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I think "John Harrison" is the Agent name, like "007".

This looks like it will be a great movie, but also an absolutely terrible Star Trek movie.

Battlehymn Republic wrote:This looks like it will be a great movie, but also an absolutely terrible Star Trek movie.

It does make me think more of Mass Effect (and the trailer for Iron Man 3) than Star Trek. Hopefully Kirk is less of an irredeemable dick in this one.

What happened to Star Trek being about exploration, discovery, gunboat diplomacy, and Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon pulp adventures with a technobabble fake-scientific veneer? What's all of this "hunting down a rogue super-agent" and "gimme a chance, Chief, I'll take him down!" spy bullshit crossed with Christopher Nolan "everything must have gravitas" po-facedness that Mass Effect 3 was afflicted with? I have no doubt that I will be entertained, but it looks like J. J. Abrams took Star Trek and turned it into any other gritty rebooted franchise with this sequel.

Battlehymn Republic wrote:This looks like it will be a great movie, but also an absolutely terrible Star Trek movie.

You mean like 50-90% of previous Star Trek films?

It's sad that the need to pigeonhole is so strong that people already write things off based on what boxes they perceive it as being in. What next? Declaring entertaining movies with strong performances automatically not Star Trek? :v

Stark wrote:

Battlehymn Republic wrote:This looks like it will be a great movie, but also an absolutely terrible Star Trek movie.

You mean like 50-90% of previous Star Trek films?

It's sad that the need to pigeonhole is so strong that people already write things off based on what boxes they perceive it as being in. What next? Declaring entertaining movies with strong performances automatically not Star Trek? :v

I think some people simply wants the new Star Trek crew to do a few exploration movies before going all out as an action movie. After all, Kirk and Co. are supposed to be explorers first, action heroes second.

The first film didn't really did a good job at establishing Starfleet as an exploration fleet.

So? How many movies (and hundreds of millions of dollars) is required before they're 'allowed' to do anything but 'traditional' Star Trek movies (like all those ones that sucked dogshit)? Indeed, the reboot movie's biggest problem was the need to hand-hold nerds with Old Spock! If they'd just made their exciting space adventure without Leonard Nimoy, it would have been a better film.

I hope they flat-out ignore 'fan demands' and just make a fun movie.

PS, can anyone point to anywhere in the reboot movie where they say Kirk is supposed to be an explorer first and a hero second? Or is this just implicit import from that other Star Trek franchise that sucked so bad they LITERALLY THREW IT IN THE GARBAGE?

Literally figuratively.

Pretty sure the last Enterprise script was written in poop.

Stark wrote:So? How many movies (and hundreds of millions of dollars) is required before they're 'allowed' to do anything but 'traditional' Star Trek movies (like all those ones that sucked dogshit)? Indeed, the reboot movie's biggest problem was the need to hand-hold nerds with Old Spock! If they'd just made their exciting space adventure without Leonard Nimoy, it would have been a better film.

That could have led to a fanbase backlash and let the film suffer from a poor word of mouth.

ray245 wrote:

Stark wrote:So? How many movies (and hundreds of millions of dollars) is required before they're 'allowed' to do anything but 'traditional' Star Trek movies (like all those ones that sucked dogshit)? Indeed, the reboot movie's biggest problem was the need to hand-hold nerds with Old Spock! If they'd just made their exciting space adventure without Leonard Nimoy, it would have been a better film.

That could have led to a fanbase backlash and let the film suffer from a poor word of mouth.

Yeah, and? It was still horrid storywise.

Stark wrote:I hope they flat-out ignore 'fan demands' and just make a fun movie.

PS, can anyone point to anywhere in the reboot movie where they say Kirk is supposed to be an explorer first and a hero second? Or is this just implicit import from that other Star Trek franchise that sucked so bad they LITERALLY THREW IT IN THE GARBAGE?

But that's the thing: it looks entertaining in a sci-fi action sort of way, but it doesn't look particularly fun. Instead, it looks gritty, grim, and full of gravitas. It looks serious, because Starfleet just had its 7/7, and then their command gets shot up like the opening scene of Mass Effect 3 or something. It looks like Kirk not only has to save the day, he has to save all of Starfleet, because he's the only damn captain who can has the grit and determination, even though he's new at the job. In short, its another franchise that has a sequel that's upping the stakes to make it EPIC.

