Star Trek Into Darkness [** SPOILERS FROM POST 452 **]

pixelburp

I always got the impression the sole purpose of the 'plot' was simply to put Kirk into the Captain's chair of the Enterprise, and everything else - including basic logic & common sense - came secondary in the writers' priorities. It was all so clumsily written, it would have been less subtle if the script simply had a giant neon sign hanging over Kirk's head reading 'Destiny'

OldeCinemaSoz

I really liked Bruce Greenwood's take on
Captain Christopher Pike.

In retrospect, the film wasn't that bad at all considering what
came after TOS...a few of TNG episodes excluded?!?!

"punch it!"

norrie rugger

OldeCinemaSoz wrote: »

I really liked Bruce Greenwood's take on
Captain Christopher Pike.

"punch it!"

Agreed

Scanlas The 2nd

senordingdong wrote: »

I was bitterly disappointed by this reboot.

It looked good, full of fancy visuals and what nots but the movie was completely lacking in any depth.
It was pure style over substance.
The plot was based entirely on time travel which is the lowest common denominator of all sci fi stories.
Whatsmore, being accidentally sent back in time after a natural disaster (for which no-one was to blame) I don't understand how Nero could be seeking revenge. As if warning his planet of the impending disaster was not a more intelligent course of action.
With the exception of Kirk and Spock, there was no character development and more than a few of the scenes didn't gel particularly well together.

And lets not forget the watering down for mainstream audiences and the fact that modern Hollywood now has free reign on the Star Trek name.

+1 The storyline really was vacuous tripe with very little thought put into it. Shockingly bad really. Time travel ffs and with so many plot holes it's ridiculous. Can't decide if Simon peg or the story line were worse. Absolutely despise the way they made him a stupid jokey character for cheap laughs from the mainstream audience.

norrie rugger

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

+1 The storyline really was vacuous tripe with very little thought put into it. Shockingly bad really. Time travel ffs and with so many plot holes it's ridiculous. Can't decide if Simon peg or the story line were worse. Absolutely despise the way they made him a stupid jokey character for cheap laughs from the mainstream audience.

He is to the new Trek as Gimli was to The Lord of the Rings films

senordingdong

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

+1 The storyline really was vacuous tripe with very little thought put into it. Shockingly bad really. Time travel ffs and with so many plot holes it's ridiculous. Can't decide if Simon peg or the story line were worse. Absolutely despise the way they made him a stupid jokey character for cheap laughs from the mainstream audience.

And he claimed to be a fan ffs!

stevenmu

norrie rugger wrote: »

He is to the new Trek as Gimli was to The Lord of the Rings films

There was a few times I though he was going to be the new Jar Jar Binks. It never got quite that bad, but it was a worry.

FutureGuy

First unofficial photos have surfaced on mtv and other sites. Obviously spoilers are a plenty!

Mickeroo

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

+1 The storyline really was vacuous tripe with very little thought put into it. Shockingly bad really. Time travel ffs and with so many plot holes it's ridiculous. Can't decide if Simon peg or the story line were worse. Absolutely despise the way they made him a stupid jokey character for cheap laughs from the mainstream audience.

I don't get this view, I mean its not like the old trek films were sophisticated affairs and its not the first instance time travel was utilised. The plot was considerably better than I ever expected it to be and the characters were a lot more fleshed out than they ever were in the other movies plus it set up Kirk and Spock's friendship very well. THe best thing about the time travel was that it achknowledged the timeline of the old movies had occurred by having nimoy show up yet still manage to reboot from scratch in a way while still being canon in many ways. I've always loved Star Trek and I don't think I've ever flat out enjoyed a Star Trek film as much as Abrams one.

WhatAMelon

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

+1 The storyline really was vacuous tripe with very little thought put into it. Shockingly bad really. Time travel ffs and with so many plot holes it's ridiculous. Can't decide if Simon peg or the story line were worse. Absolutely despise the way they made him a stupid jokey character for cheap laughs from the mainstream audience.

