Star Trek: Into Darkness

[Venkman]

Trek movies popular with Trekkies are ones that'll actually stand the test of time, whereas Trek done for the current pop masses are just a moneygrab.  They're not movies in the sense of art, they're just diversions from current events. 

Uh, that kinda describes all of Trek ever. Let's not turn the IP into something more than a mere entertainment distraction that just happened to appeal to a narrower audience than Family Ties.

Movies that stand a test of time are good movies. This applies to Trek as well. Bad ones only stand up to trekkies who really want to like it just like any movie or TV that has a niche audience. Plenty of people don't like Firefly either. But me really loving it doesn't makle it "stand the test of time". It just makes me part of a niche.

Basically the Borg began losing it at the end of Part 1 of TBOBT because the writers just felt that every enemy has to have a face/leader, and could not comprehend that this was a time to break the rules.

Which was my earlier point: At that point there was only ever one other Borg episode. Basically that means there was never enough establishing principal that defined the Borg, which means they were making it up as they went from the very second appearance on forward.

This is why I can't get annoyed that some IP foundation was violated by First Contact. It's not like they had some deeply defined origin story.

[Ironwood]

They did for First Contact with the Vulcans and who the fuck the inventor of the warp drive was.

Both of which they took a steaming fucking dump on.

[Ratman_tf]

Which was my earlier point: At that point there was only ever one other Borg episode. Basically that means there was never enough establishing principal that defined the Borg, which means they were making it up as they went from the very second appearance on forward.

This is why I can't get annoyed that some IP foundation was violated by First Contact. It's not like they had some deeply defined origin story.

No, but neither should we be surprised that the Borg turned into impotent vilians in Voyager, when the writers used them more as typical Trek antagonists.
It's more a waste of a great setup.

[KallDrexx]

Just to stir up the nerd rage, cause there isn't enough in this thread

[Riggswolfe]

Wow, what an interesting thread. I'll join those who say Dr. Who is overrated. I love the theme song and the general idea but I have trouble getting past the production values of the show and the general weirdness. I think I like my sci-fi too "serious" to be able to enjoy Dr. Who.

Hmmm, what else to say? First Contact is the only good TNG movie. Khan and Undiscovered Country are the only good TOS movies. Abrams Trek is the 2nd best Trek movie IMO. (Khan holds first place but I have to admit it is probably just nostalgia at this point.)

Trek movies popular with Trekkies are ones that'll actually stand the test of time, whereas Trek done for the current pop masses are just a moneygrab.  

Is this a subtle sarcastic remark? All Trek movies are money grabs. None of them are timeless classics. The only difference is that prior Trek movies were money grabs aimed at the specific fan base. Abrams tried to widen it to modern audiences while not alienating the prior base. (Something I think he mostly succeeded at except the truly hardcore.)

Oh, and finally, I disagree about Time Travel being bad, particularly in these movies. Usually time travel is annoying because nothing changes. This movie changed a ton in response to the time travel and indeed, that was the entire reason they used it, so they could make a Trek movie but not get caught in decades of Canon continuity. For Abram's Trek I think time travel was not only used well but was necessary.

[Ratman_tf]

Trek movies popular with Trekkies are ones that'll actually stand the test of time, whereas Trek done for the current pop masses are just a moneygrab.  

Is this a subtle sarcastic remark? All Trek movies are money grabs. None of them are timeless classics. The only difference is that prior Trek movies were money grabs aimed at the specific fan base. Abrams tried to widen it to modern audiences while not alienating the prior base. (Something I think he mostly succeeded at except the truly hardcore.)

I think you're using the term Moneygrab so loosely as to make it meaningless. Every movie wants to make a profit.

[tgr]

Hmmm, what else to say? First Contact is the only good TNG movie. Khan and Undiscovered Country are the only good TOS movies. Abrams Trek is the 2nd best Trek movie IMO. (Khan holds first place but I have to admit it is probably just nostalgia at this point.)

I was going to argue that you were totally and utterly wrong about the Abrams Trek being the 2nd best trek movie, but I decided to rewatch it just to make sure it wasn't just lensflare hate which made me want to argue against you.

