The Star Trek trailer

[Darth Wong]

How do you even know this film is going to qualify as "whiz-bang entertainment?" Trailers for Nemesis looked like it was going to be "whiz-bang entertainment" too. All you have to do is stitch together some scenes with things blowing up, but believe it or not, there are degrees of quality for "whiz-bang entertainment" too; it isn't as if you can throw in some explosions and automatically have a good "whiz-bang entertainment" movie.

[Bounty]

How do you even know this film is going to qualify as "whiz-bang entertainment?" Trailers for Nemesis looked like it was going to be "whiz-bang entertainment" too. All you have to do is stitch together some scenes with things blowing up, but believe it or not, there are degrees of quality for "whiz-bang entertainment" too; it isn't as if you can throw in some explosions and automatically have a good "whiz-bang entertainment" movie.

They did that trick with the TWOK trailer too; watching it it looks like non-stop space battle action, while in reality it had... significantly less whizz-bang.

Keep in mind too that the action scenes from the trailer all seem to come from the same two, maybe three set-pieces. What's inbetween might as well be ninety minutes of conferencing. I sure hope it's not, or that it's at least good conferencing, but using the trailer as a microcosm of the movie jumps the gun quite a bit.

[McC]

How do you even know this film is going to qualify as "whiz-bang entertainment?" Trailers for Nemesis looked like it was going to be "whiz-bang entertainment" too. All you have to do is stitch together some scenes with things blowing up, but believe it or not, there are degrees of quality for "whiz-bang entertainment" too; it isn't as if you can throw in some explosions and automatically have a good "whiz-bang entertainment" movie.

Very true.

That aside, pre-release badmouthing is just fucking irritating, for any movie. Sure, sometimes the writing is on the wall about a movie well before it premieres, but the hand-wringing and "oh, it's going to be a pile of shit!" commentary in every fucking thread about this movie is getting old. If the movie comes out and it's terrible, by all means, crucify it. But until then, let's give these guys the benefit of the doubt before convicting them of shitty work.

Pre-release badmouthing belongs with the sludge that comprises AICN comments.

Note, I'm not referring to people calling out specific critiques with things that have come out (i.e. the new design of the Enterprise, for instance). It's the doom-saying that's retarded.

[Enigma]

Is it just me or does it seems that the sensors on the new Ent sucks? They see nothing then BAM! a debris field and add to what someone described a scene in which the crew is debating the sensor information as to whether it is a natural phenomenon or not?

[Akumz Razor]

Wake up and smell the coffee. If somebody made a live-action movie based on the "scenery-eating giant robot rants and raves, initiates ridiculous scheme to steal our oil, and then gets defeated by good guys and runs away while screaming I shall return!" model of the old Transformers TV show, it would have been laughed out of theatres. It needed a serious change of genre scenery.

If Star Trek was completely rebooted, that might actually be a good thing. But we have quotes from the producers talking about canon, which suggests the opposite: that they will try to clumsily fit it to the existing legacy and maybe use time travel to explain away the incongruities. But a lot of the problem with Star Trek wasn't the timeline; it was the whole Trek Culture inspired by decades of obsessive fans who elevated it into something it wasn't: a moral icon instead of a space adventure.

I was more a fan of the early comics, which were far more mature than the cartoons or the live-action film.

Totally agree with regards to Trek reboots/canon. This film seems like it's trying hard to be a prequel to the TOS era films, while paying lip-service to the TV show.

[Bounty]

Is it just me or does it seems that the sensors on the new Ent sucks? They see nothing then BAM! a debris field and add to what someone described a scene in which the crew is debating the sensor information as to whether it is a natural phenomenon or not?

The "BAM" is the ship dropping out of warp, and as for the "natural phenomenon":
Spoiler

Whatever it is the Romulans do in the movie apparently looks like a "weird electrical storm" by design.

[Enigma]

Is it just me or does it seems that the sensors on the new Ent sucks? They see nothing then BAM! a debris field and add to what someone described a scene in which the crew is debating the sensor information as to whether it is a natural phenomenon or not?

The "BAM" is the ship dropping out of warp, <snip>

Still, if they had actual FTL sensors, they'd be able to warp out some distance away from the debris field instead of into it. From that brief scene from the trailer it looked like they were flying blind.

[FSTargetDrone]

Kid Kirk on that cliff looks really dodgy. I hope that it's just for the trailer. Also, the gorge itself looks quite bizarre and artificial.

