9/11, DS9 was quintessential 90s scifi. I still wish they'd go back to those characters for a movie some time. Even if it's direct to video. If Babylon 5 can do it, why not DS9?
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Harry likes something the studio gave him a sneak peek at. Wow, big shock. This writeup reeks of bullshit, Harry finds this new Kirk to be an obnoxious douchebag and then magically he's a go-to action guy, and that's a REASONABLE transition, especially for any film wearing the Trek brand? JJ Abrams is changing Trek's generic take on landing party receptions, says Harry, then he proceeds to mention NOTHING which conflicts that, except the absence of any mention of actually GOING to a new planet at all. Oh, but at least we're going to the imperfect futurebar in Iowa, that'll be really Trek... uh, how? It'll be some sort of future, but is that a Trek one, or just another generic, big-budget sci-fi action flick? "Honorable interpretations" of the main characters, "not jokey or ridiculous"? Right, that's why there's a scene with Chekov arguing with the computer over his pronunciation, and Uhura is largely reduced to being a pair of tits, which Harry conveniently doesn't comment on.My favorite part has to be where Harry compares it to an Elseworlds, alternate universe, story while showing us how this won't be sticking with Trek's core ideals and beliefs, how its main character won't be acting like the main hero of that universe, and how there will be big stupid action scenes with lots of effects without a lick of credibility. Thanks for selling out your fellow fanboys yet again, Harry. Of course, since you're infamously wrong about almost everything these days, I suppose the fanboy community won't be worse for wear, and your corporate studio masters can con you into pimping their next big piece of garbage as well, so it's all coming up Knowles. BTW, "Trekker" is a term the fans came up with in the '70s when they felt "Trekkie" sounded too insulting, derogatory by suggesting they were mere devotees like "Moonies". "Trekker" to those fans felt more positive and engaged with the material. Personally, I find the difference between the terms pompous, "Trekkies" can be whatever they want - my mother is a Trekkie, and her father was a Trekkie.
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I'm digging all the good vibes, because I love the old show. I agree with another talkbacker. JJ's remarks about "not getting Trek" sounds like passive hostility. JJ you should be grateful to get a shot at this. I'm sure other more talented and deserving directors would be more respectful and less annoying.
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I mean Harry is the most credulous, uncritical reviewer of old SF properties. He loved Phantom Menace, cried at Indy 4.
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Did you even bother to read all of the reviews Harry had links to? JoBlo, Latino Review, Film School Rejects, and the NY Times, to name a few (not to mention Jeffrey Wells), and they were all positive. Not only that, but I followed his last link to a Google search that yielded countless other reviews. I read as many as I could handle before my eyes started to glaze over, and guess what? They were all positive. Every last one of them. Go see for yourself. I admit that Harry often has...um...objectivity issues. But this is one case in which he was backed by countless other important movie geeks, who all had variations of Harry's response (one of them even apologized for using the word "badass" so many times). So, while I can understand your distrust of Harry, don't be one of AICN's knee-jerk geekholes, and do some research before you post.
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Most of the reviews of that footage have said how good it is. Maybe people will start to believe them some day.
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That also goes for JT Kirk (eyes rolling as I type that), Klytus_I.m_Bored, and anybody else for whom the shoe fits.
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Nov 19, 2008 4:15:38 PM CST
" ...the sort of thing that STAR WARS did that STAR TREK didn’t
by eriamjh
Until the prequel Star Wars, that is. Subtlety? Thy name is NOT Jar Jar or any other computer generated creature... more of an overactor in a silent movie.
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a year from now that I told you this was going to be a bad idea.
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or I'll force you all to go see the fucking stupid-looking Twilight. Even flaws, I side with those who hope for a great Trek film, a new vision or an old brand. And by the way DS( found it's own way by Season 3 and was great through Season 6, until Terri Farrell decided her career was better served by doing a lame comedy show with Ted Danson, a bad move as she should've stuck it our for the one more season. DS9 did a mix of dark and light (as in humor) much better than TNG (though TNG had it's truly great eps/seasons. Voyager was hit and miss and was pretty so-so until the Borg babe injection, really. Enterprise? We all know that story. And also, don't forget this is Harry's sandbox. He's a nice guy. I'd have kicked out some of you morons a long time ago.
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Dangle candy infront of him and he goes apeshit like the fat kid he is....GODZILLA 1998.
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Political geekjaculate. Phew! Obama's a hopeful trekkie. That should come in handy. Someday. In his new job; not likely.
I really loved 'Star Trek' . . . really enjoyed the movies 1,2 and 3. Could have lived long and prospered without almost all the others, save 'First Contact'. I liked that one, but it looks much worse on DVD than it did in the theater. It's too bright or something.
Anyway, all the sneak peaks and glimpses and photos of JJ's 'Trek' leave me with a single impression - basically, one word: Co-opted.
This project more than any other has highlighted the 'come up with something new' complaint in me. I'll see it, but I'm reminded of a line from somewhere "... it's like Joey Bishop in a nehru jacket".
That is all. -
... Harry, yours is the only STAR TREK write-up to namecheck Joann's. I'll bet on it.
Seeing the footage today. Verrrrrrrry curious. -
"...a lot of us STAR WARS fans would give our left nut for someone to do to STAR WARS, what JJ is doing to STAR TREK"
It's being done. Right now. Have you not played/read The Force Unleashed, the way it forces you to reevaluate EVERYTHING about Vader in the entire saga? Or seen The Clone Wars episodes that are giving us very rich peeks at all the minutiae the films never had the time to flesh out due to feature-length constraints?
We're living it now, and I couldn't be happier... -
Is "fun geek" people vs "take-yourselves-way-too-serious nerd" people. Trekkies like the hopeful worlds of Roddenberry... the fantastic colors of the cheap special effects... and the peaceful means of Vulcans. Trekkers are the douchebags that nitpick every techno-babble explanation of why the warp drive won't transduct to that power node in Jeffries tube 8 deck 12, and think DS9 is great with Klingon honor the best philosophy to follow. Trekkies like to party like it's 1999. Trekkers bum you out with all that b.s. about the "real" millennium party was in 2001.
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I rigged my mouse so that it takes 50 pds of pressure to click.31... 32... Uhh! I have to double-click! Somebody spot me!
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..Isn't it unusual for a major studio to show so much footage, to so many people, 6 months before release? What do you think it means?
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Now i'm full on hopeful that this Trek will be awesome. I'm a longtime TOS fan.. I like TNG, and the rest... meh. But I'm all aboard with a shakeup that honors the original characters and relationships. So it sounds like that's been achieved. Can't wait for this movie!!!
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over that moronic shitheap Cloverfield, I'll wait and judge for myself I think...
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nice to see what you're capable of.
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All that is required is a talented filmaker with a healthy respect (but not reverence)for the material. A good example would be the fact that Christopher Nolan wasn't a fan of Batman, so he hired David Goyer (a comic writer) to help him with the story and history of Batman. JJ is a great talent and at least one of his writing partners is a trekkie so I'm psyched for this movie. Everyone needs to at least give it a chance before they dump on it because Trek hasn't been good for ages!
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All the Trek fans, nonn trek fans and Trek haters in England , New York and everywhere else this footage has been shown, have ALL been bought because virtually every one has said the kind of thing.
Oh wait a minute, they said the same thing...... Maybe they've been brain washed?! -
It was more expansive than any Trek ever, 2 quadrants, tons of species, lots of Defiant based stories, some not even featuring the space station at all and more characters than a convention.I love TNG but DS9 is edgier and most assuredly going places, or at least it was.
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I mean, that new kid doesn't look much like the bald guy.
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LOL!
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I watched Star Trek as a kid. I liked it but even then thought it looked kind of shitty. I got into The Next Generation during seminary actually. I really liked Star Trek First Contact. I half enjoyed the rest of the films since. I enjoyed Star Trek because of the characters and the world and yes, the hope of a brighter future for mankind. I always settled for the show's lower budgets. I look forward to a Star Trek movie that has the same good that the others had but with a real budget and a larger and more detailed scope.
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I wasn't notified of this change.
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...couldn't have put it better myself. I can't wait to see these films -- and I am quite happy about the Star Trek Bible being kicked in the ass.
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Shit, that's when it got good - after that.
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people on the Enterprise...the lowly enlisted folk, the junior officers etc... As some one in the military I know the command personnel are just the tip of the iceberg...and probably the least interesting members of the crew. It also always bothered me that we almost never saw earth in Star Trek - what are they fighting for and defendin? Just sayin.
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Well thank God! I'll start construction on my shrine tomorrow! The Messiah has blessed Star Trek! Hear ye, Hear ye!
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Perhaps its Obama's fault that he used this word as such a mantra, but I really think people have a pretty limited definition of this word. "Change" doesn't mean you start your own new government from scratch. Both Bush and Clinton tried this and it failed miserably. One of the 'changes' that Obama represents is in his approach. Every decision he's making is smart and calculated, intended to make the most of the resources he has. Thus, the whole 'team of rivals' thing. I keep hearing how Obama's doing things differently than both Bush and Clinton, in that he's trying to create a team that doesn't entirely reject the past, trying to start over from scratch like other transition teams have tried, but instead building on experience and not throwing the baby away with the bath water. To bring it back to Trek, Kirk wants people like Spock and McCoy to disagree with him, so that he can have options. Kirk doesn't want yes men. Kirk didn't promote his 'buddies' because they did a 'heckuva job' rewarding loyalty and cronyism over ability and experience. Obama certainly represents change from that method, that's for sure. Besides, I think Harry's point is similar to Stephen Colbert's who, after pointing out the fact that Obama collected Spider-Man and Conan comic books, declared that Obama isn't a secret Muslim - he's a secret nerd! And people like us, who come to this site, can't help but be a little comforted by that.
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that the director of the wrath of khan also was not a trek fan before he made the movie. It's a pretty common-known fact, and obviously somewhat comparable to JJ.
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a billion times already in every other ST thread that's come up recently that I haven't paid attention to....cough
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It had been slowly finding it's feet and building up ahead of steam but from then on it's up there with any Sci-fi show, not just with Trek. Even having to waste time explaing, and introducing Ezri Dax couldn't stop it. Also for action freaks it had some of the best space battles in any sci-fi show or movie.
they even had a go at stopping that 2 dimensional thing that I hate about most sci-fi battles not enough "there is no up or down" in space.
Anyway that asside I'm kinda wondering when the people that keep having a go on this are gonna explain why they think EVERYONE who has seen this has agred to tell the same "lies" about it looking pretty damn good in terms of story, character AND eye candy?
Well? -
Damnit it AIC! The Novels, Comics, KOTOR, Ewokes and Driods. Lucas has allowed others to freely play with the Star Wars storyline, and it can go either way. Fuck... Everyone just loves fucking jib jabbin the Lucas.
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http://tinyurl.com/5bvunv
The Repubs beloved Messiah Ronnie Raygun was supposedly into Trek as well, according to this blog. -
Are we looking at a whole new franchise with the young crew, or is this just a one-shot deal? I think they should have gone with Star Trek XI: . But it seems like they're trying to steer away from that, as if they're completely reinventing things, which is one of my problems with this whole endeavor. We all know Abrams likes to take ideas and "own" them, and by own I mean completely rip it apart and put it back together his own way. He doesn't seem to understand pre-existing ideas (like his idea of the Superman reboot) nor understand why and how they work. Give him something original and new like Lost and he excels; give him something that already is out there and he seems to fail. It's like he's only aware of certain aspects of something, and instead of attempting to understand it he fills in the blanks with his own imagination. That can work out to be good or bad, and so far I haven't decided either way for this new Star Trek yet. I like certain things, but don't with others. I will remain cautiously optimistic cuz I must say I do slightly miss Trek AND I can't wait to see Nimoy back. Oh, and to hear Gianchino's score will be a thrill, no doubt.
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i like obama fine, but shit,
could we wait til he saves everything or perhaps does one good thing before we stick our tongues up his ass. -
DS9's favorite barfly hanging around on Earth?
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The last 4 were excellent Trek. While TNG kind of peetered out, DS9 went out on top.
