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GeorgeC

Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by GeorgeC » May 29th, 2013, 4:03 am

Ben wrote:
If you can't see that, and just enjoy the modern but retro Trek (unique in itself), then you have my pity in return. :)

I'm gonna call B.S. here...

A movie has several things it needs -- a) memorable characters; b) direction; c) script; and d) a logic to its universe.

I'm sorry, but this film is very lacking in the last three. It's questionable whether there's anything with much lasting impact or memorable beyond the death of a mentor.

That's sad because I felt something even from the worst Trek films with the original and TNG casts. No question those casts BOTH had charm, charisma, and their characters were together as a crew because they were genuine family. Not feeling it in 2013. This new film is made so utterly indifferent and with perfunctoriness that again I ask -- WHERE was all that production money spent???!??!??! Even with inflation figured in, Trek II was made for less than HALF This debacle and has at least 5 times the heart of this shipwreck. I doubt Trek II will dethroned as the height of the Star Trek series anytime; it's just as unlikely as the next Star Wars film being far superior to The Empire Strikes Back.

The attempt to redo the death scene from Star Trek II was a joke... The remade, requoted scene just lacked the urgency and real danger the classic film had. It's just a slavishly lazy and utterly deferrent to its alter-/REAL universe Star Trek predecessor. (Has NOBODY learned anything from Superman Returns????) That's one on the screenwriters, the actors who couldn't pull off an admittedly hackneyed script that would have been a challenge to Olivier(!), and JJ Abrams' style that seems to throw $h^t at the wall to see what sticks.

Nothing new to see here, folks. Just a lazy, inferior rehash of a far superior film. Again, see Bryan Singer's Superman Returns to figure out what you SHOULDN'T do with a relaunched film series.

Even before that, there's the lack of logic in the technology... Since when did the Enterprise become a submarine????!?!?!?!?

And why oh why do the nerds directing films today think that bigger automatically equals better?!??!?!? The size of the revamped Enterprise was ridiculous enough -- too wit on top of bouncing into the sky and screaming away like a English Electric Lightning(!) in half a second from the water -- but then there's another ship TWICE as big as this Enterprise built in secret????? You know I could tell you physically WHY half-mile long ship is a BAD idea and impractical but mile-long is even dumber! I normally avoid thinking about physics issues in science fiction movies but this just strains credibility way past the breaking point... It's just utterly dumb and thrown in because someone thought it "looked cool."

You know, I've learned in the past decade or so that even art done by the seat-of-the-pants has to have a certain logic to it and even that artwork follows some fundamental rules of color and composition. You don't just throw things in because "they look cool". It has to add something to the whole; there IS logic even in areas that seem utterly subjective. Again, not seeing that in this film...

*******************************************************

This is the worst scripting for a major film that I've witnessed in a LONG time... and this is not a particularly great era of writing in film, PERIOD. The guys who wrote the classics in the 1970s and 1980s have been put out to pasture or forced to retire, and even the writers of the best films in the 1990s and past decade are having a harder time. I can't believe that the likes of Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, and Akiva Goldsman are getting hired for such high level writing jobs on classic film and TV properties. Does nobody in management or production actually WATCH anything that these guys have written? A Beautiful Mind aside -- and Oscars get bought all the time; sorry, but that's real life, kiddies and the Oscars are just a multi-million dollar popularity contest like high school --, Goldsman has pretty much been toxic with every script he's done for genre film (the last two 1990s Batman live-action films, Lost in Space, and many others) and the other three guys aren't known for being anything but passable, either. I guess Hollywood's definition of quality is being on-time all the time regardless of the level of mediocrity of script and screenwriter. Nobody who actually has a clue how to tell an engaging story and WRITE memorable characters need apply!

I'd have to go back to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow to find another genre film that's as remotely poorly written as this Trek film was. (Battlefield Earth????) At last that screenwriter had the excuse that he was also the director and that it was his first feature coming off of short films or music videos!

(Ed Wood is standing up in his grave and beginning to jump up and down with joy. He's no longer the worst screenwriter and Plan 9 From Outer Space officially has more screen logic than the best-known science fiction series in the US does now!)

I hate to think that this same crew of writers will be recruited by Abrams to write Star Wars Episode VII. The lens flares are already on the walls!

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Dacey » May 29th, 2013, 3:59 pm

Actually...pretty sure Ed Wood would've loved the new Trek film, and would've aspired to whatever movie he was working on next just as fun. :)

Seriously, though, I don't get the hate here. Worst screenplay for any major film in recent memory? Obviously you haven't seen Battle L.A., The Happening, The Last Airbender, Terminator Salvation, The Nutcracker: The Untold Story (an ABOMINATION of a "family film" that must be seen to be believed), and a couple of others I'm not even thinking of right now. Also, for what it's worth, Sky Captain owns. ;)

The Abrams Trek films, to me at least, capture the "spirit" of the original TV series more than any of the other theatrical efforts...and that includes The Wrath of Khan and First Contact, both of which I consider to be among the best sci-fi films ever made. Are there plot holes? Yeah, I guess, if you're looking for them, but the original series was loaded with plot holes, and even the original Star Wars films had things you could pick apart if you wanted to. But that's why it's sci-fi. At the end of the day, it's just meant to be good fun.

