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Star Trek Premiere Gets Standing Ovation, Surprise Showing In Austin
MrKaos writes "Proving that science fiction can still be great entertainment, J.J. Abrams appears to have impressed Star Trek fans at the official world premiere of Star Trek, who gave the film a five-minute standing ovation at the Sydney Opera House in Australia today. Meanwhile, mere hours beforehand, flummoxed fans at the Alamo Drafthouse theater in Austin, TX, deceived into thinking they were seeing a special, extended version of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, were pleasantly surprised when a disguised Leonard Nimoy greeted them and announced they would be seeing the new film in its entirety. ILM's influence on the film is reported as visually stunning, and lucky Australian fans are scheduled to see the movie first, as it opens a day before the American release."
.... I'd hate to see this guy have to do another plot synopsis ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"Proving that science fiction can still be great entertainment"
When was this something that needed to be proven? I've found plenty of entertaining science fiction around. Did I miss the elitist newsletter that told us all we had to say science fiction was crap now?
Jeez, miss one meeting...
Those guys in Austin should demand a refund! They paid for a ticket for The Wrath of Khan, but that's not what they got. If it were me I'd be raising hell.
This guy's the limit!
I guess he didn't wear his ears.
Have you read my blog lately?
Well, you see, the Enterprise crashes on this planet, and all sorts of spooky things happen.
Meanwhile, these aliens, called "The Others" keep harassing the crew.
And there are lots of flashbacks to just before the Enterprise crashes.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
The audience consisted of trekkies, but I'm wondering; does that make the 5min. standing ovation more, or less impressive?
Personally as long as something is done well it don't have to be new. If the new incarnation of Star Trek is well made and entertaining, then I nothing is better than that. It is far easier for "established" licenses to get the budget movies like this get. Of course I wouldn't mind seeing something darker and more gritty than Star Trek within the realm of science fiction. But at least a well made movie constructed on an old concept is better than a crap movie based upon a new concept.
The Long Now Foundation
Every time he thinks about Megan Fox, he thinks about his organ.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
FTFA:
Anton Yelchin's Russian accent in his portrayal of Chekov does get a bit annoying.
What do you expect Yelchin to do with that part, now that Koenig completely immortalized bad accents for Chekov?
I am officially gone from
Just curious, is Christopher Pike the captain of the enterprise? I saw some guy introduce himself as Kirk in the trailer. However since this is supposed to be predating the early series, Kirk wouldn't be captain yet. Pike would. Or is this yet another one of the billion plot holes?
Am I the only one to see the irony in someone claiming that the solution to the lack of original ideas is to copy ideas from books?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Remember, this was a screening attended by trekkies and Harry Knowles-type movie dorks. These aren't people that know what a good movie is.
Hell, the trailers for the new Trek movie seem to indicate that Abrams took inspiration from - God help us - the Star Wars prequels.
It'll suck. Like almost all science-fiction movies from the past 15 or 20 years. And I'm a sci-fi fan.
It's actually, apparently, all well explained. Including other stuff like the Enterprise being built on the ground instead of in space.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
Let's not fool ourselves here-- if you think Hollywood has an idea shortage because they're recycling old ideas, stories, and characters, then all of humanity has had an idea shortage for a few thousand years, at least. And I say "at least" because the writers then may have been stealing ideas, but we just don't have records of the ideas they stole.
This era of reboots is fantastic in my opinion. It's what cultures do when they have a rich culture to draw from, which is that they take the old ideas and stories, and reinvent and reimagine them in a way that makes them relevant and poignant for the time. The original series was great for its time, but yeah, it's becoming increasingly dated as a relic of the 60s. The general setup of a band of explorers and the characters themselves, however, still have relevance.
You mean like how Star Wars fans went easy on Lucas for Episodes I-III?
Those guys in Austin should demand a refund! They paid for a ticket for The Wrath of Khan, but that's not what they got. If it were me I'd be raising hell.
The story I heard via word of mouth was that they were actually going to play Wrath of Khan, with ten minutes of sneak-preview footage from the movie that hadn't been seen before as a bonus. However shortly after Wrath started playing, the old and damaged film caught fire and was destroyed. Then Nimoy revealed himself, and instead of showing the 10 minute teaser, they showed the whole film.
linky I found on a Drafthouse blog, btw.
I can't imagine (though I guess it's possible) even Spock himself would dare show the full movie without authorization. So that may have been planned. The destruction of a print of Wrath... probably wasn't.
The last time I had a film burn up (actually it was the projector bulb that exploded, side effect was the print was destroyed) all I got was a lousy refund. Getting to watch a world premiere of a movie I'd probably be interested in, rather than having my night out ruined, is way way better than a refund.
I seriously fucking wish I had been there and I may have been but I didn't even know they were running Wrath. Why do I not check the Drafthouse web page more often?!
The enemies of Democracy are
It was a screening to people who would actually take time out of their lives to go see a remastered version of Wrath of Khan. Which isn't anything against those folk, that was a good movie. But in terms of objective "this was a good movie on it's own merits" reviews, do you honestly expect to see any?
This was a binary choice: either they all loved it because it was the next Star Trek movie. Meaning it didn't stink as bad as Nemesis. Or they burnt down the theater because it was the next Star Trek movie and it stunk as bad as Nemesis.
Sorry, but it's not like ignoring Nemesis would result in the Trek franchise being unsullied, so I don't see it the same as the fact that there is only one Matrix movie. There were already bad Treks, including even numbered ones, and that's just part of the series charm... I guess.
No what really happened is that Nemesis was a real movie, and a real shitty movie. Nemesis was not just an even numbered Trek that sucked, it was an even numbered Trek that sucked so hard that it dragged everything around it into itself until its huge mass of suck collapsed and formed a singularity, making a wormhole into another dimension where the old odd-even rule simply doesn't apply any more.
Nemesis broke the pattern, literally. It's busted. We're in a new world where anything can happen, including good odd-numbered Treks. Also, I think Neptune is slightly more purple in this universe.
The enemies of Democracy are
Quote from one of the reviewers:
This 11th film is easily the best looking, most expensive, best produced iteration in the franchise. This film is going to be absolutely massive. It's epic in scale, and it's easy to see where the $150 million went.
Is anyone else actually excited by this kind of thing? Who here can say they enjoyed Reloaded or Revolutions more than The Matrix? I was really hoping for reviews to tell me how compelling the acting and story were, but it really seems to be all about the expense. Am I missing something?
But that means all of the cams will have crappy Australian subtitles!
First screening impressions sometimes don't mean anything.
I would like to piggy-back on your comment suggesting early reviews were coloured by the excitement (which is probably bang-on) and point out that in the theatre where I watched the first screening of Star Wars: Episode I, there was a standing ovation after the movie was over.
Later I realized there was a standing ovation BECAUSE the movie was over.