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I don't see why people are so enamored with trek's vision of the future. Earth is a socialist, humanist, pan-American "utopia" where a more or less human controlled Federation flies out in comfy ships with powerful weapons and lectures them for having different values than humanity. Is that what Trekkies really hope the future is like?
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You've sold me. I'm going to do the same thing I did for TDK, I'm going to wait a week and a half, until the theaters die down, so that I can really immerse myself in this movie with no distractions.
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It seems to me, all the vitriol and spite is coming from those who haven't actually seen the footage. The pics released so far and the trailer really don't give out the same feel as seeing it in 5 minute chunks. In those, the changes look drastic and jarring, when you actually see the footage you'll realise they are working to insert those changes into the Trek universe with style and humour. Honestly, those saying the film is ignoring trek legacy are wrong, the clips are full of nods and winks to the show, more than Abrams would need to do. I saw it, now I am really looking forward to seeing the rest. I mean, look at Kirk, you'd just know that guy would be a jerk if you met him as a young man, but the film sets it up so you see how his natural skills work in Star Fleet. All the characters are recognisable.
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I voted for him, like the guy but all this Change horseshit is just that horseshit. Instead of fresh new faces his whole cabintet will apparently be made up variuos Clinton staffers caught in scandels in the mid 90's. Yup that's a bold fresh vision of true change all right.
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I swear, every great now and then you absolutely shit writerly gold. Well done. Reminds me of the LOTR glory days when you made your epic (and--fuck, I'll write it) brilliant, geeky reports from New Zealand.That stated, could you interpret this statement for me:"...we love this ultra-Liberal Military Conservative vision for the future of humanity."Huh? Huh???But I'm not complaining. Honestly, I wouldn't want it any other way, big guy. You've still got it.
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In the footage from the trailer, Spock and Sulu's star fleet insignia's were flipped and on the wrong side of the chest in the scene where Spock is choking Kirk. The footage was obviously flipped. It's rather lazy. I think the editor probably changed it to suit her edit and thought that anyone who noticed was a Trekkie nerd. Well ... no ... I think people would notice if in a scene a clock said 6PM, then 3PM, then 6PM. I hate seeing errors/goofs in any film.
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And people are still pissing and moaning about J.J. spending a hundred and fifty million dollars to reinvigorate this dead franchise? I've rather spend two hours up to my knees in horseshit than watch 'Nemesis' again. This movie will certainly be an INCREDIBLE IMPROVEMENT over every lame-ass Star Trek movie made in the past twenty five years.
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Why dont you all wait till you have read reviews of the final film when it comes out after seeing several trailers and pics and stuff? Or,even crazier I know, wait till you see the fucking film. Radical I know.
For fuck sake. Star Trek has been utter shit for years. You lot should be greatful.
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I'd like to buy you guys a beer...!!!
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... its a total reboot, yes? In-continuity or out-of-continuity, either way, its a reboot. All the TOS stuff, all the movies, all the TNG-era stuff, the slate is being wiped clean, the Etch-a-Sketch is being shaken, none of it ever happened after the first 10 minutes of this flick, when Kirk's daddy gets blowed up and little Jimmy Kirk grows up to be a better adjusted version of Michael Myers from Rob Zombie's Halloween reboot, overcoming the influence of his evil alcoholic uncle (which is *really* original, btw, Mr. and Mr. Screenwriter). Now, if they'd just said that 6 months ago instead of playing Ring-Around-the-Rosies, I might actually be interested in this REBOOT.
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"re-introduction," not a reboot, says J.J. Abrams.
JJ Abrams, director, executive producer and co-creator of Lost, Alias and Mission: Impossible III, unveiled 25 minutes of explosive and never-before-seen footage from his upcoming movie Star Trek last week in London for a select audience. We were lucky enough to sit down with the director afterwards and talk about his Trek vision, which he describes as more of a “re-invigoration” than a re-boot.
“The idea is really to re-introduce these characters in a different way, but they are the characters from the original Star Trek. It’s not a complete re-imagining… I figure if you re-imagine something you should just imagine something else”
The latest Trek movie certainly doesn’t drift too far from its roots. That’s not to say this is for Trekkers only (The term Trekkies is no longer P.C) With Abrams at the helm and an all-new younger cast, there are hopes that the movie will have an appeal beyond its niche fanbase, pushing it towards more mainstream cinema-goers.
“I think the idea was really to show this movie as an origin story and be as connected to reality as possible, not just this inside joke that people who have seen the other ten movies will get”
But bringing Star Trek to the masses and turning it into a blockbuster is no easy task. Aside from the 1986 movie, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, no Star Trek film has ever achieved that elusive mainstream appeal. Perhaps the other movies were perceived as too geeky, or perhaps they seemed to lack action…too much lengthy dialogue and not a lot going on? Well, rest assured, judging from the 30 mins of footage recently screened in London, action is something this picture won’t be lacking!
“I do think that there is a level of action and excitement that will be unusual and unexpected to a lot of people’’ the director explains. On first impressions, this seems to be no understatement on Abrams’ part. Blazing set pieces, pulsating action and gigantic space battles have given Star Trek 09 an almost, dare we say, Star Wars-esque quality. Abrams doesn’t deny his love for the other sci-fi franchise “I was actually more of a Star Wars kid than a Star Trek kid”
The new trailer for Trek begins on Earth, with a daredevil boy racing a classic car towards the precipice of a cliff – not very Star Trek at all, in fact, cinema goers in the US have already become quite shocked when they finally realised that they’re watching a trailer for the latest Star Trek movie. The young boy drags himself off the side of a cliff and reveals his name to a futuristic cop “My name is James Tiberius Kirk”
Explaining the thought process behind the trailer, Abrams comments, “I wanted to begin the trailer in a way that was earthbound and fun, relatable and real, and not necessarily Star Trek at all. Just something that was curious. And hopefully draw people in not because of the spaceship flying across the camera but because there’s this young boy crashing a classic car with a futuristic cop pulling him over”
“All you have to be is a fan of movies- of action, adventure, comedy, romance - and you’ll like this movie.”
Trekkers needn’t worry that Abrams vision might alienate them, On the contrary, the movie is full of homages to past-Trek glories and folklore. Explains Abrams, “Hopefully without it being a distraction, there are definitely countless moments in the movie that Star Trek fans will appreciate that non fans won’t necessarily get, but that’s irrelevant because the movie is such that even if you’ve never seen Star Trek, you’ll completely get the movie, you won’t be behind, you won’t feel lost. But if you do know the world of Trek, we’ve done a lot of little things for you.”
Abrams counts himself as one of “the geeky community” despite the fact he was never a Trekker, “I wasn’t when I started this project!”
Continues Abrams, “I’m one of those people who loves genre story telling, loves science fiction, loves horror and fantasy. Going to Comic Con, for example, years and years and years ago, it was like, it felt strangely, almost unhealthily - like home. It was just one of those things that I felt I had always been a part of it.”
Fans won’t be surprised to hear that Abrams’ favourite of the original Trek movies is Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan – “I think it has to be the one that I’ve always liked the most. It stayed with me even when I was a kid and it first came out. There are moments that were just kind of indelible.”
Following the recent trend for the aforementioned re-boots, it almost seems inevitable that Star Trek 09 will take heed of recent successes like Bond and Batman and position itself as a darker, more brooding epic… right? Wrong.
Abrams insists that Star Trek offers a hopeful and optimistic view of the future “The Dark Knight is undeniably entertaining and wonderfully made, but it, and many films before it, are incredibly cynical, dark, not quite post-apocalyptic, but pre-apocalyptic movies and I feel like the thing about Star Trek, which is kind of a relief in a way, is that it completely embraces optimism. It is undeniably, just intrinsically, the very root of optimism.
“That humans will not only survive but actually thrive and collaborate with other species. The notion of the final frontier in space exploration is so silly and clichéd in so many people’s minds, but when you actually stop to consider that Star Trek is, whilst a fantasy, our future.
“I love what Roddenberry was doing and I’m proud to continue that spirit as opposed to doing Star Trek: The Dark Years. Which, by the way, I’m sure would be hugely entertaining and wildly profitable.”Source http://tiny.cc/uimkN
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Trekkies are pissed off at the amount of change being made to the Star Trek movie, and how the critics of Obama say he didn't change anything at all.
Maybe Obama should have been the one to direct this film.
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...have never been written. Great thoughts, great review, great frame for the film. Thanks for articulating everything I've loved about Star Trek, right along with everything that has kept it from being an absolute favorite of mine. Also, it explains why I love so much the moments like the campfire in Star Trek V, where the dominance of Starfleet over story is slipped off for a scene or two and we get to see another part of the world... Clarity!
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in the Federation of Planets.
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A President's cabinet consists of a dozen or more high level people. Then there is a secondary level of perhaps a dozen or more other officials. Obama appoints 3 Clintonites and you people can do nothing but bitch. There is a LOT to be said for gathering a group together that is strong, experienced, and intelligent. You build your cabinet from the best people you can find, even people that might disagree with you. Why don't you give Obama a month or so before you declare his cabinet DOA, hmm?
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Don't recall calling his cabinet DOA. But tired of the whole Change monicer. Change is not retreads. How about some fresh new faces. I voted for him not another Clinton term. And Tom Daschle is a creepy douche. Like BO, voted for him, just not a sycophant.
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...made up their minds about this. Two things will come of it: A) They simply won't show up opening night to shit in everyone else's popcorn or B) They'll be ripped totally apart by the awesome joy of seeing a fresh, new Trek and be once again citizens of the positive geek experience. Let's hope for B.
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I don't have a huge problem with this new Star Trek, but then the original series was never my thing. But I can sympathize with those who are based on Harry suggestion of how Star Wars fans would love to see new stuff with classic characters... I'd probably hate it. I'd like to see new stories created in that time-period, with new characters, but I don't want to see a non-Harrison Ford Han Solo, or a non-Carrie Fisher Leia. I certainly would hate to see some teen actors cast as them. Lord knows young Vader sucked so much ass....
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I think it looks extremely promising and cool, from what I have seen so far, a series of moneyshots. I would have much more confidence in this if it wern't Orci and Kurtzman as the writers. I want this to be more than an amped up Michael Bay-esque popcorn flick. I have faith that JJ's temperment will prevent this. If any of the magic from Lost makes it's way into this film we'll be OK
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We may very well see a SW "reimagining." Let's just hope Lucas retires and gives up the keys to the castle before that happens... Right.
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that this movie is pissing off all of the hardcore Trekkies/Trekkers. As a fan of TOS, everything I've seen so far looks great, and if Abrams has shown anything with his previous work it's that he always focuses on character and story. And speaking of Abrams, anyone that says MI:3 wasn't a vast improvement over the abortion that was Mission Impossible 2 is delusional.
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an middle-aged Luke (like Hamill now) overseeing his Jedi kids and even grandkids(?) as well as Han and Leia's kidlets too might work...if done right. Oh, Wait. Only the third prequel was done right....though the first part of Phantom with Quai-Gon/young Obi-Wan was okay. Hated the kid though.
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5 TV series, 10 movies, theme parks, NYT best-selling books,tapes, dvds, billions and billions of dollars in merchandise and TOS is still doing reasonably well in syndication this very day, Shatner is probably known in Tibet and it didn't resonate? Wonderful stuff that Romulan ale, me say.
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Harry can play Harcourt Fenton Mudd. That is if he can stop blowing Obama long enough to get off his knees.
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Or are Harry's reviews getting a hell of a lot better? Nice work. Still not interested in the film though.
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I know Harry has been humping that guy to the point of ejaculation for almost a year -- but this convo is about STAR TREK and not the witless pretender.
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Nov 19, 2008 8:00:52 PM CST
"It sure would be cool to have STAR TREK be COOL in the mainstre
by filmcans
And that's almost all I want from this movie as well. This has been my favorite piece of writing on the subject of these clips. Good job here, Harry.
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...and hope that JJ does it justice. He did a helluva job with Mission Impossible 3 -- and I hated the first two films! If he can even come remotely close to STAR TREK 2's sense of storytelling, I will be extremely happy.
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If they had OBAMA sheets and Pajama sets like they did Star Wars, Harry would be owning that for sure!!!! Damn that's funny!!!!!
