"Star Trek 3" To Be Helmed By "Fast & Furious" Franchise Director Justin Lin

Dave Knott writes Although J.J. Abrams directed the first two films in the popular revamped Star Trek series, his new job masterminding the Star Wars sequels had left Star Trek 3 as one of the most prestigious unfilled directing assignments in Hollywood. No longer. It is now known that Justin Lin will direct the third Star Trek film. Lin is best known for revitalizing the long-running Fast & Furious series, helming the third through sixth films in that franchise. Several top-flight directors were under consideration for Star Trek 3, but Lin was the only one actually offered the job, following the postponement of the Bourne Legacy sequel that he had previously been set to direct.

Comments

more NOS and less lense flare

[Anonymous Coward]

WHY?

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[RDW]

WHY?

KHAAAAAAN!!

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Columcille]

Has to be better than Star Trek 2.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[the_skywise]

Uhh...
Wrath of Khan?
First Contact?
Into Darkness?

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[the_skywise]

Heh... although only Simon Pegg as Scotty good get away with a line like:
"Ach, maybe if I put some NOS into the Warp Core we could overtake 'em... what do I look like a stupid git? I'm givin' her all she's got!"

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[halivar]

Take your pick. Burn the heretic.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[NotDrWho]

Why? Because this is going to be the MOST ACTION PACKED STAR TREK MOVIE EVER!! Fuck all that talking bullshit. This one is going to be 100mph, non-stop B A D A S S !!! More fights, more explosions, more fucking ASS KICKING than anyone has ever seen! Scene one: mad-ass crazy action. Last scene: mad-ass crazy action. Every scene in-between: mad-ass crazy action!

Set your phasers to FUCKING AWESOME, because this movie is doing some MEGACRAZY SHIT!

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Spy Handler]

No one will think of Wrath of Khan or First Contact when they hear the word "shit". These two were the best Trek movies period. They are classics in any sci-fi library and (IMHO) rank among the best sci-fi movies ever.

Into Darkness on the other hand, is shit. JJ Abrams is shit. Therefore, whoever's replacing him has a low bar to overcome.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[flappinbooger]

Heh... although only Simon Pegg as Scotty good get away with a line like:
"Ach, maybe if I put some NOS into the Warp Core we could overtake 'em... what do I look like a stupid git? I'm givin' her all she's got!"

I need TWO nosses, because I live life a quarter parsec at a time.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Talderas]

Blessed is the mind to small to doubt.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[The Grim Reefer]

Has to be better than Star Trek 2

I don't know. I thought when Benedict Cumberbatch introduced himself to Kirk and Spock was freaking hilarious. "My... Name... is,,, Khaaa-na!" Not "Khan Noonien Singh". Just "Khaaa-na"

I so wanted to see Kirk reply. "Nice to meet you Khaaa Nah. I'm Ka-eeeeerk"

Apparently no one else was named Khan in the past 300 years since his disappearance. It would be like Jack the Ripper showing up and introducing himself to someone today at "Jaaa-ck" and expecting them to know who is was.

Who introduces them self that way? I think I'll try that during my next job interview.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Z00L00K]

My opinion is that "First Contact" is the best Star Trek movie we have seen so far.

And I think that if we are going to see an interesting Star Trek movie - throw in Quentin Tarantino.

But to get a Star Trek movie more aligned with TOS where the social norms of the time were challenged I think that Steve McQueen should be the choice.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[itzly]

Are there going to be enough lens flares to capture the audience though ?

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Anonymous Coward]

This one is going to be 100mph, non-stop B A D A S S !!!

Wow! 100mph!! They'll get to Alpha Centauri in.... just under 30 million years! ...woohoo!!!

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Jason Levine]

This one is going to be 100mph

But if the Enterprise goes 100mph, it'll be going really slowly.

Maybe that's it. Star Trek 3 will be the first movie shot entirely in slow motion. (Don't worry Futurama fans. Star Trek 3 will be a crossover with Baywatch.)

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Anonymous Coward]

If this wasn't the most MISTER TORGUE-like comment ever on slashdot, than I don't know what.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Matheus]

Honestly considering it alone without the history I don't mind Into Darkness. I like the new cast (minus old Spock... his "insertion" was of the worst forced kind) and I like JJ's style lens flares and all.

I was completely pissed off when it was clear they were bringing Khan back.

Wrath Of Khan is one of the best movies ever made, period. For Abrams / whomever chose the script tried to piggy back on that it was a clear statement that they couldn't move forward on their own and had to try to steal from / recreate a cinematic masterpiece. Rebooting the series does NOT mean you have to steal from it. Write your own damn stories please!

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[mythosaz]

You have to steal a little from it...

Reboot or not, there's characters and "checkpoints" along the old continuum that you need to hit. It's like rebooting Spider Man but not having him face his greatest and most formidable villains. Of course Spidey faces a revamped Oswald. Of course Kirk fights revamped Khan.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[mythosaz]

I was going to be all, "Oh yeah, it's gonna take.."