While I don't outright disagree with you, a few hours drive north of where you live are open cut mines. These are superficially similar.

EDIT: that's what the big 'buildings' we keeping seeing in the background could be. Massive mobile drilling/processing rigs.

The first thing I thought when seeing the inside of that gorge was that it looked like a quarry/mine.

I wonder what the reason/justification is for assembling the ship on the planet? I thought all of these "shipyards" were in orbit?

And with respect to the bridge, how many real military vessels have command areas with such bright walls? They are in a very bright room looking through a viewscreeen/viewport into the relative darkness of space? Huh?

[tim31]

There are many reasons; two that come to mind are the difficulties of construction in zero G and the fact that assembly in orbit means getting all the materials up there to begin with.

[Gandalf]

If you were a drinking man or a betting man, I'd wager your spaceports versus my mining machines for a sixpack of Boags Premium.

I'll take that action.

I'll wager that beer against a DVD copy of Caddyshack or Bad Eggs.

[Darth Onasi]

That aside, pre-release badmouthing is just fucking irritating, for any movie. Sure, sometimes the writing is on the wall about a movie well before it premieres, but the hand-wringing and "oh, it's going to be a pile of shit!" commentary in every fucking thread about this movie is getting old. If the movie comes out and it's terrible, by all means, crucify it. But until then, let's give these guys the benefit of the doubt before convicting them of shitty work.

Pre-release badmouthing belongs with the sludge that comprises AICN comments.

Note, I'm not referring to people calling out specific critiques with things that have come out (i.e. the new design of the Enterprise, for instance). It's the doom-saying that's retarded.

To be fair, people have been subjected to barnyards full of indescribable shit in the form of Insurrection and Nemesis, not to mention the mediocrity of the series Voyager and Enterprise.
It's not surprising that people are a little jaded and unwilling to give the new movie a chance (and stuff like "lolz more time travel!" isn't helping the issue).

[Samuel]

There are many reasons; two that come to mind are the difficulties of construction in zero G and the fact that assembly in orbit means getting all the materials up there to begin with.

Great- except they have gravity control and they have to get the materials up into space when it is done. If you build it in space, there is no reason not to use asteroids and space based industry.

The only reason to build on ground is if fuel costs are negligable.

[Superman]

Paraphrase: "Stop whining about this movie"

It's not that I don't entirely disagree with you, but how many times do we let "Star Trek" give us shit on a plate before we call a spade a spade? Maybe you liked Voyager and the rest of that crap, but to me everything post DS9 was shit. Shit became the rule and not the exception, and this looks no different. "Revamping" established Trek continuity might be enough in itself for many of us not to like it, and we already know they've done that. Then we learn that this is a time travel story? Time travel as in what brought out the worst in Enterprise? The kind of stories that the bad writers seemed to be obsessed with giving us? I'm just saying that this movie looks a lot like the same garbage we've been getting over and over... and over. And that asshole who gave us Armageddon, and Cloverfield is doing it.

And thanks for telling me about that Superman shit, ray. Now I have another reason to hate JJ.

[Anguirus]

The fact that Star Trek has been a shit sandwich since the early 1990s only makes me feel better about this film. Tey finally fired all the assholes and are letting a new bunch take over...a literal "Next Generation."

If they fuck up, I don't care...I have no real emotional stake in the franchise's continuation anymore. I still have Star Trek VI and other gems of the franchise, the same way that I still have Aliens when they do another mediocre Alien film.

But if they don't fuck up, it could be really cool.

So I guess I just don't get why one would be upset. The franchise literally could not be in a deeper hole. It is in the Earth's core, only made out of shit instead of, you know, molten metal. There is nothing to lose.

(Tidbit: my sci-fi-loving Star-Trek-indifferent friend flipped her lid when she saw the trailer. Her given reason? "We finally get to see the Federation and the world they live in. There was more of that in a few seconds then there was any time I tried to watch the show." My other action-movie-loving Star-Trek-indifferent friend flipped his lid because "*random incoherent excited noises*...looks so COOL!")

[McC]

It's not that I don't entirely disagree with you, but how many times do we let "Star Trek" give us shit on a plate before we call a spade a spade? Maybe you liked Voyager and the rest of that crap, but to me everything post DS9 was shit. Shit became the rule and not the exception, and this looks no different. "Revamping" established Trek continuity might be enough in itself for many of us not to like it, and we already know they've done that. Then we learn that this is a time travel story? Time travel as in what brought out the worst in Enterprise? The kind of stories that the bad writers seemed to be obsessed with giving us? I'm just saying that this movie looks a lot like the same garbage we've been getting over and over... and over. And that asshole who gave us Armageddon, and Cloverfield is doing it.

