Is a $72.5m Opening Weekend Enough For Star Trek?

brumgrunt writes "At first glance, JJ Abrams' Star Trek has won over audiences as well as critics as it stormed to a $72.5m US opening weekend. However, Den Of Geek sounds a note of caution. Can it hold an audience for a second week? How do its numbers stack up? And as Wolverine looks like its struggling to reach $200m off an $85m opening weekend, is Star Trek yet the huge hit blockbuster that some of the headlines are suggesting?"

Comments

Yes

[thesandtiger]

The difference between Trek and Wolverine is that fanboys were excited about seeing Wolverine while fanboys were enraged at the idea of a Trek reboot (thus the bigger opening weekend).

Except Wolverine was horrible. Really, really bad. For people who were fans of the characters, the movie completely got the characterizations wrong. For people who just wanted to see a good movie, the writing was atrocious and the story was just weak.

And Trek was really quite good - ESPECIALLY for a Trek film. There was enough there that new audiences could get into it and enjoy it as a film, and it was well done enough that fanboys have to grudgingly admit it was not the worst. movie. ever.

One opens strong and then tanks once people realize just how bad it is, the other opens a little less strong and I imagine it'll keep going strong for awhile.

Re:Yes

[Abcd1234]

Yeah, it might be a good action movie or whatever, but is hardly consistent with the philosophical underpinnings of the original work. That so few Star Trek fans "get" this is a bit unnerving.

Funny, then, that the generally acknowledged best ST movie (Wrath of Khan) was nothing more than a revenge/action movie without a single philosophical monologue to be seen.

ST has *always* been about *both* action and thoughful plot, but which you got depended on the episode. The Naked Time? Action. The City on the Edge of Forever? Thoughtful plot. To claim ST was only one or the other is to be blinded by fanboi-ism.

Re:Worst Case

[Nyrath the nearly wi]

Why did they need to erase everything that had happened? Answer: to become free of the arthritic horror of Backwards Compatibility.

Re:first post!

[Chabil Ha']

...if ST was about anything...

Star Trek was about addressing and commenting on the norms and issues of current society. You go back and watch the original series and it is very obvious--and that's what was so endearing about he series. It wasn't about phasers, proton torpedoes, and teleporters. Those were just a veneer or a vehicle for people to think.

While I don't disagree that people relate better to characters who have flaws, it was also the shining optimism that Star Trek showed us. It showed us that despite our flaws, our societal qualms, we overcame, united as a species, and sprung from the cradle from which we had evolved. Humanity had proven itself master over its environment--we have yet (in our reality) to master ourselves. Star Trek's legacy shows us what we're capable of once we accomplish that.

Re:first post!

[claytongulick]

and a starship captain at a younger age (lots of opportunity for stories about a less experienced but still excellent captain)

This is where the movie lost me. Maybe it is because of my background in the USN, but the 4th wall was completely destroyed for me by the clumsy way the writers inserted Kirk into the Enterprise chain of command.

Here we have a *cadet* who is on academic probation for cheating - again, let me stress, he isn't even an ensign, hasn't actually received a commission at all, but for some reason the captain of a brand new starship just magically decides he is the new first officer. Seriously? That was such utter crap, I wanted to walk out of the movie then.

Unfortunately, I didn't - which caused me to suffer through the utterly improbable scene where this same person, who is not an officer, has been not only forcibly removed from the bridge but has actually been expelled from the ship itself, somehow manages to cause a mutiny on the ship and become captain by making fun of Spock's mommy.

Then, after miraculously taking over the entire ship, makes the utterly insane decision to single handedly attack a superior vessel, with one other person (Spock) instead of notifying the fleet that the *Earth is about to be destroyed*.

Fortunately, he is able to dance around while 15 or so enemies are shooting at him and avoid being hit. I haven't seen such improbable writing since the A-Team.

Then, instead of being immediately thrown in jail along with his co-conspirators, he is rewarded with a captaincy of the Enterprise (even though he hasn't actually finished the Academy yet).

I just don't get it. I'm honestly not trying to troll here (check my Karma, I don't do that) I really just don't understand how anyone could take this the least bit seriously, much less praise it.

The worst episode of TNG had better writing and plot than this movie.

It depresses me to hear the masses rave about it.