This. It was like a slapstick teenage action comedy. American Pie mets Buck Rogers or something. The villan was sketchy. Simon Pegg being pulled around through glass engine pipes just about summed it up. Kirk from cadet to captain in a week. I half expected that Alison Hannigan girl to turn up some way through. Sorry but trekkie or not, the film was truly dire.

nyarlothothep

WhatAMelon wrote: »

This. It was like a slapstick teenage action comedy. American Pie mets Buck Rogers or something. The villan was sketchy. Simon Pegg being pulled around through glass engine pipes just about summed it up. Kirk from cadet to captain in a week. I half expected that Alison Hannigan girl to turn up some way through. Sorry but trekkie or not, the film was truly dire.

Her presence would have improved the film slightly. I thought the film was a mixture of good and bad. It made star trek fresh again, but there were obvious plot holes and things which defied basic sense, like kirk going from cadet to captain in 2 hours. They could have at least had a montage at the end where he's made captain after many years, it wouldn't have been hard to do.

FutureGuy

The amount of complaints in general about the previous film, despite the fact that it was one of the best rated of that year and received 95% on Rotten Tomatoes., is unreal! I thought it was great!

The ratings and word of mouth speaks volumes about the previous film. I have lost count of the number of people who had never seen a Star Trek film/disliked the franchise who thoroughly enjoyed it.

Anyways, this thread is for the sequel so hopefully there will be more news soon!

senordingdong

Word of mouth could tell you that Jedward are a fantastical musical act.

A second glance would show you otherwise.

Mickeroo

senordingdong wrote: »

Word of mouth could tell you that Jedward are a fantastical musical act.

A second glance would show you otherwise.

If you rely on music listeners ages 12 and under for your word of mouth, sure I guess it could.

Pepe LeFrits

The new film was the best thing to happen to Star Trek in a long time. Breathed new life into a franchise that had been hell bent on self annihilation for years.

Goldstein

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

The new film was the best thing to happen to Star Trek in a long time.

It was certainly in a glut and guilty of stagnation and on the small screen an over-reliance upon past glories instead of looking forwards and evolving which is critical for any piece of science fiction work. Most of the TNG films were doomed by extraordinarily poorly chosen scripts. The sheer amount of quality, cerebral and exciting novels out there still being produced is staggering. All of the hard work has already been done. It's was all out there waiting and Paramount repeatedly ignored all of it making inept decision after inept decision.

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

Breathed new life into a franchise that had been hell bent on self annihilation for years.

An oft-regurgitated line. The critical thing is: it didn't. What Orci, Kurzman and Abrams did was take popular references and names from a science fiction franchise with a then 43 year history and made a new action franchise based around these well known props with the badge tacked on. Granted the franchise needed rejuvination. I'm just don't think the Roland Emmerich inspired action movie designed to appeal primarily to the ADHD transformers movies crowd was the best way to improve things.

All you have to do is look at Ron Moore's BSG (And pretty much everything he ever had to do with TNG and DS9) to see the magnificent results of what can happen when someone with vision, talent, drive and respect grasps the gilded opportunities that reimaginings represent.

Mickeroo

Goldstein wrote: »

An oft-regurgitated line. The critical thing is: it didn't. What Orci, Kurzman and Abrams did was take popular references and names from a science fiction franchise with a then 43 year history and made a new action franchise based around these well known props with the badge tacked on. Granted the franchise needed rejuvination. I'm just don't think the Roland Emmerich inspired action movie designed to appeal primarily to the ADHD transformers movies crowd was the best way to improve things.

All you have to do is look at Ron Moore's BSG (And pretty much everything he ever had to do with TNG and DS9) to see the magnificent results of what can happen when someone with vision, talent, drive and respect grasps the gilded opportunities that reimaginings represent.