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if you can put that cock down for a second you would also realise none of them have seen the whole film either...NOBODY ACTUALLY knows if this film is actually good or not..but anyone with a brain at their disposal would naturally be suspicious based on the similar long marketing campaign for that stillborn turd Cloverfield that sold like the shitburger it was to morons.
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He just produced it.
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Even as only a casual fan of TREK, it bugs the shit out of me--really as someone who always wants the best possible film-going experience--that Paramount for two decades never gave a TREK movie a blockbuster budget. "II" had to re-use TMP shots to make the budget. "III" looked and felt like a TV episode but for the awesome Enterprise destruction. "IV" didn't even bother with futuristic sets for half the movie and stuck the crew in the 80's. "V" was not only crushed by a strike but by Paramount cheaping out the budget again...and so on. True, the box office returns were partially to blame, but with such understated and underbudgeted films, the films weren't quite "summer blockbuster" material and the audience reactions reflected that. But NOW, now that the franchise is on life support, Paramount's willing to throw blockbuster money at the franchise...and they aren't paying the no-name cast what the original crew used to hold out for either. They could have avoided the dying TREK problem in the first place by throwing proper money at it back when it mattered, during the TNG movies and maybe building on Sulu or DS9. But instead they micromanaged through a clueless showrunner and turned a goldmine into a pile of shit in less than a decade. Again, not a major Trekkie, but as a movie fan who appreciates a good TREK flick, it's fucking exasperating. This had better be good, not TOP GUN IN SPACE or some shit like that. Sorry...long day at work, shutting up.
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He's a long-legged mack-daddy!
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and he loves the wire...he is the first full geek president...which is why he is about to also go thru full withdrawal when he has to give up his blackberry
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Barack Obama is most likely the first US President in history who has at some point listened to an entire gangsta rap track without a look of perplexed disgust on his face.
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that despite all the shit that bush and his crime family have done to this country and the world...you remain a stalwart, wingnut, cocksucker...you shouldnt live long or prosper
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He told Empire: "There are a couple of good monsters in this, which is unusual for Trek. Neville Page designed them. He did the Cloverfield monster and he did an amazing job. He's a brilliant designer."
Uh, Cloverfield was wretched, the monster silly - Hellboy and company could've taken it down. Yes, TOS had a monster or two or sort (like the Gorn, initially, etc.). But this quote is...troubling. -
My only wish is that Shatner can pop up in this towards the end. His death in Generations was crap and not befitting the character. I think most if not all TOS and some of the newer Trek fans would agree and it would be a nice way of passing the torch to a new series of fims.
All we need is a brief mind meld between Kirk and Nimoy Spock fortelling Kirk's death at the hands of Tolian Soran -
...this is the new dynamic. Whereas everything, from a rainy day to a flat tire, was somehow Bush's fault, anything good will somehow be attributable to Obama. Got it.
Looking forward to the film! -
So they haven't changed THAT much. Also, wouldn't it be novel to make the continuity MATTER for a change? I can live with a few changes from the old version, but how about from now on the continuity matter more? I loved Star Trek a long time, but for me, I was ready for something new in the franchise back in the late 90s. I was sick of being disappointed in Star Trek for a while before I started getting disappointed in Star Wars. I'll have my preferences though even if I do accept this new version. The new design of the Enterprise doesn't do much for me so far. They've compared it to the Mac store, but so far that's not a good thing. The ship also just doesn't look right, as if someone remade the Millenium Falcon but....wrong, you know? I'll reserve judgement, at this point I still say ANYTHING is better than the nothing we've been getting. I'm also not sure about the observations of the franchise's limited appeal either. I'm not sure this will change anything--or if it does, will it stop appealing to the sizable old fandom? We'll just see.
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...done what George Dubya Bush did and appointed everyone that worked with his pappy. I respect everyone's opinions (as long as they're somewhat educated), but if you ignorant bigots can't get past a guy's skin color or the fact that he is a politician that inspires people...why don't you something about it. Maybe canvass your neighborhoods in 4 years so an amazing, intelligent, and elegant person like Sarah Palin can win the election and really inspire people. Or, if you're too lazy to do that, or your klan doesn't like to operate in that way, maybe you can threaten to move to Ireland and Austria with the other idiots like Bill O'Reilly. Regarding Star Trek, it sounds like it might be pretty good...so alright, that's cool.
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...than Kirk IMHO based on the trailer. If that carried over to the footage that was screened and the general audience also sees it that way, then Kirk could end up taking a back seat in this "re-introduction."Just a thought.
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This film can't happen soon enough. I'm sorry that it's not going to be out for Christmas. This looks like it is going to be one heck of a present. Too cool.
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your seeing your man Obama with Harry. Nothing short of sickening. Nonetheless, we can agree, we both love our Star Trek. I'm getting very excited about the new movie by what I've seen so far.
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Nov 19, 2008 10:26:07 PM CST
You Know That Something Is Wrong With This Movie When...
by media messiah
...the Escape From Witch Mountain remake's film trailer looks vastly better than the new Star Trek trailers!!!
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You know this to be true. Bush, the brash, kick ass bring it on guy. Obama, the politically correct negotiator. Long live James T. Kirk.
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You have Type 1 nerds; who like the original movies mostly and because of that, tend to lean towards TOS.Then you have Type 2 nerds; the people who love TNG more than TOS, seen all the episodes, and are big on conventions.Then you have Type 3; who think DS9 is the best Trek ever, and think they are the coolest for liking so. These are nerds on a whole other level of nerdiness.
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The trailer was kick ass! Trek finally looks like a movie. I've always liked most Trek, but the movies, well the Next gen ones always looked and felt like extended tv episodes. Abbrams looks to have done a damn good job. I don't mind the changes that i've seen so far. The classic elements of trek looks to still be there.
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First biaytches!
Anyway this movie is going to WROCK! I feel pity for the poor trekkie douchebags who shout 'retcon', or 'heresy' or whatever crap would make Berman & Co happy. Go JJ, prove these dicks wrong, and bring Trek back to 'cool'. -
Granted we haven't seen the movie yet, but my suspension of disbelief may have a tought time with some of the degrees of seperation of these characters...are they going to convince us that Kirk, Bones, Scotty, Chekhov, etc were all buddies at Academy together and then somehow all get put aboard the same ship to serve on? This doesn't happen in the real Navy now, and in the future with billions of people in the Federation, they get all have a family reunion?
And people like Chekhov come in as ensigns while Kirk gets to be a captain, and bones goes straight to chief medical officer? doesn't have have to be an intern or anything? how does this make sense? -
Sorry about all the typos. I look like more of an idiot than I usually do. ( and *that's* saying something!)
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your like...revolutionary.
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I would love to see the entire saga redone from the ground up by someone with actual storytelling ability.
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Nov 19, 2008 11:46:04 PM CST
Remaking Star Wars would be like remaking The Wicker Man
by starwarsredux
Remember how good that turned out?
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With all due respect, Harry is fine is Star Trek reinvents itself (and rightfully so) and notes that it would be nice if Star Wars had a new vision like the treatment that Trek is getting.
Yet, Star Wars has already reinvented itself in the form of The Clone Wars tv series. Harry didn't like it mainly because it was not like the films. No it wasn't, it's intended to be different.
It ok if Trek reinvents itself and not Star Wars? -
I'm glad you're of a like mind then! I'll buy you a beer back for the good company.
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So it isn't really the reinvention anti-Lucas people want it to be. Again-- "Star Wars" belongs to Lucas, even in the case of ESB and ROTJ. It's all well and good to imagine somebody else taking their spin on the universe, but when it comes to movies, Lucas would never allow it. David Lynch and David Cronenberg were famously offered the chance to direct ROTJ, and they both turned it down becuase they realized they wouldn't really be the ones directing the movie, and David Fincher would probably have done the same thing. Star Trek has always been shepherded by lots of different folk-- Rodenberry at first, then additional showrunners, producers at Paramount who nixed his "Enterprise crew goes back in time to assasinate JFK" movie idea, directors like Nicholas Meyer, then finally the TNG/DS9/STV/STE creative crew. Trek, very simply, was never as directly under the authorship of a single individual in the way that Star Wars was, so it's a lot more open to this kind of modern reinterpretation-- Abrams and his guys have simply become the latest in a long series of new creative teams.
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Thanks for the shout-out, but I don't drink. If I did, I wouldn't be online here past midnight...
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The way I remember it, the term "Trekkie" was a diminutive nick-name created by non-fans to make fun of Star Trek fans and to slight and dismiss the positive aspects of Star Trek. The term "Trekkers" was created by fans for themselves. "Trekker" is pro-active and positive. "Trekkie" is a back-handed insult.
I have enjoyed Star Trek from the first time I saw TOS. I taped TNG and found only a few of the episodes re-watchable. (Anybody notice that they boldly went where no-one went before maybe four or five times in seven years? And never on purpose.) Rarely ever had a sense of exploration or wonder. DS9 improved greatly from the fourth season on after learning storytelling concepts like multi-episode story arcs and scope from Babylon 5. Voyager was seriously flawed, but had its moments, mostly in the last three or so seasons. Enterprise wasn't perfect, but I like it much better than TNG. It failed to get the ratings it needed because it was on the Paramount 'network' which had very few stations. Enterprise really hit its stride in the fourth season. It left me wanting more.
As far as the new movie goes, I'm looking forward to it. I'm not an orthodox canon zealot, because it's a practical impossibility. So many continuity errors even back to TOS. Just give me a good story well told with characters I can care about.
One more thing: On a related talkback, someone claimed that the atmosphere jump was "stolen" from BSG. I seem to recall an episode from Voyager where Belana Torez (not such a geek that I know how to spell her name right) made a number of such jumps in a holodeck with the safeties off. So BSG wasn't first with that concept.
I wonder if Harry spilled the beans about BSG's denoument in the above column: "...it isn’t some dream of humans before they got stuck on Earth."
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"I did three years in the Korean War, sir. I was up to my neck in Mr. Spock haircuts."
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Everyone knows that idiot..he was still steering that bloated moronic stunt..
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He'd completely deny ever being assimilated by the Borg, claiming that he wasn't in The Cube the day they attacked Earth. And if asked, he'd simply state that the Klingons were "just guys in the neighborhood" and not close allies, despite being on several Klingon Councils with them.Picard's COOl... Obama's a two-faced punk and a wuss.
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That's the best review I've read about these clips yet.
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Can't wait :)
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I've been fairly critical of this little roadshow Abrams has going but I would wager that Bones is going to be well older than Kirk and not a fellow classmate. Maybe he'll have been an officer assigned to Starfleet Medical and met Kirk that way. I think it's inferred in most of the write-ups that Scotty is a Starfleet officer that has been exiled to the same planet/planetoid/whatever as Kirk and does not know him prior to this meeting. Abrams may be occasionally idiotic but I don't think he's so stupid as to cast visibly older actors in certain roles and try to convince us that they're all the same age.
Since the above is coming off a little too positive for me, can I just ask if the whole "ice planet exile" thing sounds a little stupid to anyone else? Does it seem a little odd for an enlightened society to just strand people on hostile planets to suffer space yeti ass-rape for minor infractions?
I dunno...maybe there will be some kind of explanation that will make it seem more plausible in the finished product. I do know this: Cadet Kirk somehow ending up in charge of the Enterprise is going to be almost an impossible sell for me. In the brief clip in the trailer where Kirk is wearing command gold, he seems to be sporting two broad sleeve strips with a narrow one in between. If this is the Abrams-verse version of Captain sleeve rank and he goes from Cadet to that in the span of a few days, weeks, months...I'll be forced to conclude that Abrams is stupid after all.
Please, Trek-franchise...hire a military adviser for the next film. You can probably get a Naval officer fan to do it on the cheap. -
Everyone from interior designers to Apple Mac have been inspired by Trek.
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and now JJ is stealing back...without adding much
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Even though it seems unthinkable right now, it's only a matter of a decade or two before somebody will launch a remake of the classic Star Wars trilogy, complete with a handsome young teen cast.
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Ah so polite.
You make my point for me. No one has seen the film, so how is it that the people who haven't even seen the fooage know more than all the journos and ordinary people who have?
Also you'll find more people actually liked cloverfield than didn't and it wasn't written / direct / edited or shot by Abrams. -
I'm trying to work out if you're being homophobic or suggesting that I wank a lot?
