JJ ABRAMS' STAR TREK SEQUEL ARRIVES...

At the end of the day, I liked the movie and it was worth the money I spent on it. Some of you can rant, rave, scream, "debate", and howl all you want, but nothing is going to change anything in my first sentence.

Bring the sequel.

So what do you think was redeeming about it? That it looked pretty?

Good cast, it was fun, and it did have an updated TOS episode feel to it.

I have mixed feelings about that, mostly because it's hard to tell if someone like Chris Pine might have been more believable as Kirk or Zachary Quinto as Spock had they actually been playing them and not warped stereotypical versions of those characters instead.

There was nothing fun about seeing that horrible movie.

That has to be the most laughable comment I've seen about this movie.

At some point you're going to have to accept the idea that there are people who like this movie and don't agree with your assessment.

Oh, I accept that, I just don't agree at all with it. Accepting that people like the movie doesn't mean I'm going to stop criticizing it, nor does it mean I'm going to stop disagreeing with people who defend the movie.

[?=I saw this today and literally LOL'd due to this thread][/?]

I was referring specifically to this comment:

I didn't like that generalization when it was Commie and the rest of the Bakula's Bitches calling T/T'P fans shallow and stupid for enjoying that pairing, so I was surprised to see you fall into a similar trap...which I know you usually are better at not doing that.

Look at it this way: maybe the fans of this movie that get into good Trek and realize this movie for the stinking pile of dog shit that you think it is. Maybe they aren't all dumb. Perhaps some of them just don't know any better. God knows if I'd watched DS9 before Voyager or Enterprise, I NEVER would have sat down to either series.

There's a difference between calling a show/episode/pairing/movie stupid and calling someone who likes a certain show/episode/pairing/movie stupid. Or to compare posting styles, it's the reason why I have respect for outspoken ENT critics like Stewey who stuck to criticizing elements of the show while rarely commenting on the fandom at large and why I wanted to punch Number_6 in the face with his condescending use of the word "Fans" towards anyone who didn't think the way he did.

They might've actually had a point had what they been talking about been any more shallow and stupid than A/T'P.

Usually I stick to criticizing, you know, the movie, but when someone walks right into it like that, it's pretty hard to resist, especially when they think a bunch of people showing up to watch a brainless action flick means that it's somehow good, or that alienating part of a franchise's fanbase is a good thing.

Or maybe the new Michael Bay version of Star Trek will be what these new people like, and if any of them even thinks to look at the old franchise, they'll probably get bored.

New people get that excuse, but that isn't the bunch I've been arguing on the internet with.

Would that have been a bad thing?

After a while, one begins to question that, if nothing else because then that person has horrible taste.

And just think who got banned and who's still there. And to think I was pretty insistent about arguing points about the movie and why it sucked back at TrekBBS... Speaking of Number_6, you notice how now he hates everything but the new movie? Of course he's the classic example of a Trekkie who loves absolutely everything about anything new made, so I guess I'm not too surprised there.

It's absolutely a good thing. My God, if it ensured that everyone who thought that a legitimate criticism was that the film usurped the name of a backwards-ass planet that featured for half an episode of Trek forty years ago in which a guy in metallic contact lenses hurled foam rocks at "James R. Kirk," it already did the franchise a serious favor.

Yeah. "James R. Kirk." It's always fun to see fans try to wriggle around an 'in-canon' reason for that fumble. Or that stardates didn't make any damn sense then. I mean, my God, in the 60s, if a writer ran into the room and said, "Hey guys, we already used Delta Vega as a name for a desert planet, we can't use it for this snow planet," Gene Roddenberry probably would have flipped him off and went back to banging someone on the stained couch in the writer's room. At best, he probably would have grunted, "Fuck, we show duplicate Earths every three weeks, there can be planets that share the same name" mid-thrust.

I'm fine with alienating parts of the fanbase for whom everything is sacred. Or, amusingly, for whom everything they like is sacred, as I'd imagine someone who is associated with an Enterprise re-write could appreciate.

Well, if they can't find something to like in about 725 hours of material, then they can make do with 'Michael Bay Trek' for a couple hours every few years.

And, hell, some of it is boring, even to fans.

