[Spoon Poetic]

Trailer:
http://www.apple.com...e_trailer2.html

I am really excited and really apprehensive all at the same time.

Thoughts, anyone?

[Heccubus]

I was excited when the first teaser came out showing the Enterprise being constructed. Then this new trailer came out, and now I've lost interest.

[civilian_number_two]

Yeah it looks like just another action film, not Star Trek. At its best I think it will achieve no more than homage; at its worst, unintentional parody. I can't imagine better for it, and neither of those results is very appealing.

[Heccubus]

More or less my thoughts exactly. It seems like a bland science fiction movie that happens to have "Star Trek" tacked on as an afterthought.

[Otal Nimrodi]

I was hoping what I was watching wasn't actually the trailer, but rather some sort of pre-trailer. You know, like those ads you get on Hulu.

Sadly, my hopes were dashed when the kid announced his name as James Tiberius Kirk.

Now I don't want to see this movie. Maybe if it wasn't claiming to be Star Trek.

[Spoon Poetic]

The effects look amazing. It could take the Star Trek universe to a whole new plane.

I am having a hard time reconciling the actors with their characters. Someone tried to convince me "Basically, the idea was that the crew of the Enterprise have stopped being simply characters: they're now figures, as much so as James Bond, Batman, or Hamlet. They can be played by different characters and interpreted differently, but the key elements remain the same. It's a matter of viewing it not as emulation but as interpretation."

But I still don't know.

And that scene with the kid? Really? Was that necessary?

Same reaction to Uhura undressing. Come on. Having a black woman as a main role on a television show was a huuuuuge thing. Let's not reduce it by making her into just another one of Kirk's sexual adventures. Yeah they kissed in TOS but that was also epic, first interracial kiss on tv. So I really don't want to see her character reduced to nothing more than the token hot bimbo.

But I of course will be there opening day, even if only to be severely disappointed. I think at least the effects will be awesome to see, even if they did change the Enterprise a little here and there, and things like that. And I know nothing of the plot yet so I'm not sure what to expect there.

[Otal Nimrodi]

Its the kid that scared me, really.

And its hard to make that argument. You can make the argument with Batman because he's created not in film, but in comics. You can make it for James Bond because he's created for novels, not movies. You can make it for Hamlet because he's a character who's been around for THE LAST FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.

Star Trek was created as a TV show. Its hard to make that argument. But I'll buy it for now.





I still don't trust that kid.

[civilian_number_two]

If you listen to Roddenberry, Kirk was meant to be the Horatio Hornblower of the future, a generic cosmic adventurer who was symbolic of the pioneer spirit of man. So I can meet halfway the idea that new actors can play the character, the idea that the story can be remade for all of the characters. It's not after all the first time that sort of thing has been done. But they're not doing it because they had more stories to tell and the actors sadly are no longer of an appropriate age. This is a cynical moneymaker. Their best bet to revive interest in TREK is to go with tested material. Creating new characters would be risky, while revisiting the classics is an easy step.

This was in fact the first STAR TREK film idea ever conceived, the idea of getting new actors to play the original crew on their first mission. This is something Roddenberry always wanted to do, and the reason he wanted to do it is he really liked his Horation Hornblower character, and he didn't want to amke another one. Roddenberry tried some other projects and his main characters were always a lot like Kirk. Even Riker of TNG was meant to be a Kirk type.

I agree with everything Spoon said about Uhura. She was never a fully realized character on TOS, so the clever thing to do would be to make her one now. The easy and cheap cop-out would be to make her a hot sex symbol, even if that's all she was the first time around.

I am sure this show will make several maneuvers that will be criticised as easy and cheap cop-outs.

[Gobbler]

This is disappointing on so many levels.

Mostly because I'm actually really interested in that "how it all came to be" part... but then there's that certainty that no matter how they do it, they'll fuck it up and destroy that image that I have of the old Star Trek crew, which is the very reason for my interest in the first place.

The sappy scene with the kid... Sylar as Spock... I'll have to watch it because I want to know the basic story, but I'm pretty sure that I won't enjoy the tangents, the acting and the obligatory action scenes.

[TheOrator]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that they will definitely screw it up, although I'm not optimistic. I will see it opening day, too, though.

[Duke Aeon]

I saw the trailer before Quantum of Solace, and even though I was completely wasted at the time, I thought it looked pretty cool. I'm not a fan of JJ Abrams, by any stretch, his filmography is stunningly uninteresting even if you just go by his producer credits, except for possibly Cloverfield that only succeeded because a the narrative form was enough to carry the shitty story through. I digress!

I think the cast looks absolutely stellar, even despite John Cho playing Zulu, which is what I'm more concerned about, I think that most of the original cast was a bunch of jokes, but George Takei, he's iconic. Seeing that soft spoken puppy is distressing. The writing crew is terrifying, seemingly absolutely inept. Watched some of their latest work recently in the Fringe pilot.

Blond Cop Girl: Did you hire me because of (background exposition)?
Scary Boss Man: I hired you despite (negative take on background).

This does not make me feel confident in this being anything but stupid. These magical twins are also responsible for script work on Eagle Eye, Transformers, Mission Impossible 3, Legend of Zorro and the Island, while that's nothing to be ashamed of, it doesn't dazzle or inspire.

Will I see it? Hell yes. I always thought Star Trek was mildly enjoyable episodic trash anyway.

[Spoon Poetic]

Sulu. Not Zulu.

This post has been edited by Spoon Poetic: 19 November 2008 - 07:29 PM

[Heccubus]

Yes.

Zulu


Sulu

The differences are subtle, yet numerous.

[Gobbler]

Can we take bets on whether there will be a retelling of the Kobayashi Maru test?

I bet there will be, and it will be as pointless as it can get, since it's basically a legend that can and only should be told in two sentences at this point.

[civilian_number_two]

That'd be about as stupid as doing a cartoon series covering the clone wars.

I won't rule it out, but there's nothing to learn from seeing that in action. I think any writer would be smart enough to see that. But then again, thr STAR TREK series of movies produced NEMESIS, which was basically a GLADIATOR ripoff written by the same guy who wrote GLADIATOR.

By and large, STAR TREK tv series (various) = ok; STAR TREK movies (nearly all of them) = teh suck.