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Nothing else matters. Not even Trek.
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The original film Star Wars: A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back are the only 2 films in the Star Wars franchise that are actually good or great movies, the rest of the remaining Star Wars films, however, are embarrassments to filmmaking!!!
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The new Trek film, it looks like it is a cheapy pilot for a new televsion series version of the show!!!
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unfortunately is the opposite of the Trek vision and his impact so far has been negative on the Stock Market. I have a rude awakening for all the Obama worshipers. there is nothing Magical about him!
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Quanitize makes an interseting point; star trek has always imagined beyond what we already know and most of it's tech is pre microchip stuff imaginings... yet now we have a wider knowledge of such tech, things seem less risky and more 'realistic' which is basically less imaginative. of course this is all speculation as i haven't seen squat.
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I enjoy looking at comments from current Trek fans, past Trek fans, and NON-Trek fans. It's entertaining. Bottom line: If the movie has a great story to tell, then, ALRIGHT! That's what we genre fans want!
But, if not, I'm sure there will be many that may be inspired by this story. Who's to say? Not every show needs to be a BlockBuster. However, it looks to be a good time at the movies!!
Give it a chance.
THEN trash it or PRAISE it. Sounds simple, No?
Just be happy that a new Trek film is out there for us to talk about.
Oh yeah! -
And I'm excited. I agree with the Star Wars comment too. The best post Episode 4 Star wars stuff is the stuff Lucas didn't direct. And I wish people would stop going on about Clone Wars as if it suddenly makes Star Wars cool again. The Clone Trooper stuff is cool, but everything involving battle droids is just plain embarrasing. Bad guys are supposed to be cool, not a collection of robotic jerry lewis's
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As I was reading the piece I was thinking, oh right Harry, I see what you're trying to get at, you're making a link between the sixties, jfk and the advent of star trek in an era full of promise and possibility about the future and how the program reflected the general optimism of the time, with the release of this star trek movie and the general feeling of expectation and hope that is around at the moment. As i was reading this piece though, i was hoping you would let the reader draw their own conclusions and refrain from mentioning obama, but no, you just had to come right out with it and throw in Obama.
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all i want is a solid amazing Sci-fi. i was watching Starwar for the hundredmillionth time the other day and it still seemed illogical that it will ever be beat but because JJ Abrahams doesn't have that Trek obsession maybee this will have the balls to finally better lucas!
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Great piece Harry...
Now look, I've never been a full on geek trekkie/trekker (whatever) but as I understood it Rodenberrys vision of starfleet in the future explicitly wasn't militaristic - hence his unhappiness with Meyers 'nautical but nice' production design for TWOK. The line at the end of TMP says it all - 'The Human adventure is just beginning' - Trek was supposed to be a way to tell stories about US now and make us reflect on issues of race, gender, prejudice etc.. TNG occasionally did this well - the aliens with a brow ridge or funny ears were just ciphers for certain points of view. I see none of this in the trailers or get any sense of this from the reports about the footage shown. It seems like JJ has done exactly what Lucas has done - shafted those who made him his millions by aiming the new movies at 'kids' with no consideration to the original fans. The new Trek looks like fun, action packed sci-Fi... but I'm not sure it bears any resemblance to Roddenberrys original reason for conceiving this universe...
oh yes, and Obama is Tuvok. -
trekkies have always pointed to the limited budget as a reason to the lack of excitment and adventure in comparison to star wars. To a certain extent this is true, but it should also be taken into account that star trek is primarily concerned with different themes whereas star wars has tended to follow more conventional mythological tropes that resonate with people in a more profound way. Star Wars has also been more successful in imparting a sense of wonder and adventure. What JJ Abrams has been talking about recently suggests that he is fully aware of the characteristics that have undermined the allure of star trek over the years and with this film he's taken steps to make star trek resonate with the general public a lot more. However he appears to changing the traditional pillars of star trek while retaining the superficial trappings in the hope of attaining his primary goal: a shit load of money
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When Kirk's recruited by Pike in the aftermath of the barrom brawl in the first clip we saw, Pike talks to him about his potential: "You could be a captain in four years, have your own ship in eight." By the time we see Kirk show up onboard the Enterprise, it's three years later, according to Abrams, and Kirk's been working to climb the ladder during the interim. It's very definitely NOT just days/weeks/months.
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... this is not a film where they all get assigned to the Enterprise as cadets. It covers years, and the moment where things all come together with Uhura and Sulu and Chekov and Bones and Scotty and Spock and Kirk all onboard... that's what the film builds to, not where it starts, and it takes years of story-time for that to happen. So that's one thing you guys shouldn't worry about.
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I grew up as a star wars fan and had no real interest in trek. but as an adult i've become alot more into the ideas takled in trek that you don't see in much sci fi stuff beyond Phil Dick. 'i'm no trekkie,'but I remember a great episode of next gen when Picard lives a whole life inside his head in just a moment...
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Why is this being like Star Wars a good thing? The whole point of Star Trek was that it did something unique in Science Fiction, and copying Star Wars is just pandering to people like JJ who don't have the resolve to actually get into a show. It's the same with Bond and Bourne - inspiration is fine, but you can't make an entire film from one franchise in the style of another. Harry can use the DD analogy all he wants, but Miller made the character darker (and better)... he didn't arbitarily decide that Daredevil should become Superman.
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I mean seriously, you guys.
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I mean seriously, you guys.
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Listen dopey, when a movie or TV show has JJ's name at the very top, I'll blame *that* douchebag....considering Cloverfield
was guilty of every lame ass conceit as Lost, which he outlines himself so elegantly in that TED talk some time back...and
was directed etc by his buddies, it's only logical that anyone with a brain would be reasonably suspicious - particularly
when he ponces around doing that shticky 'Im not a Star Trek fan'. Let's hope he has something more than a bit of smoke
and shitty stunts for this Trek film. I would like him not to shit on that. -- --
Now, I don't know which dipshit line you like to stand in for your shit burgers...Titanic etc...but citing ticket sales
as some evidence of quality is about the most retarded and sad little argument you can trot out. People like shit...
that is a fact, and often the stinkier the shit, the more they like to choke it down. That doesn't mean good films arent
successful, it just means shit ones can be very successful. I laughed through Cloverfield, but mainly at the gasping
weens around me acting like King Kong Escapes shot on the set of 90210 was 'kick ass'. It was dumb, really really dumb
and not funny enough to excuse itself. --
As for the cock thing...choose whichever you find the most offensive.
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I have always been curious about the degree of influence production company Desilu had on the original series. Desilu was sold to Paramount during the initial run, but they did create the series. So, was Lucille Ball actually involved in pre-production? I'm just trying to picture the scenario. I'm sure some of you Trekkies know the answer...
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I'd bet my paycheck. Whoever did write it tried to sprinkle in some of Harry's writing style, but Harry did not write this. It was probably someone from J.J.'s camp.
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"he apparently once greeted Leonard Nimoy spontaneously with the LIVE LONG AND PROSPER greeting, including the hand thing!" Is there any person on the face of the planet who doesn't meet Nimoy for the first time and either greet him with the greeting, or raise one eyebrow? Wanna bet how sick Nimoy is of doing that?
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The ineffective battle droids are on their way out as The Clone Wars began, as they were never intended for battle to begin with, being more suited for transports and general mech-work.
The show director Dave Filoni has expressed that we'll be seeing less and less of them as they're phased out by the newer replacement models, because even the Trade Federation realizes they're not hacking it on the front lines except where they can swarm like zombies in massive numbers. -
How many more formulaic reboots are we going to suffer through that insist on holding the audiences' hand as they show us characters in their formative stages? Making a movie about Kirk becoming Kirk is a complete waste of $200 million. Rickey cares not for seeing a Trek movie about a wayward Kirk feuding with Spock and not getting his shit together until the final 20 minutes of the film. How about having a bit more faith in the audience? How about a balls out awesome Trek movie that starts "in medias res"?
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One of the best I've ever read from you. My personal problem with the trek footage I've seen is the young Kirk driving the car off of the cliff. Reminds me of all the dreadful work Jake Lloyd gave us in Phantom Menace. I'm open to a new interp of this universe but please understand we don't need to see how "edgy" a preteen Kirk was.
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I'm much more of a Star Wars guy, but I could see a recast Han, Luke or Leia a lot more easily than Kirk, Spock and Bones. I've posted this before, but those characters are famous because of the indelible portrayals ... particularly Shatner, whose balls you can bust endlessly, but delivered an archetypal performance that MADE the character.
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I can't speak to empirical studies or anything; it has just been my experience that "Trekkers" take themselves much more seriously than "Trekkies". When I'd go get drunk at conventions with Klingons, you could see the sour expressions on the face of "Trekkers." Just my opinion.
And so why do we not have a term beyond the basic "Star Wars Fan." Will there be a dichotomy between "Warsies" and "Warsers"? -
I'm glad to hear that. I have nothing against ineffective scores of makeshift battle droids, but when they become cheap comic relief it saddens me. The ninja assassin droids were cool as chips though - using a superior design from the battle droid concepts from Phantom Menace.
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Yeah, exactly what I thought. What a erudite gentleman you are sir.
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.. here????
"but citing ticket sales as some evidence of quality is about the most retarded and sad little argument you can trot out" -
And that has the worst cinematography I've ever witnessed on the big screen!
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Thanks, Harry! Good thoughts from you on the new "Trek."
I showed my two nephews, ages 6 and 7, both Lego-lovin' geeks, the trailer for JJ's new "Trek" the other day, and they freakin' loved it. Their eyes got all wide and they pushed me to "play it again!" Then they hopped downstairs and started building Trek-looking lego ships.
I was laughing my ass off. But hey, if the trailer for JJ's "Trek" gets kids fired up, that can't be a bad thing, right?
Here's to hoping. -
If you've visited AICN for any length of time and have read Harry's better articles in the past (e.g., his LOTR New Zealand reports) you know that this article is vintage, 100% Harry Knowles. And it's one of his best.Plant paranoia is fascinating, and I'm sure the odd spy slips through every now and then, but check out the links Harry provides. A SHITLOAD of critics--some ST fans, some not--saw the footage, and they are universally impressed to one degree or another. Does that mean the movie will be fantastic? Not necessarily, but it's a very good sign. And it's also a sign that plants--at least so far--are not needed to make their case for this one.
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Glad to see that I am not the only one who is confused why Harry only likes the first four seasons of DS9. I take it that he hasn't really watched the series properly, which is suprising considering how much "watching" he does. Actually it wasn't until about 2 years ago when I finally and reluctantly bought the entire DS9 dvd set. Watching it in it's entirety I realized that DS9 was CLEARLY the best series of Star Trek- there is no doubt. And the thing is that it is the common opinion among fans that DS9 is the superior series of Star Trek, just like it is the common opinion that The Empire Strikes Back is the superior Star Wars film. And just like with Star Wars- the fans are completely right. But to truly appreciate DS9, you have to watch the entire show and in order. Otherwise the show may look contrived and convoluted as it did to me before I truly watched it. For me, I am constantly changing my opinion as to which TV show is the best show ever made, Battlestar Galactica or DS9. Both are Ronald Moore creations, so for me Ronald Moore is obviously the best TV show maker that has yet lived.
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You should try to set the bar here moving forward.
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Have to Ronald moore has been involved in some damned fine tv. You do kinda have to watch DS9 as whole to see the whole, massive storyline pan out. It's the 1st time you actually get a sense of the true scale of the Galaxy as depicted in Trek, the time it takes to get back and forth from Earth, the massive numer of ships involed in a genuine war 100s & 1,000s of ships on each side.
Anyway back on topic, as said I've been reading reactions to this footage for close to a week now and and I've yet to see someone who wasn't impressed. Once again of course that doesn't guarantee a good film, although it at list points to an exciting movie.
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Nov 20, 2008 10:14:24 AM CST
Samus, best show in history is: Lancelot Link Secret Chimp
by toadkillerdog
DS9 is pretty good too.
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I looked up Lancelot Link on Youtube, and I stand corrected. How did this gem slip under the radar?