Way to miss, amusingly, miss the point of the only good thing about STV. Our pain, our regrets, our mistakes, and our fears define us. They make us who we are. It makes the sweet taste that much sweeter, and it tempers our emotions about what we might dislike. After all, do the Ferengi episodes really look that bad when compared to Threshold. Not to mention that there are some actual gems littered throughout what the discriminating Trek fan would consider the chaff.

The reason why you're catching flak on this one is that you bring in such an air of pretention regarding Trek. "Taste" this and "brainless" that, "warped" and "laughable," "shallow" and "stupid." Trek fans don't eat up everything that comes out - that was ably proven over the last decade. It's a myth that's circled the drain ever since someone said, "You just like TNG because the French captain's a pussy and you don't know what good Trek is."

No, what Trek has too much of are fans with personal canons. Fans that form cheerleading sections to fight the 'other team.' Fans for whom only their preferred 'flavor' will sate their hunger. And fans that think that 'new blood' would have to be drooling, mouth-breathing idiots in order to like what they were seeing.

Hell, there were fans that would lament the fact that Star Trek was viewed as a guilty pleasure, and now there are fans that lament that people might indulge in it.

No it's not.

Yeah, it's always nice when someone tries to oversimplify the criticism of the movie as a way to defend it *cough*strawman*cough*, and even better when they bash on a 40+ year old show, like that defends the faults of the movie even remotely. What makes it ironic is when they go on about how something like an obscure planet name shouldn't make a difference, yet the next thing they go on about is how something from that same 40 year old movie should mean that everything about the entire franchise should be forgotten about and rebooted.

Yes, I'm sure none of that has ever bugged Star Trek fans ever if there has been some kind of an obvious mistake, or even a not very obvious one. Nope, never. Whelp, guess that means we can't criticize the new movie for any of its own faults... - is that what you expect people to say?

Too bad they've alienated more than just those people then.

Way to miss the point champ.

So?

Yeah, I'm totally the only one.

Yeah, those all pretty much sum up STXI and its gushers.

Experience tells me otherwise. But go ahead and drag out one of the old arguments defending a reboot.

There are those, just like there are those who will eat everything up that comes out.

Oh, another old argument that's completely meaningless.

Between having seen the movie and having seen the drooling, mouth-breathing idiots who defend it, yeah...

Something like this is like when people called Regeneration a guilty pleasure because while they liked it, they recognized that it really shouldn't have been done. The problem is, if people go on about how they like something like that, it doesn't really matter if they call it a guilty pleasure or not, the people making the show will just keep making more shit like that because people will keep watching it.

Bottom line:

Anyone who actually takes the time to set up their own website and write scripts to "right" the "wrong" of a lousy television show is on pretty thin fucking ice when it comes to throwing criticism.

In the words of the Shat: Get a life.

/thread.

Not really, no. My fan project has nothing to do with the quality of Abrams Trek. Nice try at an strawman, though.

Have one, and it's pretty good, actually. But thanks for dragging out that old one again.

You wish.

I don't know if you missed the memo, but Star Trek was always meant to be entertaining first. It's a fine universe, but if nobody watches it, it defeats the purpose. At least 1/2 of TOS and 1/3 of TNG were pretty mindless. Most of the action could be either Kirk falling for alien chick of the week or getting into a fistfight. There's nothing wrong with just plain fun. If you don't like it fine. Honestly the parts of Trek that bugged me the most were the eps that were so "preachy" that they didn't even really bother with a story. I like XI because it was a fun movie. Sure there were minor plotholes, but the pacing was excellent IMO, the sets looked great, the acting was better than I hoped for (I was expecting Pine to play Shatner, not Kirk), and the charecter development was pretty good, especially for Kirk. Kirk goes from punk-ass teenager to a captain -- he grows into the role of Captain. It's not meant to be shakespeare, just you know, fun.

It all I wanted from a movie or television show is "just plain fun" then there have to be at least 50 better ways than Star Trek.

Some of us expect more.

Yeah, movies have to actually be good in order to accomplish that. Star Trek has an added burden in that it's also always been a more cerebral form of entertainment. If one wants mindless entertainment, there are movies like The Fifth Element one can watch.

People have been watching it, you know, the types who go one to become scientists and engineers, who were actually inspired to become scientists and engineers by watching Star Trek. Or even just people who like depth of characters and story. It's when the show dumbs itself down that people stop watching. Then it becomes the same old shit, and not worth watching.

And I bitch and complain about that shit, too.

