In the comments to "Unimportant Things" finsof72 wrote "Though I have spent much of my life ripping anyone who has ever watched and episode of Star Trek, I'm ashamed to admit that I actually kind of want to see the new one after seeing the trailer...," and I have to say, coming from the same (distinguished) background, I agree.
I mean Simon Pegg seems to be having so much fun just with the one line he gets on the trailer that it would seem grinch-y not to join in.
Thoughts?
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21 comments:
JJ Abrams, baby!
I'll be in the theatre opening weekend.
Might actually see this. And I tend to dislike Star Trek. With the exception of Shatner and Nemoy.
I'm a Trek fan (mostly the Next Generation/Deep Space 9 stuff, though) and had no real ambition to see this flick, but that trailer has me wanting more.
Not traditionally a Trek fan, VERY excited for this movie.
My only concern is that it's written by the Transformers/Fringe/C'mon J. J. you know good writers guys.
James -- ah, now that has considerably dimmed my interest.
I just got off the phone with brad and we talked about this: he said it was great that Abrams stuck to a 50s vision of the future -- when Kirk looks at the ship being built it is like a mat painting in old books of what the future would look like. He also pointed out that Kirk apparently dies falling off of a cliff in the Next Gen / First Gen crossover movie -- which is why he is shown almost falling in his first appearance in the trailer. He said JJ Abrams was a little Speilberg, with the old fashioned car opening.
I pointed out how none of us are really watching the trailer correctly: the ideal viewer would not realize it WAS a Star Trek Trailer until the kid says his name is James Tyberius Kirk -- and how great is it that the middle name is such a staple of geek cred?
To me it looks like a version of Star Trek that might belong on the CW.
Maybe it will be better. I hope it will be better.
I'm a rabid Star Trek fan, and I'm eager to see the film.
While I love Trek, I'm still getting my fix watching old Next Gen episodes. The last few films left me cold and the franchise seemed to stagnate given, I don't know, paralysing reverence for the past?
The last exciting Trek I saw was First Contact, which recast Next Gen as an action film.
Interestingly, my brother hates Trek but adores Star Wars, and is keen for this film having seen the trailer. He says its because 'there's dirt in it'. He decries the utter lack of dirt in Star Trek.
I'm a big fan of Deep Space Nine and am just getting into Next Gen, and I'll probably see this movie when it comes out. But here's what I don't get: Why in hell does everyone have to be a teenager?
Is it too much to ask that our futuristic spacecraft are steered by grownups?
Can we have a civilization?
Deep Space Nine is definitely the best of all the 80s-90s-era Trek. (Also the dirtiest, if Stefan's brother is reading this ...)
I dunno. Ill of course see this, but I feel like Star Trek shouldn't be THIS cool. It's supposed to be so dorky and hokey that it makes your girlfriend want to leave the room, you know?
Geoff: I'm sure it'll be fine.
SPOCK: Don't you remember, James Kirk? You've been made First Mate of the Starship Enterprise!
KIRK: I'd like to think my time at the Starfleet Academy taught me something!
"I pointed out how none of us are really watching the trailer correctly: the ideal viewer would not realize it WAS a Star Trek Trailer until the kid says his name is James Tyberius Kirk"
Yeah, I love that. It's the same with the Batman Begins teaser trailer - it appeals to this me that doesn't exist anymore; who could be sitting in the cinema and possibly be surprised about the subject of a trailer.
Timothy, the CW you say?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Zhoesi7cg
Half-formed thought late at night:
I think the reason I don't enjoy Star Trek is because everything is wrapped with such a nice little, definitive bow. It feels... finite.
I have no idea what the next step, because the implication of the show is that civilization has pretty much reached its omega. There is nowhere to go from here.
There's nothing more to explore. Nothing to solve. It's all done, fixed and finished.
Sure, a couple of the series have played with the notion, by throwing the crew into the abyss and back, but they've never actually captured the feeling or idea that there are things we have not yet discovered or explored. There almost always seem to be a precedent from previously.
It's a static universe, that's experiencing its eathrattle, and doesn't even know it.
(I'll happily admit that I'm not as familiar with Star Trek as the rest of you, but this is the impression I've gotten from the old series and a good season or two of Voyager.)
I agree that the actors all look like models, and that this probably belongs on the WB (or CW, whatever they call it these days). And that might be the issue with a J.J. Abrams thing, like Cloverfield (and I know Cloverfield was directed by Matt Reeves but c'mon, we all know was the brains behind it). It seems the target demographic is teenagers in an attempt to revitalive what is essentially a dead franchise, so all the 'actors' will be what all teenagers think they look like according to Seventeen magazine. I don't know ANYTHING about the story behind Star Trek, so talking about crossovers and plot turns in the series has me pretty much lost (unlike the story in Cloverfield which was basically just a vehicle for the experimental spectacle of a handycam-shot monster movie). I know that there's a guy named Spock with funny ears and Captain Kirk,, who I THOUGHT was Patrick Stwewart until I was informed by someone I would've beaten up two or three years ago that Kirk is played by William Shattner and Stewart is Picard or something like that...I just want to watch stuff blow up and monsters eat people...