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Or is it just because they where given something different and it made them cry?, seriously how could you not enjoy that film, it don't take itself too seriously, is exciting, funny, action packed & features a giant monsters.Is the reason you dislike it because you don't see the monster very clearly?, awww If so go rent Godzilla, I bet you bitched about that too, so which giant monster attacks NY films do you like?
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Lancelot Link made me the man I am today. *ook* *ook*
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Cloverfield was boring, pretentious, and did not deliver the goods. That is why I do not like it. I love Godzilla movies. I even really like Emmerich's Godzilla. A monster movie, needs a monster. Not a POV movie filled with airheaded and unlikable 20 somethings. There could have been a decent story buried in Cloverfield, but it was overshadowed by the great disappearing ninja monster. Like I said, a monster movie needs a monster. Cloverfield failed on every level. It was neither horror, nor fantasy, nor action. It tried to use elements of all these, but it fell apart.
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I take back anything that implied that this was a plant. I was being a bit sarcastic and just threw it in at the end. In any event, I stand by my first point - that Harry did not write this. If he did, however, then he should put as much care and thought into every post. I have been visiting this site for a while now, and it deserves more posts that are written like this, not some of the slop I've seen over the past year or so. A part time editor would do this site wonders.
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like everything JJ touches it wasn't well thought through. It was full of unrealistic characters, doing unrealistic things. The writing was bad, the sets were crappy, the tacked on little easter egg at the end was lame, the ending made no sense...in so much as there wasn't one...the horrid idea of pov camera, it really was a One Trick Pony for Blair Witch and should never be used again...we could go on all day about the issues this stinker had...forget the Monster which had it's own list of problems. And I fear this Trek: The Newport High years, will be more of the same.
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The trailer sucks.
The story is more time traveling nonsense.
Abrams knows shit about Star Trek.
This thing will be the bomb of 2009.
As for DS:9, it was great. My only problem was with Kira. She got more and more ridiculous as the years went on.
She was beating up Klingons, Jem Hadar soldiers and Cardassians like Demar. It was too much.
Oh, and Weyoun was the best. Combs deserved Emmys and Golden Globes for those performances.
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I consider myself a ST fan. Seen all the movies and liked 'em (although some are weak). Watched reruns of the show as a kid. I can't resist seeing this on the bigscreen. Only then can I judge JJ and company. To do so otherwise is...not logical.
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I have high hopes for this movie... I blame Goddard more than JJ for Cloverfield's problems... and Obama may not actually become president, news media won't report it but Supreme court getting serious about his citizenship qualifications... just saying is all.
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his birth certificate has been ruled authentic...there is a birth announcement in the hawaii newspaper (unless obama is also a time traveler and posted it himself) on jan 20, obama becomes prez
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Harry, Harry, Harry, man - nobody gives head like you! you are the king of schwing my friend. I love to read your articles just to see what press kit you're trying to acquire or maybe free movie passes under the door tonight at midnight? You know if you would have struck this sexy plumper pose with George a few years back you might could have stayed off that "no-ranchero-accesso" blacklisto thingo! I see you're oiling up for obama still, one would think the only thing you will give a bad review to is the Republican party - I hope all your little dreams and desires come true. Gurgle on my friend - gurgle on!
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If John McCain's corpse travels back from the future to stop it. Beam me up, Johnny!
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Good to see you dude. I am a very long time Trek fan, though never a trekkie. I have sen every incarnation and movie. Good, great and awful. I absolutely will see this movie and hope it knocks my socks off. No sense knocking movie until it has been viewed. I do agee with Rickey about the needless exposition. I understand JJ trying to put his stamp on characers, but it is annoying as hell when you have long time established characters, and directors want to return to the origin. Still, I want it to succeed.
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Dude really, get a life.
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Bullshit. lmao
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Can't argue with the all time stolen base king. Still can't get over the "car off a cliff" thing. Just seems contrived, like Jon Peters' giant robot spider..."FIND A WAY TO MAKE IT FIT IN THE SCRIPT, IT'LL BE BADASS!!!" **snorts a line of coke** "I FUCKING LOVE THIS TOWN!!!"
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Anyone with a truly open mind can check out Supreme Court case Donofrio v. Nina Mitchell Wells, Supreme Court docket #08a407 scheduled for conference December 5th. All Obama has to do is show his real (original) BC and it all goes away.
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That's all I'm sayin. The brief milliseconds they appear in the trailer are very fucking gratifying indeed. And the sight of the ship being built "in a cornfield" is amazing. Young little Anakin Tiberius Cuntface is annoying, but hopefully that scene in the movie isn't much longer than what you get in the trailer. Brief prologue.
Oh, and I fucking LOVE that old STAR TREK logo and the fact that they are not calling this Star Trek 11 or some other boner name. It shows real swagger. -
One of my favourite characters in nything.
As for Trek bombing; well maybe, the biggest thing this film has going against it is i is Star trek. Star Trek remains uncool, and has a reputation for lower end movies, with limited budgets for effects and an unbalanced talk to action ration. Yes we all know that the thing that made Trek was the writing (when good) characters and moral / ehical dilemas... BUT.. they DID have sex and violence in them, and yes Special effects! They had the best they could manage and as much as they couold afford. They used them to fit the story. Do not kid yourselves that there wouldn't have been more of themm in the tv shows and movies if they could afford it, and do not assume that having more effects automatically means lower quality of movie.
Would 1st contact really have been a poorer film if there'd been a budget to allow Frakes to cut to the battle with the Borg? I'm not talking about emoving the reactioon shots as they're all on the bridge listening to the federation fleet getting hammered, but to cut to the battle, show the superiority of the borg vessel, rather than going (well hopefully you've all seen the show fill in the blanks). Would it really have killed the film if we'd seen the Defiant taking 10 times as much punishment as the other ships in the fleet? Doing more damage than the others and actually sjowing that it's a ship specifically designed to fight the borg? No I don't think it would, as long as it adds to the movie and furthers the story. There's plenty of "action" in Trek it just often has to take place off screen to suit the budget. Think of how many times you've watched an episode of Trek (any Trek) and there's some kind of battle / fighthappening. Someone says fire this, or target that. Something is meant to be damaged etc. Do you see it, no you cut to someone pushing a button, and hear some noise that indicate something has been fired, or hit. It isn't a dramatic cut to show the reaction of the crewmen / women involved, it's a cheap way of having a fight without having to spend any money showing the fight.
I think it's all about balance. Think of all the relationships, 1 night stands or whatever you've seen in the Trek shows. Now think of ALL the Trek films so far and ask how many times have you seen it implied tha 2 people are going off to have sex, or even kissing? Does the balance of "sex" in the movies match the tv shows? not at all.
I don't know it just seems a lot of people are sweating the little things, and complaining about things they seem to have forgotten were always there.
Oh last thing just because people like movies that you don't or that you think are rubbish, it doesn't make them idiots, it just means they can see something to like where you can't. Also Cloverfield was many tings, but I really can't see how pretentious was one of them? -
Nov 20, 2008 12:12:05 PM CST
And wasn't Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" awesome?
by everythingeverywherestinks
Okay, so let me get this straight...Harry sez that Jar Jar Abrams' "Star Trek" is 'teh shit' and all the Star Trek hating, beat-up-on-a-Trekkie, Star Wars fellating fanboys line up and say "I'm going opening night, and I'm buying four tickets to drive the box office up and I will unquestioningly love this movie forever and ever and ever because everything that falls from Jar Jar's ass is 100% quality and he is the best thing to happen to the entertainment business EVaR!"
Then as proof of their "good judgement," they point to a long list of internet reviews that similarly fellate both this movie and Jar Jar Abrams and say, "See, you asshole Trek nerds? The whole wide world loves it when someone reimagines/reinvents/reboots stuff! The original source material sucks and only now, in the hands of the Golden Boy filmmaker of the 21st century, is Star Trek actually entertaining people!"
Anyone who has questions about the obvious crap they're being sold is being instructed by the studio and Jar Jar's people, admittedly in the most polite manner possible, to sit down, shut up and buy into it because Jar Jar Abrams is 'teh shit.'
Well consider this space monkeys...all those glowing reviews don't mean crap when you're risking losing your all-access back stage pass. You don't honestly think for a second that these people will risk having their wrists slapped by saying a bad thing about this bloated tentpole movie do you?
Amazingly, of all the online writeups about the preview screenings, the writeup at Sci-Fi Wire was actually objective. Gasp! While not wishing to shit on anyone's parade, Sci-Fi said the same things everyone else has said (basically that CGI things go boom in the scenes they saw) but they added that action scenes aside, they had reservations about the characters. Go figure...soneone actually had the gall to mention something about the Emperor's lack of clothes. And this was from someone who said they were merely a casual Trek fan.
It's too bad that "Star Trek" has to become "Star Wars" to survive, but I doubt that Jar Jar Abrams can pull THAT off, 'cause apparently even Lucas can't make good Star Wars anymore so what hope does Golden Boy have?
Too bad "Doctor Who" doesn't have much of a fan base here in the US. Now THERE'S a franchise that knows how to survive and succeed without having to ignore it's fans or everything that preceeded its latest incarnation. -
Obama is as much an Amerikan as Panamanian born John McCain.
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We know it will be action-packed and look great. But will the story reflect the true, optimistic spirit of Trek? If it succeeds here too then it will be great.
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Have no problem with the casting or special effects. Just hoping that the writing and chemistry between the actors pays off.
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He makes movies that appeal to the hip yuppie crowd. Sure, it's an upgrade from Michael Bay making movies that appeal to the knuckledragger crowd, but it's still pretty loathsome nonetheless. Abrams' movies are aimed at the gen-x crowd, a group of emo ridden whining cry babies. And that translates into Kirk having daddy issues and being a mopey kid who thinks the Enterprise should be handed to him. Rickey says no thanks to this. Rickey doesn't want a mopey introspective Kirk. Rickey wants a Star Trek movie in which men are MEN.
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...is that Rickey just wants some sense that they're adhering to the original spirit of Star Trek. You know, Horatio Hornblower in space. A bunch of comrades traveling into the unknown, discovering new worlds, working shit out, and raw dogging everything with a pulse. None of that sense of wonder and & awe is present that the trailer. Abram's movie just looks formulaic: an origin story with a cookie cutter plot.
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I don't see why Abrams can't take established canon and leap off from there.
We've heard about a younger Kirk in episodes like "Where No Man Has Gone Before."
Now, let's see it.
Time traveling Romulans wanting to kill Kirk won't get it done. -
It does not need to be "reinvented" by someone new. I know AICN has effectively blacked out any mention of The Clone Wars series, but it's seriously good. With Lucas just consulting, and other writers filling in the details, it's turning into a great vehicle for stories about the Star Wars galaxy. It's not childish, either. The battle droids' "stupid" act and offhand comments makes them MORE sinister, because they have absolutely no empathy for living creatures and act with a sort of manic glee or befuddled nonchalance when slaughtering innocent people. The voice actors for some of the characters are better than the live-action actors in the movies.
I'm looking forward to this Star Trek film because I want to see something without B&B anywhere near it. I want Trek to return to being science fiction instead of self-indulgent masturbatory technobabble fanwank. It looks like JJ's doing that.
But Star Wars? Leave it alone, man. I've seen what happens when other people play too deeply in George's galaxy, and it can truly suck. Anybody who has read Children of the Jedi, or anything by Karen Traviss (who completely fucked up the Mandalorians and their standing in the galaxy by writing shitty "highlander romance" novels featuring her proxies) knows that some people should not have any say in what happens in a creator's world. I think 75% of Star Wars fandom needs to shut the fuck up and either enjoy the movies and shows, or walk the other way. You're NEVER getting the hardcore, badass stuff you want because Star Wars is not about that. It's space opera, not science fiction. It's meant to be presented in the form of a weekly serial, with that over-the-top, sometimes humorous feel. If you want badass, no-glee scifi, then watch BSG (which does, indeed, rock) or read a book.
Trek needed an overhaul because Roddenberry's death meant nobody was truly at the reins for a long time (B&B were just jerking off with Gene's property). Star Wars still has its creator, and the creative team that presented it to us in the first place. It hasn't gone off-track, but a lot of fanboys have just lost touch with whatever it was that made them enjoy it in the first place.