It's like how the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels moved from swashbuckling action to defying supernatural personifications of deaths and then the Threat Against All Piracy, Ever. Or how the Matrix sequels completely got tripped over its own half-baked mythology and lost sight what made the original fresh and compelling. And more relevantly, Mass Effect, which ostensibly is about a suave, dashing, womanizing astronaut action hero, ended up being all about becoming the space messiah instead. Star Trek seems to heading in that trajectory.

I'm not even a fan of Star Trek, this just doesn't resemble what I know the series to be about. Maybe it's just the trailer. But there really is a phenomenon in Hollywood in the last decade with sequels that try to outdo each other's grandiosity and bombast. And while gritty franchise reboots precede The Dark Knight, that was the movie that really made it a huge mainstream success, and it seems like whenever series try to reinvent themselves, they just slap on the seriousness and call it realism.

Again, I'm not saying I won't like the movie or enjoy it, but it just looks like it's falling into the same trend, which just seems downright unoriginal.

I can certainly see where you're coming from with the forced jeopardy of back-pressure fiat heroes, bu since that's basically all popular films now I can't be surprised or outraged. GI Joe will probably be ull of it and its the only movie ill see this year.

And it's statements like 'not what should be about' that gets me, because looking at movies Str trek is about 'goofy overacting shit'. And Iron Man shows that you can make big money with that, if you force some drama.

Flagg wrote: Yeah, and? It was still horrid storywise.

I don't think the production company cares about that as long as they can have a good word of mouth and have more profits.

ray245 wrote:I don't think the production company cares about that as long as they can have a good word of mouth and have more profits.

Holy shit, really? You've just blown my mind.

You know how much Trek '09 made in its opening weekend in the US? Seventy five million dollars.

You know how much Nemesis made in its entire theatrical run in the US? Forty three million dollars.

You don't need to keep Trekkies onside to have a successful Trek film.

Gandalf wrote: You don't need to keep Trekkies onside to have a successful Trek film.

They are still a fanbase that can influence non-trekkies opinion. If the initial reviews are quite negative, it impacts how well the movie does at the box office after its opening week.

Poor word of mouth might not prevent the studio from making a profit, but it can absolutely destroy the possibilities of sequels.

Poor word of mouth killed the old trek franchise. Nerds being generally unhappy didn't kill the new one. Can your theory explain this?

Enterprise being a retread of Voyager for 2 seasons (which itself was a retread of TNG) and Nemesis being a pile of shit are why the Trek franchise died.

Stark wrote:Poor word of mouth killed the old trek franchise. Nerds being generally unhappy didn't kill the new one. Can your theory explain this?

I thought most Trekkies liked the new Star Trek film?

What gave you that impression? Since the 'word of mouth' on, say, SDN is generally bad, and yet it made money, what does this mean to you?

Stark wrote:What gave you that impression? Since the 'word of mouth' on, say, SDN is generally bad, and yet it made money, what does this mean to you?

SDN is only a small snapshot of Trekkie opinion. IMDb and the official forums both present a generally 50/50 split of opinion, at least on the forums, whilst ST09'S ratings on IMDb (admittedly not certain how many are Trek fans) are very positive.

Speaking as a Trek fan, I feel ST09 was a breath of fresh air. Much better than recent efforts and it got people interested in the franchise again, so for me, job done.

In all fairness, I think the only film to be universally beloved by casual audiences and Trek fans alike is The Wrath of Khan. Maybe The Undiscovered Country and First Contact at a stretch, but I don't think TUC's quite as popular among casual audiences, and a lot of Trek fans seem to blame (though not entirely fairly, IMO) FC for screwing up the Borg and the fact that B&B basically spent the next eight years fruitlessly trying to recapture its success.

DaveJB wrote:In all fairness, I think the only film to be universally beloved by casual audiences and Trek fans alike is The Wrath of Khan. Maybe The Undiscovered Country and First Contact at a stretch, but I don't think TUC's quite as popular among casual audiences, and a lot of Trek fans seem to blame (though not entirely fairly, IMO) FC for screwing up the Borg and the fact that B&B basically spent the next eight years fruitlessly trying to recapture its success.

"The Voyage Home"? Even fans generally seem to enjoy the movie, in spite of the absurdity of the plot. Till Trek '09 it was the highest grossing film in the franchise.

The final trailer before release, lots of new footage