...but you were dead on :)

http://www.wolframalpha.com/in...

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[HornWumpus]

Best movies ever made? You trekies are funny. It's the best ST movie, that is all.

'Ice Pirates' was better. 'Plan9 from Outer Space' was better.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Grishnakh]

Into Darkness on the other hand, is shit. JJ Abrams is shit. Therefore, whoever's replacing him has a low bar to overcome.

I agree about JJ, but I think they've managed to do even worse here. The director of the Fast-n-Furious movies? Are they fucking kidding? This is even worse than hiring Michael Bay to make a movie.

Star Trek is dead.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[zippthorne]

Uhh...
Wrath of Khan?
First Contact?
Into Wrath of Khan?

Fixed that for you.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[the_skywise]

Laddie, don't you think you should rephrase that?

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[xbytor]

> My opinion is that "First Contact" is the best Star Trek movie we have seen so far.

If you totally ignore what they did to Picard's character, I would agree.Watch the RedLetterMedia for a thorough accounting of what they did to Picard.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[cbhacking]

The idea of a transporter that can safely put people (or anything else with about the same mass...) onto planets in other star systems is just too huge a break in the balance of power. It's literally an apocalyptic weapon; unless you can figure out how to put transporter-proof shields around every valuable target you've got (and remember here that a planet counts as a valuable target, if you can beam a big enough antimatter bomb much less some "red matter"). It's a modern stealth bomber when your enemies have nothing newer than steam engines. The Borg don't have anything that comes close to being as effective a weapon, and they have single ships capable of defeating fleets and time travel tech (First Contact).

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[mrsquid0]

First Contact was awful, as were both of the rebooted movies. The Wrath of Khan, however, has stood up over the years.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Anonymous Coward]

What they meant to say was that the ships seen in the first two Abrams movies were comparable to garbage scows.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[jandersen]

Why? Because this is going to be the MOST ACTION PACKED STAR TREK MOVIE EVER!! Fuck all that talking bullshit. This one is going to be 100mph, non-stop B A D A S S !!! More fights, more explosions, more fucking ASS KICKING than anyone has ever seen! Scene one: mad-ass crazy action. Last scene: mad-ass crazy action. Every scene in-between: mad-ass crazy action!

Set your phasers to FUCKING AWESOME, because this movie is doing some MEGACRAZY SHIT!

So, you agree? Star Trek, to most fans, has been worth following because it was trying to be more than just another mindless actions movie. Most episodes made at least an attempt at social commentary, political ideas and even somewhat plausible science. What you are talking about is something that simply ignores that in favour of a testosterone pumping re-run of 'Action-Man, the Movie' with most likely just a superficial shrug towards anything to do with science, and little enough in the way of fiction, come to that. Given the choice, I would prefer watching either 'My Little Pony' or 'BBC Parliament'; both offering more of an intellectual challenge.

Re: more NOS and less lense flare

[Anonymous Coward]

unfortunately star trek was also that kind of series where they had to tell the audience everytime they made a joke (that still wasn't funny).

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe but he was not the first to introduce it. There is a Voyager Episode where a civilization could teleport to specific planets out of their solar system.

So a similar idea was already used well before we went back to the 80's with shitty lens flare porn.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[OolimPhon]

Even more blessed is the mind who can spell correctly.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[JackieBrown]

No one will think of Wrath of Khan or First Contact when they hear the word "shit". These two were the best Trek movies period.

I hate what they did with the Borg. They went from a terrifying, leaderless race of aliens with a goal of self improvement to a queen with a bunch of mindless zombies (drones) with a goal of absolute power.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[JackieBrown]

Heh... although only Simon Pegg as Scotty good get away with a line like:
"Ach, maybe if I put some NOS into the Warp Core we could overtake 'em... what do I look like a stupid git? I'm givin' her all she's got!"

Babylon 5 had a similar line
When ordering the White Star to turn around from a planets gravity
Sheridan "Now! Give it everything you got"
Lennier "If I was holding anything back, I'd tell you."

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Anonymous Coward]

mph = millions of parsecs per hour, of course.

What were you thinking?

Re: more NOS and less lense flare

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he meant that they should be hauled away AS garbage

Re: more NOS and less lense flare

[Anonymous Coward]

Blessed is the typo nazi, who never Fuchs up

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[dddux]

I'm with you jandersen all the way. d= ;) Shame I can't rate you. I thought both new Star Treks weren't really good and I hope the 3rd one will be better and less action packed, but more "brain packed".

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[dyslexicbunny]

It has a significant number of issues.

ST:ID should have been a battle for the soul of the Federation. You've got Sellers arguing for increased militarization of what was a peaceful and scientific organization. Keep Cumberbun in there as the guy making it all happen - hell, he can even be Khan because I have nothing against that. But the ending should have been with Spock suffering significant injuries and Khan stealing the badass ship to escape. Every attempt to punish Kirk for being disobedient never did anything because he was automatically promoted back in charge almost immediately. Then Khan can come back in the third film and end the cold war between the Klingons and the Federation as they have to work together to defeat him.