I don't think just because there's action scenes makes it any less of a sci-fi movie than any of the other trek films. The script was pretty good I thought, comparing it to Transformers is a massive disservice, if the transformers had the same care and attention put to them as Star Trek they would have been great. None of the other trek movies were particularly cerebral affairs so I don't see why they would have gone that route. The movies have always been a lot broader then the tv series' in the past. Star Trek IV was full of goofy humour and its probably the best of the movies next to Wrath of Khan.

Mickeroo

here's some behind the scene footage from the new movie - http://www.aintitcool.com/node/53916

Pepe LeFrits

Goldstein wrote: »

An oft-regurgitated line. The critical thing is: it didn't, so much so that there's another one on the way. What Orci, Kurzman and Abrams did was take popular references and names from a science fiction franchise with a then 43 year history and made a new action franchise based around these well known props with the badge tacked on a film for that franchise with action that was actually good. Granted the franchise needed rejuvination. I'm just don't think the Roland Emmerich inspired accessible, likeable science fiction action movie designed to appeal primarily to the ADHD transformers movies crowd general public was the best way to improve things.

Fixed.

The whole notion that Star Trek is somehow meant to be high-brow, philosophical science fiction and that Abrams shat on it by making an action movie is miles off the mark. Star Trek films haven't been that on the big screen for a long time and on television even longer. Abrams just did it well and got rid of all the irrelevant geekery that masqueraded as sophistication.

pixelburp

Goldstein wrote: »

It was certainly in a glut and guilty of stagnation and on the small screen an over-reliance upon past glories instead of looking forwards and evolving which is critical for any piece of science fiction work. Most of the TNG films were doomed by extraordinarily poorly chosen scripts. The sheer amount of quality, cerebral and exciting novels out there still being produced is staggering. All of the hard work has already been done. It's was all out there waiting and Paramount repeatedly ignored all of it making inept decision after inept decision.

It seems to me, as a non-Trekkie looking into the mythology, that it was the fans who ultimately doomed Trek as a viable franchise in the first place; killed it with kindness as it were. That an overenthusiastic fanbase, who demanded slavish continuity and shoutouts, made creativity and expansion next to impossible for the series. Who was going to dare touch the sacred cow and risk alienating (hoho) their cast-iron audience? Nobody, that's who, until the franchise had finally gone past the point of no return & finally disappeared up its own orifice .

It doesn't matter how cerebral spin-off novels are; they're all subservient to the parent show, as they should be. And with respect, outside of Picard fretting over the Prime Directive every now and again, I found 90% of Star Trek to be either cheesy & camp (100% of the original series), or else stagy & po-faced, high on it's own sense of worthiness. At least the new movie kept the former, whilst dispensing with the latter (even if overall I hated the new film)

Galvasean

Mickeroo wrote: »

I don't get this view, I mean its not like the old trek films were sophisticated affairs and its not the first instance time travel was utilised. The plot was considerably better than I ever expected it to be and the characters were a lot more fleshed out than they ever were in the other movies plus it set up Kirk and Spock's friendship very well. THe best thing about the time travel was that it achknowledged the timeline of the old movies had occurred by having nimoy show up yet still manage to reboot from scratch in a way while still being canon in many ways. I've always loved Star Trek and I don't think I've ever flat out enjoyed a Star Trek film as much as Abrams one.

This. You'd swear Star Trek never had it's goofy moments before the new film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QycFLKiZOpk

norrie rugger

Galvasean wrote: »

This. You'd swear Star Trek never had it's goofy moments before the new film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QycFLKiZOpk

Yet the underlying theme, of that episode, was that mankind is moving beyond the need for gods.

Goldstein

pixelburp wrote: »

It seems to me, as a non-Trekkie looking into the mythology, that it was the fans who ultimately doomed Trek as a viable franchise in the first place; killed it with kindness as it were. That an overenthusiastic fanbase, who demanded slavish continuity and shoutouts, made creativity and expansion next to impossible for the series. Who was going to dare touch the sacred cow and risk alienating (hoho) their cast-iron audience? Nobody, that's who, until the franchise had finally gone past the point of no return & finally disappeared up its own orifice .

