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J.J. Abrams To Direct Star Wars VII

azzkicker writes "It looks like J.J. Abrams will direct Star Wars VII. From the article: 'Sources have confirmed the Star Trek Into Darkness filmmaker will helm the next Star Wars movie, the highly anticipated installment in the landmark franchise scheduled to reach theaters in 2015."

735 comments

  1. No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Time travel is the weakest of all SciFi plot devices, reserved for authors who are completely out of ideas.

    Please, Mr. Abrams, don't do that again.

    1. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually Mr Anonymous, many of the best episodes of classic sci-fi series like Star Trek and Stargate were all based on time-travel. Yesterday's Enterprise, Anyone?

      In other words, you are wrong and it is actually the complete opposite. Time Travel scares away novice sci-fi writers because they cannot wrap their heads around the paradoxical nature of such concepts, while the great writers are able to mold the concept into compelling, memorable science fiction.

    2. Re:No more time travel! by Nostromo21 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He obviously hasn't seen Primer.

    3. Re:No more time travel! by mZHg · · Score: 2

      Time travel can be well used... But also so easily miss and over used!
      (ie Lost and final of Fringe)

    4. Re:No more time travel! by DL117 · · Score: 1

      I agree.

    5. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You probably didn't figure out the entire timeline. I actually thought it was fairly good at first, and even watch it a second time. What really got me was when I realized that:

      SPOILER ALERT.....
      .
      .
      .
      .
      .
      when the movie starts, you actually aren't watching the original timeline. They've already time traveled at least once before the movie even began.

    6. Re:No more time travel! by AK+Marc · · Score: 1, Insightful

      But if you say that, that means you are too stupid to follow it, not that you thought it was just a shit movie. I pirated it and have it on my laptop and have still never made it through. Someone should have told them that character development isn't just talking about a character, but trying to get the audience to connect with the character. It was just bad.

    7. Re:No more time travel! by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's why JJ Abrams shouldn't be trusted with time travel. It results in Lost.

    8. Re:No more time travel! by JakeBurn · · Score: 2

      Time Cop! Your argument is invalid.

    9. Re: No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Primer was an awesome movie for exactly the same reasons so many people hated it. I love it and consider it a one of a kind masterpiece. Of course I also consider Lunopolis and 11 minutes ago to be some of the finest Sci-fi I've ever seen, especially considering their budgets.

    10. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      But if you say that, that means you are too stupid to follow it, not that you thought it was just a shit movie. I pirated it and have it on my laptop and have still never made it through. Someone should have told them that character development isn't just talking about a character, but trying to get the audience to connect with the character. It was just bad.

      NOOO! MOVIE OPINIONS DIFFERENT FROM MINE! YOURE ALL D-BAG IDJIOTS AND I'M CORRECT!

      We can do this back-and-forth all day, ya'know.

    11. Re:No more time travel! by dwywit · · Score: 2

      "A world out of time" by Larry Niven. None of the usual "kill your grandfather" paradoxes, but a well-thought-out and entertaining story about a man catapulted a L O N G way into the future.

      --
      They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
    12. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      He didn't like a movie so you assume he didn't understand it? What a load of crap.

    13. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More specifically, if you don't understand Primer, check out this flowchart (first hit for "Primer flowchart" on Google images) which explains it quite well (although there is some disagreement on some minor details).

    14. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Omg Star Wars Jj abrams I just jizzed

    15. Re:No more time travel! by smittyoneeach · · Score: 1

      After http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Folded_Himself I have been unable to take any time travel stories.
      OK, I love Gene Wolf enough that I forgave him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_book_of_the_new_sun

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    16. Re:No more time travel! by yurtinus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      More misses than hits in my opinion. Time travel *should* scare away more novice sci-fi writers than it does because more often than not, it's used as a cheap deus ex machina to introduce or resolve some part of the plot (like in the SG-1 season 8 finale, series finale, or *most* of Enterprise). If you want to explore time travel - explore it! Don't use it as a cheap gimmick to push along (or reboot!!) the story.

      --
      +1 Disagree
    17. Re:No more time travel! by bigkahunah · · Score: 5, Informative

      "Even though Abrams' last known direct contribution to Lost was the script to the season 3 premiere, "A Tale of Two Cities" (which he co-wrote with Damon Lindelof), and he had stopped being the main driving force behind the direction of the show as early as season 1, instead leaving Lindelof and Carlton Cuse as the showrunners, a considerable part of the (casual) audience still considers Abrams to be the man in charge of the show." http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/J.J._Abrams

    18. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well yeah, future time travel is a perfectly reasonable plot device because it doesn't require any loophole fixing and could simply be done with some exotic cryogenic technology and waiting a long time.

    19. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dear God!
      Be prepared for time travel, alternative world storylines, and tons of ridiculous lens flare in every shot.

    20. Re:No more time travel! by deimtee · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's really just a far-future story, with a lot of relatavistic travel. What people are complaining about is any serious story with a grandfather paradox. They are logically incoherent.
      You can play it for comedy, eg one of the better time travel scenes is in the Bill and Ted movie where they and the bad guy keep going back to trump each other's move.

      But seriously, there are only two possibilities for time travel.
      (1) The universe is fully deteministic in which case the time-travel already occurred and the travel will change nothing, or
      (2) alternate universe "time-lines" in which case whatever horrible thing you are trying to change still occurred in the original universe and you have just created a copy. Nobody ever deals with that.

      --
      I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
    21. Re:No more time travel! by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      "All You Zombies" by RAH

      Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories.

      Many more excellent time travel stories...

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    22. Re:No more time travel! by mbone · · Score: 1

      After http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Folded_Himself I have been unable to take any time travel stories.

      Ah, that was just a rip-pff of "—All You Zombies—". Either that, or Heinlein got a copy through his time machine.

    23. Re:No more time travel! by Mabhatter · · Score: 1

      Time travel doesn't exist in the Star Wars universe. The closest you get are Holocrons and Jedi/Sith spirits connecting to the past. Where Star Trek is "wagon train to the stars" Star Wars was intended to be "historical fiction". The whole story makes sense if you take out all the sci-fi elements.

    24. Re:No more time travel! by jamstar7 · · Score: 2

      "A world out of time" by Larry Niven. None of the usual "kill your grandfather" paradoxes, but a well-thought-out and entertaining story about a man catapulted a L O N G way into the future.

      Except that Niven didn't use a 'time machine' to do it, he merely had the ship park just barely inside the event horizon of a black hole on a trajectory that would take it a couple million years to come out.

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    25. Re:No more time travel! by Cosgrach · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, right. Who's the bigger dumb-ass - the one who has watched it though and considers it shit, or the moron who has just publicly admitted to pirating it, still has it on their lap-top, and still has not managed to watch it all the way though because it is so incredibly bad? Hmmm? And your post was marked 'insightful'. Really? Are you guys on crack?

      The guy who recommended it to me - I bitch slapped him back to last week. Perhaps I should have pounded him a bit further so he could warn me that watching it would have been (be?) a bad idea.

      --
      Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
    26. Re:No more time travel! by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      There is a difference between science fiction and science fantasy. Time travel belongs in the realm of science fantasy. Although star trek has often drifted into science fantasy and away from science fiction, it is still primarily or at least was prior to the Jerk Jerk A era science fiction, not it is just pulp fiction with a science flavouring. Basically no one really cares, star trek thing is dead, there is no real interest, they are just trying to milk what little is left. Those lame 'leaks' trying to drive up interest, where really lame and they fell flat. Star Trek, what ever, another goofy assed action flick with a Saturday morning cartoon pulp story line.

      Here it is, to allow time travel once, it to allow time travel an infinite number of times. Once you have infinite time travel, you have chaos, "EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, EVERYWHEN". Forget those childishly shallow grandfather complexes, consider travel to early on near the big bang and altering the resultant formation of galaxies, let alone the bacteria with delusions of grandeur scraping out a living on virtual single grains of dust that makes up galaxies. You make alteration to the big bang and you must allow an infinite number of alterations to occur to the big bang, hence the universe would be in a permanent state of 'science fantasy' time flux.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    27. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "All You Zombies" was the first story by Heinlein I read, it was bad enough that I didn't read anything else by him for 15 years.

      There's too much other good stuff out there to read than shitty time travel stories.

    28. Re:No more time travel! by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 1

      Time travel is the weakest of all SciFi plot devices, reserved for authors who are completely out of ideas.

      Please, Mr. Abrams, don't do that again.

      "An even longer time ago, in a galaxy still further away..."

    29. Re:No more time travel! by DragonTHC · · Score: 1

      Quantum Leap!

      --
      They're using their grammar skills there.
    30. Re:No more time travel! by dadelbunts · · Score: 1

      That movie was awesome. One of JCVDs best.

    31. Re:No more time travel! by loneDreamer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, he might have a point. I agree that time travel is a great thing if done right (Babylon 5 IMHO does it splendidly), but most movies/series do not pull it off. It end up being an inconsistent, illogical deux-ex-machina. I mean, I love fiction and fantasy, but that does not mean that I turn my brain off and believe anything.

      And I could not even enumerate the number of idiotic scenes in the last Star Trek movie! Just one example: "No, I can't kill you for mutiny, I'll have to abandon you without supplies on a frozen planet, in a star system were a black hole was just created! That's clearly more logical and humane! But hey, look at the bright side, maybe if you walk around for a while you'll meet a future copy of myself, and then find the only guy in the galaxy that can beam us to a moving ship (1 in a trillion odds, pretty easy), so you'll get back, in which case I'm not going to throw you out of an airlock, but make you captain above all my other qualified lieutenants... but just for a while, since to stop a bunch of miners that can suddenly put the galaxy on it's feet we'll beam ourselves to their ship and stop them hand to hand. What do you say? Why not beam a time-bomb or a few dozen armed guys just to be on the safe side? Nah, no fun in that. Also, it seems like overkill to me, it's only the Earth at stake here, remember? Kneel before my superior logic!"

      No... this is definitely NOT good news.

    32. Re:No more time travel! by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > (2) alternate universe "time-lines"

      The concept of the multiverse has been around for some time.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

      But yeah, everyone seems to mostly ignore that.

      Technically there is a 3rd choice:

      (3) Universe is deterministic, every choice you make creates parallel realities where every possible choice is played out.

      Thomas Campbell's seminal "My Big Toe" trilogy has a VERY interesting perspective on the meta-reality and how it is constructed.

      Thankfully humans are still to immature & ignorant to be allowed to understand time travel otherwise they would fuck that up too like they do with everything else on this planet. One day we'll grow up ...

    33. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When it comes to films, "Complicated" does not necessarily mean good. While an overly simplistic plot and story is unlikely, or at least very difficult, to work into a complete film, you need more than a complicated plot to make a film good (effectively, complicated plot is a necessary but not sufficient condition). If taking hours of time afterwards to work out the details of the film were all that was needed, just flashing puzzles on the screen for two hours would be the greatest film ever.

      The problem with some such films that have a very complicated plot (or possibly nonsensical plot later retconned by fans to make sense), is some people get so caught up in an us vs. them mentality, where "us" is a group of people who think they understand it, and them is everyone else. It is a perfect setup to ensnare a person's ego, so they think the "us" group is special or better on some level, and/or get very defensive about people commenting on other aspects of the film overlooked by the fan due to being too busy thinking about the plot. There is something in the human mind that loves to latch onto the idea of being a secret keeper of some select knowledge or form of enjoyment.

      Can a great movie be disliked because someone didn't understand it? Yes. Can an otherwise crappy movie still have an amazing plot or at least an amazing premise? Yes. But does that doesn't mean every claim someone didn't understand a movie is actually a valid defense, and that doesn't mean movie can't suck in other regards or on the whole not work very well even if the plot is amazing.

    34. Re:No more time travel! by Gogo0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      if it was even longer ago, wouldnt the galaxy be closer?

    35. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because science fiction is all about respecting claims of the form "There are only two possible ways..."

    36. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Considering how causality is kind of a fundamental assumption of current science theories (and a pretty good one from the looks of thing so far), and it is going to be a long time before some aspects of that could even be tested or give physicists a chance to wrap their heads around alternative theories, there is still plenty of room in science fiction to explore various possibilities, and their impacts on people within the story. Most stuff uses it as a cheap gimmick or still in the realm of science fantasy. But just because it is difficult to make a good, solid story on the science fiction side of things doesn't mean it doesn't overlap.

      Insisting there is only one possible outcome, is rather uncreative and unfitting of science fiction, where despite the incredible restrictions put on a story by reality, there is room for creativity in finding how far and wide that reality or a very much still possible one could go.

    37. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree with Yesterday's Enterprise. But I think the OP has a point. Taking the same plot line and then just throwing in a what if their were two Obi Wan's here rather than 1 while somewhat interesting doesn't really push the plot, background of the story that much. That said (ducking the flaming arrows coming my way) Star Wars doesn't exactly have that deep of a storyline (just going by the movies never was one for fan fiction novels) to begin with so ...

    38. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What about rolling back time, effectively undoing everything past a certain instant in time, while sacrificing a large portion of the universe's mass and greatly increasing entropy in the process?

    39. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The other option is the infinite quantum universes model, where everything that could happen results in a branching of the timeline. Every time travel event just creates a new timeline, it doesn't destroy existing ones. Inconsistencies? No problem! they just traveled back forward in time to a different quantum reality than the one they had altered.

    40. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But I thought episode 7 was chronologically later than episode 6. This should be so awesome to see how they explain it all /s

    41. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Time travel is never handled correctly. They always treat it like there is only a single timeline, with people going back to affect the future. That's complete bullshit. In reality, if you traveled through time, you would create a new timeline and not affect the timeline you came from.

      Also in Star Trek they used a black hole as a means of traveling to the past. Fucking idiots. A black hole isn't a fucking hole, it's a super dense ball of matter. Also, if the black hole took them to the past, then why did the other black holes destroy planets and the Romulan ship captained by that whiny little shit? "I want Spock dead NOOOOOW", just want to slap that little shit.

      Star Wars 7 is going to be shit because of Abrams. He already royally fucked up Star Trek, now he's going to ruin Star Wars even more than the prequels did.

    42. Re:No more time travel! by Asmor · · Score: 2

      I find it's rare for time travel to be done right. As a big fan of Stargate... I don't think they ever did it right on that series. They certainly didn't do it egregiously wrong, but they never did it right. Haven't watched any Star Trek except the recent JJ Abrams movie, so can't comment much on that.

      What did time travel right? Well, Babylon 5. And... I feel like there's probably something else, but that's about it off the top of my head.

    43. Re:No more time travel! by Nimey · · Score: 1

      Yesterday's Enterprise wasn't /really/ about time travel. It was more about parallel universes, which are also overdone but not so much in Star Trek.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    44. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or the full on multi-verse where ALL possibilities happen. Every time travel jump is actually just a jump to another time/place/reality in the multi-verse. A being who could jump at will through all of them would quickly discover the futility of trying to change anything, because no matter what he does, the bad and the good both happen.

    45. Re:No more time travel! by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      Larry Niven kept telling people "time travel isn't sci-fi, it's fantasy" over and over until it finally hit him, "Hey, time travel is fantasy!" and he wrote some stories about people going back in time to recover extinct species and coming back with dangerous magical/mythical creatures. Was cute...

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    46. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "(2) alternate universe "time-lines" in which case whatever horrible thing you are trying to change still occurred in the original universe and you have just created a copy. Nobody ever deals with tha"

      Yeah it's been done. But the way it gets explained is that the timeline (inbranching and out) accounts for the deviation and is allowed for.

      Timeline paradox depends on the idea that there is defined amount of energy in existance that prevents something else from happening.

    47. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who was it that wrote about the scientist that went back for a dinosaur and came back with a dragon?

    48. Re:No more time travel! by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      The AC comment has merit. I see the novellas "By His Bootstraps" (Anson McDonald~Robert Heinlein) and Henry Hasse's "He Who Shrank" (1936) deal with, respectively, time travel and dimensionality in original ways, not as a cheap shot but as a thoroughly thought out, mind bending, scrape the stars with your mind kind of story.
      He Who Shrank was immortalized poorly in the Incredible Shrinking Man movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050539/ but never approached Hasse's stunning conclusion. That is a property (in the Hollywood sense) that has never been explored.
      There are a lot of concepts out there that only the imagination can create and understand, way beyond those concepts foisted upon us by Sci-Fi writers who distinctly lack imagination.

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
    49. Re:No more time travel! by Toonol · · Score: 2

      The first Terminator movie, viewed by itself, is a wonderfully self-consistent time travel movie. The following movies mess it up slightly.

    50. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, where "wagon train" was historical fiction and Star Trek was a future document to that idea, Star Wars was Space Opera or Science Fantasy. No attempt at creating a viable link to science but representing a social interaction in a "magical" environment. Star Wars divorces itself from trying to explain its technology and its creator never had a clue. So you wind up with Midichloreans (I'm don't care how that's spelled) and other BS.

    51. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doctor Who excluded of course.

    52. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, several new Dr. Who episodes dealt with alternate universe time lines that were spawned from changes in important points in time in this universe.

      Just as Rose Tyler and Rose Tyler and Rose Tyler....

    53. Re:No more time travel! by Omestes · · Score: 1

      And then compare good time travel plots to the the Star Trek reboot.

      Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, and enjoyed the casting, but the plot was crap.

      Actually the characters were mostly crap too.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    54. Re:No more time travel! by eriks · · Score: 1

      There are also the (probably limitless) number of (vanishingly unlikely) possibilities that could be if our understanding of the universe is flawed or incomplete, i.e. there is stuff going on at *much* "smaller" scales than the planck length, and the universe has much more energy available than we're aware of, or that "time" can actually be "rewritten" in small, or large ways, or that paradoxes actually are somehow "features" of the universe, ways in which the universe can actually to be "logically" inconsistent with itself: "existential dissonance" if you will.

      Or how about that even if it were to become *technically* possible to create a paradox (you have a time machine) in actuality, it is discovered to be impossible to create one. You can travel in time, but any action that would create a paradox simply does not occur; no matter how hard one tries to create a paradox, the action always fails. It's hard to rationalize something like that, but our *actual understanding* of the universe is increasingly hard to rationalize as well... so it's not *that* much or a stretch to imagine that the cosmos may have properties even weirder than an infinite number of simultaneous universes, that is: one universe that can be changed at any points in time, but those changes are forced to always have conditions that don't contain outright paradoxes, or if you do create one, the universe spontaneously "heals" itself. Perhaps your time machine ceases to have been made, and therefore you never traveled in time to create the paradox, so the universe just "pops" back into place, with no one the wiser. Only time travelers that know the "rules" of time could ever successfully travel in time, everyone else would only end up back where they started.

    55. Re:No more time travel! by citizenr · · Score: 1

      (3) Universe is deterministic, every choice you make creates parallel realities where every possible choice is played out.

      Why would you need other universes if the one you got is deterministic?

      Btw I read about studies that can predict human decision before said human makes one consciously = no free will (Incompatibilism). We are just meatbags with sophisticated wet computers.

      --
      Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
    56. Re:No more time travel! by AK+Marc · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      What's dumb-ass about admitting to piracy? Or is it dumb-ass to admit to giving up on a movie so bad it's unwatchable? Even if most won't admit to it publicly, what percentage of /. readers do you think have every pirated anything? 99%?

    57. Re:No more time travel! by physicsphairy · · Score: 1

      (2) alternate universe "time-lines" in which case whatever horrible thing you are trying to change still occurred in the original universe and you have just created a copy. Nobody ever deals with that.

      That was pivotal to Sourcecode. If you haven't seen it, you should--it is actually a quite brilliant contribution to the sci-fi genre.

    58. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      alternate universe "time-lines" in which case whatever horrible thing you are trying to change still occurred in the original universe and you have just created a copy. Nobody ever deals with that.

      You should read Sluggy Freelance, then. It does deal with time travel and copies of timelines.

      SPOILER

      Old Doc Schlock jumped back in time from a doomed timeline but he specifically says that that timeline isn't gone, he's just started a parallel one.

    59. Re:No more time travel! by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 1

      How do you fuck up that which is already fucked up?

      Time travel in Star Trek is ridiculous. As is the holodeck, in which -everything- can be simulated. These two things make Star Trek unbearable to me.

      Actually three things, I forgot about the "aliens" that all look like humans with a different makeup artist.
      Yes, I know the explanation and it sucks just as bad as time travel and the holodeck.

    60. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      How is a cheap plot device in any way incompatible with Star Trek? I don't understand.

    61. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seconded! The first Terminator movie is too often under-appreciated for what it is. Ok, the effects suck a bit at the end, but the concept is brilliant and it just works.

    62. Re:No more time travel! by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 1

      The problem is that for every "Yesterday's Enterprise" or "City on the Edge of Forever" there are another dozen examples where time travel was either a cop-out used to explain away sloppiness or lack of attention to details (The JJ Abrhams movie) or as an equally cheap way to contrive a "fish out of water" scenario for comedic relief (Voyager's crew going back to the 1990s, DS9's crew going back to The Trouble With Tribbles).

      Time travel plots require a deft hand to actually be done well. And most writers and directors are not up to the task.

      --
      Imagine all the people...
    63. Re:No more time travel! by sgunhouse · · Score: 1

      And Time Tunnel (which wasn't all that good).

    64. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Back to the future deals with alternate timelines.
      Although they include a weird paradox where they put the girlfriend in an alternate/bad present (after being in the future, and someone changing the past in the mean time). Then they rewrite the past, so an 2nd alternate/good present is there and the girlfriend is there as well, still asleep.

    65. Re:No more time travel! by ti-85 · · Score: 1

      Consider their budget: $7,000

      http://www.landmarktheatres.com/mn/primer.html

    66. Re:No more time travel! by Antonovich · · Score: 1

      I HATE how most time travel plots are done. It's sometimes enough for me to fast forward episodes... Fringe, which has unfortunately just finished, did it surprisingly well and actually tempered my feelings towards the plot device!

    67. Re:No more time travel! by lxs · · Score: 1

      As long as they don't create alternate universes time travel is fine. Anything else is just lazy writing.

    68. Re:No more time travel! by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      You can play it for comedy, eg one of the better time travel scenes is in the Bill and Ted movie where they and the bad guy keep going back to trump each other's move.

      My favourite bit is that Ted (or is it Bill? Keanu Reeves) introduces Rufus as Rufus to his younger self. Rufus never gives his name.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    69. Re:No more time travel! by lxs · · Score: 1

      So who is to blame for making Super 8 too long, boring and predictable?

    70. Re:No more time travel! by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      That was pivotal to Sourcecode. If you haven't seen it, you should--it is actually a quite brilliant contribution to the sci-fi genre.

      That movie annoyed me. No-one seemed to give a crap about the guy Jake Gyllenhal leapt into (it was pretty Quantum Leap-y) who is now for all intensive porpoises dead. It was otherwise okay though.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    71. Re:No more time travel! by matunos · · Score: 1

      Right... polar bears it is then!

    72. Re:No more time travel! by matunos · · Score: 5, Funny

      As long as he doesn't create an alternate universe where Greedo shot first, Vader made C3P0, the Force-sensitivity is a bacterial infection, and force-ghosts got 20 years younger, we should be just fine.

    73. Re:No more time travel! by matunos · · Score: 1

      All I know is that I'm still waiting for my goddamn hover board!

    74. Re:No more time travel! by matunos · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except for the causal loop.

      Personally, I liked 12 Monkeys.

    75. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What in gods name are you on about? That last episode of Season 8 was brilliant.
      And the time travelling film was even better because it brought up the moral implications of time travel straight to the characters involved, which is extremely rare for a show to do.

      Enterprise though, yeah, it got abused too much in that.

    76. Re:No more time travel! by CodeBuster · · Score: 1

      But if you say that, that means you are too stupid to follow it

      Anyone who claims to follow and understand all of the timelines as they happen on the first viewing is either a liar or a savant.

      Someone should have told them that character development isn't just talking about a character, but trying to get the audience to connect with the character. It was just bad.

      Let's see you do better with a $10,000 budget.

    77. Re:No more time travel! by dbIII · · Score: 4, Insightful

      and he had stopped being the main driving force behind the direction of the show as early as season 1

      At which point he was replaced by random dice rolls.
      Coming through the forest the groups meets ... rolls four dice, turns to a page number in an encyclopedia ... a polar bear!

    78. Re:No more time travel! by bmcage · · Score: 1

      Actually, the wave function of the universe can contain different realities at the same time. No need for actual multiverses. The problem is only that at some point, a collapse of parts of the wave function needs to occur, so the alternatives, although present in the wave-function, do not come to fruition.

      The point of a time travel movie should hence be to make sure the wave function collapses in the direction you want further in time, so in the future. The question is how one can achieve this. Probably some mixing with a quantum state outside our solar system would be needed. ;-)

    79. Re:No more time travel! by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Time travel is never handled correctly. They always treat it like there is only a single timeline, with people going back to affect the future. That's complete bullshit. In reality, if you traveled through time, you would create a new timeline and not affect the timeline you came from.

