![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT THE NEW STAR TREK FILM
Star Trek: Into Darkness
In which JJ Abrams squanders all the goodwill generated from the reboot film and basically pisses off the entire Trekkie fanbase.
At least if you go by my Facebook newsfeed. Or half the posts at io9.
This io9 FAQ (which is SPOILER-HEAVY) pretty much sums up the problem, from the rewrite of Khan and the misreading of Kirk’s character to the various THAT MAKES NO F***ING SENSE WHY ARE YOU INSULTING MY INTELLIGENCE JJ ABRAMS F*** YOU flaws in the plot.
I’m a little more sanguine about it, being enough of a fan of the Star Trek shows and films to watch and enjoy them (except when they’re not so good) but not enough to take canon consistency all that seriously or really care if JJ Abrams and his screenwriters take liberties with the characters.
I’m also not that interested in the discussions over the film’s complete disregard for science and physics. Most Hollywood Popcorn Blockbuster action films do that already. The original Star Trek series (the films and the show) did too, even within the confines of its own pseudoscientific principles.
That said, with ST:ID it’s obvious that a lot more thought went into creating kick-ass action sequences than coming up with a good reason to explain why the characters are doing what they’re doing apart from kicking ass. A lot of what happens in the film makes sense only if you don’t think about it too hard. Or at all.
And while I don’t really have a problem with Abrams recycling an old villain (after all, he’s doing that with the entire crew), the climactic scene that mirrors another famous climactic scene in a Star Trek film involving the same villain is really pushing it. The theoretical point of the reboot was to tell new stories, not rehash classic scenes with minor twists. Also, as other have pointed out, the original scene worked because it came with 15+ years of history that the current series does not have.
And good grief, that scene with Alice Eve. Whatever Abrams intended, the final result looks as though midway through filming they got a note from some studio suit saying. “Hey, that gratuitous lingerie scene in the first Star Trek? Put in another one of those. I don’t care where. And make sure you get a really good shot of her.”
So it is pretty loopy. On the other hand, it’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch, thanks mainly to the character interaction (which was what made Original Star Trek fun to watch). If ST:ID captures anything about the original series, it’s that aspect. And say what you will about the ST reboot, but it’s strikingly well cast (considering the icon-like status of the original actors).
That’s probably why ST:ID has been a hit with movie critics – that, and some really good action scenes (plausibility be damned). Also, most movie critics don’t give a f*** if you could really hide the USS Enterprise underwater.
Looking at all the dithering over this, I think the disconnect between Reboot Star Trek and the fans is this:
The fans were hoping that Abrams would do for ST what Chris Nolan did for Batman – a smart, intelligent blockbuster that incorporates the best tropes from both ST and ST:TNG (especially the latter) to create the most scientifically plausible Star Trek yet.
What Paramount/Bad Robot wanted to do was make big dumb ST popcorn blockbusters that incorporate all the ST tropes that work within that format – i.e. spaceships, fistfights, shootouts, explosions, a complete disregard for actual science, aliens that are basically humans with different heads and skin textures, and personality clashes between Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty et al. Star Trek: Into Darkness pretty much delivers that.
I’m not the first person to say this, but the reboot that fans want probably would be better served by a new TV show. Everything we know about Star Trek – the characters, the universe, the science, all of it – took several years to build up with weekly episodes for three seasons, and was built up further with all the spinoffs and novels and comics and so on. If the idea of the reboot is to start over from the beginning, you can only cover so much ground in big-budget feature films that take 3-4 years at a time to make. A TV series would give the writers the space to develop the characters and storyline at a suitable and believable pace and do the whole thing justice, and would also make the series less dependent on big dumb overblown action scenes.
The catch, as Trek fans know, is that TV shows live and die by ratings, and diehard Trek fans are, at the end of the day, a niche demographic that can only keep a show going for so long. (See also: Firefly) Paramount likely knows that too, which I suppose is why they went with the Blockbuster option to revive the franchise.
I’m not saying ST fans are wrong to hate ST:ID. I do understand how they feel. I imagine it’s the same way I felt when George Lucas started monkeying around with Star Wars Episodes 4-6, trying to convince us that Greedo shot first, etc.
All I’m saying is that ST:ID is probably a much better film if you have no emotional investment in the canon (like me) and don’t take it too seriously.