In other words, REALLY hoping Star Trek III (13?) happens, and Star Wars couldn't be in better hands right now...well, unless those hands were Brad Bird's. ;)
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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Vernadyn » May 29th, 2013, 6:31 pm

For good or for ill, this film went at a breathlessly breakneck pace. I enjoyed it well enough, but despite the relentless momentum, I thought the final action scene was a bit anticlimactic (which I've noticed has become a problem with many action films these days). Giacchino delivers yet again, though I'm biased towards him (finally heard his score to The Lost World video game, and it's astonishing how good he was that early on in his career.)

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Ben » May 30th, 2013, 2:08 pm

GeorgeC wrote:I'm gonna call B.S. here...
Funny...I get called all the time. ;)


Well...seeing as it's now all out in the open...

Yes, I had some issues with the Khan plot and final scene "remake". But then I also thought it was clever that this was an alternate timeline and yet similar things were happening: quite a good way for other things to be mirrored in that "more things change the more they stay the same" way, or like saying that destiny is destiny.

The character cameo I had a problem with was obviously Old Spock. I just didn't get why he was in this for 30 seconds and did basically nothing. He alluded that Khan was the worst villain they'd ever encountered and yet this wasn't the same Khan.

This I think they could have gone stellar with by going with the "alternate timeline but the same destiny" kind of thing: this was a different Khan but the same events would have to play out. I was fully expecting - since Old Spock had told Spock about Khan and, by implication, the outcome of those events - that when Spock ran to the compression chamber with Kirk in it (an obvious reversal of Wrath's ending) he was going to deliver a line to Kirk about how "this was supposed to be me, not you", thus tying the two films' endings together, making the Old Spock cameo mean something, and also giving the Kirk dying aspect more impact since this was changing how destiny was supposed to play out.

With those elements not touched upon or used, I did think Old Spock's appearance was redundant and meaningless, and the whole repeat and reverse of Wrath's ending pretty empty. Even using the "needs of the few", which Spock had said at the beginning, would have been cool here, but with Kirk saying it. It didn't in the end, make the movie any less entertaining, since I thought the final chase to get Khan's blood back was well done and a decent final action moment, but I did think Into Darkness could have been even more layered if it had managed to expand upon Old Spock and worked up more about the similarities of the ends of both "Trek II"s, thus making things feel more connected rather than just putting a reversal spin on the same kind of scene.

Other than that, though, I loved it. :)

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Randall » May 30th, 2013, 9:17 pm

Khan.

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Ben » May 31st, 2013, 4:21 am

Of course I knew that. As I was typing I thought there was something slightly wrong but couldn't put my finger on it. Then again I was typing while I had a couple of electricians here asking where various cables went, etc.

But that was a dumb mistake. Thanks...been corrected! :oops:

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Randall » May 31st, 2013, 3:21 pm

Sorry, I just couldn't let that slide. ;)

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Ben » May 31st, 2013, 8:14 pm

"You are in a position to demand nothing! I on the other hand...am in a position to *grant* nothing!" ;)

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Dacey » June 1st, 2013, 4:49 pm

I had no problem with Old Spock...but maybe that's because I was thrilled just to see Nimoy put on the Vulcan ears at least one more time. I clapped when I saw him.

Perhaps the reason they didn't mention what went wrong with Khan in detail "last time" is because they want these movies to work for newcomers? I mean it would be kinda hard to throw in there that "Yes, Spock died last time, but was brought back from the dead because he placed his memories in McCoy's brain, but both Kirk's ship and his son were destroyed in the quest to re-unite Spock's soul with his body, which has recently been re-born." ;)
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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by droosan » June 2nd, 2013, 1:09 am

The opening sequence was 100% pure 'grade-A' Star Trek, IMHO. I really wish most of the rest of the movie had captured the spirit of that first ten minutes.

.. as Scotty put it: "I thought we were explorers?!!"



I love this cast. The production design and FX are first-rate.

But I'd really prefer to see an ALL-NEW story & situation, next time, please.

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Ben » June 2nd, 2013, 5:01 pm

Well at the end of this one they do finally start their "five year mission", so plenty of new stories to explore... :)

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by James » June 3rd, 2013, 1:10 pm

droosan wrote:...But I'd really prefer to see an ALL-NEW story & situation, next time, please.
I've just read the last three pages and was about to make this point! Loved these movies, but if they're going to make more let's let the timeline diverge a lot more into new territory.

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Dacey » June 4th, 2013, 10:42 am

It's amazing looking back at how people on the internet complained about Wrath of Khan when it first came out....

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/featur ... gnet_61326

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Dacey » June 19th, 2016, 2:27 pm

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift--that is why it's called the present."

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Re: J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek"

Post by Dan » June 19th, 2016, 2:31 pm

Holy crap...

He just got announced for Trollhunters, too...

Horrible indeed. :(

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