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Finally got round to watching Into Darkness...
marcusdkane
Member Posts: 7,439 Arc User
In fairness to JJ, a director can only work with the script he's given... More plots holes than my granddad's string vest, an unnecessary amount of uniform changes, some shockingly bad acting (Peter Weller) and zero emotional impact on what should have been emotional scenes, but overall, quite watchable *cough*AliceEveJodiJohnston*cough* Read some bad things about Bob Orci in relation to critiques of his work :rolleyes:
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-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
Yup...
tencharacters
Orci and Kurzman are also responsible for "ruining" Transformers for many diehard fans of that IP. But for most of those us who were sorta "meh" on the original show or had never seen it found the movies to be enjoyable, if a bit silly.
NuTrek is best enjoyed like the rest of their work - simply shut off your brain, let the plot holes and goofiness slide, and let everything you know about the IP just fade into the back of your mind.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
That's what I pretty much thought about it. Definitely a 'turn on/tune out' movie, but quite watchable (thanks to a white-haired bridge bunny :P )
But so did Power Masters, Beast Wars, Transformers Animated, and a whole bunch of other stuff I don't remember according to them. So really they were likely to be unhappy no matter what Orci and Kurzman did.
To be fair if you didn't do that not much any Star Trek would be watchable
Actually the only things from the IP you have to ignore are TNG, DS9, and VOY. So far it seems to hold up to TOS, well except for using the evil TNG version of the Prime Directive.
Interestingly enough it seems some of the complaints about JJ Trek are very similar to complains about Star Trek under Harve Bennett.
Gets on my nerves.
I admit at first I wasn't a fan of the new design of the Enterprise, and they STILL can't give us a clear size. But after she popped up out of Titan... I was like "That... is frickin' awesome". People don't rant about the Mirror Universe. Why rant about this one? Is it because we're learning more about it than the Mirror Universe?
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I think most of it, is because, it wasn't until a HUGE amount of original fans came up with the idea of "this is an alternate universe", did CBS decide to go with it. Originally, it was meant as a time travel schtick, and the original Trek was going to be altered. So a lot of "original" fans, don't like JJ Trek simply because of that.
Granted, I did what quite a few did, and bounce between that it was the alternate universe thing, or that it's just not even really Trek, just a space era action film. (Actually, JJ TREK might be more popular, had he just gone that route originally).
But in any case, there IS still one legacy that has been made permanent in the original universe, from JJ Trek, and that was the Hobus supernova explosion, wrecking Romulus & Remus. So some fans probably don't like that even that much of JJ Trek is included.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
I'm still not a fan of the new "JJ Prise" starship itself. I hate the nacelle design. Just not aesthetically pleasing to me. I do like the rapid fire phasers though(like cannons in this game). So it's like offsetting penalties in the NFL to me. As for the movies, I agree that fans get butthurt over a lot of nothing. Not to show my age, but I grew up watching TOS in the 70s. TOS will always be my favorite. I like the writer's takes for a new generation on my favorited Trek characters. I thought TNG is good. I liked DS9 and, god forbid, I actually enjoyed Voyager. I know it's heresy but I'm to old to give a rats patooty. Now Enterprise? Eh, it was a nice diversion. What? Diversion? You mean Star Trek isn't real? No!!!!!!!!!!!!! It can't be!!!!!! Thus why I enjoyed the JJ versions. He at least made it an alternate timeline. Also, I don't believe the shtick that "Paramount went with it because original fans said it.". JJ has dabbled in alternate realities quite a bit. I mean did people not see "Lost", "Fringe" and even now "Sleepy Hollow"? All JJ produced stuff. JJ lives for the "alternate". It's different, it's watchable, and my goodness, I liked the comic relief they put in it. Goodness..comic relief? We can't have that in Trek. It should be all touchy feely. We certainly can't have it appealing to a new younger millenial audience, it has to only be for the 30, 40, 50, 60 year old fanboy.