      IMHO "Palimpsest" (Charles Stross) addresses that issue.

    80. Re:No more time travel! by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      The problem with Star Trek was there was too much cannon and back story. Much of it was based in 1960's culture.
      The reboot needed to be explained in terms of cannon unless the trek fans would be inraged.

      So I see two ways for this. Mirror universe or time travel. Time travel allowed for older Origional charactors to communicate with the new ones as to pass the touch.

      Being Star Wars VII it doesn't sound like a reboot, but more like the next generation.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    81. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nonsense. Choices aren't made for us by some magical sky daddy, and even if our decisions are influenced by our unconscious mind (and people react differently), that's still part of us. When people talk about free will, they're generally talking about sky daddies and such.

    82. Re:No more time travel! by SternisheFan · · Score: 1

      Dear God! Be prepared for time travel, alternative world storylines, and tons of ridiculous lens flare in every shot.

      ... and a good 10% of the visual involving violent shaking of the camera, while the actors stay perfectly still.

    83. Re:No more time travel! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Time travel is the weakest of all SciFi plot devices, reserved for authors who are completely out of ideas.

      OUCH! And here I thought that was pretty original =(

      So, Isaac Asimov was completely out of ideas in 1955? To tell the truth, I used to dislike time travel stories not because "the author is out of ideas" but because of its impossibility... but a few chapters into Eternity it struck me that interstellar travel was equally impossible.

      I take it you don't like Tolkein or Pratchett either, because "magic is the weakest of all plot devices, reserved for authors who are completely out of ideas"... or any other genre you don't like?

    84. Re:No more time travel! by mcgrew · · Score: 2

      Let's see you do better with a $10,000 budget.

      Some Finnish kids did a damned good job for less.

    85. Re:No more time travel! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      There is a difference between science fiction and science fantasy. Time travel belongs in the realm of science fantasy.

      Sorry, I don't quite understand where you're coming from there. Why is it fantasy, because it's impossible? So is interstellar travel.

    86. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      as in BTTF2....

    87. Re:No more time travel! by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Generally when they drift from science to magic, speed of ships being defined by speed of plot, defined story rules changing mid plot, no thought into define the difference between plausible science and quick dirty plot solutions ie the difference between plausible science and magic in a science setting.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    88. Re:No more time travel! by spongman · · Score: 1

      Weirder still...only one of the force-ghosts got younger...

    89. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The first Terminator movie involves a causal loop but it is perfectly self-consistent.

    90. Re:No more time travel! by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      In science, the multiverse is book-keeping; by definition contactable multiple universes are not the thing that quantum mechanics is talking about.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    91. Re:No more time travel! by somarilnos · · Score: 1

      And having a camera basically operated by Michael J Fox is the weakest of all movie devices.

      Ultimately, I think we've figured out that J.J. Abrams isn't really a great director.

    92. Re:No more time travel! by unitron · · Score: 1

      Take all that and throw in some Disneyfied Jar-Jar, and lots and lots of merchandise licensing opportunities.

      What's not to make you hurl?

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    93. Re:No more time travel! by contrapunctus · · Score: 1
    94. Re:No more time travel! by unitron · · Score: 1

      Dear God!
      Be prepared for time travel, alternative world storylines, and tons of ridiculous lens flare in every shot.

      But this time it'll be lens flare off of lightsabers!!!

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    95. Re:No more time travel! by unitron · · Score: 1

      if it was even longer ago, wouldnt the galaxy be closer?

      About 12 parsecs closer, I think.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    96. Re:No more time travel! by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      It also resulted in White Tulip.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    97. Re:No more time travel! by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      I give him a free pass for Trek because they needed a cue to viewers that any inconsistencies between that movie and the rest of the franchise were deliberate. The time travel aspect could've been written out very easily.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    98. Re:No more time travel! by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      I dunno, the Groundhog Day episode of SG:1 is as near as damnit to a perfect comedy SF episode as I can think of. Admittedly it's harder to pull off in a serious concept.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    99. Re:No more time travel! by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      I don't know that you can really criticse them for a "lack of attention to details" when the whole intention of the project was to relieve the continuity burden. It was getting very difficult to create a Trek storyline that was more than trivially consistent with canon.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    100. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Two more items to check out:
      1)Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel is a film dedicated to the idea of playing time-travel for laughs, since the protagonists are mostly clueless about hwo time-travel works. 2) Pratchett plays around with the alternate-timeline idea in Night Watch, with two simultaneous timelines that may or may not collapse back into one timeline. Think Schrodinger's Cat with timelines.

    101. Re:No more time travel! by invid · · Score: 1

      The unconscious part that makes the decision before you're aware of it is you. And why does it need to be coerced into doing things with such sophisticated constructs as pleasure and pain?

      --
      The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
    102. Re:No more time travel! by RDW · · Score: 5, Funny

      For a more accurate flowchart of Primer (and several other movies) see: http://xkcd.com/657/

    103. Re:No more time travel! by F.Ultra · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I wouldn't say that the time travel where the problem with Lost, the main problem with Lost was building up all this backstory with Dharma & Co and then end it all with "oh we crated a faked dream world so that we all could go to heaven together".

    104. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AMEN! Temportal integrity commission who?

      Further, expect him to want to "reboot" it, and by that I mean throw out all the rules of the universe, and start new. This movie is going to suck, though I'm not sure if it could be worse than 1-3....

    105. Re:No more time travel! by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      Terminator? The first one that is.

    106. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would add another possibility:
      (3) there is no "time" as a dimension, meaning that time is emergent.
      There will be no time travel, as you would need to reverse the flow of entropy of the whole universe to get back at one specific point.
      If you could pull this, you would 'undo' the universe, so no paradox would happen, but the future would unrol again, in a different direction.

    107. Re:No more time travel! by aruffino84 · · Score: 1

      I believe the heart of all sci-fi is the author posing a 'what if' scenario to the reader. The author then explores the nature of sentient existence in this scenario. Any sci-fi depicting FTL travel has made a pretty big 'what if' scenario. Any sci-fi showing close to FTL travel with no time dilation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation) affects to the crew is ignoring the special theory of relativity unless the author gets creative and says something like 'the ship wrapped in a gravity field shielding the crew from the affects of changes in acceleration'. Any movie depicting time travel into the past as sub-FTL travel through a wormhole as in the newest Star Trek installment, is ridiculous.

    108. Re:No more time travel! by rewarp · · Score: 1

      FWIW, I consider the episode Time in SGU to be the best episode related to time travel I have ever watched.

      --
      In adding a sig, for no other reason, than for aesthetics.
    109. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      As long as he doesn't create an alternate universe where...

      Yeah, these revisionist reboots drive me crazy. Next thing you'll be telling me the arch bad guy is is going to blow up the entire home planet of one of the heroes with some space-based super-weapon just to show how bad ass he is.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    110. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will say, the episode with the black hole used time dilation pretty well. And it was one of the best episodes IMHO

    111. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the Force-sensitivity is a bacterial infection.

      When I read that, for some reason, I thought of STIs. The Force: the one STI you actually want to contract.

    112. Re:No more time travel! by damien_kane · · Score: 1

      Yeah, these revisionist reboots drive me crazy. Next thing you'll be telling me the arch bad guy is is going to blow up the entire home planet of one of the heroes with some space-based super-weapon just to show how bad ass he is.

      Or, even worse, some other hero pops in and takes down some space-based super weapon the size of a small moon with a single well-placed blaster shot

    113. Re:No more time travel! by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      If you are using Stargate as a supporting argument that Abrams will make a good Star Wars movie, you have a long road ahead of you.

      FYI Time Travel plots are for the feeble minded writer - it's the proverbial pulling a rabbit out of the hat trick, schtick.

    114. Re:No more time travel! by citizenr · · Score: 2

      The unconscious part that makes the decision before you're aware of it is you. And why does it need to be coerced into doing things with such sophisticated constructs as pleasure and pain?

      It might be me, but its hardly free will if it makes decision for me and my conscious self just plays along pretending it came up with it.

      --
      Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
    115. Re:No more time travel! by damien_kane · · Score: 1

      All I know is that I'm still waiting for my goddamn hover board!

      You can buy them on E-Bay; the future is now!

    116. Re:No more time travel! by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      Cloverfield, enough said.

    117. Re:No more time travel! by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      THANK YOU!

    118. Re:No more time travel! by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      James P. Hogan, "Thrice Upon a Time."

    119. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They were proton torpedos.

    120. Re:No more time travel! by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      What did time travel right?

      A reasonable candidate: Futurama - Roswell That Ends Well

      Now, granted, the context was comedy, but they used time travel not as a deus ex machina but as a setup for events that had occurred in previous and later episodes. Again, except for the causal loop, which they very clearly make intentional.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    121. Re:No more time travel! by VGPowerlord · · Score: 1

      Actually Mr Anonymous, many of the best episodes of classic sci-fi series like Star Trek and Stargate were all based on time-travel. Yesterday's Enterprise, Anyone?

      My favorite TNG episode, Cause and Effect, wasn't strictly time travel but was fairly close.

      --
      GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
    122. Re:No more time travel! by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 1

      Actually Mr Anonymous, many of the best episodes of classic sci-fi series like Star Trek and Stargate were all based on time-travel. Yesterday's Enterprise, Anyone?

      In other words, you are wrong and it is actually the complete opposite. Time Travel scares away novice sci-fi writers because they cannot wrap their heads around the paradoxical nature of such concepts, while the great writers are able to mold the concept into compelling, memorable science fiction.

      OK, how about this? Time travel is the violin of SciFi plot devices. If you can't play it well, it hurts the audience.

      --
      I am not a crackpot.
    123. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      El mariachi was done on an estimated budget of $7000, and is arguably better than either of its sequels (Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico).

    124. Re:No more time travel! by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      Well, you hope he's dead. I'd rather not believe that he's still up in his own head, able to observe events but no longer able to participate.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    125. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      City on the edge of Forever.

      Captcha = majestic

    126. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tell that to Dr. Who, the longest running SciFi series of all time.

    127. Re:No more time travel! by helix2301 · · Score: 1

      He wrote a lot great films he directed Star Trek and Super 8 I think he is a good pick he has won 2 Emmys and had 21 nominations. I think he is up to the task.

    128. Re:No more time travel! by Abstrackt · · Score: 1

      Normally yes, but the movie will counteract this issue by having some pointy-eared guy create a singularity of sorts and reboot the universe as we know it.

      --
      They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
    129. Re:No more time travel! by omnichad · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Random dice rolls? No, that would have turned out better. More like they waited for fans to post theories and did exactly the opposite - regardless of the consequences. It ruined the last season (which completely flip-flopped mid-season and tried to retcon previous events into a new scenario).

    130. Re:No more time travel! by r33per · · Score: 1

      You mean like Quantum Leap?

    131. Re:No more time travel! by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Except for the causal loop.

      If you don't have a causal loop, then by what definition have you time traveled?

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    132. Re:No more time travel! by Man+Eating+Duck · · Score: 1

      I liked Primer, even though I must admit that I didn't catch all the details even after watching it twice. Here is another chart (lower right).

      --
      Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors! :)
    133. Re:No more time travel! by ultranova · · Score: 1

      But seriously, there are only two possibilities for time travel.
      (1) The universe is fully deteministic in which case the time-travel already occurred and the travel will change nothing, or
      (2) alternate universe "time-lines" in which case whatever horrible thing you are trying to change still occurred in the original universe and you have just created a copy. Nobody ever deals with that.

      3) The universe is fully deterministic, so if you go to past and kill your grandfather before your father was conceived you cease to exist, thus didn't go to past, thus didn't kill your grandfather, thus existed, thus went to past and so on ad infinitum. In other words, time oscillates.

      4) The universe is not fully deterministic, so if you go to past and so on, things will play differently at each oscillation and possibly eventually settle into some kind of consistent sequence of events.

      5) Time is multi-dimensional. If you go past and kill your grandfather, he once lived to his 80's and now died on his 16th birthday. There's still only one universe/timeline, but it has an attached "metatime" that tracks changes to it (and presumably meta-metatime and so on). The current version of the timeline doesn't include you, but a past (metapast?) one did, thus your grandfater being shot is (meta)causally consistent - it's only invalid with a naive understanding of time.

      6) The universe just plain doesn't care about such inconsistencies. You are small, the universe is large, and the illogic of your grandfather dying before your father was conceived is roughly equivalent to the damage my fingers suffered from typing this post - not worth worrying about. Enjoy your living dead grandfather and unborn life.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    134. Re:No more time travel! by khallow · · Score: 1

      (2) alternate universe "time-lines" in which case whatever horrible thing you are trying to change still occurred in the original universe and you have just created a copy. Nobody ever deals with that.

      Well, how would you observe this "original universe" except by undoing the change?

    135. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wholeheartedly agree. Especially since you mentioned one of my favorite episodes of STNG.

    136. Re:No more time travel! by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      Time travel can be fine. With the rather large caveat anything that uses time travel has to be *about* time travel. If it's just a plot device to fix something then it will suck. But the implications are so far reaching that there's plenty of scope for exploring time travel itself.

      Of course that doesn't stop someone from making truly shitty stories about time travel.

    137. Re:No more time travel! by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Btw I read about studies that can predict human decision before said human makes one consciously = no free will (Incompatibilism). We are just meatbags with sophisticated wet computers.

      The problem is that this definition of "free will" is incompatible with everything imaginable - either you have reasons to pick whatever you did (determinism), or you pick randomly (nondeterminism), or some combination of these; but you'll always need to have some kind of mechanism for actually making the choice.

      The real problem, of course, is that free will is a concept in law and philosophy and determinism is a concept in physics. Comparing the two results in in inane results, just like trying to compare the smell of a rose to the color yellow or the concept of a prime number.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    138. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Greedo never shot.

    139. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another person who understands Primer. Do not feel bad, it requires significantly below average intelligence.
      Ain't trolling fun?

    140. Re:No more time travel! by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 1

      Why do you think Doctor Who is so popular?

      Well there are plenty of reasons why... But time travel is a common theme.

      --
      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
    141. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can play it for comedy, eg one of the better time travel scenes is in the Bill and Ted movie where they and the bad guy keep going back to trump each other's move.

      Brilliantly done in this Doctor Who sendup. Almost certainly the best architect-bribery duel in television history.

    142. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm reminded of the comic Ctrl-Alt-Delete, whose main storyline he decided to end (about time, thank god) using time travel as the final plot device.

      Holy christ, worst ending to a webcomic ever. I mean, the main storyline was boring as fuck and shit in general, but to end it off like this. Well, given how it was in general, I guess it's just status-quo to end that way. The only reason I stuck around was for the rare, occasional 'random' comic, since those were actually funny. Thankfully, now that he's ended the shit main storyline, it's nothing BUT those random, good comics.

    143. Re:No more time travel! by Applekid · · Score: 2

      It's an interesting story, but while difficult to follow (but indeed followable), you have to admit it's not a particularly effective movie.

      Not that it needs a bigger budget and a bunch of wiz-bang effects, it's just that the direction seemed very sterile and academic and there wasn't any real emotion put in. An effective movie is more than just a series of pictures set to a soundtrack.

      Just one layman's opinion.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
    144. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry, Mr. Abrams has a rich history of fucking up most everything he touches. He doesn't need time travel to accomplish said goal.

    145. Re:No more time travel! by cdrguru · · Score: 1

      Source Code got a little confusing in that if you buy into multiple universes being split up, how do you have communication back from an alternate to the "original"? That was how it ended and clearly the phone calls from the alternate universe had an effect on the original. That requires some very twisted causality that isn't generally explained by the quantum multiverse concept.

    146. Re:No more time travel! by chilvence · · Score: 1

      Time travel is about as subtle a plot device as syncronised dancing. Just because it is in every other sci fi film and tv series, doesn't been it doesn't have to die... really, Back to the Future had it covered, I wish people would stop using it as a serious subject. It is about as sophisticated as the line 'and then they woke up and it was all a dream!'

      *HHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNK*** - **pteuugh**

    147. Re:No more time travel! by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      Yes. This.

      It needed to be a temporal reboot in order to deal with all of the whiners that would fixate on everything that isn't an exact clone of the original.

      Trek evolved over time. A lot of that happened after the original series was over. A reboot needs to account for that to be in continuity with the rest of Trek that's not TOS.

      They probably should have just skipped the temporal reboot as the same people would whine either way.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    148. Re:No more time travel! by Dins · · Score: 1

      A recent movie dealing with time travel in a good way was Looper, I thought. I liked that movie a lot more than I thought I would.

    149. Re:No more time travel! by bossk538 · · Score: 1

      Also, time travel as used in sf (though I really don't have a broad survey of the literature to make a general pronouncement) never goes beyond the most simplistic assumptions, that time is a linear, deterministic process; i.e. you go back in time you better make sure your parents fall in love or else you will cease to exist, or you accidentally step on a butterfly, which causes through the compounding of changes ultimately leading to a fascist winning an election. The idea that the act of time travel induces a fork in reality or that the changes need time to propagate up towards the present, or any of the other possible implications seems never to be explored.

    150. Re:No more time travel! by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      There was an explanation for the "Foreheadians"? I just accepted that they didn't have a big special effects budget.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    151. Re:No more time travel! by phorm · · Score: 1

      Star Trek IV was pretty good as well.

    152. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is an intensive porpoise?

    153. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All of that is generally on the writers, not the director.

    154. Re:No more time travel! by default+luser · · Score: 1

      This is my feelings exactly!

      To all the pedants out there who think anything beyond TOS is ruining your childhood, read the following: ff you can timewarp reliably in a POS Klingon Bird of Prey, tell me exactly why people in the future (ST:TNG) with much more reliable ships (LaForge is not fixing an impossible engineering issue *every* episode) are not gallavanting freely all across both time and space?

      The reason is: it's not impotant to the curent plotline, so nobody needs to do it. So long as you can accept this little bit of self-delusion, you can enjoy time travel plots without getting your official Star Trek pantaloons in a twist.

      Accept that time travel and FANTASY are NECESSARY elements for a universe/series based on bending space-time, and you will be a much happier camper.

      --

      Man is the animal that laughs.
      And occasionally whores for Karma.

    155. Re:No more time travel! by invid · · Score: 1

      Point taken, but I still don't know why so much of the brain's architecture is invested in pleasure and pain if actions are predetermined. Pleasure and pain seem to be there to influence some part of the brain to take action in one direction or another. If it is just smoke and mirrors then evolution would have selected against its existence since the brain is a large drain of resources, and also takes a lot of energy to cool. (Just so you know I'm a strict materialist, but think there's something about the material of the universe we don't understand since we can't yet explain self-awareness).

      --
      The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
    156. Re:No more time travel! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Time travel in Star Trek is ridiculous.

      In what way? Which one? City on the Edge of Forever? IMO that was one of the best episodes, and the folks who give out the Hugo awards agree with me, as do critics:

      The filmed version of "The City on the Edge of Forever" is considered the best episode of the original series by many critics such as Entertainment Weekly.[9] TV Guide ranked it #68 in their 100 Most Memorable Moments in TV History feature in its July 1, 1996 edition, featured ranked it #92 on the 100 greatest TV episodes of all time,[10] and ranked it #80 on its list of "TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time."[11] IGN ranked it as number one out of their "Top 10 Classic Star Trek Episodes".[12] Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode an 'A' rating, describing it as a "a justly revered classic".[13]

      It is one of the most widely acclaimed episodes of the original series of Star Trek. It was awarded the Hugo Award in 1968 for the "Best Dramatic Presentation" at that year's World Science Fiction Convention. It was twenty-five years before another television program received that honor again, and the next recipient became the episode "The Inner Light" from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

      Harlan Ellison's original version of the teleplay won the annual Writers Guild of America Award for best dramatic hour-long script.

      As is the holodeck, in which -everything- can be simulated.

      Again, why? What's wrong with simulated reality? Did you think The Matrix was unbearable as well? You'd probably hate the book I'm in the middle of writing (Here's a chapter).

      Actually three things, I forgot about the "aliens" that all look like humans with a different makeup artist.
      Yes, I know the explanation and it sucks

      I agree with you there and made fun of it in an earlier chapter. The "explanation" in TNG is downright stupid, as Earth and Romulus were seeded before we were even mammals. Insanely stupid.

    157. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Bill & Teds have some of the best, consistent uses of time travel ever put on film. The trumping isn't a paradox. When they get the final trump, they say that they'll plant the key and the gun that Denomolos said he was going to plant.

      Convincing themselves to trust Rufus also isn't a paradox. Time travel of your first type causes a loop, where there is no longer a distinction between past and future events within the loop.

      And Rufus doesn't go into the past to fix the future; he only goes to make events happen that they already know happen.

    158. Re:No more time travel! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      I haven't read that one, but your citation says "It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1973 and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1974." It couldn't have been THAT bad.

      I think I'll visit the library tomorrow and see if they have a copy.

    159. Re:No more time travel! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The worst aspect was that is became so utterly predictable. Anything shown in the first 44 minutes of the episode was always a lie, and in the 45th final minute you got the truth which was invariable the exact opposite of what had been previously implied.

      That then expanded to entire story arcs, entire seasons and ultimately the entire show. I could probably have accepted all the lies if the truth did at least come out in the end, but there was so much random crap that was never explained. I suppose I was supposed to care about the characters, but they were mostly uninteresting and always took the stupid option just to keep the mystery going.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    160. Re:No more time travel! by yurtinus · · Score: 1

      Some do - I recall an episode of Voyager with some weapon that would essentially erase the target from existence (make it so it never existed). I don't recall if the episode was particularly great (it was Voyager, after all), but they did at least explore the butterfly effect in that way - and without using time travel itself. They'd used this weapon in a war and it had drastic personal consequences, so they kept trying to use it to correct the timeline. A moon here, an asteroid there, but any time they fixed one thing, something else would get unraveled.

      There are good ones out there, but it's just too often done poorly. I don't know if it's writers that just don't grasp it or producers who shut down a lot of these ideas fearing the audience won't grasp it.

      --
      +1 Disagree
    161. Re:No more time travel! by smittyoneeach · · Score: 1

      I didn't say it was bad, just that it ended my interest in the genre more or less completely.

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    162. Re:No more time travel! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      If Niven was right then most science fiction is fantasy. Time travel is no more unbelievable than faster than light travel, which a very big chunk of SF has.

    163. Re:No more time travel! by alexo · · Score: 1

      "A world out of time" by Larry Niven. None of the usual "kill your grandfather" paradoxes, but a well-thought-out and entertaining story about a man catapulted a L O N G way into the future.

      Alternatively, the "Rainbow Mars" collection by the same author.

    164. Re:No more time travel! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      I just rented that the other night, and I agree. It was even better when I watched it again the next day. A copy will surely soon reside either on my bookshelf, my hard drive, or both.

    165. Re:No more time travel! by omnichad · · Score: 1

      I'll watch J.J. Abrams material, but keep me away from Lindelof.

    166. Re:No more time travel! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      FYI Time Travel plots are for the feeble minded writer

      If Harlan Ellison is a feeble minded writer, then how did he manage to win about every SF award there is?

    167. Re:No more time travel! by steppedleader · · Score: 1

      I'll second Babylon 5 and 12 Monkeys.

      I'll also toss in "Roswell That Ends Well" from Futurama -- you don't see too many comedic time travel stories, and it has a great twist on the Grandfather Paradox.

    168. Re:No more time travel! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Clarke's law #3, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

    169. Re:No more time travel! by Cito · · Score: 1
    170. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      for all intensive porpoises

      OT: So, a quick Google search shows that this malapropism has been around for a few years, but this was the first I'd heard it and I laughed. I was going to mod you funny just for that, but I don't think anyone else would have understood.

    171. Re:No more time travel! by segedunum · · Score: 1

      Sounds like an episode of Family Guy. Didn't South Park tell us that plots are decided by Manatees?

    172. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ^ THIS

    173. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Alternate time lines are subtly dealt with in looper in a pretty interesting way. I don't think jumping back in time creates a new timeline, so much as transports you to an earlier point in a pre-existing timeline. In other words: all time lines and possibilities currently exist and are moving parallel, but jumping back may or may not bring you to your own "thread," as it were. No movies have ever dealt with THAT.

    174. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see what you did there...

    175. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      12 Monkeys is also a causal loop. Bruce Willis gets chosen to go back in time because he's crazy. He's crazy because, as a boy, he watched his (unbeknownst to him) future self get shot.

    176. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Could be worse. Could have picked Quentin Taratino.

    177. Re:No more time travel! by Catroaster · · Score: 1

      Proton torpedo, actually, and at least one of the designers pointed out the weakness and got into big trouble as a result. Read the book Death Star before you start pontificating.

    178. Re:No more time travel! by MonkeyPaw · · Score: 1

      I didn't find it that difficult to follow the first time.

      I watched it not knowing anything about it. After it was over I just sat there going "Now THAT is how you make a time travel flick."