Beam me up,
This is dF
In which JJ Abrams squanders all the goodwill generated from the reboot film and basically pisses off the entire Trekkie fanbase.
At least if you go by my Facebook newsfeed. Or half the posts at io9.
This io9 FAQ (which is SPOILER-HEAVY) pretty much sums up the problem, from the rewrite of Khan and the misreading of Kirk’s character to the various THAT MAKES NO F***ING SENSE WHY ARE YOU INSULTING MY INTELLIGENCE JJ ABRAMS F*** YOU flaws in the plot.
I’m a little more sanguine about it, being enough of a fan of the Star Trek shows and films to watch and enjoy them (except when they’re not so good) but not enough to take canon consistency all that seriously or really care if JJ Abrams and his screenwriters take liberties with the characters.
I’m also not that interested in the discussions over the film’s complete disregard for science and physics. Most Hollywood Popcorn Blockbuster action films do that already. The original Star Trek series (the films and the show) did too, even within the confines of its own pseudoscientific principles.
That said, with ST:ID it’s obvious that a lot more thought went into creating kick-ass action sequences than coming up with a good reason to explain why the characters are doing what they’re doing apart from kicking ass. A lot of what happens in the film makes sense only if you don’t think about it too hard. Or at all.
And while I don’t really have a problem with Abrams recycling an old villain (after all, he’s doing that with the entire crew), the climactic scene that mirrors another famous climactic scene in a Star Trek film involving the same villain is really pushing it. The theoretical point of the reboot was to tell new stories, not rehash classic scenes with minor twists. Also, as other have pointed out, the original scene worked because it came with 15+ years of history that the current series does not have.
And good grief, that scene with Alice Eve. Whatever Abrams intended, the final result looks as though midway through filming they got a note from some studio suit saying. “Hey, that gratuitous lingerie scene in the first Star Trek? Put in another one of those. I don’t care where. And make sure you get a really good shot of her.”
So it is pretty loopy. On the other hand, it’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch, thanks mainly to the character interaction (which was what made Original Star Trek fun to watch). If ST:ID captures anything about the original series, it’s that aspect. And say what you will about the ST reboot, but it’s strikingly well cast (considering the icon-like status of the original actors).
That’s probably why ST:ID has been a hit with movie critics – that, and some really good action scenes (plausibility be damned). Also, most movie critics don’t give a f*** if you could really hide the USS Enterprise underwater.
Looking at all the dithering over this, I think the disconnect between Reboot Star Trek and the fans is this:
The fans were hoping that Abrams would do for ST what Chris Nolan did for Batman – a smart, intelligent blockbuster that incorporates the best tropes from both ST and ST:TNG (especially the latter) to create the most scientifically plausible Star Trek yet.
What Paramount/Bad Robot wanted to do was make big dumb ST popcorn blockbusters that incorporate all the ST tropes that work within that format – i.e. spaceships, fistfights, shootouts, explosions, a complete disregard for actual science, aliens that are basically humans with different heads and skin textures, and personality clashes between Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty et al. Star Trek: Into Darkness pretty much delivers that.
I’m not the first person to say this, but the reboot that fans want probably would be better served by a new TV show. Everything we know about Star Trek – the characters, the universe, the science, all of it – took several years to build up with weekly episodes for three seasons, and was built up further with all the spinoffs and novels and comics and so on. If the idea of the reboot is to start over from the beginning, you can only cover so much ground in big-budget feature films that take 3-4 years at a time to make. A TV series would give the writers the space to develop the characters and storyline at a suitable and believable pace and do the whole thing justice, and would also make the series less dependent on big dumb overblown action scenes.
The catch, as Trek fans know, is that TV shows live and die by ratings, and diehard Trek fans are, at the end of the day, a niche demographic that can only keep a show going for so long. (See also: Firefly) Paramount likely knows that too, which I suppose is why they went with the Blockbuster option to revive the franchise.
I’m not saying ST fans are wrong to hate ST:ID. I do understand how they feel. I imagine it’s the same way I felt when George Lucas started monkeying around with Star Wars Episodes 4-6, trying to convince us that Greedo shot first, etc.
All I’m saying is that ST:ID is probably a much better film if you have no emotional investment in the canon (like me) and don’t take it too seriously.
Beam me up,
This is dF