Thoughts on the new "Star Trek" movie

Post by **beepo** » Sun May 17, 2009 6:25 am

I downloaded the trek movie so I can now watch it at my own leisure. I watched it again last night. I'm sticking with my original post. Great sci-fi movie not a great trek movie. At least I enjoyed it enough to wast a dvd on it.

Post by **wesley** » Thu May 21, 2009 6:11 am

Roddenberry would turn himself in grave when he coulkd see THIS

it has really nothing to do with "Star trek"

i dont look the movie in cinma because they shoukld feel its a flo!!

Please all Str trek fans in the world!
DOWNLOAD THIS MOVIE; but dont go into cinema

And we should make a protest paper with all signuteres of star trek fans who are against this "shit"

Post by **TurboC** » Thu May 21, 2009 11:16 am

I'm usually against piracy in general, but I definitely support the downloading of this movie. I doubt it would affect the box office numbers, but at least you won't waste your money on crap. And maybe it could be turned into a fan-based protest. Like "Download Star Trek -- Abrams, Get LOST!" But any publicity would probably just equal more ticket sales from others, so it's pointless. No matter how much you or I hate the new "Star Trek", or call it a shallow parody etc., the public likes it, and that's all that matters to Abrams and anyone else making money from it. It's ALREADY earned nearly twice as much as Nemesis. We'll see a second one, and probably a third. Not much we can do, other than popping in our old DVDs...

Post by **stardust** » Thu May 21, 2009 2:28 pm

Gah...I wish my parents would hurry up and see the damn film already....I've seen them 3 times since I saw this shower of excrement and each time they've asked me and I've had to bite my tongue just so as not to taint things for them before they see it...give them a fiar chance to make their own mind up on it.

Re. the sequel: Touch Khan and someone gets a Bat'Leth in the gut

Post by **captaindusk** » Thu May 21, 2009 6:12 pm

The cast and crew have already signed contracts for a second and third part. Ok I wanted to keep it for myself but I got the movie too. I created a DVD with german version, english version german TV special and the first two trailers and custom menu background. And I saw it 3 times now. First in cinema on May 7th, another time at home and recently with my parents who liked it a lot.

I gotta say it got better for me every time I saw it again, don't know why, it's this "fan feeling". ^^

When I first sat in cinema I banged my hand to my forehead more than once (Klingon Warbird, Enterprise jumping from zero to warp like some friggin' millenium falcon, Red Matter, Black Hole allowing timetravel instead of destroying the ships, Uhura kissing Spock, engineering, wtf???)

But that's all gone now. Yes it's got a strong "popcorn amount" and product placement is also something I don't want to encounter in Star Trek but I gotta admit it was necessary.

If we like this fact or not the audience is the key to keep Star Trek alive and the movie was a great keyhole so far

When you read my first post in this thread you can see that I have been very skeptic myself after leaving the cinema but that's all gone now. I prefer this movie instead of NO MOVIE or series anymore.

To all of you who keep saying "Star Trek is dead, Abrams killed it, Roddenbery would rotate in his grave" I've got one question. WHY isn't it Star Trek? There's the NCC 1701 and the crew we've all known for so many years. I started watching TOS again yesterday and it's not THAT different. It's another Trek than the one we all know but that was totally intended with the new timeline and the more I think about it the more I like the idea.

We can expect something new from the next films. Don't you had this feelings like "Oh, a prequel again, damn I'll know what will happen before I've seen the end." Well I thought so. And because of that the alternate timeline is a great idea imo. Don't get me wrong, if they would re-establish the known timeline I wouldn't say anything against it, I'm just happy that Star Trek is back and that there's more of it upcoming.

I respect everyone's opinion and don't want to offend anyone.

Post by **Martok** » Thu May 21, 2009 7:01 pm

captaindusk wrote:To all of you who keep saying "Star Trek is dead, Abrams killed it, Roddenbery would rotate in his grave" I've got one question. WHY isn't it Star Trek? There's the NCC 1701 and the crew we've all known for so many years. I started watching TOS again yesterday and it's not THAT different.

Yes, it is THAT different. This new film is action-oriented instead of more story/character-driven like (most of) the previous films. (It's a big reason why this travesty of a movie failed to "grip" me -- even with horrible movies like The Final Frontier, I still had more emotional investment in it than in JJ's claptrap.)

For comparison, note that Nemesis (which sucked harder than an industrial-strength Hoover vacuum cleaner) was also action-heavy and light on story/character development. For contrast, note Wrath of Khan, Undiscovered Country, and/or First Contact -- now *those* were good stories (in movie form)!

Post by **captaindusk** » Thu May 21, 2009 8:45 pm

Well, at the time the movies you mentioned were made (except for Nemesis) there was a whole different audience. Look at the mass audience today. It unfortunately has to be clear that you can't get a cat out from behind the stove with those deep storytelling character developing movies anymore. Most of these people just wanna be entertained by kaboom popcorn movies and they start whining and complaining if they get served what you wish for. It's sad but it's true.

Abrams and his staff were under huge pressure with this movie. If it had failed his name would have stand on Star Trek's gravestone (yeah I know for you it already happened anyway

) Imagine your name would be called in that context. I bet you wouldn't feel comfortable about that. And therefore he did what he did. He just adapted to this mass audience cause he knew it would be the only way to make the movie successful. Therefore this man deserves respect, no matter how you feel about the movie. It is very hard to carry on such a huge franchise.