Turns out it was, mostly. I still think Zachary could do with looking less petulant in some scenes, and there were the occasional scene which should die in a fire (the beam aboard enterprise scene, where scotty gets trapped, for one, and the scene where they beam aboard the "cargobay" was somewhat akin to george lucas style bumbling about and magically getting the right outcome), but overall it wasn't as bad as I remembered it as.

But, if Abrams is still doing his whole lensflare bullshit in the next film, then I hope someone stomps on his nuts, repeatedly. If he could also step away a bit from the Jason Bourne camerashake/zoom filming style, that'd be grand too, but my hate for the lensflares could probably generate its own singularity by now.

[Venkman]

They did for First Contact with the Vulcans and who the fuck the inventor of the warp drive was.

Both of which they took a steaming fucking dump on.

I'm with you on Zephram Cochrane. The book "Federation" was a much better Cochrane origin story. It humanized him in a way that would have worked just as well as 90s-era pseudo-emo drunk guy. And they wouldn't have even needed to include the antagonist and all the time jumping (though Sidewarp 55 at the end was kinda fun).

Also, the movie environment totally didn't gel for me that the dystopian landscape he lived it would result in the resources necessary for a warp drive, and "about the money" when there didn't appear to be much of a working economy.

But still enjoyable movie as movies go, which is more important to me than being sacrosanct. Even the treatment of the Vulcans didn't bother me, though that whole sequence could have gone away. Forced urgency that whole thing. Lazy, like someone said earlier.

Just to stir up the nerd rage, cause there isn't enough in this thread

Holy shit that's awesome! First, where's the beam coming from? Second, that's not how the shields worked in 1701-A era. Thrid, don't think the Death Star could survive being that close to the ground. Fourth, the beam would be getting bigger as it got close to the Enterprise for now other reason than depth and distance.

Love it! 

[Merusk]

Clearly the 01-a up there had traveled forward in time and gotten a shield upgrade.  The Death Star is so unconcerned at this tiny ship that's 1/5 the size of a Star Destroyer that it's just plinking a simple surface-mount ion cannon at it.   

[Sir T]

uh... that's Saturn in the background or some other ring planet, not a beam.

[Teleku]

Heh, didn't even see it that way till you mentioned it, but that could be what it is.

But I'm almost certain its meant to be a laser bouncing off the enterprises shields.

Clearly the 01-a up there had traveled forward in time and gotten a shield upgrade.  The Death Star is so unconcerned at this tiny ship that's 1/5 the size of a Star Destroyer that it's just plinking a simple surface-mount ion cannon at it.  

Last I checked, tiny ships where the only thing that can destroy the death star.  

[Morat20]

Who the hell is Gary Mitchell? Was he the guy that went Space Insane when he tried to leave the Galaxy? (You know, there really were a strangely large amount of god-like aliens in TOS. From Greek-god ones to those strange "We're just gonna stop your war now, k?" energy guys).

I'm pretty happy if Star Trek moves away from Space Gods and more into Superior Tech Advantages, which sorta fits how sci-fi (and culture in general) have shifted since the 70s.

As long as what face-rapes Starfleet boils down to "Yeah, you guys are basically sharp rocks versus guns here. It's gonna be bad" and not "Behold my Ascended Awesomness as I rewrite reality" I'm gonna be okay.

[Trippy]

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gary_Mitchell

[Shannow]

Am I the only one would love a good star trek war movie?  Just Klingons and Romulans and some bigass space battles, with fleets of ships not just 2?  Or is this just not in the spirit of trek? (or wishful thinking of an old trek muse player)

[01101010]

Am I the only one would love a good star trek war movie?  Just Klingons and Romulans and some bigass space battles, with fleets of ships not just 2?  Or is this just not in the spirit of trek? (or wishful thinking of an old trek muse player)

Fuck lolCircles fighting. 

[Venkman]

Ya know, in thinking about space battles vs Trekbattles, a movie of Trek battles wouldn't break the lore. LOLcircles are kinda how they're always handled, in TNG and DS9 (and First Contact). So they'd look stupid to people who want real sci-fi space battles, but it's not like that's the target audience of Trek movies anyway.

