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Thread: Thoughts on the Teaser?

  1. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sea Tyger View Post

    A lot of folks loved the film, and certainly didn't think it was "stupid and loud" or take away Trek's soul.

    As someone who feels TOS is the heart and soul of Trekdom, I loved Star Trek (2009) and thought it did good service to the original crew...heck, I watched the film four times in the theaters!
    Sorry, Sea Tyger- that's the rum talking.

    You'll feel differently at reveille...



    Ultimately, though, you are correct: it is my opinion.

    The material was trite, hackneyed, and an in-your-face affront to those who actually care about issues like canon, consistency, and intellectual integrity.

    There was nothing original in the 2009 movie. Every major plot point was derivative: the teasing Spock endured was lifted directly from the Animated Series. The lecture boy-Spock received from Sarek after the brawl was lifted word-for-word from the Animated Series episode "Yesteryear".

    The death of Captain Robau was the same tried-and-trite "I will commit an utterly senseless act of violence against an innocent person just to show how bad I am" used by every other B-movie villain for the last hundred years.

    You could've switched out Nero with Bond's Hugo Drax without any appreciable change in the movie.

    Kirk's father's death amd Pike's consignment to a wheelchair were both lifted directly from canon. The buggies that Nero used to extract the defense codes from Pike were a cheap re-use of the plot point from WoK.

    The villain was a two-dimensional cardboard cut-out of a Romulan with a new supership/superweapon intent on destroying the Earth- lifted almost whole cloth from Nemesis.

    Spock/Uhura romance was once a staple of fan-fic.

    To misquote Flynn from Tron, "So one night, our boy Flynn, he goes to his terminal, tries to read up his file. I get nothing on there, it's a big blank. Okay, now we take you three months later. Dillinger presents Encom with five video games, that's HE'S invented. The slime barely changed the names, man! He gets a big, fat promotion."

    I would not be surprised by any measure if it were discovered that they decided on the plot by writing all the major elements of previous Star Trek episodes on ping-pong balls, tossed 'em in a hopper, and wrote the story based on the first six balls they drew out lottery-style.

    The "throw-aways" that Abrams included in the film as a sop a/o "tribute" to the die-hard fans were universally insulting to their intelligence.

    Nor am I alone in that assessment:
    http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/in...ies-trekxi.htm



    What is not opinion are the metrics I mentioned in my original foaming-at-the-keyboard rant.

    Is there any empirical evidence to support the lauditory (if not worshipful) tones in Baron's charges above?

    If there is, I haven't seen it.

    And I have little or no hope that the newest Abrams abomination will do anything more to resurrect the franchise.



    It is revealing, in my opinion, that Baron has now mentioned "the initiated" and "those who are hip to it" twice.

    An organization and a movement do not grow by preaching to the choir.

    Trekdom does not grow by putting art-majors, Abrams cultists, and grey-haired die-hards who remember when Shatner had teeth back in theatre seats.

    By his own admission, these are the people Baron thinks are being targeted.

    I'm afraid he's right....


    For all the adulatory press and self-reverential declarations of brilliance which surrounded Wrek2009, there is no evidence (of which I'm aware) that new blood has been infused into the franchise in any meaningful or lasting way.

    It certainly added nothing significant to the canon.
    Last edited by selek; 12-13-2012 at 06:22 PM.

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by BaronVonStevie View Post
    lol I'm not going to respond to that. I'm just going to wait until the movie comes out and makes a gazillion dollars to prove that they know what they're doing.
    It's a very shiny sleight-of-hand, but it still doesn't answer the basic issue:

    Is "what they're doing" defined as "self-evidently announcing their own brilliance"?

    Or is "what they're doing" defined as "good, original Star Trek that doesn't insult the audience"?

    In the echo-chamber which is Hollywood, they can make a gazillion dollars at the former just as readily as the latter.

  3. #18
    Whatever soul Trek had fled a decade before Orci and Kurtzman were handed the cadaver.
    Portfolio | Blog Currently Running: Call of Cthulhu, Star Trek GUMSHOE Currently Playing: DramaSystem, Swords & Wizardry

  4. #19
    You contradict yourself.
    no I don't. I just don't drop myself firmly in the camp of "anti" or "pro". I liked the first movie for what it was; just fun. It captured elements of Trek, but it also didn't deliver in fundamental areas. I'm comfortable with it up to a point. I don't gush all over it saying it's the greatest movie of all time nor do I want JJ Abrams' head on a pike.

    I'm very eager to see Into Darkness though. I want to see a *fun* movie and I want to see if it's more Trek than the first film was. For what I got out of the first one, that seems fair to me.

  5. #20
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    Nor am I alone in that assessment:
    http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/in...ies-trekxi.htm
    Oh, preach it, brother!
    When you are dead, you don't know that you are dead. It is difficult only for others.

    It's the same when you are stupid...

  6. #21
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    I can't say I'm very surprised by this trailer. As someone who did not like the 2009 movie at all, I find the trailer quite similar in spirit: basically, an action movie with some Trek slapped on it.