I'm only glad that the popcorn amount of the new movie isn't as much as I feared it would be. But that's also just my opinion.

Post by **eber3** » Thu May 21, 2009 9:07 pm

captaindusk wrote: To all of you who keep saying "Star Trek is dead, Abrams killed it, Roddenbery would rotate in his grave" I've got one question. WHY isn't it Star Trek? There's the NCC 1701 and the crew we've all known for so many years. I started watching TOS again yesterday and it's not THAT different.

I could take a print of the original Star Wars and edit it so that it said NCC 1701 on the Millennium Falcon. And I could edit it so that every time somebody says "Luke" they say "Jim" instead. And Han to Spock, Leia to Uhura, etc, etc and that would be as much like Star Trek as this new movie is. That is all this new movie has in common with Star Trek, they used the names and the ship looks like a really ugly nonfunctional bastardized version of the original. And the uniforms look very similar. Other then that this was NOTHING like Star Trek. None of the characters look or act remotely the same, the writing sucks, and the movie bares no resemblance at all to Star Trek.

Post by **captaindusk** » Thu May 21, 2009 9:45 pm

Ok for the people who think about Star Trek XI that way. Just ignore it then and stick to your DVD's. Don't you like the idea that people who watch "the new" Trek could like it that much that they also get all the former series, DVD's and movies? This would raise the name of Star Trek away from it's bad nerd Image and would lead to a higher public acceptance again. I still don't wanna offend anyone but I have to express my opinion:

I'm really starting to get angry about all those people who do nothing than critizising, complaining about and bashing the new movie. And some of them do that since the first announcement of ST XI. I mean it's their good right to tell their opinion and I always like a good discussion but all this bashing won't keep Paramount and Abrams from making a sequel so who's got the longer breath, Paramount or them? I thought they were fans but it's starting to look like they want Trek IN GENERAL to be dead. They have to realize that if the film had flopped there would have been NO NEW STAR TREK ANYMORE, nada, nothing.

And that's a thing I don't understand. I mean not everyone likes everything, that's natural but some posts here read like some people curse EVERY change. Too extreme imo.

Again please don't be upset, I'm only expressing my opinion which has exactly the same value to me than anyone elses opinion.

Post by **eber3** » Fri May 22, 2009 1:02 am

captaindusk wrote: I'm really starting to get angry about all those people who do nothing than critizising, complaining about and bashing the new movie...I thought they were fans but it's starting to look like they want Trek IN GENERAL to be dead. They have to realize that if the film had flopped there would have been NO NEW STAR TREK ANYMORE, nada, nothing.

Again please don't be upset, I'm only expressing my opinion which has exactly the same value to me than anyone elses opinion.

You are getting upset and defensive. I don't want Trek to be dead, but it IS now dead. The very fact that Jar Jar Abrams horrid movie is a success has killed any chance of ever having real Star Trek again. It would have been far preferable if the movie had failed financially. Then they would have abandoned this concept waited several years and possibly returned with something that didn't suck and was actually Trek.

Instead Jar Jar Abrams murdered Trek strung it's corpse up on puppet strings and is parading it around while everybody watches the bright flashing lights and goes "Oh! this is great!" And now there will never be an Trek again, instead we'll get more Jar Jar Abrams Star Wars films called Star Trek.

The people who love this movie are simply mesmerized by the special CGI effects, which are actually rather cheap and shoddy, much like a kitten chasing a laser light around the floor. This movie is just like "Independence Day", so full of flash and pointless nonstop action that people don't realize the story, acting, etc suck.

Post by **stardust** » Fri May 22, 2009 1:35 am

I don't want Trek to die...All I'm asking for is for someone to write a decent and original story with some intelligence behind it.

How hard can it be?

Post by **captaindusk** » Fri May 22, 2009 2:01 am

Ok I guess every further post from me to this topic would lead to nothing else than flaming around. That's what I wanted to avoid by getting "defensive" as you called it.

You have your thoughts, I have mine let's keep it that way. I gotta admit Jar Jar Abrams is pretty funny

and even right to some points but again, imo adapting to the mass audience was the only way to lead Star Trek to sucess again without having to wait for a decade. Nemesis was way too long ago. Don't get me wrong I didn't miss the plot from Nemesis I missed Star trek in general.

Post by **TurboC** » Fri May 22, 2009 2:03 am

eber3 - I may disagree with your fossil-record proselytizing, but your "Star Trek" review is right on. Jar Jar Abrams... HA. Love it. "Yousa thinkin, Star Trek gonna die???"

stardust - decent and original story ... intelligence ... hmmm. Those aren't accepted in Hollywood anymore. This is a new age of cinema, get with the times!

Post by **stardust** » Fri May 22, 2009 2:25 am

TurboC wrote: stardust - decent and original story ... intelligence ... hmmm. Those aren't accepted in Hollywood anymore. This is a new age of cinema, get with the times!

I was afraid someone would say that

Well, looks like Cinema and Hollywood can be aded to my 'Death to...' list then...

It's getting pretty full though between our useless Government, Credit crunch, people who think Swine Flu's the end of Humankind ... I could go on...

Post by **Scatter** » Fri May 22, 2009 5:43 am

captaindusk wrote:imo adapting to the mass audience was the only way to lead Star Trek to sucess again

why do people assume that commercial success and intelligent writing have to be mutually exclusive?