Heh, didn't even see it that way till you mentioned it, but that could be what it is.

Lol. But nah. The shape of the "planet" is wrong, and the right side of the ring is in front of the Death Star. Now, sure, a ringed planet could be more oval, and the Death Star could actually be a few million miles in diameter to make that perspective work. But I kinda doubt both

[Merusk]

Successful troll was successful. I almost took the bait myself.

[Riggswolfe]

Trek movies popular with Trekkies are ones that'll actually stand the test of time, whereas Trek done for the current pop masses are just a moneygrab.  

Is this a subtle sarcastic remark? All Trek movies are money grabs. None of them are timeless classics. The only difference is that prior Trek movies were money grabs aimed at the specific fan base. Abrams tried to widen it to modern audiences while not alienating the prior base. (Something I think he mostly succeeded at except the truly hardcore.)

I think you're using the term Moneygrab so loosely as to make it meaningless. Every movie wants to make a profit.

In this context, what I mean by money grab is that the movies are made purely for money and without an eye to any kind of artistry. I quite enjoy 4 of the movies (the whale movie has aged poorly and is so juvenile that I find myself rating it as "watchable" at best.) but to call them timeless classics just makes me roll my eyes. They were made because Star Wars made so much money and Paramount saw dollar signs. Until Star Wars they were going to make a new Star Trek series but decided they could make more money with movies.

[Ironwood]

There was a Russian running about San Francisco looking for Nuclear Wessels.

What's not to love

[Simond]

It's a great popcorn movie. You know, like the first JJ Star Trek. 

[Venkman]

In this context, what I mean by money grab is that the movies are made purely for money and without an eye to any kind of artistry. I quite enjoy 4 of the movies (the whale movie has aged poorly and is so juvenile that I find myself rating it as "watchable" at best.) but to call them timeless classics just makes me roll my eyes. They were made because Star Wars made so much money and Paramount saw dollar signs. Until Star Wars they were going to make a new Star Trek series but decided they could make more money with movies.

There is certainly a balance between art, production and profit. I don't want to get all Business 101 here, but I feel that to say the Trek movies were moneygrabs implies you think other blockbuster-y IP extensions have more altruistic purposes.

IP extension is all business. The amount of money you get to spend making a movie is contingent on how much money you think you'll make from ticket sales and then after-market residuals. Same with videos games, cars, phones and just about anything else that is a good sold to a consumer or a company. They wouldn't call it "Star Trek" unless they thought the name, major protagonists, and the artists who define those characters had some cache. Sure, there's always an origin. ST: TOS, Firefly, Star Wars Ep IV. But your sequel or big screen adaptation comes entirely from the business calculus of that brand equity.

At the same time, to deliver a good experience, to build a brand that has equity, you need to deliver something people want. And that is where the art comes in.

If it's popular, that means the stars aligned between the business and the art. When it's just popular but quickly forgotten, the art failed (bad acting, bad story, bad editing). When it's just critically acclaimed but mostly a box office failiure, then the business side failed (bad planning, bad idea, bad targeting, bad marketing, bad theater support).

Buffs like to get neckbeard with their artistic value rating scales, and when it comes to certain movies, I'm right there with them. But nothing is intended to just be a moneygrab with no attempt at artistic merit.

tl;dr: just watch the movie credits to see how much art goes into a "moneygrab"   

[UnSub]

It looks like this is the thread to just mash nerd IPs together. As such:

[Kail]

It looks like this is the thread to just mash nerd IPs together. As such:

Starring: Patrick Stewart as himself

[Khaldun]

I think you guys got played by Abrams.

It's not Mitchell or Khan. I'm 90% sure of it.

Almost all the trailer--and even Karl Urban's "oops, it's Mitchell" thing--is a deliberate misdirect. The bit from the Japanese version especially--I'd bet a lot that what you're seeing there is Captain (or Admiral) Pike getting killed/maimed right at the start of the film with Spock being unable to save him.