You can believe it or not. But I kind of got curious, after I had watched the 2009 one, and was wondering at what all the total rage was about. Read quite a few blogs, and on CBS and Paramount's websites both. They never said anything about proclaiming it an "alternate timeline", til long after a bunch of fans had said it, to explain away why everything was ending up changing. Because originally, the studios were saying that all this had happened in the prime universe. Then a few months later, they back-tracked, and said it was an alternate universe. So yes, it was "fan-created". Guess the studio figured out if they didn't want to lose a bunch of fans, they'd be smarter going with something that left the canon prime universe alone, (mostly), while also allowing for JJ Trek at the same time.
Which is what they should have done in the first place.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
can i get on this troll train too?
im a diehard and i know its an alt reality that split from the main, meaning what ever happens in this one only exists in that one, since i dont consider jjcrapverse canon, fortunately thats one issue i dont have to refute. i wished however the idea of the alt reality vulcan had not been destroyed just for petty revenge this vulcan was innocent of.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Yup, i do agree with most of your points here. What bothers me tho is the way he actually filmed it. Why all the blown up violence in nowadays series and movies? I call it hyperrealism and for a "touchy-feely" kind of star trek series i think, it may not be the best approach. It worked pretty okay with lost and fringe, both series are very enjoyable.
But in star trek, even the old stuff there was always a bit of held back violence kind of atmosphere. Now i know Shatner was always ready to punch any alien in those days, but the serie grew up over the last 3-4 decades.
In my opinion it is just a bit of a disappointment to head back to the old days where, and i quote janeway here: "These guys where quiker with there fasers and less considerate with the prime directive."
Alternate universe is okay by me, but the way it went, it reminded me a bit too much of the terran empire.
The Mirror Universe was never used as a reset button for the franchise. It was used sparingly for fun episodes that didn't matter, where anything could happen without consequence, because it was not happening to the characters of the Prime Verse...
From what I gather, most people's complaints about Into Darkness, are down to a bunch of right-place-at-the-right-time-no-talent-hack writers trying to rip material from the most popular of the franchise movies, and still being unable to evoke the desired emotional response. From what I've read, when Spock yelled "Khaaaaaan!!!", audiences laughed. And not laughing with it, but at it... What film was voted by fans as the worst Star Trek film of all time? That's right, Into Darkness... Which film was booed at it's very mention? Yup, Into Darkness... I can't wait to see the reaction to Star Wars Episode VII. Wouldn't surprise me if JJ and co get lynched...
That said, if JJ messes this up, he will be forever tainted and classified in that container where You'll find Uwe Boll... ...and not many others.
Doesn't the film already hint at it being an alternate timeline as well as those interviews about using the current theories about time travel pretty much already mean they were going for an alternate timeline.
In fact the complaining fans were usually the ones who were saying it erased the Primeverse.
No I'm saying one should ignore a fanbase's complaints when they complain about EVERYTHING no matter what especially about a franchise that primarily exists to sell toys.
I doubt JJ Abrams could TRIBBLE Star Wars up unless it was a 2 hour version of the Holiday special written by Karen Traviss.
And as to the posts about not liking the NuEnterprise.
No matter what you say about it its still better than that Planet of the Titans abomination.
As a sci-fi movie, it's not bad, but IMHO, they were trying to cram too many plot elements in, and lost sight of the little things. As Sander said, it's one to watch 'as is', without considering anything else in the franchise (which is equally a pretty poor indightment for something which was intended as part of a very well established franchise
The warmongering Starfleet elements? At least two very old TOS novels ("Dreadnought" and "The Final Reflection").
The ridiculous ease of access to Qo'nos? Cue Undiscovered Country and Enterprise's pilot, Broken Bow. Though the transporter did take this to an extreme level, the film would have worked just as well with Khan fleeing on a small warp-capable ship.
Khan's blood as a cure-all? No worse than a lot of TNG recoveries.
TOS couldn't make its mind up over how militarised Starfleet was supposed to be, either.