You got old, guys. Deal with it. -
BwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahahaBwhahahahahahahahaha. HA!
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don't even try to make it sound cool...you're not fooling anyone..it's trekkie..deal with it. a trekker is one who actually treks. trekkie watches other people trek on tv.
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whats so funny?...thats exactly what it is. you are free to disagree...but you'd be wrong.
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This is a debate that never should have been.
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Who has said those things? It's an honest question, I don't remember reading any posts like the ones you seem to be responding to.
Anyway back to the movie....
As for reservations about the characters, the more attached you are to them as they were the more you're going to have reservation, no matter how good they look now. I'm loving that you think pretty much every journo in the world that's seen this has sold out. I get where you're coming from but that is just so not plausable. I've been reading stuff about this gfootage since they showed it 1st in London. I've also no reason to think people are lying when they sy the heart, the characters of Trek are the core. It's action AS WELL as normal Trek stuff.
Now I haven't seen the film so I can't speak to it's quality, but nothing I've seen or read leads me to think anything other than it's promising. Other than a disllike of "pretty" actors, "children in movies" and a luddite view hat sex and action don't belong in Trek movies seems to say any different.Oh and an "anti-cool" dislike of JJ Abrams that usually (not saying it's you) seems to stem from blaming him for things he never had anything to do with; like lost turning from gold to dog shit (after he left) Alias doing the same (after he left) Cloverfield being poorly written (a minority opinion) he didn't write it, Cloverfield being poorly directed (a minority opinion) he didn't direct it, Cloverfield being poorly shot - he wasn't the cameraman, Cloverfield being responsable for global warming - Well maybe that's his fault somehow.
I've been a Trek fan for about 30 years grew up with repeats of Star Trek TOS and the movies, and I have no problem with there finally being a big budget Trek film and a slightly different slant on the characters. That doesn't make me an idiot or a plant, just someone with a different opinion (one shared by many from all evidence I've seen) and with logical reasons for thinking the way I do.
As for Sci-fi Wire..
"The scene has a lot of heart, but it may trouble diehard Trek fans for a couple of reasons."
"Pine's impulsive, headstrong Kirk feels just right."
"There's a lot of running and yelling and overlapping dialogue, which adds urgency but may be jarring to diehard Trek fans used to previous Trek films' more deliberate pace. This not necessarily a bad thing."
"there are several touches in Abram's Trek universe that seem more Star Wars-ish than Trek, such as the presence of grotesque aliens in that Iowa bar, a la the cantina in Mos Eisley. But the scene finds its heart "
"There is much to like in Abrams' new take on Star Trek. But we'll have to see the entire film to judge whether it successfully reboots the franchise. In particular, the franchise's heart and soul--the interactions among the key characters--is only hinted at in the preliminary footage. Stay tuned"
Is that not what people have been sying. the eaction has "in varying degrees" been overwhelmingly positive. They liked it, and only said that whilst there was good character stuff there, there wasn't enough in a short portion to know for sure that it will be enough in the whole movie. In otherword judge when you SEE the movie. That's all we're saying, and so far everyone who has seen anything is teling us it's worth the look. Better yet it is appealing to non Trek people. This as Sci -Fi wire say "This not necessarily a bad thing.".
Oh and whilst "cannon", (which as far as I'm concerned should be nothing but the t.v shows and movies and has been chopped and change counless times in all of them), should be respected one of the reason Trek finds it so hard to find new fans is because there's always this jump off point where you kinda have to KNOW a certain amount about what's going on before you even start to watch the movie. Like going to see the 2 towers without seeing Fellowship. People, on the whole, just don't wanna do that. they also don't want to doo that to watch something that's been budgeted like an extended episode of a tv show. The aim of this film is to attract new fans.
the funny thing is if it works then almost overnight the new fans will vastly outweigh the old ones. Keeping them is another matter of coursem and for that the product has to be god. Maybe all the sell out journos are telling the truth, I mean even Sci-Fi wire think it''s worth a pop! -
... was the documentary film, Trekkies.
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star trek at it's peak was a cool west wing in space. Where president kirk solved the impossible whilst relying on spock and McCoy to balance logic and emotion. Abrahams have proved with alias and mission 3 he's a great action director but it's all too calculated. I don't feel the magic except for the very convincing zacharay whatshisface squinting like a young nimoy. We'll see.
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As Denny Crane!
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He was in the trailer. He is the cop who questions young JTK. He will pull off his mask and reveal TJ Hooker. Just wait.
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Only Star Wars book I've ever read was I, Jedi-- and that shit was bad fucking ass. Which Clone Wars are you referring to? Those short ones or the news ones? I know nothing about these things. Aren't there two different shows?
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Somehow people seem to think that you have to be a fan of one or the other, but I like both Star Trek and Star Wars and I wish the best to both franchises. I think that morons that have to pick one over the other are only slighting themselves. BTW - I have never said this before in a talkback, but idiots like Quantize (who thinks he's a real player in the music industry) should just fuck off. Everytime I read one of his know-it-all but hasn't a fucking clue posts, I almost want to buy him a ticket to my country just so I can beat the fucking face off of him. He's one of the reasons I don't post much anymore. I've already argued enough with him to turn my stomach. Opinions aren't fact, fuckface. Rant fini
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Haven't seen what Harry has; Have only seen the stills, and the trailer. Doesn't excite me at all, and I could NOT be a bigger Trek fan.I could write books or teach college courses on whats wrong, scnee by scenes, with films like "Generations" or "Nemesis". I go over the plot points that are all screwed up one by one with neighbors and friends, and they shake their head at the end and go "Wow. Why don't studios have you in at the first test screening?" but all hard core fans are like that, so I dont buy Harry's "we need to be shook up and pissed off" thing. I refer you to "No Squid for you" in the Watchmen talkbacks near you! Its the glory of it and the lasting legacy of it that makes it 40 or 50 or 1100 years old AS IT WAS. Things that didnt work didnt last or are not fondly remembered and there's no need to reinvent SALVAGE ONE or FAR OUT SPACE NUTS. I SPY THE MOVIE which has 10% relationship to the original tv series? NO THANKS! Worse, when folks come in and they know ZERO about the toys in your toy box, you get shit like the Silver Surfer showing movies in his stomach or the absolute idiocy of how KIRK died in GENERATIONS. When I saw the creators give an intervuiew on the writing process and they were all like "We never liked the series, never saw an episode, never knew who kirk was" I was like Why do you hand this to them then? The writing process developed as they described it, and the one says "Kirk does this, Kirk does that, suddenly, Kirk FLIES!" and the first says "Kirk Flies?!" "No DIES! and that was about it." I hung my head in my hands. perhaps one of the single worst iconic deaths in history. Dont get me started on playing in sandboxes where you dont know the texture of the sand. Studios suck. Christ - since 1965 we have been waiting for the SILVER SURFER on screen and we get him transmuting through matter like the vision; sleeping in his hidden lair INSIDE his board(!), Having his power source AS his board, and actually defeating the galactus cloud meaning his master gave him more power then he himself has. Good thing, so he could go goo goo over Sue vs Alicia. Give SOMEONE a crib sheet, and stop pouring rock salt all over our continuity you bastards! I cant stand any more "shaking up", thanks!
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LOVED Generations, but it did have its share of eye popping plot problems which could EASILY have been fixed has someone just stopped for a moment to think it through. Gosh, does Whoopis race that we just saved from the nexus want to share with us that their homeworld was destroyed by the BORG - 76 years prior to when Q flings Picard so far into the outer reaches of Space to make contact with them that it would take forever to get back? not only does it beg how far Woopis race had run and how they got to us to be rescued from the nexus if Q had to flig us that far in the future, but NO ONE says squat about who destroyed them?! Geordie eyes give away the shield frequency, and NO ONE thinks to MODULATE the frequency to prevent the relentless pounding of the attacker ship? Kirk and Picard hop out of the Nexus to stop Soarn- so why is it minuets from when they went in? Why not days? Hell, why not jump back into the nexus after they fail the first time and do it all again?! Lastly, from a list of about 20 more, Why is kirks GREAT LOVE in the nexus, the one he would want to recreate and spend eternity with --- not Edith keeler? What a casting coup to recreate that classic episode! Oh well, just make up a new gal. Thats what folks who dont know what they are doing do when they get to the table.
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Not only was it a great trailer but IMO it was the BEST trailer I have ever seen. It's heartpounding brilliance from start to finish.
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Will mark the Second Coming! This is the film to see next summer!
Fuck Watchmen, fuck Terminator 4, and espeically fuck Transformers 2!
2009 is the year of the Trek! -
The battle droids in Clone Wars are fucking awful. The clusterfuck nature of them just make them completely unthreatening to me.. and yes, incredibly childish. Shame really, coz the rest of the show is kick ass. This is coming from an extreme hater of the prequels. Still, I'm not looking forward to this weeks Jar Jar and 3PO double act.
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You just invoked Obama in relation to Star Trek? Come on, man.
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I can think of a lot of better ones. Phantom Menace, Lost In Space, Alien Resurrection, Miami Vice teaser, Superman Returns teaser...
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Both of them. Totally uninspired.
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I tip my hat to you, sir.
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What?! The first trailer for Phantom Menace? Boy you outta yo' damn mind. The Trek trailer was fun, but it was standard trailer format and felt like every other trailer of this sort. The visuals were nice, but it wasn't groundbreaking.
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There was an amazing Iron Man one scored to Back In Black (ACDC) that made my eyes widen. And X-Men II had a damn good one as well.
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I also think the trailer for The Chronicles of Riddick was one of the best I've ever seen.
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totally changed my mind on everything. I now think that more trailers should start with people riding things over cliffs and then yelling classic character names. Refit jeep with machine gun turret goes over the cliff. Officer; What is your name. My name is John Tiberius Conner! White horse goes over the cliff. Officer: What is your name? My name is Atreyu!!! Every franchise should be reimagined this way...
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Was that the one with Heath clapping in time to the explosions? Yeah, that was proper class.
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Did you have the same horrible 'yippee' flashback as everyone else? We don't need another 'you can be a great man, if you choose to be' origin story for a sci-fi icon.
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They had a trailer for that with the Requiem For A Dream music, and that was brilliant. Stunningly put together.
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I believe so. It's the "And..here..we..go." followed by asskickery final trailer.
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All the LOTR trailers were outstanding.
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yes we do, and I know who should be next. Hix from Aliens. You get his origin, he rides a his bike over a cliff or whatever and says My name is Dwayne tiberius Hix! then we get the rest of the story and finally get the full meaning behind a support beam crushing his chest while he was in cryosleep during the opening credits of Alien 3. i think it would bring new appreciating to the franchise on a whole.
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Really?! I thought it was rather pedestrian if adequate myself. But them whiz-bang effects and 'splosions sure are purty.And who the fuck remembers the trailer to LOST IN SPACE?!?! WOW.
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...I didn't really like Dark Knight trailers. They were so brief and small scale feeling. Like they only had a few scenes when they put them together.
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Independence day
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That trailer was amazing. I have problems with the final film, but even so I have to give props to everyone involved for the promotion.
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How about a reboot for Ripley? She can ride one of those cool forklift machines over a cliff and yell 'MY NAME IS RIPLEY TIBERIUS RIPLEY.' (the fuck is her last name?)
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this movie picks up where that film left off
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her first name is ellen
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I'll never forget the first time I saw the FELLOWSHIP trailer. It totally awoke my long dormant inner-geek. (In fact, it was the special internet only preview trailer that brought me to AICN.)And the special TWO TOWERS trailer that was tagged onto the end of FELLOWSHIP late in its theatrical run received gasps and cheers from the theater crowds.It has bee a long time since I've seen a trailer greeted with that much anticipation.
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Oh come on. It's a perfect trailer man. It teases you in the beginning with an unTrek like beginning, slowly builds with the coming destinies of Kirk and Spock, then BAM! it hits you with the goods. Splosions, Boobies, heart pounding action. And the music ROCKS. Is it original? Whoever scored it is a motherfucking genius.
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http://tinyurl.com/554qob
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Sorry, it's not perfect. I wouldn't call it awful, but then again I'm coming from a position of wanting to run into a wall screaming when Simon Pegg shows up. I just cannot stand that guy when he acts in films he doesn't write.