The main thing we know about the film's central story is that it's designed to be "Star Trek's version of Heart of Darkness"--they've been saying that from pretty much as soon as they had a shooting script. So that makes Cumberbatch like to be based in some sense on Kurtz--a loyal "company man" who has gone too deep into a place far beyond 'civilization' and turned against civilization as a result. That generally fits a lot of the teaser imagery and voice-over.

The other thing we know is that the villain is based on a TOS character--they've been clear about that too, and it fits the "I will have my vengeance".

That doesn't fit Khan (a conqueror from the beginning) or Mitchell (gone crazy because he's been turned into a god without any preparation). But it does fit a very common type of TOS antagonist: the Star Fleet captain/admiral gone tragically bad and turned against the Prime Directive and the ideals of the Federation. There's at least five or so you could choose who fit the basic archetype. Of them, I think the best fit by far, the one who has the most interesting backstory that you could open up, play with, and change usefully without losing the basic idea of the character, is

They're doing the same basic idea as Wrath of Khan--bring back a one-shot villain, spin him up a bit into a more memorable antagonist, give him more of a backstory. The only difference here is they're going to have to explain why  has a particular dislike for Kirk and Co. but maybe that will happen in the early part of the film.

Abrams also clearly loves tweaking the fans who think TOS was about deep ideas and philosophy and so on. I loved TOS as a kid and still like it, and love about half of TNG and DS9 but let's not give Roddenberry too much credit here.

[Merusk]

Too much credit for the thing he himself said he was trying?  For the thing a lot of hard sci fi at the time was also doing? Ok.

[Hoax]

The only thing I got from this thread is I'd really like to insult Doctor Who because I agree 100% that Stateside people fellate it because omfg european obscure shit they can claim they have watched even the ancient versions but to be honest I've never even tried to watch it beyond a random half a episode on tv once or twice. So where would I even start if I wanted to watch it? I'd seriously appreciate a recommendation.

To me Doctor Who being the longest running scifi means its probably as crap as  the longest running anime always are but that people are really trying to say its good-good surprises me somewhat.

[Ingmar]

I grew up with it to an extent because the Tom Baker ones were on TV on PBS here in the Bay Area all the time in the 80s, when US science fiction was really hard to find and pretty shitty when it did exist. So, it isn't too hard for me to understand why people my age and older would have fond thoughts of it, there just wasn't much else available at the time (on TV) for science fiction fans. My understanding is it spent many, many years after that being shitty and only recently has been passable again and I assume that's why it seems to have come back to life as a fan thing. You never saw people talking about it in the 90s or early 2000s, at least around here.

[Ironwood]

Too much credit for the thing he himself said he was trying?  For the thing a lot of hard sci fi at the time was also doing? Ok.

In fairness, Rodenberry was quite clear that he made Wagon Train in Space.

Anything beyond that was luck.

[eldaec]

Regarding doctor who, you can easily tell whether an episode will be good according to the lead actor.

Up to Tom Baker - universally accepted as 'good'.
Peter Davison - generally thought of as good.
Colin Baker - bad on TV. I gather did some good radio plays.
Slyvester McCoy - bad
Paul McCann, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant - good
Matt Smith - good performance, terrible script.

Most of the years it was believed shitty it wasn't on TV (and wasn't shitty on other media) so that may or may not count.

[Ironwood]

It's not Mitchell or Khan. I'm 90% sure of it.

who has gone too deep into a place far beyond 'civilization' and turned against civilization as a result. That generally fits a lot of the teaser imagery and voice-over.

Mitchell (gone crazy because he's been turned into a god without any preparation).  fit a very common type of TOS antagonist: the Star Fleet gone tragically bad and turned against the Prime Directive and the ideals of the Federation.

They're doing the same basic idea as Wrath of Khan--bring back a one-shot villain, spin him up a bit into a more memorable antagonist, give him more of a backstory.

I'm not sure you read your own Post.  While it seems that you particularly WANT it to be a certain someone, what you wrote actually fits nicely with what is already being speculated.  Still, it'll be interesting to see either way.