The worst crime was to try and repeat the ending of TWoK, without the critical factor - a decades long, deep friendship between Kirk and Spock. On the plus side, the final duel with Khan scratched a mental "What if.." that I'd had since first seeing Space Seed.
Aw, c'mon, Insurrection was fun. Sure, the love interest sucked, but Picard was in top form and Ah'dar Ru'afo had a great scream of "NNNNOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"
Plus, Worf shot drones out of the sky while making wisecracks ("Definitely feeling aggressive tendencies, sir!"). What's not to like?
I agree with you on Into Darkness and Nemesis, though. For all that Ron Perlman's Viceroy was cool, he was TOTALLY underused, and Shinzon was sooooooooooo poorly scripted, it was pathetic. The Scimitar was cool, though, despite the obvious "My TRIBBLE--I mean, starship--is bigger than yours!" vibe.
And if you've seen some of JJ's other "work", like "Super 8"...well, let's just say that Michael Bay is only MARGINALLY worse than JJ Abrams. Because at least Michael Bay is self-aware enough to engage in occasional autoparody.
It's called a toilet.
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
I admit, Insurrection had some good bits. Personally, I think Admiral Dougherty was The Man, and totally misunderstood when historically refered to as 'the bad guy'... While the ethics of the mission were dubious, not only were they sanctioned by the Federation Council, but he was carrying out the mission to benefit, in his own words, all members of the Federation. There wasn't an ounce of selfishness in the man at all... but it also had enough cringe-worthy bits to earn an overall thumbs down from me...
I actually thought the Viceroy was pretty weak (to use the Galaxy Quest observation, his character wasn't even important enough to have a name :eek: ) For me, the highpoint of the movie (aside from Bryan Singer getting spaced) was Donatra
Transformers meets The Goonies
I think fanbase opinions matter to CBS/Paramount, but I don't think JJ really cared about the fanbase opinions. I think in order to get the permissions to do a Star Trek film he had to stick with the basic premise of the license. Plus it had been how many years since we had Kirk, Spock and McCoy movie? 20 plus years? Also don't forget there had not been a Star Trek film since those train-wrecks of "Insurrection" and "Nemesis". My guess is JJ and CBS agreed to go back to the originals. After all it was a dead franchise on film. "Enterprise" flopped on TV after 4 seasons, when the TNG, DS9 and Voyager all ran 7. Star Trek was living in video games(barely) and books. JJ came along with a shot of adrenaline for the franchise. Given his production track record, "Lost", "Fringe", etc I'm sure CBS and Paramount were pretty stoked about him on board to freshen up the franchise. But JJ caring about the fanbase, no I don't see that. JJ will do what JJ wants to do.
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Depends which members of fanbase are we talking about since they don't tend to agree on everything despite what the vocal ones who tend to yell the loudest like to think.
[/quote] not got involved in an established franchise and then re-imagined them in their own style (and will likely do the same to Star Wars) :eek:[/QUOTE]
Star Trek (1967) was not like Star Trek: The Next Generation, no matter how much some people try to twist it to fit the mold. The federation wasn't a utopia and humans didn't go around saying they were saints. So complaining about Star Trek (2009) not being a TNG clone makes no sense as the only show it needed to care about was Star Trek (1967).
Now having watched most of the first two seasons of Star Trek (1967) as well as Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness I didn't really see any way in which these films were not consistent with that show.
That's a very valid point... Along that line, discounting the Alien versus Predator movies (because of their use of Predators) their hadn't been a true Alien movie since Alien Resurrection in '97... Yet Sir Ridley Scott came along and gave us Prometheus, a prequel which slotted perfectly into the original timeline without potentially altering/changing/discounting anything which happened in the original quadrilogy... Now let's be honest, when it comes to directing chops, JJ Abrams doesn't have half Sir Ridley Scott's talent, but either way, that is an example of how a prequel can be done without it having to be a hard re-boot, or having to rely on alternate universe shenanigans to allow [wholly unnecessary] changes to the established chronology...