You don't make mistakes as titanic as the ones Paramount made with 90% of the TNG films and Enterprise and then come back and blame the fans when their stupidity blew up in their faces. When Nemesis bombed they tried the cop out that "the fanbase has disappeared". Strange that Ron Moore never seemed to have any problem finding them before, during and after Nemesis. The fans aren't the ones that green light the films.

Where Paramount failed however, hundreds of writers did not and today there are well over 600 novels expanding across all iterations of the franchise, well beyond where the shows & movies left off, many branching off in completely new tangents such as the Titan, Stargazer, Empire, Vanguard etc series. If the fans are just pedantic moaners, then who is buying (and accepting, even enthusiastically embracing) all of this new material?

OldeCinemaSoz

I know The Kirk has had his problems...

but it would be nice for THE PRODUCERS to
bring him back in a GUEST ROLE...

Galvasean

norrie rugger wrote: »

Yet the underlying theme, of that episode, was that mankind is moving beyond the need for gods.

I know that (and as an atheist one would think that message would appeal to me), but it's still an incredibly camp/goofy/silly addition to the Star Trek franchise. One of many.

norrie rugger

Galvasean wrote: »

I know that (and as an atheist one would think that message would appeal to me), but it's still an incredibly cgoofy/silly addition to the Star Trek franchise. One of many.

You have to take into account that it was a low budget 60's show, with heavy network interference. Cheesey campness was the request, from the executives, yet they still managed to deliver radical social commentary.

Half black and half white warring race, showing stupidity of racism
Interracial kiss
Who mourns, above
Asian, Russian, African and even alien bridge officers
Prime Directive advocating non interference or other cultures

Show me any of that, in the new show?

Myrddin

norrie rugger wrote: »

Half black and half white warring race, showing stupidity of racism
Interracial kiss
Who mourns, above
Asian, Russian, African and even alien bridge officers
Prime Directive advocating non interference or other cultures

Show me any of that, in the new show?

Jersey Shore. Oh no, wait

seraphimvc

norrie rugger wrote: »

Half black and half white warring race, showing stupidity of racism
Interracial kiss
Who mourns, above
Asian, Russian, African and even alien bridge officers
Prime Directive advocating non interference or other cultures

Show me any of that, in the new show?

i am confused here. racism? what?

On topic: i LOVE the reboot so much. i honestly dont know much about star trek but i went with 2 friends who should be considered as a (moderate) star trek fans and we all love it. i watched it for at least 3 times (thanks to tv!) and i highly recommend it to anyone who hasnt watched it. it is certainly not perfect but at this year and age i appreciate anyone who can make a movie with smooth actions plus good a script that consists of interesting characters development - it is a good movie practice in the end of the day (unlike that godforbidden michael bay money and time waster >_>).

Myrddin

seraphimvc wrote: »

i am confused here. racism? what?

It confronted the pointless stupidity of racism with this example.



There were two kinds of these people, one who were black on the right/white on left, & another who were white on the right & black on the left. Its years since I seen the episode but I think they were wiping each other out & fighting wars over the differences in their colour. Remind you of anyone?

Galvasean

norrie rugger wrote: »

You have to take into account that it was a low budget 60's show, with heavy network interference. Cheesey campness was the request, from the executives, yet they still managed to deliver radical social commentary.

Half black and half white warring race, showing stupidity of racism
Interracial kiss
Who mourns, above
Asian, Russian, African and even alien bridge officers
Prime Directive advocating non interference or other cultures

Show me any of that, in the new show?

In fairness to the newer at least the new movie tried the whole "Even though I'm from the future I cant tell you everything because I don't want you messing up the time stream too much" angle, which was a reasonably mature thing to put into what is essentially an action movie.
Wait, are you saying the new movie lacked ethnic minorities and aliens working for the federation????