Er, Michael Bay did Armageddon. J.J. Abrams just has a partial writing credit on the screenplay. Armageddon's massive flaws in premise aside, I think the character aspects of that movie work quite well. Personally, I thought Cloverfield was well-executed, too. So, the people in charge aren't a mark against this movie for me.

I agree with you about Trek's quality post-DS9. I've been introducing my girlfriend to Trek, starting with TMP and going straight through to TNG and then DS9. I'm not going to bother showing her VOY or ENT, because they're worthless (though I am going to show her Insurrection and Nemesis; the former because, while it's not great, it's really not any worse than an expanded episode; the latter for the sake of completeness).

But these aren't the same people that gave us ENT and VOY. Anguirus says everything I was going to say in response.

The fact that Star Trek has been a shit sandwich since the early 1990s only makes me feel better about this film. [They] finally fired all the assholes and are letting a new bunch take over...a literal "Next Generation."

If they fuck up, I don't care...I have no real emotional stake in the franchise's continuation anymore. I still have Star Trek VI and other gems of the franchise, the same way that I still have Aliens when they do another mediocre Alien film.

But if they don't fuck up, it could be really cool.

So I guess I just don't get why one would be upset. The franchise literally could not be in a deeper hole. It is in the Earth's core, only made out of shit instead of, you know, molten metal. There is nothing to lose.

[Darth Wong]

McC, a lot of what you're seeing is just a simple and well-deserved negative reaction to the people who saw the trailer and foolishly proclaimed that it looks great and they're excited about seeing the film now. That kind of proclamation is almost as stupid as leaping up out of your seat and running to McDonald's because of a new commercial promising that this time, their latest menu offering will actually taste like something other than crap.

Sorry, but they don't get the benefit of the doubt. I'll be interested in seeing this film only when I see reviews which indicate that it's worth seeing (from people who aren't die-hard Trekkies).

[Uraniun235]

But if they don't fuck up, it could be really cool.

So I guess I just don't get why one would be upset. The franchise literally could not be in a deeper hole. It is in the Earth's core, only made out of shit instead of, you know, molten metal. There is nothing to lose.

Actually, here's the dirty little secret behind some of the "NERDRAGE!!!1": They're not afraid that it will fail. They're afraid that it will succeed despite them disliking it.


Imagine if the franchise was rebooted as "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy", a weekly prime-time soap opera in which Kirk totally wants to bang Uhura but she has the hots for Sulu, Sulu pretends not to notice because he's gay and secretly lusting after Chekov the freshman, Spock is this insufferable TA who always grades mega-harsh on the tests, Scotty's the party guy that likes to drink but maybe he's got a bit of a problem, and Bones is this emo medical student who hangs out with them when he's not posting bad poetry on FaceSpace. Basically a teen high school college "academy" soap opera.

(see that right there would have been way more awesome if we had strikethrough )

Now imagine if that series became wildly popular and set the tone for the rest of the franchise. Soon enough, people think of "Starfleet Academy" as "true" Star Trek. Wouldn't that bother you at least a little?


That's obviously an extreme case, but it's the same sort of sentiment.


My biggest problem isn't the aesthetic right now (even though I don't care for it), it's that I don't have much faith in the ability of the writers or producers to present the Star Trek characters faithfully. I'll concede that Shatner can't really play Kirk any more, but that doesn't mean the character itself has to be radically altered; "Captain Kirk" is more than just "a successful and relatively young starship commander"... or even, as evidenced by some discussion in this thread already, different people have different ideas on just what makes for a successful starship commander.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Is it just me or does it seems that the sensors on the new Ent sucks? They see nothing then BAM! a debris field and add to what someone described a scene in which the crew is debating the sensor information as to whether it is a natural phenomenon or not?

Or they don't suck and that's why they didn't collide with that debris field?

[Bounty]

And with respect to the bridge, how many real military vessels have command areas with such bright walls? They are in a very bright room looking through a viewscreeen/viewport into the relative darkness of space? Huh?