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http://tinyurl.com/5m7abk
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But that doesn't mean that I don't remain hopeful. I'm not a Trekker but I've always enjoyed the original cast's films. So, we'll see.
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For the type of trailer his is, not a plot trailer, it's pretty much perfect. It does exactly what it sets out to do. So far it's hit most of the people it's aiming for. Many of the people on sites like this are precisely the people it was not tailored for.
Two Towers, the last dark knight trailer, Iron man, the music in Casino Royale. I I liked that old Star Trek VI trailer where it starts with a voice over and lots of clips of the tv show through the movies. the join us for "one last adventure" thing. it was awesome. If you were a Trek fan at least. -
It isn't targetted at us, because most of us don't go 'oh, pretty colours.'
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...how fucking stupid driving a car off a cliff is? I spent most of the trailer thinking about how "drove off a cliff" is even shittier than "nuked the fridge."
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Did you miss me and another chap doing riffs on it? It's an awful scene in the trailer, and if it's longer in the film it's even worse.
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Maybe they'll have Lil' Anakin driving a landspeeder off a cliff when a stormtrooper shows up. "Anakin Tiberius Skywalker!" Then Obi-Wan can tell him that "you can be a great Jedi...if he chooses to be." Fade out..."Twenty Years Later." Cue AC/DC's "Back in Black" as we do a slow feet-to-head reveal of Darth Vader (voiced by Will Smith). As his head is revealed, there's a jump cut of Vader killing a Jedi, then a full body shot as Vader draws his lightsaber...the music stops and we hear: "I'm gonna get Old Republic on yo ass." Music kicks back in. "Star Wars...a Jett Lucas production. Starring Zac Efron as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Suri Cruise as Princess Leia. Coming to a theater near you May 19, 2019"
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You come on AICN everyday and do nothing but bitch, moan, and hate. Get a fucking life you whiny pedantic douche.
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Only if Will Smith can do the theme tune. 'Nanana nah nah na, Nanana nah nah na, getting Sithy wit it!'
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Hello again Mr. Z
No it isn't targeted at us because we make up the $75m - $150m worldwide gross that will go based on just the 1st teaser trailer alone. The new fans, the people who don't know Star Trek and / or would cross the road with their eyes shut rather than be associated with something so uncool, or to them "cheaply made". Or that they feel excludes them because they don't know where the Enterprise was built, if it was a leap year and excactly what alloy of metals make up the hull.
It's aimed at future fans, it tells them that the film is about a guy called Kirk and a guy called spock and that as well as all the stuff they may expect to be in a Trek film it will also have that which they feel a sci-fi blockbuster should have AS WELL, not instead of, as well as. Yes that's flashy effects, action, impetus, the idea that sex of some kind still exists in the future, and more to the point, that unlike Star Wars, the world of Trek is somehow not to disconnected from our world, from our planet.
I'm honestly finding it hard to see why so many people (outside of the target for this trailer) are having such a hard time with it when it was not only clearly made to entice a broader audience; but has even been declared to be for that audience.
Dark Knight had what, about 5 trailers? There's plenty of time for more trailers with a heavier balance towards the plot / characters and less to the action / edge type stuff. But this trailer had to get the other potential $200m - $400m worth of audience to sit up and be interested or this project was dead in the water, with just the same old Trek fans turning up, the main audience avoiding it like the plague and a pitiful $67m Nemisis) to decent ($142m 1st Contact) box office on a $150m movie that kills Trek dead once and for all.
Play fair guys, the studio are finally giving Trek the movie budget it deserves up to 3 times the recent spends, allow them a chance to make their money back.
Mr. Z this isn't me having a go at you, I like a lot of your posts, usually a lot fun, and no little sense. -
How am I 'hating?'
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I was told the car belongs to his dick head uncle, and this is his snapping and trashing it.
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I understand that. Films a business and in the broad scheme of things, my opinion means nothing. The entire point of the 'reboot' is to hook new fans, and in that way it works. It doesn't work personally for me, but that's because I really enjoy the original series and what it was trying to do. This isn't that, at all - it's something new, but under the guise of something old.
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Here's the deal. The phrase "driving a car off a cliff" suggest a Thelma & Louise type thing, you know deliberately driving the car off the cliff. Now as far as know none of us has seen the scene, so we've got no reason to think that's what happens there, especially as he seems to be trying to slow / stop the car before it goes over the edge. Of course it may be that he's trying to get back at his abusive Uncle or whatever but we just don't know. From piecing together what I have seen of it in the trailer it looks to me like he panics (as people driving away from the old bill are want to do), and takes a wrong turn, (where he smashes through those gates the seem to say something along the lines of "DON'T DRIVE THROUGH HERE OR YOU'LL GO OVER A CLIFF".) then spies the great yawning chasm in front of him and tries to change direction / stop it doesn't work so he bails.
Now again I haven't seen the whole scene but it looks a lot closer to that scenario than the "he's just a brat wrecking a car for no reason" scenario. So, other than the fact that we're all supposed to hate kids in Sci-fi movies, why so much negativity for that scene?
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I doubt anyone so named would lie!
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Because the entire scene is meant to serve as an introduction for James Kirk... but seeing him as a kid brings back nightmares of Annie Skywalker.
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Jimmy works fine.
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Jimmy works fine.
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Don't you know? They'll call him Jimmy!
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The Jimster!
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I always like being reminded I have a James in my name, or apparently even emptily boasting about it on a message board, it makes me feel special!I even used to know a Tony Kirk but he took heroin and killed a dog so I steer clear of him now.
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I have to admitt, of all the male child actors in the world how on earth did they pick that kid to be Anakin. I mean I know Hamill was green in Star wars but .. damn. I get that but I honestly don't have a problem with the young Kirk, and the way he barkks out his name (have to see how it plays in the whole scene) Is Kirk. It fits what JJ is, apparently trying to do, show how he's Kirk with all the "gifts" but not using them right. That defiance, that's pure Kirk, o.k You caught me and i crashed the car but I'm still in charge of something. I'm still J T Kirk, even ig I am only 12. kinda reminds me of him shouting Khan, or when he thinks the bird of prey is gonna shoot him and screams at them to get on with it. You know Kirk but. kinda wrong. The arrogance not being used in the right way.
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Anthony Tiberius Kirk?
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Just crazy Tony Kirk.
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I don't care how impressed a "non fan" is, their opinions mean dick. I want to know what a real, true fan thinks. I don't ask my accountant to fix my car.
If you don't like Trek, don't bother to jump on board this train now. Either you like science-fiction or you don't, if u don't, go away. Please, stay away.
For the last time, JJ Abrams has always stated he's a fan of the original series. This "not a fan shit" is what Rick Berman was/is. -
the Star Wars prequels were bad because we grew up are dead wrong. The prequels were bad because they were terrible movies. If the Phantom Menace was the first SW movie ever, there would have been no more. I'm at peace with the substantial drop in quality of Star Wars. I was a hardcore fan since childhood, but I walked away after ROTS and never looked back. Just stop saying it's because we grew up, because you're only fooling yourself.
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This has nothing to do with "Star Wars" so please stop with the bitter bromides.
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No, JJ has said he's not a fan of Star Trek. He was a casual watcher and prefered Star Wars. As Harry's summary suggests, because JJ sticks a CGI enhanced actor into a scene as an Alien. That's indicative of Star Wars.
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This has everything to do with Star Wars.
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I'm a casual fan of Trek and the new trailer looks amazing.
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Can't believe I haven't seen the comparison made yet: This will be like Superman Returns.
New, young hip director? (that kinda sucks, actually) CHECK.
Updated visual look? CHECK.
Younger cast members, some that bare striking resemblences to the original actors? (Routh = Sylar)CHECK.
Will the result be the same? Hope not. But it may end up being...interesting, kinda cool at first view, and then...ultimately a lame failed attempt at starting a "new but same" version of an old franchise. Forever cast into the same bin as Superman Returns or Never Say Never for Bond.Oh, yeah one more thing: Fuck Obama.
I'm with the 50,000,000 who didn't vote for that schmuck. -
. praising the footage too. Even those with some reservations are saying it looks very promising. accross the board, fass, non fans, don't likes. Find a review there are lots now, but the essence of them is so far all the same. looks good, bring on the movie. Oh and I'm sorry but non fans do count. there's plent who like, or watch Sci-Fi that don't think Trek is for them, and if Trek didn't need them we'd have had 2 more Next Gen films by now, probably a DS9 / next gen cross over movie, and lord knows what else. Trek fans are in decline and the box office of big Sci-Fi film is $300+ greater than the biggest modern box office for a Trek one. If doing Trek right but with a biggger budget gets more fans, then do it. We're not some exclusive secret society.
Oh as to the Star Wars thing I'm sorry Episode 1 disn't gross closs to $1bilion on old fans watching it once alone, You'd better believe there would have been sequels to that if it had been 1st. Attack of the clones was an awful film, but Sith I thought was pretty good.
Anyway here's the point I'm trying to make anbout Star Wars. I am NOT trying to sell the prequels as great films, belive me, but I'm old enough to remember reading some old reviews of the Empire strikes back. Basically crying because they'd ruined this great movie Star Wars by pandering to kids with the muppet Yoda, a horrible creatin designed to make even more kids watch Star Wars. (ignoring that the 1st film was a U and essentially aimed at kids. Oh I know it was more than that, but really in that way that a oog Pixar film is. it's deep and top quality so anyone can watch, and the older you are the greater the experience, but they were all U certificate filmsand essentialy aimed at kids. I was a kid when they came out after all. Of course the funny thing is many of the early reviews for Star Wars (before they cottened on that it was a phenomenon and talked it up) were saying the same things about R2 & 3PO & Chewie . how the kind of dragged it down / kept it down a at kids film level. And then of course came the Ewoks. Cut and passte the same reviews. Of course by now Chewie and the droids were legends and Yoda was untouchable, the talk of them being vehicles for kids was long gone and the reviewers / adult fans cut and pasted their old reviews from Empire or ep IV and just replaced the words R2, or Yoda with the word Ewok. Only bring 5 when Star Wars came out I was still just turning 11 and in my last months of Junior school when Return came out so of course, I loved the Ewoks. As i got older I started to see why the now teen / adult Star Wars fans didn't like them so much but having "grown up" with them I kept a soft spot for them really.
So we flash forward to 1999. The same reviews are cut and pasted again, Ewok is deleted and Jar Jar takes it's place following in the grand footsteps of the droids, Chewie and yoda. Now I am not saying Jar Jar is a great character, nor that i would definately have liked him when i was a kid, but most kids I know did like him and have the same total lack of comprehension that I had upon finding out people didn't like Yoda because they thought he was childish and brought the film down a level.
It's just something to think about, maybe you can still find those old reviews somewhere. A particular one i recall was in a sci-fi mag called Starbust, by a game named brosnan or bronson. Boy did he hate Yoda! Maybe there's some weight to the grown up argument?At least for some people? -
Sorry bucko but I've read this elsewhere as well! Obama likes Star Trek. I think this movie will be a huge hit! The haters will be whining but no one will listen.
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... you're just such an articulate wordsmith, I'm sure the vast majority of the US President-Elect's supporters will have second thoughts after reading your post. You should have your own publisher or somethin'. That said, the second trailer is an excellent component of the project's marketing plan. In retrospect, treating the books as canon looks to have been a solid move. Even the notion of the gravity well (e.g. spaceship constructed on Earth) contributes to the story's narrative. I only hope that the Bones character isn't pushed into the background... though there's no way to confirm that at this stage. Whatever the case, it looks as if "Star Trek" is back!
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He seems more like a Luke Skywalker than a Horatio Hornblower(basis for Kirk). Pine doesnt seem believable as the man in charge.
He also said he based his acting on Harrison Ford, who is pretty far from Shatner in terms of the type of roles he did. Pine seems more like an ensign.
Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley own the roles. Chances are it will be as good a job as Vince Vaughn's Norman Bates.
I agree Star Wars will be remade.
Just you wait.