      I enjoyed it.

      --
      My studio - www.graylands.ca
    179. Re:No more time travel! by steppedleader · · Score: 1

      D'oh, didn't notice you had beaten me to mentioning that episode. I suppose it could use mentioning in multiple posts, though :)

    180. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As Armageddon proved.

    181. Re:No more time travel! by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Lost

      I wish it had been.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    182. Re:No more time travel! by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Only to those who lack the understanding to know the difference. Sounds meaningful but it is utterly meaningless and something only to impress 'hmm' the ignorant.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    183. Re:No more time travel! by jamstar7 · · Score: 1

      Who was it that wrote about the scientist that went back for a dinosaur and came back with a dragon?

      Niven also did a short story (and collection) called 'The Flight of the Horse' about a time traveller tasked with getting all kind of weird animals from the past. He brought back such things as a pegasus, Moby Dick, and a wolf from an alternate timeline. Great stuff, funny as hell.

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    184. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He brought back such things as a pegasus

      Pegasus is a proper name - he was a particular winged horse, just like Moby Dick was a particular white whale.

      Sorry, this is one of my pet peeves, like when people think the shark from Jaws was named "Jaws." :)

    185. Re:No more time travel! by PurplePhase · · Score: 1

      I don't know off the top of my head if anyone has more fully dealt with #2, but it has been touched on in:

      A. Looper - I was pleasantly surprised it was as sci-fi as it was with multiple timelines (and causal paradoxes/not paradoxed) given a rudimentary treatment
      B. Sliding Doors - intermixing timelines peaks my curiosity
      C. (Disney's) The Kid - time travel in a limited sense with intermixed timelines
      D. Premium Rush - not time travel - I just liked the way they explored the bike messenger's decision process 8)

      Wow, I know there have been others but that's what I can think of now.

      8-PP

    186. Re:No more time travel! by CodeBuster · · Score: 1

      So you totally had the last definitive timeline for primer all figured out in your head by the time the film was over? Did you ever wonder where Granger came from or how the heck he could have gotten to that point in the timeline or which box he used since the others were variously occupied during the times when he could have discovered and used them? Were you able to discern all nine distinct timelines and which Abes and Aarons were permanent and which ones weren't?

    187. Re:No more time travel! by BonThomme · · Score: 2

      "time travel is a great thing if done right"

      that's above the gates at Cyberdyne Systems, right?

    188. Re:No more time travel! by BonThomme · · Score: 1

      for much of the audience, attractive companions are as theoretical as time travel

    189. Re:No more time travel! by BonThomme · · Score: 1

      Han would've shot first again.

    190. Re:No more time travel! by nobaloney · · Score: 1

      The Kindle edition is available for only $2.99 on Amazon; you can get the Kindle app freely for almost any smartphone or tablet.

    191. Re:No more time travel! by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Actually, the wave function of the universe can contain different realities at the same time. No need for actual multiverses. The problem is only that at some point, a collapse of parts of the wave function needs to occur, so the alternatives, although present in the wave-function, do not come to fruition.

      Um... why? Why would the wave function "need" to collapse? After all, since our perceptions are contained within the wave function of the universe, measuring a particle being in a particular place doesn't actually imply that the function has collapsed. It's only when an outside observer tries to read the result when you must translate the result into concrete form - collapse the wave function - but there are no outside observers to reality itself.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    192. Re:No more time travel! by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      some people get so caught up in an us vs. them mentality, where "us" is a group of people who think they understand it, and them is everyone else. It is a perfect setup to ensnare a person's ego, so they think the "us" group is special or better on some level, and/or get very defensive

      It's OK, we don't have many of them around here.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    193. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or read Harlan Ellison, Bradbury, Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, Tim Powers.....

    194. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, he pitched and developed the show, but he didn't RUN the show, and nothing to do with where it went. It was simply his idea in a pitch meeting, and was involved in scripts and directing early on, and produced. Show runners and producers are two different beats, although in many cases they are the same people.

      For another example of a show gone horribly wrong after the developer just stayed as producer but stopped running the show, see Supernatural post 5th season.

    195. Re:No more time travel! by metaforest · · Score: 1

      But seriously, there are only two possibilities for time travel.
      (1) The universe is fully deteministic in which case the time-travel already occurred and the travel will change nothing, or
      (2) alternate universe "time-lines" in which case whatever horrible thing you are trying to change still occurred in the original universe and you have just created a copy. Nobody ever deals with that.

      3) The universe is fully deterministic, so if you go to past and kill your grandfather before your father was conceived you cease to exist, thus didn't go to past, thus didn't kill your grandfather, thus existed, thus went to past and so on ad infinitum. In other words, time oscillates.

      4) The universe is not fully deterministic, so if you go to past and so on, things will play differently at each oscillation and possibly eventually settle into some kind of consistent sequence of events.

      5) Time is multi-dimensional. If you go past and kill your grandfather, he once lived to his 80's and now died on his 16th birthday. There's still only one universe/timeline, but it has an attached "metatime" that tracks changes to it (and presumably meta-metatime and so on). The current version of the timeline doesn't include you, but a past (metapast?) one did, thus your grandfater being shot is (meta)causally consistent - it's only invalid with a naive understanding of time.

      6) The universe just plain doesn't care about such inconsistencies. You are small, the universe is large, and the illogic of your grandfather dying before your father was conceived is roughly equivalent to the damage my fingers suffered from typing this post - not worth worrying about. Enjoy your living dead grandfather and unborn life.

      7) Attempting to travel back in time kicks the traveller and their ship into another (but generally related) causal domain (universe) with ever-so-slightly randomized universal constants. Paradox is not permitted, the traveller appears in the new domain and has to deal with exploring a new universe and it's properties. The slight shift in constants plays havoc: you can't chemically interact with the matter in the new universe.. so you had better have enough matter with you to survive until you learn to incorporate matter that follows the new rules. The new humanoids you meet can't use the matter you brought with you either... wackiness ensues.

    196. Re:No more time travel! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      You have much to learn, grasshopper.

    197. Re:No more time travel! by mcgrew · · Score: 2

      The book is available for $0 at the library. If I like it, I may buy a copy.

    198. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Done right exactly once, with the time loop episode, Window of Opportunity. Although the one where they go back to the 60s was actually pretty good now that I remember, if a little cliche. Logically though I had no problems with it. Stable loop.

    199. Re:No more time travel! by AbominousSalad · · Score: 1

      But does time travel belong in a space opera? Not in my opinion. Adding time travel to Star Wars, so late into the game, makes no narrative sense anyway.

      --
      Every trollism an AC posts is prefixed, in my mind, with "A. Coward whined, in a weak and cowardly voice:"
    200. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, but, the it's easy to go wrong with a time-travel plot/story/theme, very easy, and very wrong. It's almost like the cop-out of any good sci-fi franchise when it gets handed down to 'lesser' writers and their response is "let's go back in time and revisit ...." and not do it well. You end up with things like the Enterprise being built on Earth (on the planet surface, inside the atmosphere) with what I can assume is one of the most complex scaffolding projects in human history; and also famous movie quotes like "I have a photographic memory, I see words"

      It's more of a "no, please, no" response than a "no, thank you". Much more.

    201. Re:No more time travel! by erickfis · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't say that the time travel where the problem with Lost, the main problem with Lost was building up all this backstory with Dharma & Co and then end it all with "oh we crated a faked dream world so that we all could go to heaven together".

      this! introducing religion in the grand finale as the explanation for the whole thing really ruined the show. I mean, I was really pumped and excited with the time-travels and sci-fi stuff and possibilities then they came up with religion? come on!

    202. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (2) alternate universe "time-lines" in which case whatever horrible thing you are trying to change still occurred in the original universe and you have just created a copy. Nobody ever deals with that.

      Actually, Back to the Future II addressed exactly that. When Marty McFly time-travels back to 1955 with the almanac from 2015 and it falls into Biff Tannen's hands, Doc Brown in the alternate 1985 (where Tannen is a rich mogul) explains that both timelines still exist.

      (So that's a bit simplified, but the point is occasionally writers do explore the "copy" concept)

    203. Re:No more time travel! by Gilmoure · · Score: 1

      As long as Shatner is Adm Ozzel, I'll be happy.

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
    204. Re:No more time travel! by alienproxy · · Score: 1

      While your comment is being summarily dismissed by Trekkies and fans of films like Primer, I think you are absolutely correct. What is most problematic about time travel films (aside from those who abuse the grandfather paradox and have their protagonists fading from photographs, leaving an awkward empty space in an image that never would have been taken in the first place), is completely ignoring a theory which would make time travel plots work: The Chronology Protection Conjecture.

      By removing the "what would happen if I killed my own grandfather?" conjecture from the picture, time travel plots could be interesting and consistent, without the writers ever having to pull a deus ex machina by splitting time lines (I think we can agree that the time travel plot is a 'deus ex machina' in and of itself).

      The last thing anybody ever needs to see is another plot where someone makes an otherwise imperceptible change in the past, then returns to a future where, uh oh, the Nazis won.

      And to that end, my biggest fear is that J. J. Abrams will explore the "what if Obi-Wan didn't die in front of Luke, but made it onto the Millenium Falcon? Then Luke would have no astral voice telling him to "let go", and hence he'd never turn off his targeting computer, and uh oh, the Empire won.

    205. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "What if Luke became the next Emperor?" That's a story I'd like to see explored!

    206. Re:No more time travel! by thejynxed · · Score: 1

      That comic had a good story at first, and slowly degraded over time into utter absurdity. I think this was because he had IRL issues he was dealing with. So yes, it was good he finally ended the main story, and got back to the randoms that just make fun of life in general.

      --
      @Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
    207. Re:No more time travel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many of the best eps? ahahaha. Ridiculous.

    208. Re:No more time travel! by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

      There are a ton of crappy sci-fi time travel flicks. Those novice sci-fi writers aren't scared, just new.

  2. MTV Star Wars! by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 5, Funny

    Luke, Leia and Han are supercool heroes from a galaxy far, far away. And boy are they full of angst.

    1. Re:MTV Star Wars! by Wrexs0ul · · Score: 5, Funny

      Starring Eugene Levy as Darth Vader, the dad still trying to be cool.

      "We'll just tell your mother we used the force"

      --
      --- Need web hosting?
    2. Re:MTV Star Wars! by Higaran · · Score: 2

      You sir, apparently did not watch the movies.

    3. Re:MTV Star Wars! by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      American Pie: Death Star, or will they resurrect one of the short-listed ST concepts from before Enterprise: "ST Academy 90210" :)

    4. Re:MTV Star Wars! by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      Um, woosh?

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    5. Re:MTV Star Wars! by jamstar7 · · Score: 2

      American Pie: Death Star, or will they resurrect one of the short-listed ST concepts from before Enterprise: "ST Academy 90210" :)

      Funny, I thought the '09 reboot was Starfleet Academy: 90210. Gotta get my glasses fixed...

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    6. Re:MTV Star Wars! by Guppy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Funny, I thought the '09 reboot was Starfleet Academy: 90210. Gotta get my glasses fixed...

      Ah yes, "Melrose Space".

    7. Re:MTV Star Wars! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the midichlorians? They are now called the brown matter. "My god, this kid is full of shit! Summon the Jedi council!"

    8. Re:MTV Star Wars! by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2

      Let go your conscious self and act on instinct. Feel the brown matter flow through you.

    9. Re:MTV Star Wars! by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      Oh for mod points!
      I get maybe 25 of them so far this month, but nothing left for this!

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
    10. Re:MTV Star Wars! by niktemadur · · Score: 1

      Or "Starship Troopers", which plays like 90210 until the gore kicks in.

      --
      Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
    11. Re:MTV Star Wars! by dhermann · · Score: 1

      Luke, Leia and Han are supercool heroes from a galaxy far, far away. And boy are they full of angst.

      And you can barely see them through the lens flare?

    12. Re:MTV Star Wars! by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 1

      You sir, apparently did not watch the movies.

      If you can find decent English subtitles, let us know. So far I've only seen MTV Star Wars in the original Klingon, and I've got no idea what's going on.

      --
      I am not a crackpot.
    13. Re:MTV Star Wars! by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 1

      I'd cast Brian Cranston as Darth Vader. He used to be a cool dad, but then he lost his hair in a terrible meth-making accident and became very, very scary.

      --
      Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
    14. Re:MTV Star Wars! by DragonWriter · · Score: 2

      Funny, I thought the '09 reboot was Starfleet Academy: 90210. Gotta get my glasses fixed...

      IIRC, the people involved in the '09 reboot explicitly referred to it as being the embodiment of the original-characters-at-the-academy idea first pitched by Roddenberry in 1968 and that kept resurfacing starting around 1980 as the basis of a new movie and/or series. So, yeah.

    15. Re:MTV Star Wars! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Megan Fox as Leia...

      "(who the hell cares)"

  3. The Lens Flare!!! by TheBilgeRat · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... is going to be killer.

    1. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by Dyinobal · · Score: 4, Funny

      Now replacing the lightsaber the LensFlare Saber, a weapon for a more digitization age.

    2. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by darthservo · · Score: 5, Funny

      Especially with not just one, but *two* suns in the Tatooine system.

      --

      Prove it.

    3. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by Nostromo21 · · Score: 0

      Sorry, crApple has already signed up exclusive rights, so we'll be seeing iSabers, iBlasters & the new improved iFalcon freighter.

    4. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now replacing the lightsaber the LensFlare Saber, a weapon for a more digitization age.

      ROTFL! I was going to say the same thing :)

    5. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Let me guess, they will patent it by adding "on a phone" to the end of the description.

    6. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by Darinbob · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's no sun! That's a lens flare!

    7. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by servognome · · Score: 1

      Lens flare never gets old

      --
      D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
    8. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by jamstar7 · · Score: 1

      Let me guess, they will patent it by adding "on a phone" to the end of the description.

      That's so they can scam up a new patent. Nothing new there...

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    9. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by Artifakt · · Score: 1

      Or if it's AbramsTrek 2, we're talkin LensFlair Torpedos! For SW7, I'm hoping for Walter'sCow Sabres and Cortexiclorians...

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    10. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by FrankDrebin · · Score: 1

      Nah, with the likes of Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, and Boba Fett already taken, this time around Lens Flare is an actual character name.

      --
      Anybody want a peanut?
    11. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait! What happened to the third sun?

    12. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not a third sun, that is lens flare.

    13. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As is the ending.

    14. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Technically there is only one sun.

    15. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's too big for a lens flare

    16. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      Just some rounded corners should do.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    17. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      OMG, a double lens flare, all the way! Wow, oh wow! Whoa! WHAT DOES IT MEAN!? T_T

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    18. Re:The Lens Flare!!! by BonThomme · · Score: 1

      JJ will go back and add digitized lens flare

  4. 1 Word by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Funny

    "KAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHNNNN!"

    (and this text goes in here because slashdot hates 1 word answers, even when they're totally awesome.)

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:1 Word by SoulMaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sorry... that word should be:

      "THRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN!"

      7 8 and 9 were already books. And they were awesome!

      -SM

    2. Re:1 Word by Grayhand · · Score: 1

      "KAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHNNNN!"

      (and this text goes in here because slashdot hates 1 word answers, even when they're totally awesome.)

      You're forgetting it's Star Wars, "DAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRTTTTTTHHHHHH!"

    3. Re:1 Word by nuckfuts · · Score: 2

      Slashdot also hates ALL CAPS, even when it's appropriate for reasons of satire.

    4. Re:1 Word by coldsalmon · · Score: 1

      The Thrawn Trilogy was set 5 years after Return of the Jedi -- I wonder how far out they will go for the new movies. If they set them 32 years after Return of the Jedi, then they can still use the original cast.

    5. Re:1 Word by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty sure that should be: "KHHHHAAAAAAAAAAANNN!"

  5. Eh....alright by Orleron · · Score: 1

    Not too surprising I guess, but if he puts his finger anywhere NEAR the "Reboot" button, I'll show George Lucas right up his ass.

    1. Re:Eh....alright by Orleron · · Score: 2

      Shove even

    2. Re:Eh....alright by Teancum · · Score: 0

      He could reboot "Episodes 1-3" and not do much damage. Then again I think a group of high school filmmakers could reboot those episodes and not do too much damage.

      Of course the original trilogy was essentially a reboot of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai tale, merely told in space. If you ever read some of the early drafts of the script for the original Star Wars movie (*cough* A New Hope *cough*) the similarity was even more pronounced to the point that George Lucas should have paid royalties for copying so much of the script of that previous movie.

      I'm not too worried about JJ Abrams actually showing some creativity and perhaps doing something original for a change. It might just show George Lucas as the hack that he really is. Of course Abrams could really ensure his fame among the fans by filming the execution of Jar Jar in the opening scene... as an afterthought.

    3. Re:Eh....alright by imsabbel · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sure you arent mixing up Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress?

      --
      HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
    4. Re:Eh....alright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      star wars [episode iv: a new hope] is definitely kurosawa's , in space.

    5. Re:Eh....alright by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 0

      He could reboot "Episodes 1-3" and not do much damage.

      Please start by dropping the teddybears from 'The Empire Strikes Back'.... IMHO the teddybear battle was the most horrible mistake of the entire series and it even tops Jar Jar Binks and the Yoda vs. Count Dooku fight scene, I laughed my ass off the first time I saw that scene.

      --
      Only to idiots, are orders laws.
      -- Henning von Tresckow
    6. Re:Eh....alright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some guy once said

      "JJ Abrams should have directed the prequel trilogy, and George Lucas should have directed the audience to their seats."

      I wouldn't mind ditching the current 1-3, myself.

    7. Re:Eh....alright by Ironhandx · · Score: 2

      Filming the execution of Jar Jar as a main side-plot and zapping to scenes of his slow disembowelment every so often could make the movie a smashing success on its own.

    8. Re:Eh....alright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Please start by dropping the teddybears from 'The Empire Strikes Back'

      Wrong movie. Here's your troll card.

    9. Re:Eh....alright by iluvcapra · · Score: 2

      Please start by dropping the teddybears from 'The Empire Strikes Back'

      My fear is that you have about the median level of Star Wars knowledge, and that you're the audience he'll make it for.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    10. Re:Eh....alright by realityimpaired · · Score: 1

      I quite liked seeing the Ewok fight when I saw Return of the Jedi in theatre, during its first release. Of course, I was born in 1981....

    11. Re:Eh....alright by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      My biggest hope is that Boba Fett remains in the Sarlacc Pit, still being slowly digested over the course of a thousand years.

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    12. Re:Eh....alright by servognome · · Score: 1

      Did I miss some new edition of Empire where the AT-ATs are giant teddy bears?

      --
      D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
    13. Re:Eh....alright by wiredlogic · · Score: 1

      Ep. 4 was derived from Hidden Fortress. 5 and 6 were original. There is an interview of Lucas on the H.F. DVD extras where he openly explains everything he lifted. It's not a big secret.

      --
      I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
    14. Re:Eh....alright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course the original trilogy was essentially a reboot of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai tale, merely told in space.

      (*spew coffee*) Have you ever seen "The Seven Samurai"???

    15. Re:Eh....alright by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 1

      > Please start by dropping the teddybears from 'The Empire Strikes Back'

      Wrong movie. Here's your troll card.

      Thanks for the offer but since I am a feral cave troll I'm afraid I already have a troll card so I won't need yours.

      --
      Only to idiots, are orders laws.
      -- Henning von Tresckow
    16. Re:Eh....alright by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 1

      Please start by dropping the teddybears from 'The Empire Strikes Back'

      My fear is that you have about the median level of Star Wars knowledge, and that you're the audience he'll make it for.

      Star Wars knowledge? Ok, So I misremembered which movie the Battle of the Teddybears disaster was in, BF deal. Just comes to show how unwatchable everything after the first two installments (aka 'Episodes IV and V') was. I haven't watched any of the SW movies again since 'Episodes I-III' came out. The whole series needs a reboot and of all the disasters of the SW series, the Battle of the Teddybears (aaaaaaww cute) is the absolute worst mistake GL made. Even at 10 years old when I watched that cheese festival unfold for the first time I realised that Lucas had finally ruined Star Wars good and proper. Of all the Star Wars series only first movies (aka. 'Episodes IV and V') and the Clone Wars animated series can be watched without cringing (althought episodes I-III had a few tolerable moments and even the Robot Army vs. Gungans scene is still not as horribly cheesy as the Battle of the Teddybears). Oh, and another crappy part of Episode VI is the cheesy slapstick comedy in the 'Battle of the Great Pit of Carkoon' scene.

      --
      Only to idiots, are orders laws.
      -- Henning von Tresckow
    17. Re:Eh....alright by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I'd pay good money to see Luke avoid being frozen to death by disembowelling a pile of Ewoks and going to sleep under the pile.

    18. Re:Eh....alright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep. Another filmmaker rode on Lucas's coattails and made a sci-fi remake of "The Seven Samurai."

      The filmmaker was Roger Corman, and the film was Battle Beyond the Stars

    19. Re:Eh....alright by SternisheFan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Make all the ewoks talk like Seth McFarland's "Ted" and you've got something.

    20. Re:Eh....alright by spongman · · Score: 1

      If it takes 1,000 years to digest you, doesn't that mean it's significantly less corrosive than air and water?

    21. Re:Eh....alright by lennier · · Score: 1

      If it takes 1,000 years to digest you, doesn't that mean it's significantly less corrosive than air and water?

      So that's where Lazarus Pits come from!

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
  6. News for nerds... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is certainly not stuff that matters.

  7. It makes sense by TheGoodNamesWereGone · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It makes sense, as he already did a Star Wars movie in 2009. The descent of both franchises to the dark side will be complete.

    1. Re:It makes sense by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      Resistance is purile, turn to the Disney-side young padawan, you know it is your density!

  8. The mouse better not mess this up by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    The mouse better not mess this up

    1. Re:The mouse better not mess this up by roc97007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We could always.... not watch it.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    2. Re:The mouse better not mess this up by Kell+Bengal · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nooooooooooo! That's impossible!

      --
      Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
      altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
    3. Re:The mouse better not mess this up by Drakonblayde · · Score: 2

      Aye, we could do that.

      But we won't. We'd rather go see it, and then spend years bitching about it if it sucks.

    4. Re:The mouse better not mess this up by JigJag · · Score: 1

      By the way, just in case our younger readers here didn't know it, when the movie was filmed, the actors were told that Darth Vader's line was "Obi-wan killed your father". Hence the reaction from Luke.
      Only in the studio, and under very strict gag orders was the line dubbed "I am your father". Only James Earl Jones (Vader's voice) and George Lucas and maybe the director knew the truth.

      It came as a great surprise to everyone involved when the version you know came out.

      JigJag

      --
      "The hallmark of humanity is the ability to move beyond sensory inputs" - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
  9. Wait a second... by Daetrin · · Score: 5, Funny

    So the same person is now in charge of both the Star Wars movies and the Star Trek movies?

    I think i just felt a disturbance in the force, as if millions of fans involved in the never ending "which is better, Star Wars or Star Trek?" debates suddenly cried out in bewilderment and then their heads asploded.

    --
    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
    1. Re:Wait a second... by hermitdev · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Meanwhile, those of us that like both Star Wars & Star Trek are thinking, "hrrm, Episode 7 has a chance now of not sucking."

    2. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dammit, and I just spent my last mod point.

    3. Re:Wait a second... by Nostromo21 · · Score: 0

      What mix r u smokin man? Seriously, send me your recipe. ;)

    4. Re:Wait a second... by dadelbunts · · Score: 3, Informative

      Star Trek was an abomination. Being able to beam into warp destroys the Star-Trek universe worse than midichlorians ever did.

    5. Re:Wait a second... by ph34rtheSAiNT · · Score: 1

      If Abrams' effort counts for not sucking in that universe, I'll keep my Episode 1 any day.

    6. Re:Wait a second... by quantaman · · Score: 1

      If we are fortunate two great forces will join into a single federation, bringing great joy to all.

      If not we'll get a love story about red matter.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    7. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      His Star Trek movie *sucked*. The only thing it did better than previous Star Trek movies was the special effects. Everything else from plot to character development was terrible. He basically turned Star Trek into a Michael Bay movie and of course the same moronic people who love the Terminator franchise rant and rave about how good his rebooted trek is. The guy is a fucking joke. I can only laugh now about Star Wars, in that they found the one guy who can make George Lucas look talented.

    8. Re:Wait a second... by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Or perhaps we'll finally see an answer to that question: "Who would win? Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer"

    9. Re:Wait a second... by Roman+Coder · · Score: 2

      That was actually done in an earlier Next Generation episode.

      Personally, I'm still hung up on having a brewery for an engine room.

      --
      "The future can only affect the present if there is room to write its influence off as a mistake." - Yakir Aharonov
    10. Re:Wait a second... by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Funny

      If they also announce that J.J. Abrams is going to direct a new Ghostbusters movie and a new Back To The Future movie, the geek universe will implode.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    11. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, that was a near-warp transport. The episode makes clear that it is not actually transporting while in warp.