 

[Khaldun]

Too much credit for the thing he himself said he was trying?  For the thing a lot of hard sci fi at the time was also doing? Ok.

In fairness, Rodenberry was quite clear that he made Wagon Train in Space.

Anything beyond that was luck.

Exactly. The best episodes were in many cases made despite Roddenberry--luck of drawing a great writer, luck of the ideas his performers had, which over time accumulated to give a sense that the show was doing more thoughtful SF (given that the other examples of televisual SF were "Lost in Space" and its ilk, not a hard bar to clear). And the fans did a lot to make the episodes more textured and layered and interesting than they often were--it's the original great example of how geek hermeneutics created a bigger, better text around a beloved source material. Roddenberry was clearly a serious creative drag on early TNG--he'd come to believe his own press too much, so among other things he kept insisting that there could be no sustained interpersonal conflict between crew members because the Federation had evolved past that sort of thing. He was also the guy who kept insisting that the Ferengi be portrayed as moronic perverts who had a thing for naked humanoid women and other dumb bits in the early TNG episodes.

[Khaldun]

It's not Mitchell or Khan. I'm 90% sure of it.

who has gone too deep into a place far beyond 'civilization' and turned against civilization as a result. That generally fits a lot of the teaser imagery and voice-over.

Mitchell (gone crazy because he's been turned into a god without any preparation).  fit a very common type of TOS antagonist: the Star Fleet gone tragically bad and turned against the Prime Directive and the ideals of the Federation.

They're doing the same basic idea as Wrath of Khan--bring back a one-shot villain, spin him up a bit into a more memorable antagonist, give him more of a backstory.

I'm not sure you read your own Post.  While it seems that you particularly WANT it to be a certain someone, what you wrote actually fits nicely with what is already being speculated.  Still, it'll be interesting to see either way.

 

Naw, see, Mitchell is a different trope--the danger of godly/superbeing levels of power, where you no longer care about the concerns of ordinary mortals. Sure, he's annoyed with Kirk personally because of the attempted abandonment, but mostly he's just overwhelmed with godly power.  is more like Captain Tracy and innumerable Admiral Dickweeds who decide the Federation is too weak (or who decide that breaking the Prime Directive to save their own skin is just fine). Which is way more like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness--gone mad because he thinks he's seen the truth about everything.

[Merusk]

Roddenberry's statement that the show was Wagon Train in space was due to its focus on individual characters as a means to sell the message.  This has been covered in every article or special I've ever seen about the show, and I'm not a Trekkie so I don't go hunting these things down.

But I've been on the 'net long enough to not argue this shit.  You're convinced it was never conceived to be more than pulp, fine. Run with it. There was no motive behind the interracial cast, the multiple analogues to problems of the 60's and wasn't meant to inspire hope for a better future.  It was all just a blatant attempt to cash-in on the hotness of space in the run up to the moon landing.

[Khaldun]

Roddenberry was clearly an idealist in a good way, and yes, that did influence the show in a good way and gave it a sense of being more than just a Space Western. But at least some of what came to be seen as Trek's characteristic tone was luck--the luck of writers, the luck of actors, the luck of the zeitgeist. As it always is with good shows--no show comes out exactly as planned by a masterful auteur. But the key point is that there's nothing fixed about Trek, e.g., the people who say, "Oh, no, Trek can't have tons of action, that's not what it's about", are really being too closed-minded.

[Ironwood]

Roddenberry's statement that the show was Wagon Train in space was due to its focus on individual characters as a means to sell the message.  This has been covered in every article or special I've ever seen about the show, and I'm not a Trekkie so I don't go hunting these things down.

But I've been on the 'net long enough to not argue this shit.  You're convinced it was never conceived to be more than pulp, fine. Run with it. There was no motive behind the interracial cast, the multiple analogues to problems of the 60's and wasn't meant to inspire hope for a better future.  It was all just a blatant attempt to cash-in on the hotness of space in the run up to the moon landing.

Wait, what ?  Why are you laying that last paragraph at my door ?


Edited :  wait, there was a post between us.  Maybe that wasn't at my door.  Arg.