Well, subs are painted in light colours to feel less claustrophobic, and it's not like there isn't precedent in Trek itself; the Phase II and original TMP bridge were eye-poppingly white too. It's a bit much, but I'd rather have a well-lit bridge than a too-dark one.

Actually, here's the dirty little secret behind some of the "NERDRAGE!!!1": They're not afraid that it will fail. They're afraid that it will succeed despite them disliking it.

NeoBSG syndrome? I hadn't even thought about that. It seems to me that Star Trek has already gone through that at least three times - to a lesser extent with TMP's dramatic shift in style and tone, and more pronouncedly with TNG and the Berman/Braga era. All of these were "different" Star Treks, with a different feel and style, which brought in new fans who grew up with them and considered them "real" Trek. None of those have changed people's perception of, say, TOS all that much; if anything, it's looked at more fondly today because the attempts to update it have been been so lacklustre.

[cosmicalstorm]

The trailer set to the theme-music of Smallville:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Zhoesi7cg

That is borderline creepy, and it got me more excited about this movie than the original trailer.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I just saw the trailer. I want to like this movie. I really want to like this movie. The Trekkie in me demands that I like this movie. The Trekkie in me also hasn't aged appreciably since the age of ten or so.

Opening scene: That's . . . just . . . stupid. What it apparently establishes is that this is the same Starfleet HR department from Star Trek: Enterprise. The one that found Foul Ol' Ro . . . I mean Cap'n Arr'cher in a gutter somewhere, muttering incoherently and covered in his own filth, decided he was prime officer material, and gave him command of a starship.

Building starships on the ground? Especially one as poorly suited to gravity as the big-E? (Big nacelles and saucer atop these skinny little struts?) That stressed my poor SoD to the breaking point.

Vulcan looks pretty, though. Spock appears to act like T'Pol from Enterprise. Only without the boobs.

Shit blowing up. Hollywood-style sex scenes. Lots of shit blowing up. Generic space monsters. Nothing here is distinctive in the slightest. This trailer could've come from any generic hyperkinetic action movie . . . only set in SPAAAACE.

The verdict: You folks go see it first, and then come back and tell me if it's any good. Then I'll consider renting it on DVD. Maybe.

[McC]

The verdict: You folks go see it first, and then come back and tell me if it's any good. Then I'll consider renting it on DVD. Maybe.

You could, er, read reviews when the movie comes out. Just a thought.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The verdict: You folks go see it first, and then come back and tell me if it's any good. Then I'll consider renting it on DVD. Maybe.

You could, er, read reviews when the movie comes out. Just a thought. :roll:

Isn't that what I just said? You folks go see it first, and then you come back here and review it for the rest of us. Then I'll read the inevitable thread that'll be started when the movie's out. Any schmuck with a basic grasp of written English can be a professional movie reviewer, so it wouldn't really be any different reading about the movie off-board.

[McC]

Isn't that what I just said? You folks go see it first, and then you come back here and review it for the rest of us. Then I'll read the inevitable thread that'll be started when the movie's out. Any schmuck with a basic grasp of written English can be a professional movie reviewer, so it wouldn't really be any different reading about the movie off-board.

"If people on the board think it's good, I'll go see it" is not the same sentiment as "if people on the board think it's good, I might rent it on DVD."

I feel like I'm starting to come off as trollish about this, and that's the last thing I want. I'm just sick of the culture of pre-release movie bashing that exists around a lot of upcoming movies to the point where I feel like I have to be a gadfly about it. It's even worse for this movie because of the various hot buttons that Trek presses on SDN.

[UCBooties]

"If people on the board think it's good, I'll go see it" is not the same sentiment as "if people on the board think it's good, I might rent it on DVD."

I feel like I'm starting to come off as trollish about this, and that's the last thing I want. I'm just sick of the culture of pre-release movie bashing that exists around a lot of upcoming movies to the point where I feel like I have to be a gadfly about it. It's even worse for this movie because of the various hot buttons that Trek presses on SDN.

Yeah, but your pissing around on this in a thread that is about people's reactions to the trailer. You're making out that we can't have negative reactions to the trailer, when the whole damn point is to see what people thought of it. No one is forcing you to be this trailer's knight in shining armor. At this point it's just coming off as you trying to be a cheerleader.

As for me, I thought the whole thing just seemed so terribly generic. Given some of the cast I think it could still be a lot of fun but what I really want from this movie is a sense of adventure. The trailer was just kind of there, trying to look shiny and blow me away with epileptic quick cuts.