    12. Re:Wait a second... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He basically turned Star Trek into a Michael Bay movie and of course the same moronic people who love the Terminator franchise rant and rave about how good his rebooted trek is.

      Hey, what's wrong with the Terminator franchise? The first movie was great, the sequel was pretty good, and the TV series was brilliant. It's not like there were any more movies. I heard they did some kind of Transformers crossover thing a couple of years back, but you shouldn't judge the series by cheap imitations.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    13. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, that was Scanners.

    14. Re:Wait a second... by Mabhatter · · Score: 1

      Such long range beaming was also done in Enterprise.... They wanted to just beam people between planets. It didn't work then either.

    15. Re:Wait a second... by Cytotoxic · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah! And now that you mention it... they really should make a sequel to "The Matrix" some day. It really is surprising that such a big hit was never followed up on...

    16. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really? A twisting of the techno-babble to allow for an implausible teleportation process (among all of the implausibilities of teleportation in the first place) is worse than defining the source of the infinite power of the Universe as a bunch of germs, and having a high germ count makes you special? It just doesn't compare, even if they specifically stated that the beaming process was actually destroying the original and creating a clone to run around in your place thinking that it really was you. In fact, that would make for a way more awesome twist in the Universe!

    17. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You actually admit you watched Enterprise?

    18. Re:Wait a second... by ntsucks · · Score: 1

      Meanwhile, those of us that like both Star Wars & Star Trek are thinking, "hrrm, Episode 7 has a chance now of not sucking."

      His Star Trek reboot sucked. He can now kill both franchises in their reboots.

      --
      Those who can do. Those who can't sue.
    19. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah. The pressure is on. If he fucks this up, he's Jar Jar Abrams...

    20. Re:Wait a second... by Baloroth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Star Trek was an abomination. Being able to beam into warp destroys the Star-Trek universe worse than midichlorians ever did.

      Not at all. All Scotty had to do was reverse the polarity of the beam, and boom! Problem solved!

      Seriously, if you are worried about the coherency of the Star Trek universe... well, lets just say that ship sailed around, oh, the second episode of the original series? Being generous. Transporters alone "destroyed" the Star Trek universe. Hell, they weren't even supposed to exist (they are vastly more advanced than the Federation should have had, given the rest of their technology), but the show didn't have the budget for a shuttle.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    21. Re:Wait a second... by lennier · · Score: 1

      Yeah! And now that you mention it... they really should make a sequel to "The Matrix" some day. It really is surprising that such a big hit was never followed up on...

      Yeah...now that I think about it, that's really---
      ---ut it, that's reall---
      ---'s really---
      odd. Whoa. I just saw a black cat walk past my doorway twice

      Now, what were we talking about? I can't quite put my finger on it, but something tells me I'll be much happier not remembering...

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    22. Re:Wait a second... by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Funny

      I never understood why Star Wars fans were so upset with midicholrians, when the existence of such means you could potentially make a yogurt with active cultures to give you force abilities.

      "What do you want from the store honey? Dannon Light, or Dannon Dark?"

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    23. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, it has a greater chance of not sucking as George Lucas will only be a consultant.

    24. Re:Wait a second... by Lussarn · · Score: 1

      Now I understand why Yoda is called Yogurt in spaceballs, thank you.

    25. Re:Wait a second... by Grayhand · · Score: 1

      Star Trek was an abomination. Being able to beam into warp destroys the Star-Trek universe worse than midichlorians ever did.

      Episodes 1, 2, and 3 support my stance that George Lucas died in a tragic accident right after Empire Strikes Back came out came out and he was replaced by a clone. That would also explain Ewoks and Howard the Duck.

    26. Re:Wait a second... by Rhapsody+Scarlet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Meanwhile, those of us that like both Star Wars & Star Trek are thinking, "hrrm, Episode 7 has a chance now of not sucking."

      Assuming you actually liked Star Trek XI, which I didn't. At all. Not even a bit. In fact, I rated it my second worst Star Trek movie (saved from the bottom only by The Final Frontier). Want some reasons? I've got plenty, but here's just a few (spoilers incoming!):

      First, I see a lot of people talking about transwarp beaming, with some even defending it going "Oh, well you know beaming was just to save on money in the first place", which was was, which is irrelevant. Beaming was fine because beaming had rules. You can only beam over certain distances, you can't beam through certain atmospheric conditions, you can't beam at warp unless it's between two ships and they're both going at exactly the same speed and you have an extremely skilled operator. These rules keep it from being too powerful a plot device. So what does Abrams do? Transwarp beaming! Beam to a ship ridiculous distances away that's travelling at warp from a (relatively) stationary planet!

      That's bullshit because it's just lazy. Abrams wrote himself into a corner. Kirk needs to be on the planet to meet future Spock but Kirk and Scotty need to be on the Enterprise to fulfil their destinies, but oh shit the Enterprise warped off fucking hours ago. I know! Deus ex machina, and they're in the engineering section. It's just bad writing.

      It also brings me too... oh fucking hell, give me a second. It brings me too... the worst set. In all of Star Trek history. Even the Original Series. That engineering section. Just... what? Seriously, what? What is it? What are all these pipes? What do they do? How do they fit on the Enterprise? What was the designer smoking? I really, really don't get this set. Even in a narrative sense, what's it for? One stupid scene where Scotty gets stuck in the pipes? You could've cut that whole scene from the movie and nothing else would have to change. So why? Why not at least make it match the bridge and shuttlebay in style and design rather than feeling like a totally difference franchise in there?

      Oh, but then we come to style and design. It's just rule of cool, even when it makes no sense. The Romulan mining ship? A 'simple mining ship' that looks like some fever-dreamed eldrich abomination? I mean, I know it has to look imposing but that's not just some lowly mining ship so why does it look like that? Because it's cool of course! Explanations are for losers! Also 'red matter', surely the midicholorians of Star Trek. An incredibly powerful substance out of nowhere that can make black holes out of nothing and destroy whole stars because that's not overpowered. Also, 'red matter'? Even Spock calls it red matter, is that really what it's called? That's the scentific name? Red matter? They couldn't even care enough to give it a vaguely 'sciency' name like 'trilithium' from Generations? It may be small, but the small things are what make you know they care, and they didn't with this movie.

      If this is what Star Wars VII is going to be like then we're going to see something very special. We're going to see the franchise find an even lower place than the prequel trilogy.

    27. Re:Wait a second... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      Why? It never made much sense that you could still maintain communication with a ship but not beam to it, as the canonical explanation of beaming was that it translated you into information, sent it as a signal and reassembled it. It's not like a displace, where you'd have to keep a wormhole end stable in a different (and changing) frame of reference, all you need to do is send the signal (the mechanism for the reassembly was never explained, presumably it involved magic). Beaming to a moving target is just a bandwidth and synchronisation problem. Next Gen episodes beamed at warp several times, although only by matching speeds.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    28. Re:Wait a second... by Drakonblayde · · Score: 1

      I'd expect those reboots to go to Joss Whedon.

      Though, come to think of it, Joss would probably do a pretty good Star Wars flick if push came to shove.

    29. Re:Wait a second... by RadioElectric · · Score: 1

      If he casts the same actors then comparing the two movies will be a pretty fair test of which franchise is better.

    30. Re:Wait a second... by Sockatume · · Score: 2

      If your first critique of a movie is "I see a lot of people talking about transwarp beaming, with some even defending it" you have no business attempting to review science fiction. By Grabthar's Hammer, you've managed to write a half-dozen paragraphs and have not addressed one character in the entire fucking movie. This is the series that gave us "The Inner Light", and "The City on the Edge of Forever", and you're going on about the tech like it's anything more than frilly window dressing.

      Conceptual dead weight like this is why they needed a fucking reboot.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    31. Re:Wait a second... by Sockatume · · Score: 2

      A, yes, Star Trek III, V, Insurrection, Nemesis, what classics of cinema those were. Why, you couldn't move for intricate drama or beautifully espoused science themes like "let's have some space ships shoot eachother", "photon torpedos versus God", and "here's a bunch of aliens you've never heard of to fight over a planet you don't care about".

      Boke.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    32. Re:Wait a second... by NJRoadfan · · Score: 1

      What about the Star Wars Holiday Special?

    33. Re:Wait a second... by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      I'd be amused to see them fight it out in a universe where physics as we know it operates. The Enterprise's antimatter engine would be a liability, but an Imperial Star Destroyer can pull several thousand gees so I don't think it'd end well for that crew either.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    34. Re:Wait a second... by unitron · · Score: 1

      Yeah. The pressure is on. If he fucks this up, he's Jar Jar Abrams...

      Thank you for posting AC so that I can steal that without worrying with atribution.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    35. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've always wondered if that Jedi problem the Empire was so worried about could have just been solved via judicial application of power anti-biotics.

    36. Re:Wait a second... by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      The TV series, really? Move out of your parent's garage, you've been inhaling the exhaust too long.

    37. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Yogurt! I hate Yogurt! Even with Strawberries..."

    38. Re:Wait a second... by mjr167 · · Score: 1

      They did it on Voyager.

      If you are looking for consistency in the Star Trek universe, all you need to know is that you can reconfigure the main deflector to do anything.

    39. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hell, they weren't even supposed to exist Roddenberry put them in quite deliberately (he stated so in many interviews and books). As 2-5 mins of them riding in a shuttle every episode was boring. A shuttle would have been no more than 2-3 powder grey/blue walls and some cool plastic chairs. Most of the sets in the orig st were little more than that. The exception being the bridge and later on the engine room.

      Take for example SG1. In the movie going thru the wormhole was a 2 min slide thru a cool tunnel. In the show it was about 2 seconds. As once you have seen the tunnel a few times it is not that interesting.

      It is why dr. who has worked as long as it has, even with its cheesball stories. "what do I keep behind this door? Everything".

      The whole reason for those devices was to have 'wagontrain to the stars'. It was not about the tech but the destination. It is about visiting cultures that are similar to our own but weird/different somehow and exploring that. Get the viewer out of the 'home base' and into the story as fast as possible. You only have about 40 mins to pull that off. You do not waste it futzing around with the same thing the audience saw last week and the week before that. Once you start pondering the tech of the particular 'door' the stories usually go downhill quick. It is why SG1 hung on as long as it did. They did not ponder on the tech. They just stated 'here is a wizzywutsit here is what it does now lets blow up aliens with it'. Then you probably would never see 'wizzywutsit' again. It was just a way to motivate the 'lets go to a new place'.

    40. Re:Wait a second... by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

      I think i just felt a disturbance in the force, as if millions of fans involved in the never ending "which is better, Star Wars or Star Trek?" debates suddenly cried out in bewilderment and then their heads asploded.

      ...in a brilliant display of gigantic lens flares.

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
    41. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your asspee side is showing.

    42. Re:Wait a second... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      No, he had ideas that were at least as shitty for the original trilogy (Luke and Leia were originally going to be Ewoks, for starters) but there were other people working on the movies who could veto his awful ideas back then.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    43. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you're saying you dislike something having never seen it? The douche factor scale is tipped way in your favor.

    44. Re:Wait a second... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      the canonical explanation of beaming was that it translated you into information

      No, beaming in Trek is a purely analog function. It converts you into energy, it doesn't translate you into information. The prevents duplication (mostly), hibernation (mostly), and marginalization of the 'soul'. It also increases risk (aka drama).

      check out the ST:TNG technical manual.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    45. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cocaine.

    46. Re:Wait a second... by dadelbunts · · Score: 1

      They never beamed at warp in TNG. I believe you are thinking of Voyager iirc where they beam from one ship to another, both traveling at the EXACT same warp, and both causing some warp bubble as to not degrade the signal. Very very different from beaming TO warp.

    47. Re:Wait a second... by dadelbunts · · Score: 1

      Are you talking about when they matched warp speeds with other ship, created some warp bubble and them beamed from ship to ship? Totally different than beaming TO warp.

    48. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They did. It's called the Animatrix.

    49. Re:Wait a second... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      I never understood why Star Wars fans were so upset with midicholrians

      It changed the mystical into the mechanical.

      But, that's OK, it's in the Star Wars Universe where Luke was born when Obi Wan was in his 30's. My preferred Star Wars is the one where Luke is 16 and Old Ben is well over 100 ("surely he must be dead by now"). I'm optimistic Disney will let JJ do Eps 1-3 in that universe.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    50. Re:Wait a second... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      What was the designer smoking?

      There was no designer, it's the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Van Nuys.

      ok, they taped on some 'radioactive' signs where the AB logo were...

      (not to disagree with the rest of your righteous rant)

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    51. Re:Wait a second... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      Truth. Just like "The Clone Wars" animated series will have to tide us over until there's a fourth Star Wars movie.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    52. Re:Wait a second... by sharkey · · Score: 1

      Maybe he's in the "Heroines who used total bad-asses, but then cry for 2 years at a time while still having nice butts" demographic?

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
    53. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heads assploding is a disturbing image...

    54. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The ability to beam between star-systems makes starships obsolete.

      In All of star Trek lore 2 societies possessed that capability:
      The Iconians who ruled over basically all of the galaxy because of their "gateways", and the dominion who were well on their way to becoming another galaxy spanning empire except their transporters aren't long enough range any Sysco used the Dieus ex wormhole to cut them off from "our half".

    55. Re:Wait a second... by Jedi+Dwight · · Score: 1

      Preach own brother man!!

    56. Re:Wait a second... by JonBoy47 · · Score: 1

      Personally, I liked the Abrams Star Trek movie. It broke the curse of odd-numbered Trek movies sucking. Very entertaining, and much better production values then the last several Trek films. That said, the desire to capture scenes "in camera" did lead to some questionable filming locations (Engineering in a brewery, really?!) And when, on the DVD commentary track, the man himself is making fun of how much he overused the lens flare effect, you know something is going on... I've always given the movies a pass in terms of series continuity and adherence to the "rules" of Star Trek. For example, In Star Trek III Scotty rigs the Enterprise so the entire ship can be flown from the bridge by a crew of, like, 6 people. No crew needed here! Oh, and let's not forget how, in Star Trek V the ship had something like 78 decks. Or how in Star Trek VI the they rig a torpedo to sniff out the Klingon Bird of Prey using equipment they had on board to catalog gaseous anomalies, except it was actually Excelsior that was cataloging the anomalies. And have you seen the TNG episode "Relics"?! The man maintained himself in suspended animation in the damned pattern buffer for 75 YEARS! Transwarp beaming is nothing after that. Besides, Spock's future self gave Scotty the formula.

    57. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Yogurt! Hate I Yogurt! With Strawberries even! Do I!"

    58. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't matter if the borg are on the way...Luke and Kirk are both effed=)

    59. Re:Wait a second... by dadelbunts · · Score: 1

      If midichlorians gave you power wouldnt jedi and sith start eating each other to absorb them?

    60. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You need to get laid.

    61. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      She'll have to grow up first. Read her rant about getting banned from OFTC on her homepage.

    62. Re:Wait a second... by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      Well that would bring a great Highlander twist into the whole thing.

      In fact I am pretty sure you have just uncovered the major J.J.Abrams plot device...

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    63. Re:Wait a second... by Rhapsody+Scarlet · · Score: 1

      Don't hold your breath, I stand by every word of it.

    64. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True science fiction requires good science and technology in addition to good characterization. If the science/tech is bad, it's shitty SF, period, since the only thing that distinguishes SF from other genres is the focus on the science/tech.

      They call it SCIENCE fiction for a reason.

    65. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure how the movie could bring you "too" anywhere.

    66. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...she said, stamping her little feet and jutting her lower lip out.

    67. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      See you're completely off track here.

      See you point out that its a problem with Abrams writing himself into a corner, but he didn't get any writing credits for Star Trek. Those go to Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

      I also don't think they wrote themselves into a corner, I just think they have no idea of geography or distances. Probably though that the enterprise was just a short distance away from where Scottie was doing the beaming. After all, in the same year, they wrote Revenge of the Fallen, which featured Sam Witwicky walking into the Smithsonian in Washington, and then walking out the back door to be in Arizona.

      Also the most hilarious layout of northern Africa ever.

    68. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Logical consistency, though they frequently stretched it in the series, is something they TRIED to adhere to most of the time, and is one of the hallmarks of the series as a whole, going back to the original. In fact while the original had a lot of inconsistency due to making the world up on the fly, it had a lot of great little details that even the later series abandoned.

  10. No Help by Master+Moose · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is not going to help explaining the differences to the Girlfriend when she says "Star Wars, Star Trek same thing..."

    "The Star Wars franchise had a series of movies starting a bit over 30 years ago. They are about to make some new ones. The guy who did Lost is going to direct them. . Where as Star Trek had a series of movies starting circa 30 years ago. They are now making new ones. The guy who did Lost directs them...""

    --
    . . .gone when the morning comes
    1. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I like how you capitalize the "G" in girlfriend.

    2. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you have to talk about who's the director to differentiate, you're doing it wrong.

    3. Re:No Help by realityimpaired · · Score: 1

      Star Wars is the one with lightsabres, Star Trek is the one with aliens wearing black face and fu man chus....

    4. Re:No Help by queequeg1 · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's because "Girlfriend" is a defined term here on Slashdot: a mythical creature (see e.g. roc, pegasus, unicorn).

    5. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's the way it was written on the box.

    6. Re:No Help by Grayhand · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is not going to help explaining the differences to the Girlfriend when she says "Star Wars, Star Trek same thing..."

      "The Star Wars franchise had a series of movies starting a bit over 30 years ago. They are about to make some new ones. The guy who did Lost is going to direct them. . Where as Star Trek had a series of movies starting circa 30 years ago. They are now making new ones. The guy who did Lost directs them...""

      The simplest way to deal with a girlfriend, assuming you have one, is to simply say have you seen the new episode of "Keeping up with the Kardashians". That should keep her busy talking for a half hour while you play Halo in your head. When there's a lull in her talking just say, "I know can you believe what happened". That should keep her going for another half hour while you finish another imaginary Halo level. If she doesn't watch that show there's always the Twilight punt. Just tell her you started reading the Twilight novels. That will buy you an hour of in head gaming before she asks your thoughts on something from the novel. I recommend your response to whatever she asked to be "Isn't it an amazing romance?" That'll buy you two hours if not the rest of the night and you might even get laid.

    7. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is not going to help explaining the differences to the Girlfriend when she says "Star Wars, Star Trek same thing..."

      This way you can say "you're right honey, no difference at all"...and get an extra warm and snuggly bed instead of being in the dog house. Win win.

    8. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Keeping up with the Cardassians".

      FTFY

    9. Re:No Help by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      Ironically, many young men around here have girlfriends that resemble the hilt of a lightsaber.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    10. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your ideas are of interest to me and I wish to suscribe to your newsletter

    11. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      She's real, you just don't know her. She's from Canada.

    12. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This kind of attitude is why most of the denizens of Slashdot are virgin basement dwellers with no hopes of ever even seeing a woman (who's not a member of their immediate family), let alone sleep with one.

    13. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, come on. Everyone knows unicorns aren't mythical. If they were, where would rainbows come from?

    14. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slashdot, home of unicorn fuckers.

    15. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's because "Girlfriend" is a defined term here on Slashdot: a mythical creature (see e.g. roc, pegasus, unicorn).

      Medusa, Scylla, Lamia, Harpy...

    16. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, virgin. All girls watch Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Twilight.

    17. Re:No Help by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      Sadly enough the odds are pretty good that any given woman has read and liked the twinkling vampire novels. The Kardashians are a bit of a stretch but you have a very high probability of there being some other reality tv show that you know she does watch, which you could bring up instead.

    18. Re:No Help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slashdot: the website that never grew up. Welcome to Neverland, kiddies.

  11. Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, anything interesting happening?

  12. Rename the Franchaise by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

    If Abrams is running the show, they are going to have to rename it to Lens-Flare Wars!

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  13. Star Trek, Star Wars... by Computer_kid · · Score: 5, Funny

    Next he needs to do a reboot of Stargate, then he would have worked on all of the Star+* franchises.

    1. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by lkernan · · Score: 2

      Next he needs to do a reboot of Stargate, then he would have worked on all of the Star+* franchises.

      Please don't give MGM ideas.....

    2. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      You forgot about Starman (which I think qualifies as a "franchise" since it had one movie, and then a spinoff TV series).

    3. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 2

      Next he needs to do a reboot of Stargate, then he would have worked on all of the Star+* franchises.

      Please don't give MGM ideas.....

      I'd be fine with it as long as the have Richard Dean Anderson back, or some how brought in Robert Carlyle (the one actor that SGU worth watching)

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    4. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by DigitalSorceress · · Score: 2

      For the love of all that is good and right in the world, please just shut your mouth... do NOT give him ideas! :p

      --

      The Digital Sorceress
    5. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

      Actually, MGM is interested in doing a sequel to Stargate. But it isn't SG-1--it's completely different.

    6. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hmmmmmm..... A Death Star vs. Atlantis battle would be interesting. The Death Star has the superlaser and no shields (not counting the one from Endor which was supposed to be temporary) while Atlantis has drone weapons and the best impenetrable shield ever made in the SG universe (maybe good enough to survive a direct hit from the DS).

    7. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by lennier1 · · Score: 1

      It would be great to see some sequels along the lines of the novels, but they'd most likely find a way to screw it up anyway.

    8. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by GrumblyStuff · · Score: 1

      Was there anything decent about SGU other than the budget for set and special effects? All I remember from albeit a very limited time trying to watch it is shakey documentary cam and dramadramadrama.

    9. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd rather never see those. The film was atrocious compared to the series. I'm glad they retconned so much of the film and even early series.

      In fact, good ol real-life Rodney, aka David Hewlett, said he had grabbed a bunch of the SGU set just recently.
      Whether or not it will have anything to do with SGU sequels or not is another question. It might be this new movie he is mentioning at the top of his twitter feed, Debug.

    10. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I think SGU was just hitting it's stride and turning into something decent by the end. B5 had just as shaky a start but went on to far better things.

    11. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by RivenAleem · · Score: 2

      SG:U could easily have been directed by him. "Stargate: Lost" is a private name me and some friends had for it.

    12. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      Because MAcGyver, really made the series watchable...*eye roll*

    13. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      I will be shocked if there is not a porno titled Star Whores.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    14. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He was definitely my favorite host of Star Search.

    15. Re:Star Trek, Star Wars... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean the blatant ripoff of Baltar?

  14. Omg :( by mZHg · · Score: 2

    Please not him ...
    StarTrek 2009 is not bad, but not good as well... (and I am a trek fan, so I love anything trekky)
    But, I can't stand Lost, and Fringe which had a good start has gone down and down.. to a meaningless end... So disappointed..
    Just my point of view but I think this guy is overrated where he should only get a 5/10 score.

    1. Re:Omg :( by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 1

      (and I am a trek fan, so I love anything trekky)

      Exactly. But the new Trek movie wasn't made for us Trek fans.

    2. Re:Omg :( by mZHg · · Score: 1

      This is what scare me, 'cause I am also a sw fan, at some point, and I'am afraid to be disappointed, again..

    3. Re:Omg :( by DigitalSorceress · · Score: 5, Insightful

      this. So much this...

      Abrams has really shown great ability to come up with a good story context and set up a world and characters we get pulled into and care about.. and then CONSISTENTLY fails to take them to a satisfying conclusion...

      He's the biggest SF-tease evar.

      Maybe Abrams could start it up and get the story rolling for VII and VIII but then they could let someone with a history of doing it right (Joss where for art thou?) bring it on home in IX

      --

      The Digital Sorceress
    4. Re:Omg :( by iluvcapra · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He's the biggest SF-tease ever.

      Let us not discount the Damon Lindelof phenomenon -- he wrote Prometheus and Cowboys vs. Aliens, and bears most of the responsibility for the Lost storyline. (He's also writing Into Darkness).

      Then again, if yo've ever seen J. J. Abrams tell his "Mystery Box" Story it's pretty hard to not come to the conclusion that he's motivated by at least a little contempt for the audience's intelligence.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    5. Re:Omg :( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That doesnt explain Super 8, which should have been an excellent movie but was just sort of hollow.

    6. Re:Omg :( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      i read an interview somewhere where he states (regarding to series) that "conclusion doesn't matter, the series is over anyway and you don't need to keep the viewers"

      maybe this is the reason why he also fails at concluding movies - he just has no practice with it.

    7. Re:Omg :( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I never realised the one person had done all that DAMAGE to movies. And I watched him rabbit on. Replace MysteryBox with BSBox. "I can sell anything. Watch me sell this dog excrement as a hotdog".

    8. Re:Omg :( by wienerschnizzel · · Score: 1

      Not sure what your problem is with Cowboys and Aliens. I though Lindelof did a pretty good job on it. Most people just don't like the premise of the story - but that was not Lindelof's idea, he just had to adapt a comic book.