I agree that the actors all look like models, and that this probably belongs on the WB (or CW, whatever they call it these days). And that might be the issue with a J.J. Abrams thing, like Cloverfield (and I know Cloverfield was directed by Matt Reeves but c'mon, we all know was the brains behind it). It seems the target demographic is teenagers in an attempt to revitalive what is essentially a dead franchise, so all the 'actors' will be what all teenagers think they look like according to Seventeen magazine. I don't know ANYTHING about the story behind Star Trek, so talking about crossovers and plot turns in the series has me pretty much lost (unlike the story in Cloverfield which was basically just a vehicle for the experimental spectacle of a handycam-shot monster movie). I know that there's a guy named Spock with funny ears and Captain Kirk,, who I THOUGHT was Patrick Stwewart until I was informed by someone I would've beaten up two or three years ago that Kirk is played by William Shattner and Stewart is Picard or something like that...I just want to watch stuff blow up and monsters eat people...
Is the problem that Kirk and Uhura are young and good-looking? Because I'm pretty sure that in the original series Kirk and Uhura were young and good-looking.
If you watch clips from the original series, the cast looks like a bunch of old people.
"If you watch clips from the original series, the cast looks like a bunch of old people."
-- But I don't think that was the intent (except with Dr. McCoy and maybe Spock ...). They were young, vital people in their prime. I think the casting of good-looking people in the film is perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the original show, regardless of how we now regard the old show as kind of stodgy, campy and whatever else. (Lots of old stuff looks lame today, after all -- ever watch that "Jason and the Argonauts" film? Hercules is this lame-looking dude with a beer gut. HERCULES WITH A BEER GUT!!!)
I've got to do this? I've got to do this.
Dr McCoy is! Karl Urban - Good-looking, sure. But also 36 and mostly known for playing Fantasy Tough Guys.
Scotty is! Simon Pegg - Nerd-favourite goofball with an evanescent hairline.
Mr Sulu is! John Cho - Who makes me swoon, but more for comedic chops than chiseled features.
Mr Spock is! Zachary Quinto - the formerly-creepy villain from Heroes, looking pretty much exactly like a young Leonard Nimoy. How dare they.
Chekov is! N't in the trailer? I didn't see him, but I looked him up on the imdbs, and while he's young (gasp!) he looks suitably dorky.
So yes, that leaves you with a Kirk and a Uhura who are "CW pretty" or whatever the blazes. This time out they're played by a good-looking guy of 28 and girl of 30, first time out they were played by a good-looking guy of 35 and girl of 34.
I see no problem here, people.
This is going to make it look like I care and I really don't and I'll go see it because I think Abrams is a bright guy. But my thoughts on seeing this totally weird trailer and a bit of the online debate:
Is the problem that they (Kirk in particular) do not look old enough or competent enough to be in the starfleet (or whatever they call it (Oh please, like I don't know!)). Or, rather, they don't look like the kind of people who would crew the terrifyingly boring and unglamorous Starship Enterprise?
I genuinely think this has always been a problem at the centre of the ST universe. These aren't cool daredevil pilots like Han Solo or whatever. The starships in the show are just that. Ships. It's hard to instil a sense of excitement or tension or whatever to the outer spacey bits if all your cast have to do is sit around pressing buttons and talking. 'Plotting coordinates, Captain' and 'preparing to start moving on your order Captain.'
(Yes, I know that the teleporting-to-the-surface-and-having-fistfights-and-conversations-about-morality bits are probably more the point of ST than the fly-around-space-blowing-shit-up bits, and that I'm deliberately missing the point. But the point, missed or not, remains that these kids (young adults) look like they'd be just as bored sitting in the Enterprise as I am watching them sit in the Enterprise. There's a real dissonance there. And at the same time a synergy between Young Kirk's smooth, bland features and the smooth blandness of the Enterprise exterior and bridge. It's utterly sterile and unsexy and frankly it creeps me out and bores me to tears in equal measure. Interstellar action needs to be a bit rough around the edges and the Enterprise leaves no room at all for improvisation. And in every film it's also totally shit in a battle.)
It reminds me of that Warren Ellis Star Trek parody Switchblade Honey, based on the joke concept of inserting Ray Winstone into the Kirk role. "Ready to engage Warp Speed Captain." "Well? Don't bother telling me. Fucking DO IT, son."
Hell, everyone knows the best ST movie used the Klingon invisible bird ship thing and involved them saving whales in the 80s. Whatever Abrams does, for me it has to stand or fall based on that prestigious legacy. (I'm not joking, I loved that movie when I was a kid).
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