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Sorry but that line doesn’t even make sense. Why would a Captain have to wait four years after their promotion before getting a starship? I heard the line quoted as “You could get through the Academy in four years, have your own ship in eight” and, by the end of the conversation, Kirk is saying that he’ll do it in three. At the time, I made the assumption he merely meant he would get through the Academy in three years but if he honestly meant that he’d have his own ship in a mere three years then this might be one of the more ridiculous lines of dialogue ever uttered in Star Trek. Even Pike’s prediction that this troubled and semi-smarmy young man could rise through the ranks to Captain in a mere 8 years (Academy + 4 years in the service) seems overly optimistic at best and an assault on reality at worst.
Yes, yes...I realize it might be a stretch to use “reality” and this version of Star Trek in the same sentence but let’s try to relate the pseudo-military aspects of Starfleet (namely ranks) to the real world for just one second. Starfleet has been previously established as a four year institution (similar to the U.S. Naval Academy and other military academies) and I think this film goes with that notion. In other words, you have to spend four years there getting your education before you are commissioned as an ensign. An ensign - the lowest officer rank on the totem pole. While it may well be possible to get through the Naval Academy in three years (I don’t really know if that is possible but it might be for the suitably brilliant), you’d still be a mere ensign. You might be able to argue that, in Starfleet, exceptional performance might bump you up a rank but much has been made of the fact that Kirk, in this movie, wasn’t assigned a starship upon graduation from Starfleet and is therefore still in the cadet uniform for a fair portion of the movie. After three years, Kirk should be at best an Ensign or a Lieutenant JG although the fact that he wasn't assigned a ship seems to cast some doubt on his having pulled his life completely together. In any case, ranks are something you rise through over time...they aren’t just handed over at the slightest show of aptitude. Even in WWII, when efficient officers rose through the ranks a bit more rapidly than usual, there was usually at least some actual time spent in each individual rank. Ranks weren’t traditionally skipped or otherwise bypassed except in cases of enlisted becoming commissioned as officers. Even then, it wasn’t really looked at as rank skipping since officers and enlisted are on different career tracks.
I will offer this: Since this is a time-travel story, maybe Kirk in Captain’s garb is a shot of the elder Spock’s post-change universe and we’ll see a temporal transition to this different reality in the film. While that is a somewhat lazy and unoriginal explanation, it would satisfy me if the rest of the movie kicked some serious ass. I think it could be inferred by Pine’s appearance that he might have drifted aimlessly for a few years before coming to Starfleet and might be older than your average cadet. If Spock the Elder changes time in such a way where Kirk enters the Academy at a younger age and excels through the ranks in a way traditionally accepted by Star Trek fandom, I could see 28-year old Pine representing a freshly promoted Captain Kirk on the other side of the revision. Granted, we don’t know much about the details of the movie but I haven’t read anything yet to preclude such a possibility.
As I always say, this film might tie all these niggling doubts up in such a nice little package of genius that I’ll swallow it all hook, line, and sinker. Do I have that kind of confidence in Abrams and company? Not even a little bit. I hope to be wrong. -
It was called "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". How'd that one turn out, eh? (at least this one will definitely have more action scenes.)
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Thank God that didn't happen. It would've been 3 1/2 hours long, full of phallic symbols and boring.
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Search your feelings, you know J.J. is a no talent hack.
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We can't forget. We shall never forget!
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In every agethere is a cause worth fighting forbut in the futurethe greatest threat to our survivalwill not be men at all...--------------------Great editing, great pace, great music and on top the best trailer voice over guy ever!LOTR trailers were all pretty lame, imho. The trailer for 300 on the other hand was brilliant stuff. Same applies to SUNSHINE trailer, TROY teaser, and the second TERMINATOR 2 trailer: They know its face, they know its mission. But there is one thing they don't know: this time...there are TWO! TERMINATOR 2! Great stuff.
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..ever captain in Starfleet? The fastes ever to get to captain? I'm sure they said that in at least one show? S it's not exactly unbelievable is it? It's already established. We know this film is set over a number of years, even between the bar scene and the stuff on Vulcan it's meant to be several years that have passed so even if he somehow makes captain by the end of the movie (which I doubt) it won't just be all in a year or two.
Oh yeah Mission impossible 1 & 2 were garbage so it's hardly surprising the 3rd one wasn't saved by a 1st time movie director, whose main job must have been to go "Yes sir Mr. Cruise. More close ups of you Mr. Cruise sir. Yes I know, but mission impossible was a team show..and.. and.. o.k Mr. Cruise sir we'll cut those scenes and extend the ones with you in them". I never saw MI3 I got dragged to see MI2 by a group of friends 3 wanted to see it, 2 didn't the majority won, and it was even worse than the 1st, so as much as I love movies no force on Earth was getting me to the movies to watch that. ButI'll watch it today for coomparison. All I know is that most of what I read and was told was that even though it wasn't any better than the rest at least it tried to be a mision impossible film. All directors make mistakes by the way. -
Luke, I mean Kirk wants to go to the academy - CHECK
Beru & Ownen, I mean Kirk's rents bite it - CHECK
Alderaan, I mean Vulcan Blows - CHECK
Heroes are smuggled aboard a starship into hyperspace, I mean warp factor 8 - CHECK
Vader, I mean Nero gets confronted and huge CGI space battles ensue - MAYBE?
Jar Jar Binks I mean R2 and 3PO, sorry, Scotty and Checkov are inserted for comic relief.
Phew. I'm sure Glad this has no similaries to Star Wars.
...Neil Gaiman's Coreline looks like some people are busting old school on an original story... sure hope it gets a boffo trans-national, I mean global ad campaign.
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The whole "Kirk was the youngest Captain" thing never appeared in any show or movie (so is therefore technically non-canon) but it has been mentioned in some supplemental materials, novels, and things like that. It is a notion that is probably in the mind of most Trekkies/Trekkers but it isn't canon.
I'd be all for this movie making it canon but three (Academy) years is just too short to my mind and I think the bulk of this movie covers that period. In any case, I believe that Kirk was generally thought (as per books like the Star Trek Chronology) to have been made a Captain at age 29 some 7-8 years after his graduation from Starfleet. That's why I'd have no objection to 28-year old Chris Pine playing Captain Kirk. My issue here is the way this story seems to be structured and where it seems to going. Unless there are some significant time jumps within the movie or a temporal explanation for Kirk in his Captain's shirt, it could be hard to swallow.
I also think, giving the Kirk characterization as a rebellious young man in the early film, his Starfleet success shouldn't be easily predicted. It may make more sense in the finished product but with what we've heard so far, there's little reason after the bar fight for anyone to think he's get through the first year of the Academy, let along have his own ship in eight years with the Academy demanding half that time. -
"i like obama fine, but shit, could we wait til he saves everything or perhaps does one good thing before we stick our tongues up his ass."Even if you wanted to, youd have to get in line at this point. Amazing how this man turned jaded anti-establishment types into propogandists for the one-party war machine.Change my ass. Fucking sheep. How many dumb fucks here will be drafted into the "civilian national security force", I wonder? Good luck in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. I gaurantee you'll be crying for scotty to "beam you up".
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Thank you for pointing out the strange connection between Jar Jar and the likes of Scotty and Chekov. I always found them annoying, too. The only cool things that ever happened to them were in "Wrath of Khan", where they got all bloodied.
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I knew he would sneak one of his Obama orgasms into his review! What a joke, Harry! Where did you learn about Obama liking Trek? Are you trying to make it "hip" to be a Trekkie? lol
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You're right: This might turn out like SUPERMAN RETURNS. You make a good argument about that. However, this might turn out like CASINO ROYALE. It has a big budget, action-centric script, and enough nostalgia to make it work for old fans while drawing in a new generation as well. I may be in the minority here, but CASINO ROYALE is the only BOND film that I ever truly enjoyed...and wanted to watch again. I am hoping that Abrams can do the same with TREK. He did a heck of a job with MI:3 (vastly superior to the rest) . I'm crossing my fingers for him...and for the TREK brand!
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Sorry, but Harry's review isn't worth a bucket of warm piss.. but, I've come realize from the trailer that I'll get a nice little ILM treat just so long as I keep the volume muted or skip JayJay's flaccid attempt to tell a story properly.. Should be a nice Blue-ray bargain-bin find in a couple of years.. Or I'll just wait for it to find its way to Netflix streaming HD.
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I said a couple of years ago, Chris Pine is perfect to play a young Indiana Jones or at the least, Indy's son. Well, recently Pine spoke of Harrison Ford as an influence, and really rubbed it in my face (Spielberg and Lucas were behind me). Pine said: "Not to say that I modelled my version of James T Kirk on anything in particular, but I think I definitely have wanted to bring that kind of Harrison Ford humour to Kirk."
I like Shia, but Pine would've been perfect for an Indiana Jones reboot. Ah well, was not to be. -
1.The Abyss 2.Schindlers List 3.Star Wars Episode I.
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Not all change is progress Harry......
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Some of you will understand. Fuck this movie. And fuck JJ Asshams.
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Sounds like a racial slur to me...
I for one am excited for this movie! I great up watching TOS with my parents and my first girlfriend and I actually bonded over TNG so I am excited to see this play out. Yes, I used the words girlfriend and star trek in the same post. -
Sweet jiminy jumping jesus we got some idiotic right-wingers in this talkback. It's hard to take your opinions on ANYTHING seriously, Star Trek included, when you package them with weirdo, Kool-aid drinking conspiracy theories about fake birth certificates and the upcoming Obama gestapo. I know it's shallow over on y'all end of the gene pool, but, really: fight the impulse to be morons out loud.
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is being made for people under the age of 30, and therefore the appeal may be limited to those of us who grew up watching the original (and by far the best, all due respect to those DS9, and TNG fans out there) Star Trek series. If I wanted to bother, I could easily go off on a angered tirade about how JJ is a total dickhead, and how the film will be, as the trailer surely indicates, total garbage. But there is no need for that, and frankly, I'm too tired to bother at the moment. Instead, let me simply say that there is still reason for those of us Trek fans who prefer the series that started it all to celebrate considering the fact that while the effort was not utterly perfect, TOS Remastered will soon become available on BLU RAY. I believe that several of the greatest TOS episodes have actually been improved with the upscaling of effects, and I am certainly not someone who worries about such measures above script and direction. But honestly, back on topic, this movie looks utterly horrible.
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...robots. I know that Roddenberry had a vision of a mostly human-centric future, but seriously. We are likely 40 years away from strong A.I., and the Star Trek universe plays much further out. They should have artificial intelligences on par with humans at this time, and androids/robots with capabilities on par or superior to humans. I'm just sayin' (as they say).
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The fact that the guy is a Trek fan makes me like him more, and I didn't even vote for him.
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Nov 28, 2008 12:11:36 PM CST
"I know it's shallow over on y'all end of the gene pool"
by iamjack'suserid
Not as shallow as whatever illiterate and uneducated puddle of sputum you were shat from.
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is not because "our future just a series of missions, fights and voyages?" But because apparently, all alien races are idiots that need to be taught 'humanity'. It's just so arrogant.
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NY Times: 'Still, Mr. Orci and Mr. Kurtzman were cautious about taking on “Transformers,” after being offered the assignment by Steven Spielberg. “We wanted to make sure that he really wanted a character story,” Mr. Orci said, “and it wouldn’t just be a giant toy commercial.” '
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... and as such, i think it will be fascinating to watch fan reaction to this. i hope fanboys will be able to deal, because I think this is gonna be a huge hit the likes of which this franchise has never seen. it looks interesting to me, and I can't say anything of the 'trek' universe ever has. this will definitely be my first in-theater 'trek', and i know a lot of people that have said the same.
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I think that something that Star Wars has always done right is that they always target the new generations, so that they never grow old. And sometimes Trek grew old on us.
From the begining I liked the idea of re-thinking star trek, and attract new audiences to it. The transform Trek in the new cool thing.
How abbout a new Trek cartoon in the pipeline? The story could be placed in whatever trek universe/time, but personaly I would do cartoon inspired in the new movie.
What do you think? -
first, its the most boring type of science fiction (all about cool gadgets making our life easier)
second, it does not promote a meaningful vision for the future of society. it is way too fake-ish. it only pretended to mine the depths of life (spock's sayings? please) when in reality it was pure soap opera with gizmoes. sure it was socially relevant at one time, but that's well over.
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