      Apart from the premise and setting, there was nothing wrong with the writing. The motivations of each character are clear (no 'why the fk would you try to pet a hissing alien cobra' moment), you have a reasonable character development, plot devices are properly set up and the film has a satisfying conclusion. There are no ridiculous attempts at philosophy either. At most you could complain at the cliches about the natives.

      If all works like this in the new Star Wars, I will be satisfied.

    9. Re:Omg :( by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      Yeah because he was hoping that people who NEVER heard of Star Trek, let alone NEVER watched Star Trek were going to go the theaters in droves opening weekend and goose the box office take....moron....

    10. Re:Omg :( by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      The "Huh?" per minute rate in Prometheus is rather high. "Why does David poison Holloway?" is probably my first question...

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    11. Re:Omg :( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Joss would nail IX, but then Fox (after buying the rights from Disney) would cancel the franchise immediately afterwards.

      Don't worry though, I've already started an internet petition.

    12. Re:Omg :( by wienerschnizzel · · Score: 1

      I was talking about Cowboys and Aliens

  15. Does It Matter? by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

    I don't really care who directs it. I'm more interested in finding out if Ford, Hamill and Fisher are going to be in it. I know they're old fogies now, but frankly after the horrors that were the prequels, I'd like nothing more than Han Solo with a blaster.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    1. Re:Does It Matter? by roc97007 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I don't really care who directs it. I'm more interested in finding out if Ford, Hamill and Fisher are going to be in it. I know they're old fogies now, but frankly after the horrors that were the prequels, I'd like nothing more than Han Solo with a blaster.

      They have all expressed interest, and the story idea that's been floated so far has Luke being the head of a new academy. It's possible.

      Not sure if Carrie would still fit into the bikini, though.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    2. Re:Does It Matter? by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 1

      Not sure if Carrie would still fit into the bikini, though.

      I'm sure that I don't want to find out if Carrie firs into the bikini.

    3. Re:Does It Matter? by phrackthat · · Score: 1

      Not sure if Carrie would still fit into the bikini, though.

      * SHUDDERS *

    4. Re:Does It Matter? by JonBoy47 · · Score: 1

      Most of the money Carrie Fisher made in the original trilogy went up her nose unfortunately. Hence she hasn't aged well...

    5. Re:Does It Matter? by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      One of the true tragedies of Hollywood.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    6. Re:Does It Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I actually kinda want to see a Han Solo movie, with Harrison Ford running around complaining that "he's too old for this".

    7. Re:Does It Matter? by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      I think his last three movies qualify.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  16. Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by ohnocitizen · · Score: 4, Funny

    And turn Star Wars 7 into Star Wars 7, 8, and 9?

    1. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by mZHg · · Score: 1

      Yeah, this guy would make a better one for sure!
      But he would trade spaceship and asteroid belt for some planetary landscape shot somewhere in NZ :D

    2. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Funny

      Star wars 7: There is a knock at Luke's front door. A bunch of people invite themselves in and eat all his food.

    3. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by tarpitcod · · Score: 1

      Aw you're just jealous because you live across the ditch.

    4. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Teancum · · Score: 2

      Disney is risk averse to directors who can successfully sue the movie studio and win monetary settlements for uncompensated royalties. Otherwise, I'd have to agree.

    5. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      No, that would be Star Wars 7.1, 7.2 & 7.3, with options on 7.4-7.9.
      8 & 9 would be remakes/reboots of 7.1 & 7.2 respectively, with Lucas doing the scriptwriting from his geriatric bed.
      Oh, the horror, the HORROOOOORRRRRRRRR!!!

    6. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by owlman17 · · Score: 1

      Star Wars 7: Part I, then parts 2 & 3 before hitting Star Wars 8.

    7. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      That was lifted straight out of the book "The Hobbit". Peter Jackson is pretty good at being very authentic to the source material in a novel. So a Star Wars movie from him would probably mean him taking Timothy Zahn's trilogy and turning them into movies, which would actually probably be really cool, if only I could blot the Prequels out of my mind.

    8. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      The Director is free to pace the story though. Blade Runner was great partly because of the amount of rework it went through.

    9. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, that would be Star Wars 7.1, 7.2 & 7.3, with options on 7.4-7.9.

      That numbering scheme is reserved for movies directed by Hideaki Anno.

    10. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too bad Blade Runner ran at a dead snail pace.

    11. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      It may have been before the Disney takeover, but there was an announcement that the last 3 in the trilogy trilogy will not be based on Zahn.

    12. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      At least Blade Runner managed to average 1 movie per book.

    13. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Yep, I remember. They're probably going to suck. But at any rate, it seems that Peter Jackson mainly does movies based on novels, at least based on his Tolkein works.

    14. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      That was lifted straight out of the book "The Hobbit".

      Well, yeah, but it was really laboured in the film. The film was very slow, whereas (unusually for Tolkein) the book was rather snappy.

      Peter Jackson is pretty good at being very authentic to the source material in a novel.

      Funny thing is that usually people cut stuff out to make a film (though thank god he did cut out Tom Bombadil in LoTR). In the Hobbit, he invented a bunch of extra fight scenes and conflicts (e.g. between Thorin and Bilbo) that were never in the book. That really slowed down the pace of the whole thing and didn't really add anything to the character development.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    15. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Peter Jackson is pretty good at being very authentic to the source material in a novel.

      Two words: rabbit sleigh.

    16. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by lennier · · Score: 5, Funny

      Star wars 7: There is a knock at Luke's front door. A bunch of people invite themselves in and eat all his food.

      Far over the Endor forest green
      To Yavin IV and Tattooine
      We must arrive by hyperdrive
      And stick a fork in Palpatine...

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    17. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by tooyoung · · Score: 1

      But at any rate, it seems that Peter Jackson mainly does movies based on novels, at least based on his Tolkein works.

      In other words, if you look only at the movies that Peter Jackson has done that are based on books, then it appears that he mainly does movies based on books.

    18. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Peter Jackson is pretty good at being very authentic to the source material in a novel.

      Haven't read the Lord of the Rings novels, have you? The movies weren't even close to being authentic to the source material.

    19. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was lifted straight out of the book "The Hobbit". Peter Jackson is pretty good at being very authentic to the source material in a novel. So a Star Wars movie from him would probably mean him taking Timothy Zahn's trilogy and turning them into movies, which would actually probably be really cool, if only I could blot the Prequels out of my mind.

      It would probably mean him taking each of Timothy Zahn's books and turning them into trilogies.

    20. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Closer than anything else but the BCC radio version (which I see as being superior to the books by editing out the stuff best left to Silmarilion or whatever - a cameo by a trickster God type Mary Sue adds nothing to the storyline and Tolkein's editor should have had him remove such tedious crap).

    21. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Spottywot · · Score: 1

      It may have been before the Disney takeover, but there was an announcement that the last 3 in the trilogy trilogy will not be based on Zahn.

      It was after the takeover that this was said, Micheal Arnt has turned in a draft late last year I believe. What it's actually based on (if anything) no-one is saying, understandably I guess.

      --
      In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
    22. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there was an announcement that the last 3 in the trilogy trilogy will not be based on Zahn.

      I grow tired of asking this, so it will be the last time... WHERE is the trilogy based?

    23. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      I grow tired of asking this, so it will be the last time...

      Good, then we won't have to keep seeing you ask silly questions.

      WHERE is the trilogy based?

      I don't understand the question. "Where" as in the Star Wars universe? "Where" as in which planets (Alderaan is out)?

      It's fiction that hasn't been written yet. There are some drafts out there, but no decisions yet.

    24. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by almitydave · · Score: 1

      Because then you'd have the whole Firefox version numbering confusion all over again: "No, Star Wars 8 and 9 are really just continuations of 7, they were in development concurrently and released close to each other. The long-term episodes only occur every three numbers, so 7, 10, 13, etc. are the ones you need to remember."

      --
      my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
      I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
    25. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Peter Jackson? by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Gotta milk it for three episodes, and that requires pacing things so that the drama builds and the conflicts are resolved in the right places. You can't do that by just following the book since the book didn't have the constraint of needing to be three freestanding works.

      That said, I don't know that ANY of Tolkein's Middle-Earth stuff really has pacing like that. Huge side-tracks, and stuff like the scouring of the shire where the plot takes about 200 pages to actually wind down. I think the thing that made his work compelling was interest in all the backdrop and the care he took to create it - the actual plots seemed like more of a device to introduce a bazillion unrelated stories, which were themselves devices to do the same.

  17. GOOD! After Empire Lucas was batshit crazy! by tarpitcod · · Score: 1

    I apologize to the 'recent' fans, I really *really* wanted to like the 'new' episodes but they sucked. Horribly. I mean terrible horrible waste of all that ILM CPU cycles on digital effects and acting crap.

    The reboot of Star Trek was awesome even die-hard trekkies I know who hated it on first viewing got to love it. Well that's all of them except the TNG kids who well let's face it - they just aren't cool and are namby-pamby overly politically correct crap.

    So yeah, maybe he can fix it because pretty much after Empire Lucas clearly lost the plot entirely - I mean Ewoks and Jar Jar sucked so badly it was sad.

  18. Star Trek/Star Wars Crossover? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am not saying it would be a good idea. But just think of the money they could make.

    1. Re:Star Trek/Star Wars Crossover? by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 1

      I am not saying it would be a good idea. But just think of the money they could make.

      A long time ago in a Galaxy far far away
      where no man has gone before...

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  19. Now we can finally openly acknowledge it by OhANameWhatName · · Score: 4, Funny

    Star Wars is lost

    1. Re:Now we can finally openly acknowledge it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      says you, go away.

    2. Re:Now we can finally openly acknowledge it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, but that's only because it's in some galaxy far, far away in some other time. Wait... were we talking Star Wars or Star Trek?

  20. Star Wars: Revolution by Jackazz · · Score: 1
    Let's just hope it is more like the work he did on Star Trek, and not the slow and contrived "Revolution".

    Luke et. al. must make their way through post-collapse empire cities ruled by gangs to free the rebel slaves!!!

  21. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by tarpitcod · · Score: 1

    I wonder what Joss Whedon would do with it? He did a smash-up job on firefly.

  22. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by mZHg · · Score: 1

    Interesting
    3

  23. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    Two words Doll House

  24. having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by decora · · Score: 5, Insightful

    i have to say that something has been 'lost' in the new age.

    the best original trek were about the human condition... I'm sure you can name some of your favorite episodes that leap to mind... but for me it is TOS like the Menagerie, or TNG like "The Inner Light" (where he plays the flute on) or the one about Enkidu and Gilgamesh.

    When Spock dies in Wrath of Khan, tell me you didn't cry ... now tell me even one memorably emotional scene from anything after Generations

    The new stuff is fine.. but its ... where is the heart? Maybe I'm just old but...

    1. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Picard Losing it when he realizes that he's captain Ahab and chasing his white whale.

    2. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by tarpitcod · · Score: 5, Funny

      Please. All of that TNG crap. I wanted them to die. I wanted the scene to go like this:

      Picard> Yes, but the question is *should* we kill them?
      Data> Killing is not ethical
      Blah>
      Blah>
      Blah>
        Enterprise blown from the stars

      Enemy captain> If you're going to shoot, shoot, don't talk

    3. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are an old butt.

    4. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I didn't cry

    5. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you pretty much nailed the problem with most mainstream scifi put out in the last 5-10 years. All flash, no heart.

    6. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Funny

      The talking hapens a lot.

      [very weak ship starts shooting]
      Enterprise: hey, we've got the most powerful ship in the federation. This weak ship is shooting us. Hmmm. What shall we do?
      [ship continues to shoot]
      Enterprise: Perhaps we should shoot back.
      [ship coninues to shoot]
      [Enterprise begins to sustain damage]
      Enterprise: Yeah shooting's a good idea. Let's ignore all the photon torpedos and most of the other weapons and shoot one phaser on the weakest setting (the ship phasers don't seem to do stun on TNG).
      [ship gets shot, but sustains only moderate damage and keeps shooting]
      Enterprise: huh. That didn't do much and dang they're still shooting.
      [console on enterprise randomly expoldes]
      Enterprise: shall we shoot again? Perhaps shooting would be a good idea. Maybe we should up the phaser power from one to two percent and try again. But let's think about it for a while.
      [other ship KEEPS shooting and enterprise really starts to take the hits]
      [enterprise fires one more very weak phaser blast which does about as much as expected]
      Enterprise: huh. They're still going. OMG SHIELDS ARE FAILING EVERYBODY PANIC AND WHILE YOU'RE AT IT DON'T BOTHER TO SHOOT BACK WITH EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT!!

      and so on.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    7. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Dude, fucking spoilers?! Spock dies in Wrath of Khan?!

    8. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Genda · · Score: 1

      So your Klingon?...

    9. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Artifakt · · Score: 2

      The problem is, Trek comes with a lot of baggage. Some of the very best original episodes literally are also some of the worst to draw from. Take 'City on the Edge of Forever' - It's brilliantly written, and has a far more mature conclusion than most TV of its time (and just about all the critics rank it highly), but it's a time travel story, and there are four other time travel stories in the original trek, with four other methods of time travel, so by the end of third season, the burning question every episode becomes why don't they just use one of the time travel methods to fix that weeks problem. Doing so many time travel stories with so many methods, and the alternate earth type stores to top them off means even a really good time travel story starts eating away at that necessary suspension of disbelief. Someone trying to bring a touch of CotEoF into a modern trek film is likely to think the time travel part is what's important, not the ending twist, where...

        (spoiler)
      (Spoiler)
      (SPOILER)
      (I MEAN IT! All you geeks that haven't seen original Star Trek stop reading right now...) ... a deranged, temporarily insane Dr. McCoy turns out to be a threat to the future not because he will kill someone nice in the past but because he will save the nice person if he isn't stopped. Cptn. Kirk has to let a hot babe with enormous tracts of land die! There's a lot of deep mental anguish for time travelers in doing the right thing, and that's perhaps a bigger risk than the consequences of tampering with history.
                It's too easy to pick all the wrong parts of even the best early episode to draw from and miss the things that made them the best.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    10. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by TheGoodNamesWereGone · · Score: 1

      I will say that in terms of sheer, punch-you-in-gut pathos, Deep Sleep Nine's "The Visitor" just blew me away. Yes, it's a quasi time travel story-- Jake Sisko watches his father disappear in a chrono-synclastic infundibulum accident and devotes his life to restoring him, succeeding finally as an old man by giving his own life. Powerful, powerful stuff, and for my money one of the best Trek eps ever.

    11. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Star Wars fan detected.

    12. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      I thought that the prequel was an attempt to get back at that, by being based around Spock's struggle with his humanity and Kirk's rebelliousness. If they can get an emotinally convincing story arc for McCoy into the sequel they might be onto something good.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    13. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When Spock dies in Wrath of Khan, tell me you didn't cry ... now tell me even one memorably emotional scene from anything after Generations

      The opening sequence of the JJ Abrams reboot impacted me emotionally far more than anything else in the franchise.

    14. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Bigby · · Score: 1

      Is "Enemy Captain" the "Ugly" from the "Good, Bad, and the Ugly"?

    15. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the burning question every episode becomes why don't they just use one of the time travel methods to fix that weeks problem

      This imo is where Star Trek IV was brilliant and "Star Trek" (no number, no subtitle) failed.

      One of the more memorable exchanges in my mind from Star Trek IV (and that movie had so many) was Kirk and McCoy talking about time travel was the answer key to the whale probe (thanks to http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie4.html for the transcript):

      McCOY: Are you really going to try this time travel in this rust bucket?

      KIRK: We've done it before.

      McCOY: Sure, slingshot around the sun. If you pick up enough speed you're in time warp. If you don't, you fry.

      KIRK: Would you prefer to do nothing?

      McCOY: I'd prefer a dose of common sense. You are proposing to head backwards in time, find humpback whales, then bring them forward in time, drop them off, and hope to hell they tell this Probe what to do with itself!

      KIRK: That's the general idea.

      McCOY: That's crazy!

      KIRK: You have a better idea, now's the time.

      On the other hand, despite all the other plot holes and bullshit that was Star Trek (I still think it was a good action movie, good sci fi not a chance), J. J. Abrams completely screwed up by ignoring the temporal agents that show up in Deep Space 9 and Lt. Dekker specifically from all over Enterprise. I mean, he gave a nod to Admiral Archer's dog in one of Scotty's lines, so why ignore one of the major plot devices from Enterprise?! Gah.

      I have a feeling there's going to continue to be a conspicuous absence of temporal agents in Star Trek Into Darkness. We know from Enterprise that the 30th century is fully aware when history is changing and is fully capable of dispatching time ships and temporal agents to undo it, and we know there's a temporal cold war from the early 20th century through the 31st century, so why on Earth (or on Vulcan for that matter) would Starfleet of the far future completely ignore major events that must certainly be catastrophic for the timeline like the destruction of the USS Kelvin and a major Federation planet being destroyed?

      Madness.

    16. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TNG postulates a future where jackasses such as yourself are not in a position of power in the Federation.

      No surprise that it makes you uncomfortable.

    17. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by dywolf · · Score: 1

      After Generations? Easy.First Contact. When Picard realizes his past experience and obsession with the Borg has been causing him to parallel Ahab's descent into monomania, even so far as to forget about the well-being of his crew, something he typically does not take lightly.

      Also in First Contact: the wonder of seeing something you take for granted through the eyes of someone who's seeing it for the first time (LaForge and Riker flying with Cochrane). To them, its normal every day occurance, flying in space, meeting aliens; it's lost is specialness. For Cochrane, and all humanity, it's the beginning of a new era (literally, the beginning of the Federation).

      --
      I know its easy to say Star Trek also falls into the rule of even number sequels, but I quite enjoyed Insurrection and Nemesis too. Insurrection didnt have much emotional content for the audience, it was more like a standard save the day episode. Nemesis had some, but along the lines of the horror of the thought of "oh my god, this is what I could have been with a different set of formative events". So I'll toss those in too. Plus, Data sacrificing himself (again, though this time for real/permanently) to save the Captain.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    18. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Joan Collins was quite the babe. And she ages quite well. Much like Sophia Loren.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    19. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      So your Klingon?...

      What about my Klingon?

    20. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DS9 was the best Trek. It's *way* more emotional than TNG. Yeah, the first couple seasons aren't that great, but then the first couple of seasons of TNG were only great because they were the first Trek in a LONG time.

    21. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ugh, the consoles blowing up thing always pisses me off.
      They did the same thing in Stargate.

      "Oh no! Shields are at 90% and half the bridge just blew up and now stuff is on fire!"

      Seriously... Why the FUCK do you have shields if stuff on the bridge blows up every time someone so much as sneezes at your ship?

    22. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. See here is the problem. JJ et al has recognized that they need to beat the canonical/logical BS out of us because it's getting in the way of story-telling. TOS was very weak in regards to logical consistency yet has a great deal of 'literary' value. TOS parallels Greek Mythology in this sense. After TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise things were too canonical (even though the whole Archer/Enterprise thing blatantly disregarded canon set by TNG and DS9...crap...see, at this point, Star Trek is too heavily burdened with canon). With the time-travel reboot, JJ et al tried to break out of the canon so they could get back to 'good story-telling'. Unfortunately, Star Trek (2009) was terribly lacking in terms of good, heart-felt, emotional stories or commentary on the human condition. I feel like half the reason for this is because so much attention had to be given to the whole reboot/retool/update process and story. However, I think the other half for this is that it simply isn't the goal. New Trek is not intended to be an engine for social change. Instead, it is intended to be a fun joy-ride. Don't expect much more than that. However, on a somewhat contradictory note, I think the upcoming JJ Trek movie will be a bit more emotionally engaging simply because they don't have to devote story-time to the reboot anymore and because we have already been introduced to the revamped characters. Now there is some room left in the joy-ride to get us emotionally invested in the characters.

    23. Re:having just watched the Trek marathon on SyFy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. See here is the problem. JJ et al has recognized that they need to beat the canonical/logical BS out of us because it's getting in the way of story-telling.

      And yet another valuable piece of culture gasps its last thanks to postmodernism...

  25. Why JJ Abrams when you could get Joss Whedon? by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 1

    And have the new series of Star Wars movies cancelled after Episode VII?

    1. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Joss Whedon? by qzzpjs · · Score: 2

      Actually, I don't blame Joss for those cancellations. I think it has more to do with Summer Glau. I like her, but every sci-fi show she gets on seems to cancel within a season or two. Not her fault, she just seems to bring bad luck.

      Firefly, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse, The Cape, and Alphas. She was on The 4400 as well, but I think that show might have just lost its point.

    2. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Joss Whedon? by ohnocitizen · · Score: 1

      He's got way more clout now, so I bet they'd let him run with it. I'd just expect him to kill off Luke and/or Leia. With Reavers. Sith Reavers.

    3. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Joss Whedon? by RivenAleem · · Score: 1

      I'd watch that.

    4. Re:Why JJ Abrams when you could get Joss Whedon? by wolfhead · · Score: 1

      I agree, Whedon would be a great choice, but I'm pretty sure he's got contractual obligations to The Avengers sequel that will keep him busy the next few years. I don't see Disney delaying their Star Wars plans for him.

  26. He should merge them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    JJ Abrams should merge Star Trek and Star Wars! Shatner and Vader, Solo and Spock, Picard, all three Luke Skywalkers *and* Luther Campbell, and both women all on the same stage!

    1. Re:He should merge them! by Teancum · · Score: 1

      Patrick Stewart v. James Earl Jones would be one wicked match up. Still..... who would be evil and who would be good?

    2. Re:He should merge them! by servognome · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Obviously Patrick Stewart would be good, and Vader voiced by James Earl Jones would be evil. The question is whose reflective head would cause the most lens flare.

      --
      D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
  27. A Sith whirls his light saber menacingly by kawabago · · Score: 1

    The Jedi pulls out his trusty phaser and vaporizes the Sith. A lot less fun to watch, well, funny maybe.

  28. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by mZHg · · Score: 1

    (just learn that you can't post a "less than" sign into comment, the alone 3 was suppose to be "less than" 3 ^^)

  29. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by mZHg · · Score: 1

    Doll House was good imo

  30. Yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Lost was a piece of shit. Fuck everyone who liked it. I'm going drinking.

  31. Two words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whill Wheaton

    1. Re:Two words by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

      These movies are rueened.

    2. Re:Two words by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      Wil Wheaton as he is today would be pretty kickass I think. Imagine a grown up Wesley Crusher with the personality of the grown up Wheaton in command of the Enterprise.

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    3. Re:Two words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good fucking Christ.

      You. Scarletdown. You are hereby ordered to go watch the entire Family Guy series, RIGHT FUCKING NOW, before you display your absolutely astounding IGNORANCE AND STUPIDITY any further.

    4. Re:Two words by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      I don't know your Family Guy reference, but how about you watch Seasons 3 and 4 of The Guild instead, so you will have a clue what is being talked about here, which will give you some perspective on my previous post?

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    5. Re:Two words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hate to say it..

      A CRUSHER who play chess and debate like Picard... ...and have a *beard* like Riker ...and could whoop-ass like Worf, ...and show compassion & do first aid on his enemies,
        and be betrayed for his compassion...

      and then RUTHLESSLY stop-the-shit out of those guys

      -- would be fuckin awesome. FUSION!

    6. Re:Two words by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      And like one of his cohorts said in The Guild... "We don't do anything half assed. We use both cheeks."

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    7. Re:Two words by ultanium · · Score: 1

      Did anyone else see Wheaton on The Big Bang Theory? I swear to God, he looked like a young version of Riker, complete with facial expressions. Makes me think there is a new Star Trek coming...

    8. Re:Two words by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Having met Will Wheaton when he spoke at our SF club, and damnear split a gut laughing at his humor... I agree. That would be interesting. The Wesley Crusher we loved to hate (but who was showing signs of becoming something special toward the end), grown into maturity as has the actor... works for me.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  32. Re:GOOD! After Empire Lucas was batshit crazy! by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

    The Ewoks were tolerable, but Jar Jar was way, way over the line.

    Here's a though experiment: imagine how Episodes 6, 1, 2, and 3 would have been if they had been done by the same writer and director who did Empire Strikes Back.

  33. Timothy Zahn by SoulMaster · · Score: 1

    I don't really care who directs it, I just hope they base 7, 8 and 9 on the Timothy Zahn books. I read them long ago and have been waiting for them to be movies for something like 20 years.

    -SM

    1. Re:Timothy Zahn by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 1

      I don't really care who directs it, I just hope they base 7, 8 and 9 on the Timothy Zahn books. I read them long ago and have been waiting for them to be movies for something like 20 years.

      -SM

      Now that Disney and Abrams are at the helm of the Star Wars franchise I very highly doubt it will happen. They will absolutely ignore all of the books written storyline wise since the end of Episode 6 in favor of more kid friendly garbage with more gungans and quite possibly, this time, fucking Disney characters in a star wars universe.