It was a horrible, generic, action sci-fi movie. It wasn't even fun in that sense, simply because it was so stupid. Even without the names (which were the only things connecting the new movie to the old franchise), this movie still sucks as a generic sci-fi, simply because of its lack of plot, the huge plot holes, and all the horrible cliches that were in it.

There were major plot holes.

It was purposely way too fast in the hopes that the audience wouldn't notice the lack of a plot that actually made sense.

If you're an Apple or a Budweiser fan maybe. Otherwise they were obnoxious and stupid.

I have to beg to differ, mostly because I didn't have much to go on. I knew that Pine playing as Shatner wouldn't be a problem though, mostly because I knew Abrams would interpret Kirk as Solo and have Pine go off of that, which is exactly what Chris Pine admitted to doing in an interview. To me he came off as a generic angsty teen, though, even if he is in his 20s.

What character development? The only character development I saw was detrimental to the characters because they either got turned into one-dimensional stereotypes, or like Spock they got ruined in order to make Abrams Trek into a date movie.

Kirk was a generic punk kid and he stayed that throughout the whole movie. The fact he jumps straight to captain from cadet wouldn't even make sense if he were actually the model cadet, let alone as a cadet with discipline problems.

Riiight...

If one wants mindless fun, there are other shows for that. When it comes to Star Trek, I like depth to the characters and the story, not a horrible generic sci-fi action popcorn-munching waste of fucking time date movie so full of cliches it makes me ashamed of being a sci-fi fan type of movie. Hell, I even appreciate depth for story and characters for any movie. The only time I don't care is when it's a movie that's over the top on purpose and doesn't have any pretense of being serious at all.

Here's something to think about: Like nuTrek or not, most people are willing to admit that the film had some flaws, and this movie made piles of cash. Now, lots of folks are hoping that these flaws will not be repeated in the sequel. This reminds me of another recent series of films, where "fanboys" absolutely hated the film, while many others were willing to cut the filmmakers some slack, and felt that the sequel would be better. Until it was released. Then, everybody pretty much began screaming that Bruckheimer had FUBAR'd Transformers. (After all, given that the film made buckets of cash, why should they worry about changing anything?)

And they're looking to Clarke for inspiration, which TOS did with IV (its Rendezvous with Rama set in the Trekverse). I didn't particularly care for that movie, either.

It had more than just "some flaws". The entire concept of the movie is flawed, even before you get down to doing a more thorough analysis of it. If the sequel is set in the same universe, it will simply be repeating that flaw over again. I'm going to guess that it will. And given what's been said about it so far, I have no doubt that the sequel will attempt to inject some kind of modern politics into it, or otherwise be completely anvilicious the way Avatar was, so it'll have plenty of new flaws for "fanboys" like myself to get nerd rage over.

Oh, and speaking of "Rendezvous with Rama", I have to say that book was a lot better than the Save the Whales movie. At the very least it was a lot more interesting, but I'm a sucker for the "lost civilization" type stories, especially when they're set in space.

Hostgator.com is a rip off and they scammed me BIG TIME. GETCOUPON613 is a scam and a hoax.

:killfuck:

The spambot was never here.

I'm not a big critic of the movie but THAT is the sort of thing that pissed me off.

They have exactly zero problem with mangling an easily fixable point (Delta Vega for instance, or the previously discussed variant "re-enlist in Star fleet" or whatever)

BUT they will force Yeltsin to perpetuate a fuck up rather than take the chance to change it.

I just don't get the reasoning sometimes.

That last sounds far more like opinion than something objectively true.

in fact, I would argue that's exactly what it is: James Bond, Tarzan, Batman, Sherlock Holmes, etc.

The only rough transition is from the original to the 2.0 - after that, it's a non-issue.

(and i say that even though i agree that if they ever again produce "classic" storytelling, it will almost certainly be on TV)

I agree with this - and others which have been noted - but I would also claim that virtually every action/adventure movie I ever saw had similar problems. There are contrivances and "plot holes" all over the place if you really think about the story.

Hell, take Superman. Virtually everything about him defies all we know about physics. The very existance of the title character is a plot hole.

what the hell?

I've been wasting my time reading a year old thread? and replying to it???

And it was bumped by....a bot...??!!?!!!?






and etc

I believe the anonymous spambot should become the new owner of this board.