    If I had to bet, I would say that the villain is an entirely new one (or maybe a known villain, but in name only). Marketing has fun leading fans to make guesses, as was mentioned above, but we are not talking about a comic book adaptation here, where we expect known characters to appear.
    The feeling I got from the movie was that Abrams wanted to create his own Trekverse (as evidenced for instance by the lack of almost any canon alien in it apart from the Vulcans and Orions), and this would go with its own villains and stories.
    Which, by the way, is not bad in itself, as it avoids to end up watching bland remakes (with better CGI), but of course people like me who were put off by the Abrams interpretation of Trek will keep being disappointed. I guess the others will be able to enjoy it.
    "The main difference between Trekkies and Manchester United fans is that Trekkies never trashed a train carriage. So why are the Trekkies the social outcasts?"
    Terry Pratchett

  7. #22
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    I saw it yesterday, and I have to agree with C5; it looks like another mindless action fest with ST skins. I hope I'm wrong, but there doesn't seem to be much reason to hope.
    + &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;<

    Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. Psalm 144:1

  8. #23
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    Can I quote the original Mr. Scott?

    "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

    I'll pass until Star Trek has moved away from its Shakespearean mode.

    "...Full of sound and fury, signifying...nothing."
    Crimson Hand Gamers...why have your own site when there's Facebook?

  9. #24
    I liked the new movie and I expect the new movie to be entertaining to.
    With star trek nemesis i feared star trek was at an end. That movie sucked so bad .... Everything that ever could happen to star trek from there was going up.

    I say go abrams.

    Let's do something new with star trek.

    You guys will probably think i am flaming.

  10. #25
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    No, I just think you expect different things out of Trek than I do.
    + &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;<

    Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. Psalm 144:1

  11. #26
    I say go abrams.

    Let's do something new with star trek.
    I want to see Star Trek be not only cool, but also topical. When people picked apart the Nolan Bat-films and said "I think this is commentary on _____"... I thought that was what Star Trek needed. TOS spoke directly to the 1960s and some of the films did to the 80s. I thought they were great for those reasons and I feel Trek has been missing that for years. I want that in Trek again.

  12. #27
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    @Selek and Alderon:

    Thank you guys, for your early postings in this thread.
    I myself have not been able to come up with a text that says what I feel and convey those feelings in an understadably manner (and not for the lack of trying, even in my native tongue german I don't get around to it quite as well as I'd like).

    But now I don't have to: I'll just use yours!

    Bearing this oppinion in mind, I'd have to answer the question "Will this keep me away from ST-ID?" with a decisive "Most likely not".
    But I don't expect anything lasting to come from that visit to the cinema. What usually is quite all right but with Trek I've always wanted to have something to take home with me.

    One thing that came up in this thread I hadn't considered so far and would like to comment on: Although I actually own the 2009-DVD (it was kinda cheap over here and I am sort of a collector...) I have actually re-watched it exactly one time and then in 2 sittings.

    That has never been an issue with any of the previous movies. Those I have watched repeatedly: Alone and with friends (and yes, even Nemesis!). But there has been no need, no interest to revisit the 2009-feature. Not for me, not for my Star Trek friends and not among the block-buster-movie-goers among my buddys. Strange that it fails on that many different fronts. And a little sad.

    I shall give the movie another spin before I go and see the sequel. That's a plan I just came up with.

    On the whole "who's the bad guy" thing I have to admit, that I really don't give a damn.
    Not giving a damn, would be such a sad thing to say about anything to have to do with Star Trek, but for me, that ship obiousvly has sailed.
    The new series is something using visuals and names and some ideas from a beloved setting and using them in a newer, more modern way. I try not to judge, but the magic does not work for me anymore. Maybe that's how the old die hard TOS fans felt, when Gene Roddenberry dropped TNG on their setting. Maybe someone of the TOS over TNG faction could shed some insight on that thought please.

    My Star Trek, making up a bulk of my fondest memories of watching, re-enacting, imagining, reading and gaming with and in that Universe, is the old setting. Where the Shat is Kirk and Picard is the man. If they'd just managed to give us back Data with a decent follow up after Nemesis I'd be good and happy ever after...

    I can tolerate the new JJTrek, but I don't feel at home in it.

    I've started re-watching the early TNG seasons recently and after years I still discover new aspects of storytelling and backgound that I have missed or not really known how to see or appriciate in earlier days. I think this depth is another aspect of those things that make Star Trek real special.

    And I just don't see it in the new movie. Anyhow, May will come, I'll see that movie. And then revisit my statement
    Last edited by Cut; 12-17-2012 at 03:14 PM.

  13. #28
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    I wasn't expecting Star Trek (2009) to be topical. I expected it to reintroduce the characters, which I felt it did quite well. I didn't like everything about the film (including some of the Easter eggs within...the Delta Vega reference was a little annoying, for instance), but, overall, I loved the film (and it was certainly better than anything put out by the TNG crew).

    To me, it was a good start. I wasn't looking for anything beyond that, and I don't know if anything beyond that would've been appropriate for a reintroduction story.
    Davy Jones

    "Frightened? My dear, you are looking at a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe! I was petrified."
    -- The Wizard of Oz

  14. #29
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    I saw the trailer (a teaser is the opening sequence in a TV show, before the credits, a trailer is an ad at the theatre) when I saw The Hobbit at the IMAX 3D last night, and I was very impressed. Unlike the first movie, he seems to have caprured the spirit of Trek in this one. It honestly felt like Star Trek. I liked the fact that the shuttle looked more like the Class F Galileo.

  15. #30
    I will watch it, probably enjoy it too.

    Will I care about it after that? Nope, excluding watching the rifftrax and plinkett review it will mean nothing to me. Just like 2009.

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