      --
      You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
    2. Re:Timothy Zahn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is the Zahn trilogy not kid friendly? I could see the case being made for the avoiding New Jedi Order and later stuff (though there is too much necessary back story to really go there anyway), but the Zahn trilogy only needs some tweaking on the cloning process to have it work.

    3. Re:Timothy Zahn by Maudib · · Score: 1

      They have already announced that it will be an original story, not Zahn.

      http://www.eonline.com/news/358685/star-wars-7-plot-will-be-quot-an-original-story-quot-says-lucasfilm-source

    4. Re:Timothy Zahn by runeghost · · Score: 1

      Probably a good thing. Zahn's stories were fun reads, and felt a least somewhat Star Wars-ish, but more like Expanded Universe material (which is what they were, after all) than potential equals to the original trilogy.

  34. This Is the Worst News I've Heard All Day by ALeavitt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Abrams is going to take Star Wars, remove all of the substance, and turn it into a bright-colored, flashy, plotless action movie devoid of all substance.
    So basically Lucas' legacy is alive and well.

    --
    This sig has been stolen. Return it to its original user for a reward.
    1. Re:This Is the Worst News I've Heard All Day by dadelbunts · · Score: 2

      Remove action from that and you are 100% correct. Blablablablablablabla trade agreements.

    2. Re:This Is the Worst News I've Heard All Day by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      and turn it into a bright-colored, flashy, plotless action movie devoid of all substance.

      To be honest, that's exactly what Star Wars has always been.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    3. Re:This Is the Worst News I've Heard All Day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What are you talking about? The original trilogy had so many relevant undertones. What writer today could sum up the public's disdain for the 1% with the line "I could smell your foul stench when I was brought on board?"

  35. This sucks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck.

  36. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing it's because the really excellent directors, like Christopher Nolan, Clint Eastwood, James Cameron, Jon Favreau, or Bryan Singer, are either not interested in sci-fi at all (Eastwood), not interested in Star Wars specifically, not interested in picking up someone else's series and running with it, or perhaps not interested in working with George Lucas even if he restricts himself to effects and visuals. Or perhaps it's because the previous Star Wars movies (mainly the prequels) have been such horrors of filmmaking that no "true expert of film" would want to touch that turkey. Honestly, they're lucky they got someone as good as Abrams to take this thing over, after the mess that Lucas has made of it. And I'm truly shocked actually that Lucas is even letting someone else take over. He's had nothing good to say about ESB, it being the SW movie he had the least to do with. The man is an egomaniac, and I'm wondering how they managed to wrestle control away from him.

  37. Just when you thought... by EmagGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... it couldn't get any fucking worse than Jar Jar Binks.

    1. Re:Just when you thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Woah, say what you will about Abrams directing skills. But NOTHING is worse than Jar Jar Binks. Not even nuke fridge.

    2. Re:Just when you thought... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Huh seriously?

      Jar-jar Binks was pretty much plumbing the lowest depths possible. It won't be as good as the original 3 movies, but it would have to try VERY hard to not beat the next 3.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:Just when you thought... by Genda · · Score: 1

      Yeah right... it couldn't possibly get worse, like there couldn't be a moment of graphic interspecies sex between a wookie and an ewok that's so mind numbingly terrible it causes a rift in the space time continuum and Westley Crusher falls out, and he and Jar Jar go on to have a gay marriage... no nothing like that could possibly happen. Go to sleep little children, you're perfectly safe...

    4. Re:Just when you thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Meesuh just chang-ed me name to JJ Binks."

    5. Re:Just when you thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... it couldn't get any fucking worse than Jar Jar Binks.

      So that's what J J stands for!!!

    6. Re:Just when you thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe J.J. stands for Jar Jar.

    7. Re:Just when you thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... it couldn't get any fucking worse than Jar Jar Binks.

      ... unless we get to meet the descendants of Jar Jar Binks, wjo have built their own empire in the time that passed, in a bright fluffy corner of the galaxy which was uneffected by all the things happening in the meantime. He would have clones of himself, and also little Jar Jars could make an appearance. So it could get worse, actually.

    8. Re:Just when you thought... by GNUThomson · · Score: 1

      EmagGeek> ... it couldn't get any fucking worse than Jar Jar Binks.
      JJAbrams> Oh yeah? Watch this!

    9. Re:Just when you thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Son of Jar Jar.

    10. Re:Just when you thought... by dywolf · · Score: 1

      nothing is worse than Jar Jar. i tried to watch the clone wars, was going to give the show a chance....by happenstance the episode i tuned into happened to be him saving the day for some clone troopers....so pretty much lost all interest in it instantly

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    11. Re:Just when you thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You clearly haven't seen JJ Trek.

      That movie was essentially one lone sequence of "JarJar explains medichlorians to the Jedi who for some reason this time are really into special 6-sot only blasters instead of lightsabers".

    12. Re:Just when you thought... by BonThomme · · Score: 1

      you forgot the lens flare when Crusher is born

  38. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by FearTheFez · · Score: 2

    Well there goes my hope of finding out what Quentin Tarantino would have done with an army of Uma Thurman clones.......

  39. Well there goes my interest. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Now I am never one to judge a movie before I see it but him directing it more or less took my interest in the movie down to nothing. As in I wont see it in the theater and Ill probablly just wait till its on netflix since disney has inked a deal with netflix and already started releasing movies on it.

    He isnt a terrible director but he isnt good either. He is very mediocre at best. I really disliked the star trek movie he did, super 8 had good intentions but was rather bland and boring and you could really tell he basically tried to copy stephen spieldbergs old style in it and mission impossible 3 much like all of them was just an abortion put on screen.

    JJ is really the very and perfect definition of "in the right place at the right time". He got very lucky which earned him some undue credit that has carried him along. If he had to get along on his movie directing skills alone he would be a nobody.

    So personally Ill pass on the new star wars movies. Besides when they talked about it being a trilogy I lost even more interest. Im sick of everything having to be a trilogy, just make one damn good movie at a time instead of dragging it out.

  40. And the rich get richer by jfengel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As an actor (and so distantly connected to the entertainment industry), what makes me cranky about this is Hollywood's affinity for known quantities. I like Abrams' work; I'm sure it'll be a fine movie.

    But there are hundreds of lesser-known directors who might have done something. What would Kevin Smith have done? Or Alfonso Cuaron, who made the third Harry Potter movie so much more interesting than any of the others? Or somebody I've never heard of?

    They're going with a known quantity, and maybe it's the right business decision. It means it probably won't be terrible, and will probably be pretty good. But no matter how good it is, it's still going to be more of Abrams, who we've already got plenty of.

    They're going with a known quantity to eliminate the risks. And all you get from safe choices is safe movies. And "safe" is exactly what Star Wars wasn't, at least not the first time, the thing that made it great.

    1. Re:And the rich get richer by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Alfonso Cuaron really did a great job... another possibility would have been Guillermo del Toro. Both would be much more interesting.

    2. Re:And the rich get richer by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      > But there are hundreds of lesser-known directors who might have done something.

      Duncan Jones.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    3. Re:And the rich get richer by Mabhatter · · Score: 1

      I totally agree. SW is really Historical Fiction not Science Fiction. You don't need somebody to "reimagine" the series... You need somebody good at working with the ARMY of Star Wars experts at George's own company that didn't get consulted on how things should work the last time around... Not to mention the truckload of boxes of continuity work done by Lucasfilm Licensing.

      Star Wars is about big acting. Big cinema. I think you would want the stilted classic acting... Ten Commandments or Lawrence of Arabia... Which means whoever directs needs to be a heavily PEOPLE -BASED director... Plenty of other people can handle the sci-fi work and have been doing it for decades.

    4. Re:And the rich get richer by Genda · · Score: 1

      This is a banking decision. We have arrived at the really for real future and every time someone passes gas these days, there's a bank and two lawyers to tally it and assign charges and penalties accordingly. We don't make movies any more. We crap out little steaming piles of projected IP. While everyone enjoys their carbonated beverage and popcorn with the 250,000,000,000,000,000% markup and if they make the screen big enough, the sound system loud enough, and everything 3D, we won't even notice we just spent 120 precious moments of our lives watching the end products of monkeys masturbating to John Williams wonderful score. In the end, we've been reduced to a society that makes shit to make money, and this movie will succeed on both counts.

    5. Re:And the rich get richer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Star Wars always needed some more creepy young girls.

    6. Re:And the rich get richer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "What would Kevi Smith have done?"

      Are you serious? I'll take my Star Wars without Ben Afflek and Matt Damon homo'ing it up, thanks.

    7. Re:And the rich get richer by Omestes · · Score: 1

      I'm still miffed that del Toro didn't get to do the Hobbit. The creature design alone would be awesome.

      Not as sad as I am that they forced him to scrap At The Mountains of Madness... If ever a man existed that could actually make the first good Lovecraft movie, del Toro is that man.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    8. Re:And the rich get richer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Alfonso Cuaron really did a great job... another possibility would have been Guillermo del Toro. Both would be much more interesting.

      Allegedly, they asked del Toro, he wasn't interested. I don't blame him.

    9. Re:And the rich get richer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or Alfonso Cuaron, who made the third Harry Potter movie so much more interesting than any of the others?.

      The third book is the best of the series by large.

    10. Re:And the rich get richer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kevin Smith already said what he would do on his podcast when the news was announced...and it was awesome... of course Disney/Lucas would never allow it, but it was still awesome.

    11. Re:And the rich get richer by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1

      What would Kevin Smith have done?

      Jay as Luke Skywalker and Silent Bob as (the mute) Princess Leia.

      --
      That is all.
    12. Re:And the rich get richer by ehiris · · Score: 1

      Or if they go with something safe that they know everything about, go with something riskier. I mean who wouldn't want to see a Star Wars film made by Quentin Tarantino? Just imagine the intergalactic blood bath! And with himself as a fat Darth Vader!

      Beautiful.

    13. Re:And the rich get richer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You lost me at Kevin Smith.

    14. Re:And the rich get richer by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      From what I recall, he voluntarily left The Hobbit to work on Pacific Rim, so no reason to be miffed, except at him. But yeah, when I heard he was attached to The Hobbit, creature design was the first thing that came to mind for me as well. I really would've loved to see his take on some of them.

      Which reminds me, I really need to watch that Pan's Labyrinth blu-ray I picked up a few weeks ago. Definitely need to re-watch that film.

    15. Re:And the rich get richer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The bar was set pretty low with Uncle George. Even Uwe Boll would've been an improvement.

    16. Re: And the rich get richer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, why not Joss Whedon?
      I always love his work, but he never seems to get a chance.

  41. I half agree by bussdriver · · Score: 2

    Lucas should have sold BEFORE the prequels. Hard to believe he made those classics. Some mentor must have helped Lucas in the past and died a few decades ago...

    If you liked Star Trek reboot you'll like this because you've already seen his kind of Star Wars: it was NOT Star Trek no matter how many geek references he put in; Abrams wanted to do Star WARS but was stuck with Star TREK... He completely missed the point and spirit of the Treks. If you summarized something into mere factoids and considered that a valid representation then you'd not take issue with the Trek reboot.

    The Abrams Star Wars warmup:
    Planet destroyer with a SLOW trigger. check.
    Sword fighting. check.
    Flawed "gritty" side of humanity; society hasn't really progressed... check.
    Logic? none. check.
    Way more action than talking. check.

    The Idiotic Nonsense storyline was Abrams homage to Star Wars prequels (and about half the Trek films too.)

    1. Re:I half agree by iluvcapra · · Score: 2

      Lucas should have sold BEFORE the prequels. Hard to believe he made those classics. Some mentor must have helped Lucas in the past and died a few decades ago...

      Gary Kurtz and Larry Kasdan are still very much alive, he just never worked with them again because they occasionally disagreed with him.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    2. Re:I half agree by lord_mike · · Score: 2

      It was his editor. Apparently, the first cut of the Star Wars film was beyond awful. They couldn't go back to the desert to shoot scenes and Mark Hamill got into a car accident, so he was unavailable for retakes. So, he hired a new editor (can't remember the name--three editors are given joint credit for the film, but it was the new guy who made it actually work) and he pulled out every trick he could to make the movie watchable. This is all detailed in the Story of Star Wars DVD that came with the Episode IV release, along with a lot of clips of the footage that Lucas originally wanted to put in. It was awful. The editor made Star Wars great, not Lucas. Fortunately, he won an academy award.

    3. Re:I half agree by JasoninKS · · Score: 1

      Don't forget his ex-wife. I hear she had a pretty big hand in keeping things sane too.

    4. Re:I half agree by reasterling · · Score: 1

      The Abrams Star Wars warmup: Planet destroyer with a SLOW trigger. check. Sword fighting. check. Flawed "gritty" side of humanity; society hasn't really progressed... check. Logic? none. check. Way more action than talking. check.

      Season 1 Ep 4 - "The Naked Time" of the original Star Trek has all these qualifications and more. As a long time Trek fan, I honestly thought that this episode, more than any other, was the inspiration for the 2009 reboot. It was even the first Trek show to have time travel into the past.

      --
      "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice" -- God
    5. Re:I half agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    6. Re:I half agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This sounds likely.

      The main thing I've noticed about the Star Wars "Special Eddition", and prequels is that they had a lot more distracting crap going on in the background that George Lucas seemed to think was amazing, but detracted from the overall quality of the scene. For a long time I've suspected that the fatal flaw with the prequels was that Lucas had become enough of a legend that no one was willing to call him on all the pointless special effects and tell him to cut it out. By contrast when the original trilogy was made most of the crap Lucas wanted to do was literally impossible or out of their budget-reach.

  42. continuity be damned by maxwells_deamon · · Score: 1

    Who ever does continuity and science consistency checks for Abrams should be banned from all future creative work. I think he should be voted most likely to reboot the script and not reshoot what is already in the can.

    I can see it now: people dying after getting sucked into the vacuum of space but others without spacesuits saving them by doing mouth to mouth while waiting for the airlock to cycle.

  43. My take on episode 7 by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 2

    Now that Abrams is going to direct episode 7 my first take was these several idea's.... it's going to be a prequel of prequels before even episode 1 where

    - We see how Amidala was born and how her parents somehow have magical adventures with Gungans and Disney like characters on Naboo

    - We see how Shmi Skywalker ended up getting a bunch of medichloreans up her snatch and how Ani was born... Medichlorean sex anyone but without a lightsaber rod just the force???

    - Somehow Obi wans and Qui gons parents are involved also in this story again with Disney like characters

    - A character similiar to nero but in a star wars universe goes back in time from somewhere just after episode six to exact revenge and we have an alternate star wars universe with all the same characters but... oh my god.. suddenly they all look different and much younger and they have even crappier technology then the same ships in the original movie did. I mean cmon on 2009 Star trek had what looked like nuclear technology to power a warp drive? o_O

    - In short it'll be a reboot of star wars just like the horrible reboot of star trek with a storyline that will make you cringe...

    --
    You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
    1. Re:My take on episode 7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      my first take was these several idea's

      Where did all these high school dropouts come from, and why are they at slashdot??

  44. Dammit by JWW · · Score: 0

    Fuck!!! I am a huge Star Wars fan. I can hardly believe they'd hand the franchise to Abrams. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

    I like some of the stuff he's done, but his lack of respect for previous cannon on stories really pisses me off. What item of the Star Wars universe will he throw directly in the dumpster in an attempt to be "edgy"? How inconsistent will episodes VII and IX be to VII?. Ala Lost, if the fans guess the bigger plot will he throw that out and then come back to it in a huge convoluted way (yes, I believe Lost was purgatory, but when everyone figured it out Abrams backed off and made the alternate timeline purgatory in the stupidest way possible).

    1. Re:Dammit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A) Star Trek was a sideways reboot. Therefore, previous canon doesn't really apply.

      B) Abrams had very little to do with Lost besides funding it under his Bad Robot imprint. Blame Damon Lindlehoff and Carlton Cuse for your issues with that.

  45. AWESOME! by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Funny

    I always though that Star Wars did not have enough lens flares...

    Why cant they have Michael Bay do it? We would have Ewoks exploding all over the place, and everyone's wish comes true... Exploding Jar Jar...

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:AWESOME! by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 1

      I always though that Star Wars did not have enough lens flares...

      Why cant they have Michael Bay do it? We would have Ewoks exploding all over the place, and everyone's wish comes true... Exploding Jar Jar...

      Other then the fact i'd love to see an exploding Jar Jar please for the love of whatever is your god MICHAEL BAY would be a hundred times worse. He already butchered Transformers with three crappy movies that pretty much ignored the original cartoon series and comic books of the era. Hell even the latest animated series from 2010 is a hell of a lot more watchable and enjoyable then the crapy Bay spews out.

      The third transformers movie was over the top when the first thing you see is some blond bimbo's ass flapping at you on the screen instead of you know an actual movie that didnt focus around a blonde airhead... :P

      --
      You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
    2. Re:AWESOME! by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      I have to confess, I like the idea of Ewoks and Jar Jar exploding into fleshy scraps, but I don't like the idea of going to another Michael Bay movie.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    3. Re:AWESOME! by realityimpaired · · Score: 1

      Would you prefer Uwe Boll?

    4. Re:AWESOME! by Bigby · · Score: 1

      Why not Quentin Tarantino? I can't even start to think where he would take such a film...

    5. Re:AWESOME! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually Robert Rodreguez....

      "All I wanted was to be a Jedi, like my ancestors. But the city I thought would bring me luck brought only a curse. I lost my light saber, my hand, and her. With this injury, I may never play the guitar again. Without her, I have no love. But with the dog and this deathstar, I'm prepared for the future. "

  46. Abrams: Not part of the solution by jabberw0k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the new Trek movie wasn't made for us Trek fans.

    Indeed, it seems to have been made against us Trek fans.

    1. Re:Abrams: Not part of the solution by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 1

      True enough. But, then, we have no taste. (citation needed?)

  47. Failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wrecking Star Trek and Star Wars in one fail swoop.

    1. Re:Failure by unitron · · Score: 1

      Wrecking Star Trek and Star Wars in one fail swoop.

      Ordinarily, for the past several hundred years, the phrase is "one fell* swoop", but in this case you may have the right of it.

      Indeed, we may well see epic turned into epic fail.

      _______________________________________________

      *(see definition 2 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fell )

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    2. Re:Failure by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      I thought it was a very clever pun.

  48. No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Those were the *worst* episodes of star trek and stargate. By far.

    The logical contradictions are stupid. The rationalizations provided for them (if provided at all) make no sense when you think them through. Some are more cleverly written and bamboozle the audience into thinking the paradox resolutions make sense...but one with sufficient analytical ability will always see through them.

    The only time travel plots that make sense are the ones in which going to the past changes nothing, but merely teaches you that you were the reason for some event, long before you were even born. If the universe is deterministic *in both directions*, then and only then do time travel plots hold water. Though they are still stupid.

    Real science fiction authors can come up with something compelling that doesn't rely on something so trite and hackneyed as time travel.

    1. Re:No. by Baloroth · · Score: 1

      The problem with time travel is that there is no analytical method to say what would happen, since we have absolutely no clue how or if time travel would work in any way shape or form. Or in other words you are wrong because you assume a faulty ability to analyze time-travel, when in fact the utter lack of any basis or knowledge of such a phenomenon would prevent any such analysis.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    2. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Making up excuses for your lack of critical thinking skills, are we? Deny basic logic all you want, but it won't do you any good.

    3. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with time travel is that there is no analytical method to say what would happen, since we have absolutely no clue how or if time travel would work in any way shape or form.

      Stephen Hawking says you're wrong.

    4. Re:No. by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      The problem with time travel is that there is no analytical method to say what would happen, since we have absolutely no clue how or if time travel would work in any way shape or form.

      Stephen Hawking says you're wrong.

  49. Dune? by globaljustin · · Score: 1

    "the original trilogy was essentially a reboot of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai"

    I always thought Dune was the main 'inspiration' for Lucas...IIRC there is evidence such as early NH drafts having the same name as Dune characters?

    Sorry I don't have the links...I do know that I probably originally saw the links here on slashdot.

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
    1. Re:Dune? by Anarchduke · · Score: 1

      No, Lucas pretty much stole from all over Kurasawa's filmography though I think the Hidden Fortress is the bulk of the Star Wars plot. But he did steal from other movies. Take for example the famous scene in Yojimbo, where our hero is confronted by an outlaw who boasts "Don't mess with us! We're dangerous men! I've got the death penalty in three districts!"
      At which point Yojimbo cuts off his arm.

      --
      who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
  50. Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Two words: "Red Matter"

    1. Re:Really? by dazlari · · Score: 3, Funny

      Red 5 standing by... Red Matter standing by.

    2. Re:Really? by Maudib · · Score: 1

      Red Fox standing by.

    3. Re:Really? by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's "Redd Foxx." Assuming you mean the comedian. "Stay in attack formation, dummy!"

    4. Re:Really? by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 1

      Copy Gold Leader

      --
      Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
    5. Re:Really? by sconeu · · Score: 5, Funny

      Red October Shtanding by

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    6. Re:Really? by iphinome · · Score: 1

      Simply Red standing by.

    7. Re:Really? by ZombieThoughts · · Score: 1

      Red Dwarf smegging off.

    8. Re:Really? by Coisiche · · Score: 2

      Simply Red holding back (the years), surely.

    9. Re:Really? by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      Red Green standing by.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    10. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the BIG One! I'm coming Ben Kenobi!

    11. Re:Really? by BonThomme · · Score: 1

      Simply Red October Surprise standing by

    12. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Red Green, keeping the stick on the ice.

  51. "There can be only one" by Narrowband · · Score: 1

    ...but nobody suspected that meant only one director.

    In the end, it will come down to a fight between JJ Abrams and Peter Jackson?

  52. Re:GOOD! After Empire Lucas was batshit crazy! by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's a though experiment: imagine how Episodes 6, 1, 2, and 3 would have been if they had been done by the same writer and director who did Empire Strikes Back.

    From the writing side, that would have been kind of difficult since Leigh Brackett died in 1978.

    --
    The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  53. Windows 7? by Xarvh · · Score: 1

    Is it me or Star Wars is sounding more and more like Windows?

  54. Star Wars VII: The Search for Yoda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Luke, Han, and Leia hijack the Enterprise and go looking for Yoda on the Genesis planet.

    Wait, stop, the director got the scripts crossed again...

  55. Re:GOOD! After Empire Lucas was batshit crazy! by volkerdi · · Score: 1

    The Ewoks were tolerable, but Jar Jar was way, way over the line.

    You didn't like JJ?

  56. Welcome to the Jedi Mind Meld by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and many other opportunities for confusion.

    1. Re:Welcome to the Jedi Mind Meld by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Set lightphasers to stun! Wouldn't want to "dis-arm" anyone accidentally.

  57. Noooooooooo!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nooooooooo!!!

  58. J.J.Abrams To Direct Next Zero Wing Game by Freshly+Exhumed · · Score: 4, Funny

    Scrolling upwards and out into space away from the bottom of the screen:

    In A.D. 2101
    War was beginning.

    Captain: What happen ?
    Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
    Operator: We get lens flare.
    Captain: What !
    Operator: We get lens flare.
    Operator: Main screen turn on.
    Captain: It's You !!
    Cats: How are you gentlemen !!
    Cats: All your base are belong to us.
    Cats: You are on the way to destruction.
    Operator: We get lens flare.
    Captain: What you say !!
    Operator: We get lens flare.
    Captain: No. I say to Cats. What you say !!
    Cats: You have no chance to survive make your time.
    Cats: HA HA HA HA ....
    Captain: Take off every 'zig' !!
    Captain: You know what you doing.
    Captain: Move 'zig'.
    Captain: For great justice.
    Operator: We get lens flare.

    --
    I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
    1. Re:J.J.Abrams To Direct Next Zero Wing Game by dadelbunts · · Score: 1

      Zero Wing is left to right goddamnit.

  59. Just do it as CGA already.... by mark-t · · Score: 1

    And hire the original actors as VA's. It'd be far preferable to recasting the characters that we know, or advancing the timeline so far that we can't identify with the characters like we did.

    1. Re:Just do it as CGA already.... by Dwedit · · Score: 2

      Yes, present it in glorious magenta, cyan, black and white!

    2. Re:Just do it as CGA already.... by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Digitally remastered at 320x200!

    3. Re:Just do it as CGA already.... by unitron · · Score: 1

      Thank heavens I saved those old 9 pin adapters.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  60. casting opinions by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    I find it interesting that here and on other websites, fans express interest in bringing back actors from the original trilogy, but nobody has expressed any interest in seeing actors from the prequels reprise their roles.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:casting opinions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      maybe because all the relevant characters from the prequels are dead at that point in the timeline?

    2. Re:casting opinions by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      Jar Jar may still be around.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    3. Re:casting opinions by unitron · · Score: 1

      I find it interesting that here and on other websites, fans express interest in bringing back actors from the original trilogy, but nobody has expressed any interest in seeing actors from the prequels reprise their roles.

      Nonsense, plenty of us want to see Jar-Jar come back just long enough to swallow a live grenade.

      They could do it as a 15 minute short and still charge full admission and make a bundle.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    4. Re:casting opinions by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      In a different thread, it was generally agreed that blowing Jar Jar to bloody scraps (Meesa...no...feelgooBOOM) in the first five minutes would add to the appeal of the new film.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  61. Joss Whedon by gnomff · · Score: 2

    I guess it was too much to hope for

    1. Re:Joss Whedon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess it was too much to hope for

      Star Wars Resurrection. Now Obi-Wan didn't just fight in the clone wars, he is a clone.

  62. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by realityimpaired · · Score: 1

    <3 :)

  63. That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm basically the Trekkie the Onion lampoons: "Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film as 'Fun, Watchable.'"

    It was a really fun film to watch, with action and adventure and cute one-liners. A fun, summer action movie. But it was not Star Trek.

    Star Trek is not about good versus evil. Star Trek is about Better versus Base. There is no 'evil' in the Star Trek universe, there's just other intelligent life who are different or frightened or struggling and the easy response is "blow 'em up!" but Star Trek asks its characters to be better than that and find another option. Yes, defend yourself, but always look for the other, peaceful solution to a problem. And the best part about Star Trek is that the heroes are...us. Us as we could be through science and reason and strength of character.

    The 2009 JJ Abrams movie threw all that out the window and gave us a spectacle about a genocidal bad guy with a scary looking ship who must be stopped by punching. Fun movie, but it's not Star Trek, as it doesn't ask its characters or the audience to rise above being a base reactionary.

    Star Wars, which I also very much enjoy, is a mystical fantasy of good "Chosen One" characters versus Evil so evil they call themselves "The Dark Side." And the moral choice presented is about the stupidest philosophy imaginable, that if you care about people, you will come to hate the people who want to hurt the people you care about, which will make you "fall" and then join up with the people you hate to kill the people you cared about. I get the idea that blind hatred can make you "no better than" your enemies, but it doesn't turn you into your enemies. Just to godwin's law this, yes, it's possible to hate Hitler SO MUCH for killing all those Jews that you start a genocidal campaign against Germans, putting them in concentration camps and gas chambers, and wind up no better than Hitler. You become what you hated. But in the Star Wars universe, if you love the Jews and hate Hitler, you wind up joining Hitler to kill more Jews, thereby become THE SAME AS Hitler. This is stupid and makes no sense.

    So, JJ Abrams abandoned the fundamental premise of Star Trek (that we can rise above our base instincts to find peaceful solutions to our problems) and ruined Star Trek in a bad way. Maybe, in charge of the next Star Wars movie, he'll abandon the fundamental premise of Star Wars (that you have to be a dispassionate mystical robot to avoid killing your friends) and make the franchise much better and more interesting.

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    1. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Very well said.

    2. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the fundamental premise of Star Wars (that you have to be a dispassionate mystical robot to avoid killing your friends) the fundamental premise of Star Wars (that you have to be a dispassionate mystical robot to avoid killing your friends)

      But what about the whole thing in Return of the Jedi where Vader mentions Leia and Luke flips the fuck out?

      You know, the scene where he stops trying to be a dispassionate mystical robot, assumes the expression we all imagine we'd have when the day comes to unleash the full fury of our nerd rage, and starts swinging away like he's the Joker whaling on Robin with a crowbar? Where he embraces his "dark side" emotions equally with his "light side" emotions, breaking the dichotomy of light and dark, bringing Anakin to redemption so that he can kill Palpatine and die having, at last, brought balance to the Force?

      Just saying.

    3. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the greatest analysis I have ever read about Star Trek. Ever.

      But you completely miss the mark with respect to Star Wars. You seem to have fall in the George Lucas trap, and think that it all was about Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker. It was not, that's a lie. No, Star Wars was about the rebelion. It's like the good old westerns of old, where the small village rebels against the big and corrupt landowner. The movie is about bravely fighting back in spite of being much weaker. And winning because you are on the right side, because universe conspires to help you. David versus Goliath.

      Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are completely different movies. Return is a very good finale because the theme from the first movie is retaken as a parallel plot (the Ewoks against the Empire), but it's a completely different story, just in the same set, with the same characters. No, the main theme of the later part of the initial saga is about discovering the evil inside you, fighting with it, and finally prevailing over it. We see this in Luke, but also in Vader. It's about temptation and redemption, almost a biblical story.

      The prequels are like what you describe, but they are pure garbage, so they don't count. :-P

      What I would like to see in a new Star Wars movie is a return to the core ideas. Right versus evil, but also keep a coherent evolution of the background history of the Galactic Empire.

    4. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What Star Trek did you watch? (Both the film and the series)

      In the film, they made various attempts to offer a peaceful solution, and when they outright denied it, they just obliterated them.
      In the series, there has been god knows how many times they have killed other ships completely just because they smiled at them the wrong way.
      Not to mention Janeway letting the Borg Queen destroy millions of Borg in some suicidal attempt at fixing a nose bleed.
      Not to mention the original series too. That thing got brutal at times. More so than later ones.

    5. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude, what?? Consider thinking about Star Wars' philosophy again. Although it is a pretty basic premise, you might have mixed something up in your "interpretation". Wasn't is ultimately Luke's will that did overcome the "darkness" within his own self? And so on, and, touchpads are, not my thing..... Rah

    6. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wasn't is ... s/is/it

    7. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      s/is/it/ ra :L

    8. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      Isn't the Star Trek reboot largely about how our "base instincts" are not necessarily value-less? Spock's entire character arc is about him embracing his emotional reactions to take the moral, risky choice over the logical, safe one.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    9. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1

      The films and TV series are interesting in their historical context.

      The original three Star Wars films were heavily influenced by WW2. The rise of an Imperial power through force and the struggle against them set the tone for the film.

      The setting of the original Star Trek series was heavily influenced by WW2 too... submarine warfare and military command structures. Star Trek used sci-fi as a vehicle to discuss social issues. This goes back to their production company, which was really led by Lucille Ball... a very smart woman who had a social conscience and recognized the value of the show.

      ST TNG was created in a time of established superpowers and relative peace. It was as though they needed to change the setting to be closer to the newspaper headlines of the day. Maybe it made the writing more relevant.

      The next three Star Wars films were the disorganized ramblings of an old man with a big head. It dropped the WW2 influence. Reintroduced some racist stereotypes in film and I think had some difficulty reconciling the fact that the Imperial power trying to organize the galaxy through force was mostly the U.S. today.

      The re-launching of the ST franchise reflects the modern times too. A population mostly obsessed with violence and little experience of it, we're escaping modern issues and instead ramping up the violence in film and looking to the past for interesting plots.

      The new Star Wars films can't be interesting because the Jedi are effectively terrorists against the empire. It's too hard to put that in mainstream theatres, so instead it will be a nonsense hyperviolent character drama with enormous plot holes. That's what people want. Just like ST.

      But at least Lucas won't be butchering it any more.

    10. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      There is no 'evil' in the Star Trek universe

      What about "Mirror, Mirror", where a few members of the main cast are explicitly interacting with their evil counterparts? Or if you want to deal with TNG, what about "Skin of Evil" (killing off Tasha Yar for the fun of it), or "Chain of Command" (torturing Picard for the fun of it)?

      If you allow for actions that most people would generally see as "evil", you'd also have to include Deputy Fuhrer Melakon from the Nazi planet episode, Khan Noonien Singh, Lore (on a bad day), the Borg, and quite a few others.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    11. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Alamais · · Score: 1

      Thank you, yes. A lot of people seem to get too distracted by Abrams' skill at Teh Shiny, and miss the little morality play going on. Actually, I felt the entire thing was about balance, and learning to embrace and control your emotions. Spock must embrace and channel his feelings, while throughout the movie Jim learns to control his, and to respect others. Both are needed to overcome Nero, who has lost all control of himself.

      Heck, I've seen people get angry about all the times Jim finds himself hanging off of cliffs, ledges, etc., with no apparent introspection about the fact that it's a blatant metaphor for where he and the entire Federation are: they're hanging off a precipice, in danger of losing their future.

      Kids these days...

    12. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by phorm · · Score: 1

      I think the whole issue is not to love, but to beware that strong emotions can used against you: either to manipulate in a subtle descent towards evil, or more directly.
      Unfortunately, this got pushed into the extreme in the prequels and just became silly (nice boy suddenly goes insane and kills are his friends after a few subtle pushes from the poorly disguised "emperor").

      But the overall concept isn't too bad. If you love something, it can be used against you, held hostage or whatever. Similarly, being over-emotional leads to being out of control. In the originals, we see this when Luke leaves his Dagobah training to rescue Leah/Han, and ends up short a hand with threepio in pieces & Han in carbonite.

    13. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by dywolf · · Score: 1

      I grew up on Star Trek, both series. And you're way overthinking it. Many stories were what you describe. And just as many were Kirk gets/sleeps with the green girl while blowing up some alien bad guys.

      Star Trek 2009 was a Star Trek story, and a decent one at that. It's no City on the Edge of Forever, or Voyage Home (personal favorite of the movies). But it was a worthy addition to the franchise.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    14. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

      There are a few such instances in Star Trek, yes, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

      Don't confuse fantasy evil with "negative" emotions like greed or envy or anger. In fantasy worlds like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, evil beings do evil things just for the sake of doing evil things. Lore wasn't evil; he was jealous and felt marginalized. The Borg are certainly not evil. They simply have a very different outlook on life and different priorities. Even Armus, the entity from Skin of Evil didn't actually get pleasure from killing Tasha Yar. He said he did, but Troi could sense that he did not. He was driven mad by loneliness.

      But the Sith are just evil. They derive pleasure from hurting and killing people, even if it's contrary to their best interests to do so. They're just straight-up fantasy-land evil.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    15. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Star Trek is not about good versus evil.

      Klingons and Romulans aren't evil? The Borg aren't evil? KHAN isn't evil?? Kirk in the alternate universe isn't evil?

    16. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even Armus, the entity from Skin of Evil didn't actually get pleasure from killing Tasha Yar. He said he did, but Troi could sense that he did not. He was driven mad by loneliness.

      Well, maybe they should have called it "Skin of Loneliness" then. :-P

    17. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

      I'll give you Kirk in the alternate universe (which is specifically an alternate universe in which evil is prevalent, the opposite of our universe). Khan is questionable. He was a an ambitious tyrant bent on order and control. But the Klingons and Romulans, no, are not evil. The Klingons are a proud race who value discipline and honor. They're different from us, but are by no means evil. The Romulans are xenophobic, sure, but not "evil." They do not go out seeking people to kill for their own pleasure and destroy things that are "good" simply because they do not like "good." They're self-interested, but so are most people and races. The Borg are true neutral, who do not act in the name of good or evil, but in the interests of "obtaining perfection." The Borg think they're HELPING the people they assimilate. They have very, very different priorities and values than others, but they are not evil, just extremely alien.

      Only in fantasy and some extremely deranged individuals is there "evil," that commits atrocities just for the sake of committing atrocities. Think Sauron in LOTR, who wants to see all the good things of the earth die just because he wants all the good things of the earth to die so evil will triumph.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    18. Re:That he butchered Star Trek gives me hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, come on, you missed a great opportunity there:

      "That he butchered Star Trek gives me a new hope"

  64. Re:What we want by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    These are not the hell the whales you are looking for.

  65. Star Wars + Star Trek = Star Wrek by richardoz · · Score: 1

    Enough said...

    --
    All the worlds indeed a .sig, and we are mearly players..
    1. Re:Star Wars + Star Trek = Star Wrek by servognome · · Score: 1

      Still a million times better than "Starcrash"

      --
      D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
  66. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by Mabhatter · · Score: 1

    More importantly Firefly felt like Star Wars should feel. People farm crops, and then sell them to passing spaceships... totally how the SW universe is. I'd even nix the laser blasters and go back to corded lightswords... To keep the old-time feel.

    My main complaint is that SW was all about myth-building.... Right up until GL decides to throw the carefully managed collective myth out the window. I suppose hiring JJ Abrams is a great idea because he never FINISHED one single mythology in a satisfying manner.

  67. Lauren Faust for Star Wars by Mabhatter · · Score: 1

    We need to push for Lauren Faust! She has a pretty good track record rebooting 1980's franchises! She made PONIES cool!!!

  68. Gravity by aquabat · · Score: 2

    I think, all the slapstick stuff with Han Solo (which was great stuff, BTW) aside, the Star Wars universe has a sense of gravity and realism that the Star Trek universe has always lacked. I think this has a lot to do with the differences between the cinema and television media, and the associated differences between the two cultures. Abrams is definitely a television person, and there will always be that "campy" element to his work (inside jokes, flashy camera effects, etc), regardless of how entertaining it might be to watch. His take on Star Trek was a lot of fun, and visually, it was really great, but you never forget that you are in a theatre, watching a movie. Star Wars, on the other hand, (at least the original ones) transported me into their world in a way that few films have done for me since then. There is a term: "willing suspension of disbelief", which applies here. I have that for Abrams' Star Trek, but I didn't need it for Star Wars or Empire; it was almost unconscious there. I got a similar feeling of that gravity with Dark Horse's original "Tales of the Jedi" series, but things that work in one medium don't always translate to another medium. I guess what I'm saying is that atmosphere is a hard thing to get right, and I don't think Abrams is going to be able to capture it properly. I'm sure it'll be entertaining, but it won't have the depth we all want it to have.

    --
    A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
  69. Oh the possibilities... by mbone · · Score: 1

    Jabba the Hut is really Jar Jar Binks in a fat suit.

    Han Solo starts smuggling fish to an ice planet inhabited by singing penguins.

    The Phantom Menace is remade as The Phantom Tollbooth. But with Jedi.

    Darth Vader stars in a sequel to Treasure Planet.

    Snow White and the Seven Jedi.

    Boba Fett. 101 Dalmatians. Need I say more?

    Is there some way I can be encased in Carbonite for the duration?

  70. Use a grain of salt people... by JasoninKS · · Score: 1

    And please stop to take a breath. OK. We all feel better? Good. Now, my 2 cents...

    First off, it's so stinking early in the procedure that lots of things are bound to change. Just because Abrams was announced now doesn't mean either he or someone else won't change their mind.
    Second, currently the release date is planned for 2015. That's a long way off in itself, let alone any delays that come along. Lots of time to go through a couple dozen writers, numerous re-writes, and even director changes.
    Third, yes, I too have some reservation about Disney running this show. But it won't be "Disney" releasing the films, they'll still be Lucasfilm. And yes, while Disney and their brands have released stinkers, these aren't dumb people. They won't release a total bomb. Now I do see it likely that they'll do something on the dumb, cute side to appeal to marketing. But we'll see.

    The important part is to keep our minds open. This is a beloved franchise with countless stories that have been told ever the decades, greatly expanding on the original adventures. I can only think of 2 other franchises that touch on that: Star Trek and Dr. Who. I'd guess those are the three biggest franchises ever made. Everyone has their favorite piece that they hold sacred. But no movie could possibly fill everyone's "want". This is a marketing game though. They can't make a movie that only appeals to the hard core uber-fans. Nor can they make a movie that only appeals to only new fans.

    We'll see. 2015 is a long way off and lots can happen in the meantime. And for every true rumor, there will be 100 false ones.

  71. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by mbone · · Score: 1

    The man is an egomaniac, and I'm wondering how they managed to wrestle control away from him.

    I guess he wanted the $ 4 billion more.

  72. If Abrams Trek is Wars, what will Star Wars be? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was a really fun film to watch, with action and adventure and cute one-liners. A fun, summer action movie. But it was not Star Trek.

    That's what I thought. Mr. Plinkett thought the JJ Abrams should have directed the Star Wars prequels. Maybe Disney agreed.

  73. JJ on both Star Franchises??? by Genda · · Score: 1

    Bad Robot!!!

    1. Re:JJ on both Star Franchises??? by freeze128 · · Score: 1

      Bad Droid?

  74. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

    I wonder what Joss Whedon would do with it? He did a smash-up job on firefly.

    At the very least, I would love to see Whedon in charge of casting. At least all the ladies would be attractive with quite feminine figures (not these manly marginally female things that seem to typically get the key roles).

    --
    This space unintentionally left blank.
  75. was thinking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would thinking, they could do worse with the Star Wars franchise.

    They could have a group of non-jedi refugees leave the galaxy, fleeing from The Empire. They then land on a planet, where they start building droids to help them out. Eventually the droids rebel against them. Then after a couple of stellar wars, they lose and flee across the galaxy to another planet and settle down with some of the androids who were created to be human. There the forsake all their technology, for the aboriginal lifestyle.

    Perhaps at least now, we'll get a chance to see more Galatic Empire vs The Federation.

  76. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

    How about Leonard Nimoy directing a Star Wars film? He's done pretty decently with the Trek films he directed. Or would the very idea cause the universe as we know it to implode?

    --
    This space unintentionally left blank.
  77. Someone had to post this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

  78. Retirement by Sperbels · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's time to retire both frachises. I'm sick of both of them. Let's have something new.

    1. Re:Retirement by physicsphairy · · Score: 2

      Next you'll be telling us you're tired of hot grits and Soviet Russia jokes.

    2. Re:Retirement by Zouden · · Score: 1

      We did have something new and great, but then Fox cancelled it.

      --
      "A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
    3. Re:Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Firefly could have done it, if Fox hadn't botched it so badly.
      The Firefly universe is pretty interesting and believably where our future could be heading.
      This is why these contracts should have time limits before reverting back to the creator...

    4. Re:Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In Soviet Russia franchise retire you!

    5. Re:Retirement by Common+Joe · · Score: 1

      I wish, but they discarded Firefly. Some stuff makes it through. I just watched The Man From Earth[IMDB] and that is excellent science fiction, but nothing blows up in that movie.

    6. Re:Retirement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In Soviet Russia, tired, old franchises retire you!

  79. Hell hath frozen over by Cyfun · · Score: 0

    What could possibly make this better? Is George Lucas going to to consult, and add brief scenes of slapstick-style humor in between every shot? Or better yet, throw in a lead character that contributes absolutely nothing to the plot and is only there for comic relief, and who bares a striking resemblance to an Ebonic version of Roger Rabbit? How much do you wanna bet it's going to be a half-Vulcan, half-Tribble who sounds like Pikachu?

    --
    In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
  80. Star Wreck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Almost everything he's touched has turned to shit. Guess I can save myself the price of a movie ticket.

  81. Re:GOOD! After Empire Lucas was batshit crazy! by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 1

    "Take care,young ladies,and value yousa wine. be watchful of young men in thesa velvet prime. deep thesa ll swallow from yousa finest kegs, then swift be gone,leav bitter dregs. ahh-ah-ah-ah,bitter dregs."

  82. Vote4Joss by Cyfun · · Score: 0

    Is it just me, or would anyone else give their left nut, and possible their right one, too, for Joss Whedon to do a Star Wars?

    --
    In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
    1. Re:Vote4Joss by neminem · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure about both, but I would probably give one of them for Joss Whedon to write and direct a screenplay based on the Thrawn trilogy. Not sure what Joss Whedon would do with a giant pile of balls, but I'm sure he could think of something. He's pretty creative.

    2. Re:Vote4Joss by lannocc · · Score: 1

      I think Joss Whedon would do great in the Star Wars universe. But I am very attached to my nuts.

  83. .......Uh by RedHat+Rocky · · Score: 1

    .......I have a very bad feeling about this.

    --
    Anything is possible given time and money.
  84. You'd need a "phd" .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ....to understand time travel. Surprising that nobody has done a scifi TV series about it. Maybe someone with a PhD could be in it. Not sure what to name the character though....

  85. Why blame the director? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Alias - didn't bother lying to the viewers and disappointed all of them.
    Lost - lied to viewers and created an "ending" that disappointed all of the viewers.
    Star Trek - not even close and disappointed the viewers

    Pretty much JJ Abrams is TV's "Go To Guy" for stringing along a madness with no point,
    keeping as many people tuned in ... until it all goes bye bye.

    Give him star wars. He can't do any worse than Lucas. Or a dead ton ton.

    M

  86. Star Trek was great by frugala · · Score: 1

    and I have high hopes for Star Wars. Almost a guarantee to be better than episodes 1,2,3...

  87. Lens Flare - Already Done by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    I'd be more worried if it hadn't already been added in remastering the original Star Wars. Now it's just canonical.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  88. About Kevin Smith... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What would Kevin Smith have done?

    They asked Kevin Smith first, but he couldn't make it to the initial meeting being unable to find two contiguous airline seats. So Disney moved on.

  89. Zahn's Thrawn? by ScottCooperDotNet · · Score: 1

    Will we get Timothy Zahn's excellent Thrawn trilogy on screen, complete with new faces on existing roles? Or something else entirely?

  90. Resolution of a time travel paradox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I like the what if, even if the writers don't have the prowess to pull off the story, Writers like Niven and Pournel used the "fog of time" idea to allow for and discuss free will.

  91. An amazing coincidence! by bobdevine · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is it true that J.J. Abrams real name is Jar Jar?

    1. Re:An amazing coincidence! by Adam+Jorgensen · · Score: 1

      Yes

    2. Re:An amazing coincidence! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His real name is fucktard..

  92. The Real Question Is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...Who will direct the new Holiday Special?

    How about "Meet The BInks"? What could be better than Jar-Jar his wife/wives/husband/mother (however the fuck they breed) and clutch of hatching eggs? Just think of those adorable big-eyed amphibians making goo-ga noises.

    They could all dance "Gungan" style! You know it will happen.

  93. In Star Wars it was... by Molochi · · Score: 2

    Luke, I am your father,

    Luke: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

    --
    "The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
    1. Re:In Star Wars it was... by mitzoe · · Score: 1

      You killed Padme.

      Vader: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

      FTFY.

    2. Re:In Star Wars it was... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      Vader: DO NOT WANT!!!

      FTFY.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  94. excellent choice by KingAlanI · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, I'd pick Timothy Zahn's Thrawn books if Episode VII was to be an adaptation of existing Expanded Universe material.

    --
    I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
    1. Re:excellent choice by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      There's absolutely no way you could fit even one of those books into a single film, without cutting most of the material that made it interesting.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:excellent choice by KingAlanI · · Score: 1

      I haven't read them in awhile, perhaps this gives me reason to read them again.

      Alas, as some other commenters have pointed out, VII isn't going to be an adaptation of an existing story. May the Force be with the writers, since this seemed like such an obvious idea.

      --
      I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
  95. Well that's the problem by Weaselmancer · · Score: 1

    Time travel can be a great thing if done well, or a crutch if not. It depends on the skill and the thoughtfulness of the author.

    Yesterday's Enterprise? Fantastic. One of the best episodes of the series, easy. A great story that meshes in beautifully with the established episodes. It's a brilliant bit of writing. Another good example is DS9, Trials and Tribbleations. Also brilliantly written time travel. The look, the details, the writing - it's a joy to watch.

    The Star Trek reboot? A crutch. That is a seriously lazy script. A big gigantic do-over. They couldn't be bothered with continuity, so they just held the entire franchise up like an etch-a-sketch and gave it a shake. Bleah. And for what? The story is useless, angry, and illogical. It's really nothing more than a palette to display sound bites and chase scenes. It's basically Lethal Weapon 2 in space.

    We were all hoping we would get a Joss Whedon / Avengers style treatment from Disney. Instead we're going to get JJ Abrams and Star Trek. Oh well, Star Wars has been dead to me since the prequels anyway.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  96. 8 months ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    not a peep since

  97. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually Eastwood was the first choice for Disney... but they decided to replace him after they learned he was going to make Jar Jar talk to an empty chair for 3 hours.

  98. The Secret to Life and Star Wars by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 2

    Ah, I see you missed the greatest gift of the prequels. The prequels are really one giant koan. Yoda's wisdom shows through them, for those who have eyes to see and hearts to break.

    Seeing the horrors of Yoda bouncing about with a lightsaber like an overcaffeinated chipmunk, you're to realize the futility of taking delight in copywritten fantasy worlds. By experiencing the acting prowess not of Shaw, Jones and Prowse but of Christiansen, you're to understand that it is your attachment to Star Wars that produces your disappointment, your pain.

    Unlearn what you have learned. Adventure, excitement, characters you care about and can grow attached to: a jedi craves not these things. If you can find peace and joy in the new Star Wars films, then you can find it anywhere in life. Confront your expectations. Lower them. Then, only then, a jedi will you be.

  99. I'll take that challenge... by freeze128 · · Score: 1

    When Spock dies in Wrath of Khan, tell me you didn't cry ... now tell me even one memorably emotional scene from anything after Generations

    When I left the theater after seeing Star Trek Nemesis, I thought "I'll never see that $11 ever again....", and a tear ran down my cheek.

  100. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by Omestes · · Score: 1

    The first season was good. The second season was crap. I don't think it was fully Joss Whedon's fault, I think he just rushed to conclude the story in the face of impending cancellation. Though, upon forcing myself to watch almost all of Buffy, this was probably for the best. It started as strong as Firefly or Dollhouse, and then tumbled into a boring, directionless, 90201-with-vampires-and-lesbians, crapper. Which is the exact problem Abrams' has. Lost started strong, but there was a point where it should have ended, and didn't. Fringe was the same... It was an awesome show, but it should have ended at the end of the 3rd or 4th season, but instead it lurched on, directionlessly, like a zombie cash-cow.

    Joss Whedon is much more solid though. And this is probably the absolute height of his ability. Cabin in the Woods was absolutely brilliant. Avengers was the first superhero movie that I felt was written by someone who actually LIKED the source material.

    JJ Abrams has Cloverfield, and thats it. And I'm still not sure if I like it for reasons that were intentional (it is to 9-11 what Godzilla was to Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The Star Trek reboot was... okay. The plot sucked, and it pretty much covered every trope I hate in modern "big" movies (which is why I don't watch any blockbusters now, unless 10 people I know fully recommend them, minus everyone I know who hated them). The characters were pretty awful. The casting was absolutely brilliant though.

    --
    A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
  101. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by Omestes · · Score: 1

    My friend always wanted to see Joss Whedon, Kevin Smith, and JJ Abrams collectively direct a Star Wars movie. Joss Whedon can do sci-fi and characters, but would end up making Leia where latex and kill people with her mind, Kevin Smith would be highly respectful of the source material, but would end having everyone sitting around the Death Star food-court talking about nothing, and JJ Abrams can do effects, and battles, but would end up trying to make a very thinly veiled allegory for God, which he would have Darth Vader state at the end ("Luke, I am your Heavenly Father")

    I personally want Lars Von Trier, Michael Haneke, or Warner Herzog to direct it... It would be as respectful as the prequels (not at all), but at least it would be intentionally miserable and depressing. And to see Jar Jar slowly go insane, and finally passionless slaughter Obi-wan while drinking apple juice, would be priceless.

    --
    A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
  102. All about the merchandising... by advocate_one · · Score: 2

    and refreshing the "product" with new characters to make toys of..

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  103. First Han shot first and now this. by BlueCoder · · Score: 1

    If JJ Abrams were a chef then I say I hate his cooking. Not that he couldn't cook but his taste and mine are quite different.

    He all but ruined Star Trek for me. The story was complete crap. Red matter? He skipped the story and went directly to action.

    The actors, sets, and special effects were wonderful but the story was worse than reading the Cliff Notes of a great novel. And he took so many short cuts with the story that much of it just didn't make sense. And this is coming from a sci-fi fan that easily accepts unbelievable things. He decided on visual scenes he wanted to shoot and show and then the wrote a story full of holes around that.

    Now he will ruin Star Wars just like he did Star Trek. The money people obviously don't care what they produce they only care about money. Money people love JJ because he produces spectacular train wrecks that people will pay to see.

  104. Darth Vader comments on new director by gnarlin · · Score: 1

    Noooooooooooo!

    --
    A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
  105. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Resident Evil Kill Bill Edition?

  106. Abrams? by globalist · · Score: 1

    Abrams to direct next SW? Fuck. What's next, another hack to direct Interstellar? Oh wait ...

  107. Pfff, at least the ass-raping of my youth will be by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 0
    Pfff, at least the ass-raping of my youth will be done. I thought not being Catholic I had escaped being raped up the ass in my youth... but not to worry, my youth has now been thoroughly raped. Both Star * series have now been raped completely and thoroughly. George Lucas and his PCness, Star Trek The Office and all the following series, Episode 1-3, followed by the rape of the memory of Star Trek TOS and now even the sequels to Star Wars...

    All I can say, well played universe! There is now nothing left to rape. The only thing to finish it off is to make me choke on my own bile as I write this [CARRIER LOST]

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  108. TNG sucked to begin with by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 1

    TNG always sucked, always will, so it was okay to suck because it sucked. We are talking about the destruction of the original series not that yuppie whank-fest of a TNG that was the prelude for making Star Trek lighter and lighter and lighter. You would think that you couldn't get more lightweight then Voyager but they found a way.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:TNG sucked to begin with by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      I can't agree at all. I loved TOS when I was a teenager and it was new, but watching it now... wow, how cheesy can you get? Yeah, most of the episodes were very good, but a few... just wow. The one where aliens beam Kirk to some planet to battle a guy in a cheesy dragon costume was maybe the worst. I don't recall any TNG episodes that sucked so badly. And what of the TNG episodes with actors from TOS? Plus, TOS never had bad guys anywhere near as nasty as the Borg.

      IMO DS9 was better than TOS, too.

      The trouble with Voyager was the casting; Janaway isn't believable as a ship's captain. And Neeelix was the Jar Jar of the Star Trek universe.

      I couldn't get past that horrible theme song Enterprise had, so I never watched any of those.

      That said, I have copies of every episode of TOS, TNG, and DS9.

    2. Re:TNG sucked to begin with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You speak of Arena... the only flawed execution there was the actual portrayal of the Gorn Captain in form and behavior during the gladiator match, everything else spoke of a crafty, dangerous enemy. (the attack on Cestus III, the faked message, the artillary attack, the faster ship...) Kinda like how the Ferengi turned out, meant as a big bad villain, but silly in execution. I'd suggest the episode "Spock's Brain", or the episode where Kirk and Spock fight alongside Abraham Lincoln as worse.

      Janeway? Honestly I'm not sure where the dislike comes from, she seemed cut from a slightly different mold than James Kirk.

      As for Enterprise, check out season 4, most of the gems of the series are in there, including a three part arc with Brent Spiner.

    3. Re:TNG sucked to begin with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're gonna tell me that "Yesterday's Enterprise", "Best of Both Worlds", or "The Neutral Zone" are worse or lighter than "Spock's Brain", then I'd love to know what you're high on.

  109. Join the dark-side, we got the original laser disc by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 1

    Join the dark-side Jedi, we got the original laser disc where Han Solo shoots first, Sith style! Watch the raping of your childhood, let the hatred flow through you and set you free!

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  110. Duh... this is well known by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 1

    George Lucas did NOT make the original Star Wars alone, not The Empire Strikes Back. But "A New Hope" especially was made by a team including his wife. That you don't know about this says a LOT about human beings but it isn't hard to research.

    Basically, when Lucas made a New Hope, nobody thought he was to big to contradict and he listened to advice/opinions then put it together. By the time the new episodes came around, he didn't listen and nobody dared to tell him he was wrong anyway. It is the perfect example of a benevolent dictator turning into an evil one because he has been surrounded by yes-men.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:Duh... this is well known by bussdriver · · Score: 1

      Don't assume everybody posts everything that is on their mind or everything they know or that the written word can convey as much as the spoken word can.

  111. Lost = Metaphysical Drama by m.shenhav · · Score: 1

    Lost is not exactly Sci-Fi proper - at least not in the traditional sense. Those who watch the series loosing for clear and definitive science-based (or anything-based) answers, are disappointed. If anything the series is more about the Philosophy of Science than Science.

    IMO the series is about how human act under uncertainty, opacity and incomplete information. The wealth of Non-Dual and Mythological symbolism, as well as several characters named after famous Skeptics, seems to point this way. This is just about one of the most important lessons we need in society today - modernity is fraught with Scientism, Naive Rationalism and Naive Mechanistic perspectives.

    1. Re:Lost = Metaphysical Drama by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      I never claimed it was sci-fi. It shows that JJ Abrams has a desire to make inanimate objects into characters (like the Romulan mining ship in Star Trek that's so impractical as to detract from the movie itself), and the hatch/smoke/drums/island characters in Lost that were just plain silly. The direct contradictions are glaring. The deliberate hints at a logical conclusions that are contradicted for surprise with contradictory and impossible (Even within the absurd bending of the rules allowed in a make believe world) are insulting.

      A story of good and evil who lure people to an island to test them (and one bends the rules to kill the other, then the pawns must rise up and take down the rule breaker) is an interesting story, and could have been done well. But like so many almost-sci-fi (like Heroes), they wrote it like they were expecting it to not get renewed past one season, and wrote themselves into a corner. Sadly, they learned their lesson from Firefly, which was set-up for multi-season fun, and was canceled after one.

  112. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Ang Lee would probably give some SF a go. He seems to be trying to do one of everything and usually pulls it off spectacularly.

  113. Re:Pfff, at least the ass-raping of my youth will by mcgrew · · Score: 1

    There are two kinds of Star Wars fans, those who were adults when EPIV came out, and those who saw it as kids. I was 25 when Star Wars came out, and I liked the prequels as much as the earlier three.

    The only raping was Lucas changing EPIV dor the digital version, IMO.

  114. Or we could... by denzacar · · Score: 0

    ...find a mentally unstable person, convince him or her that Jar Jar Abrams is the antichrist and send them out to permanently stop him.

    It IS a valid alternative, and as such it must be taken into consideration.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    1. Re:Or we could... by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      I think the argument can be made that contrary to "assassinate the director", "not watch it" is a practical alternative. Life is too short for bad cinema. Or even for mediocre cinema. It is not necessary to watch every sequel and spin-off of a film no matter how successful. For instance, Lilo & Stitch was a great film. The rest of the franchise is not therefore worth watching, merely because they have the same characters and some of the same actors.

      It's the mouse's money, and the mouse's properties, and they have a perfect right to do whatever they want with them. And we have a perfect right to say "that's crap, and they'd have to duct tape me to the chair to get me to watch it" if appropriate.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    2. Re:Or we could... by lennier · · Score: 1

      And we have a perfect right to say "that's crap, and they'd have to duct tape me to the chair to get me to watch it" if appropriate.

      Roger Ebert once thought as you do.

      J. J. will show you the true meaning of the final episode of Lost. He is your master now.

      It is pointless to resist, my son.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    3. Re:Or we could... by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      And we have a perfect right to say "that's crap, and they'd have to duct tape me to the chair to get me to watch it" if appropriate.

      Roger Ebert once thought as you do.

      J. J. will show you the true meaning of the final episode of Lost. He is your master now.

      It is pointless to resist, my son.

      Well, Ebert makes a living critiquing films. It would be difficult for him to simply decline to see them. I wouldn't want his job.

      You know, I never saw the end of Lost. It got stupid, so I stopped watching it. I have no idea how it turned out, and I really really don't care. It seemed like they were just changing up things just for the hell of it. When it became clear that there was no master story arc, that they were going nowhere in particular, I abandoned the series. Life, as I said, is too short.

      And that, I think, is my point. Just because the first one or two installments of a franchise is worth watching doesn't mean they can now put any damned thing on the screen that squirts out of their collective ass, and expect us to face it.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    4. Re:Or we could... by denzacar · · Score: 1

      Sorry for the delay. Was either rather busy or AFK these last days.

      It's the mouse's money, and the mouse's properties, and they have a perfect right to do whatever they want with them. And we have a perfect right to say "that's crap, and they'd have to duct tape me to the chair to get me to watch it" if appropriate.

      See, there's a problem with that. And not just of the "permanent copyright" kind which always lurks in the background of everything related to Disney or the kind related to hoarding global culture in order to maximize profit.

      The real problem regarding Jar Jar Abrams and the House of Mouse is the same one people had with Lucas.
      Colloquially known as "raping our childhood", or more accurately - distortion and butchering of the global mythology and culture.

      And it's not just that, either.
      Sure, Star Wars and Star Trek are a part of popular culture and mythology (i.e. stories we tell ourselves to describe our vision of the world and our place in it) BUT being science fiction they are also representations of what we expect of the future - our very own self-fulfilling prophecy.
      Or a blueprint if you like that more.

      And here's the problem with Jar Jar.
      Underneath all the effects and starships and action and whatnot - those stories have ideas.
      Ideas like "an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together." or "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."
      It is not what those movies are about but without those (and other) ideas Star Wars and Star Trek would be just another cheap SciFi popcorn flick - and not a global cultural phenomenon that they are.

      Whether Lucas and Roddenberry meant to include every single one of those ideas or whether they got included by accident doesn't really matter - they work, the stories work, the movies work.
      Jar Jar and friends on the other hand only seen the shallow parts (action, effects, costumes...) and they are trying to replicate that. They are copying the cover of the book - not it's contents.
      And then there's the "mystery box" issue - Jar Jar (with his friends) "creates stories" by constantly piling on "mysteries".
      Until they write themselves in the corner.

      --
      Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    5. Re:Or we could... by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      Great points. I don't have the time to dive into them now, but will soon.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  115. Transwarp beaming, time traveling... by denzacar · · Score: 2

    It is not about particular technology having X buttons instead of Y buttons or having it work in a very specific imaginary way.

    It is about bad and lazy writing, which has ALWAYS been a characteristic of Jar Jar and his cohorts - Kurtzman, Orcish and Lilliput.
    They don't write - they hype.

    Unfortunately, a story does not run on hype alone. Which is where they employ Deus ex Machinae and handwaves.

    Like transwarp beaming - which basically eliminated the need for ships and the Starfleet.
    Who needs them when you can beam anywhere? Like Stargate, only you don't need a Stargate at the other end.

    Or "red matter" - a lazy name for a lazy device, a drop of which can create a black hole. So Spock hauls around a metric ton of it. Why? Because it looks cool.
    Also, it will create black holes out of planets, but first you must drill a huge hole in the planet to drop it inside.
    Why? So that we could have a skydiving sequence followed by a fight sequence on the giant drill.

    Or building a starship on the ground - literally just so we could have that one shot of Kirk looking at it. Because that would be cool.

    Spock Jr. literally ejects Kirk out of the ship, just so Kirk could meet up with Spock Sr. and Scotty. Why? Because it's their DESTINY!

    Which may be the biggest fuckup of all.
    Destiny is just another way of saying absence of choice. Everything is predestined. They are all just puppets of destiny. Kirk WILL be captain of the Enterprise whether he likes it or not. Future is fucking set in stone!
    That is, disregarding all the little differences caused by FUCKING TIME TRAVEL!

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    1. Re:Transwarp beaming, time traveling... by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Which may be the biggest fuckup of all.
      Destiny is just another way of saying absence of choice. Everything is predestined. They are all just puppets of destiny. Kirk WILL be captain of the Enterprise whether he likes it or not. Future is fucking set in stone!
      That is, disregarding all the little differences caused by FUCKING TIME TRAVEL!

      Of all the crappy models of time travel, it's actually not the worst one because otherwise the butterfly effect would make any form of restoring the time line impossible. Time is already laid out as a rubber band and you can pinch it but the natural reaction is to snap back but it might be twisted in the process. Which can also sort of explain why time travel doesn't just rip apart everything as you go infinitely long back and change infinitely much, because doing so would be too hard. You have free will to avoid your destiny - just blow your head off like in Devil's Advocate - but it will just stretch the rubber band some more. And perhaps it's not quite as fixed, with enough changes time can take a new path permanently, like a river finding a new path. The Star Trek reboot is more an implementation issue than a basic plot issue.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re: Transwarp beaming, time traveling... by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      Yes, because nothing I'm Star Trek was an egregious affront to scientific credibility or reason.

      They spend every episode sending small teams of high ranking officers down to deadly planets. They have replicators yet they carry almost everything they use but food as cargo. They have a computer that can take natural language queries and translate arbitrary languages but they do archaeology as a profession. They have FTL communications but delegate civilisation-deciding acts to ship captains.

      If you think the plot devices in the Star Trek movie are the series' worst affronts to reason, and not rationalisations of your own distaste, you have quite a case to make.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    3. Re: Transwarp beaming, time traveling... by denzacar · · Score: 1

      Yes, because nothing I'm Star Trek was an egregious affront to scientific credibility or reason.

      They spend every episode sending small teams of high ranking officers down to deadly planets. They have replicators yet they carry almost everything they use but food as cargo. They have a computer that can take natural language queries and translate arbitrary languages but they do archaeology as a profession. They have FTL communications but delegate civilisation-deciding acts to ship captains.

      Let me rephrase what I said earlier.

      It is NOT ABOUT particular technology having X buttons instead of Y buttons or having it work in a very specific imaginary way.

      It is about BAD AND LAZY WRITING, which has ALWAYS been a characteristic of Jar Jar and his cohorts - Kurtzman, Orcish and Lilliput.
      They don't write - they hype.

      --
      Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    4. Re:Transwarp beaming, time traveling... by denzacar · · Score: 1

      It's not about plausibility of time travel.

      It's about the fact that the time travel they use CLEARLY allows for changes to be made in the past.
      A predetermined, destined past.
      Well... at least to the effect that the crew of the Enterprise MUST become the crew of the Enterprise - all those Vulcans clearly had no destiny.

      --
      Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  116. The Final Frontier? by denzacar · · Score: 1

    Sorry, but that movie completely redeemed itself with that "What does God need with a starship? scene.

    Unlike Star Trek: Nemesis.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    1. Re:The Final Frontier? by RKThoadan · · Score: 1

      I've always felt that The Final Frontier was trying as hard as it could to be truly awful but the strength of the core cast kept it from getting there. It's arguably the high-point of the Kirk-Spock-Bones trinity (mostly in Row Your Boat) which has always been the heart of classic Trek to me.

  117. Don't Like it, Don't need more shaking cameras by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not big JJ Abrams fan, his style with Lost, his mad rush of near-mindless action and brainless plot of his first Star Trek movie put final nail in the coffin for me.

    I don't know if it was really the writers that made his projects turn out the way they did. I rather have someone do it because i don' like seeing one movie franchise have same style as another. JJ Abrams said he was a Star Wars fan when he started interview him for the first Star Trek movie. Maybe he'll be more faithful to original franchise mentality than reimaging Star Trek got.

  118. Star Wars VII: Rise of the Lens Flare! by TheSkepticalOptimist · · Score: 1

    Seriously, I think JJ Abrams is a decent enough director, can't be any worse the George Lucas, but he has to end his obsession with the lens flare. Been watching Fringe from Season 1 again and there is lens flare in almost every shot. Its one thing to have a trademark, but its another to not understand it being overused and becoming a meme joke.

    As for Star Trek, come on, that shit was ruined before he got to it. I value him bringing action and darkness back to the Star Trek franchise instead of overly contrived morality plays and endless yapping of people in pajamas that plagued the numerous TV series and the complete lack of focus in the TNG movies. Getting rid of Bermen and Ronald D Moore from anything to do with Star Trek is the first good thing that franchise has done since TNG. I'll reserve judgement on Abrams until I see Into Darkness, although it can't be all that dark with all the lens flare.

    --
    I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
  119. Re:Pfff, at least the ass-raping of my youth will by omnichad · · Score: 1

    The only raping was Lucas changing EPIV dor the digital version, IMO.

    Even that is forgivable. It's destroying prints of the original version that is truly bad.

  120. Obligatory no. by r33per · · Score: 1

    No.

  121. blah, this is NOT Star Trek by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The first movie (2009) sucked hard enough, why is there going to be another? This is not what Trek fans want!

    I want more TNG, or classic Kirk, not this... well... CRAP! They broke all things Trek with the 2009 movie, just to bring Star Trek down to the level of the younger generation of today. Hell, other than Scott Backulah(however spelt), I really liked Enterprise, and it didn't brake the Trek universe! I mean, what the hell was with that Romulan mining ship? It looked like a big turd with spikes! And no Romulan ship even looks like that, same with the "new" (which is supposed to be kirks enterprise) enterprise. That movie destroyed Star Trek, for me. :(

  122. Nooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

    Never been more appropriate.

  123. he'll butcher Star Wars like Star Trek by peter303 · · Score: 1

    He did not adhere to the cannon. He used cheesy special effects.

  124. Prepare for Glare! by backwardsposter · · Score: 1

    My eyes! Ze goggles do nusing!

  125. galaxy != universe by schneidafunk · · Score: 1

    There are multiple galaxies and you could indeed find one farther away.

    --
    Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
  126. should go good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    given abrams success with star trek, I am sure he will be able to pull of a good star wars film.

  127. Zahn sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Except Zahn can't write for shit.

    Sure the fanboyz just sucked up is cabbage, but by definition: "The force is in all living beings." Zahn violated this precept with his force suppressing varmints. If you can't write within the fundamental precepts of the universe, you should be writing in it. And yes, that applies to Lucas as well.

  128. Re:Pfff, at least the ass-raping of my youth will by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    There are two kinds of Star Wars fans, those who were adults when EPIV came out, and those who saw it as kids.

    Age is not the relevant difference.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  129. Or now we know by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    I've always wondered if that Jedi problem the Empire was so worried about could have just been solved via judicial application of power anti-biotics.

    It's actually the reason why we have full-body scanners in al the airports now, they are like kemo to the midicholridians.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  130. It's already been ruined ... by wylderide · · Score: 1

    ... So JJ certainly can't make it much worse. Not to say I don't have faith in him. Star Wars may be at rock bottom, but if he puts his mind to it, JJ can always find a lower place.

    --
    This is the best restaurant I ever eat in
  131. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by mcgrew · · Score: 1

    just learn that you can't post a "less than" sign into comment

    Yes you can, just use a little html. &lt; becomes <.

  132. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but would end up making Leia where latex and kill people with her mind

    Making Leia where latex? What the... Oh, WEAR. Damn, but today's teachers sure are incompetent. Sorry you got such a shitty education.

  133. Re:Can't we get somebody with a proven track recor by Omestes · · Score: 1

    Either that or it was a normal typo and you're an ass.

    --
    A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
  134. Galaxy Quest reboot ? by rlseaman · · Score: 1

    Just as long as he doesn't get his hands on Galaxy Quest. Some things are sacred!

    It would be all like "Give up! Surrender!"

  135. 10 more comments and we have by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    666 comments.

    I mean 9!

  136. You have to wonder... by NormAtHome · · Score: 1

    What's going to become of Star Wars now that Disney and Abrams have gotten their hands on it?

    I originally liked the Star Trek reboot but when I watched it a few times after it came out on DVD I really had to wonder about who wrote the script and didn't anyone actually review it because it seemed to me that it had some very big problems:

    First, Spock acted out of character in a number of instances and as far as I can tell it was mainly a plot device to achieve a particular goal i.e. Spock would have never broken regulations to eject Kirk in a life pod, the only purpose for that was so that Kirk could meet old Spock and Scotty on the planet.

    Second, at the end what purpose did it serve for Kirk to fire weapon's at the Romulan ship when it was being consumed by the black hole (it couldn't possibly escape) other than to delay their departure long enough so that they could have that whole "trying to escape the black hole" sequence.

    These are just the most glaring errors (to my mind) but I'm sure that I could find more if I thought about it.

    So I have to wonder what's going to become of Star Wars with the kind of director who would make massive plot mistakes like this.

  137. Emotions, Yelling, Etc. by dodex1k · · Score: 1

    I think J. J. Abrams writes boilerplate characters and contrived drama. Star Trek demonstrated this to a tee. The entire premise of the villain was about as simple as it gets. They destroyed his planet and now he's out for revenge. Lame. Kirk and Spock's conflict is equally boring and was not explored enough. Kirk doesn't respect authority. He follows his hunches. Spock is the opposite. That simple premise just gives way to lots of yelling and screaming and punching. I thought it was obnoxious. The original show explored interesting ethical conflicts through creative and fantastical plot devices. I only hope his Star Wars movie doesn't devolve into an episode of 90210.

    1. Re:Emotions, Yelling, Etc. by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      I think J. J. Abrams writes boilerplate characters and contrived drama. Star Trek demonstrated this to a tee. The entire premise of the villain was about as simple as it gets. They destroyed his planet and now he's out for revenge. Lame. Kirk and Spock's conflict is equally boring and was not explored enough. Kirk doesn't respect authority. He follows his hunches. Spock is the opposite. That simple premise just gives way to lots of yelling and screaming and punching. I thought it was obnoxious. The original show explored interesting ethical conflicts through creative and fantastical plot devices. I only hope his Star Wars movie doesn't devolve into an episode of 90210.

      One could argue that the prequels already had.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  138. Re:GOOD! After Empire Lucas was batshit crazy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Brackett did the first script but Lucas hated it. He kept some plot points and characters like Yoda, but he then had Kasdan rewrite the thing when she died. Kasdan is most definitely still alive.

  139. The Real Question by the+Gray+Mouser · · Score: 1

    Will Ahsoka Tano be alive?

  140. Thank you! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

    That was hilarious.

  141. Spoliers Alert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    (2) alternate universe "time-lines" in which case whatever horrible thing you are trying to change still occurred in the original universe and you have just created a copy. Nobody ever deals with that.

    I believe that was the conclusion of "Source Code". Ever time they sent him on a mission he was creating new timelines.
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945513/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

  142. "Naboo?" by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    "Destroyed utterly. No survivors."

    With that in the trailer, I'd be more interested in buying a ticket.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  143. uggh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This will be the worst star wars film you will ever see. JJ is a below average director whos fans are all gullible idiots. This is the end of star wars.