As is, they stole too much symbolism from Wrath and made death no longer remotely threatening with magic blood. The fact you need Nimoy to tell us that Khan is bad should have been a clear sign they should have started over. But Orci and Kurtzman aren't talented enough writers to deal with that and JJ is far too loyal to drop them.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Krishnoid]

It's literally an apocalyptic weapon; unless you can figure out how to put transporter-proof shields around every valuable target you've got (and remember here that a planet counts as a valuable target, if you can beam a big enough antimatter bomb much less some "red matter").

Here you go. It definitely makes things more interesting.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to back up that opinion? ST Into Darkness was one of the most critically acclaimed big-budget movies of 2012. EVERYONE I talked to that saw it LOVED it and as a long-time trekkie, I did too. Nearly anyone who has expressed an opinion like yours has been someone on some obscure forum somewhere and they were obviously opinions formed out of an obvious bias against the movie.

Re: more NOS and less lense flare

[jandersen]

unfortunately star trek was also that kind of series where they had to tell the audience everytime they made a joke.

Well, they had to do something to cater to the mostly American audience, right?

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and hire Harvey Keitel too! I'd like to see him with a cup of coffee saying:
Mmmm! Goddamn, Replicator! This is some serious gourmet shit!

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[toddestan]

I don't get all the love for First Contact. It was alight as an action movie, but was terrible for Star Trek. Of all TNG movies, Insurrection was the one that tried to be the most true to the show, but it was still pretty flawed.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[g1nG3Rj0urNAl157]

Hmm. If you remove your curse words, you are actually saying . . . nothing.

Re:more NOS and less lense flare

[cbhacking]

Yeah, I've been reading Schlock for years. Howard Taylor definitely puts more thought into the military applications of long-range teleportation than Star Trek writers ever seem to, but in his canon "Teraport Area Denial" systems were developed extremely quickly. In Star Trek, the state-of-the-art in (artificial) anti-transporter tech seems to be basically their deflector shields. Then again, they never had as strong a reason to try covering really significant chunks of real estate before.

Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[Anonymous Coward]

Roddenberry would not permit the filming of a Star Trek movie that was nonstop action.
The ideas were more important to Gene.
What a betrayal.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[jeffmflanagan]

It might be that movies that don't have a lot of action are now unmarketable to the mainstream. I've been watching a lot of older films and TV lately, and the difference is remarkable. People used to go for media that contained clever ideas, and intelligent conversations. This has radically changed. A big part of this is Hollywood's fault, but the sadly public went along with this change to mindless action and fast-moving CGI. There's still plenty of material from before this change to keep anyone entertained for many years.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[war4peace]

I somehow managed to keep enjoying both types of movies. Some are pure entertainment ("don't think, just watch", fast-and-furious style) and others are "lessons learned" (12 angry men style).

I have a friend who's mid-20s and he hadn't seen any of the classical movies, so one evening we watched "The Party" (1968) and "Soylent Green" (1973). He was mesmerized. Laughed his ass off watching the first and literally cried while watching the second.

Young people CAN enjoy older movies thoroughly, provided they're willing to try them out. Sadly, the movie-churning industry lost touch with this way of doing business.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[halivar]

The guy that gave us the silliest, other-the-top fisticuffs scenes ever filmed, betrayed? I'll get over it.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[flappinbooger]

Roddenberry would not permit the filming of a Star Trek movie that was nonstop action.
The ideas were more important to Gene.
What a betrayal.

gotta do something to keep the kids from looking at their phones.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[jeffmflanagan]

Nice. I'm happy to hear this about your young friend. Of course not all people turned into idiots, but they seem to be Hollywood's market.

I also enjoy action movies in addition to smarter stuff; They look and sound pretty intense in my home theater. What I object to is the dumbing down of once-smart franchises.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is also because Hollywood is trying to sell more in (and is becoming more reliant upon) non-English-speaking markets, and in particular China.

Subtle dialogue and characterisation are less likely to be successful across linguistic and cultural boundaries (in either direction), but big noisy robots, shiny effects and massive explosions are comprehensible to everyone.

Don't hold your breath waiting for this to change.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[jeffmflanagan]

The fight scenes in Trek were hilarious, but it was a really smart, very progressive show for its time. You should look at it in the context of the time it was made.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[Sir_Eptishous]

Tell that to Peter Jackson and his shite Hobbit films.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[Sir_Eptishous]

I know it's hard to believe, but there are independent films being put out all the time that are great. Interesting plots, great acting, interesting as hell, with very little if any CGI/splosions...

Netflix has tons of these types of films, as well as your local independent film venue.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[Sir_Eptishous]

And here we have probably the most insightful post in the thread.
The attention span of people now is incredibly short, hence splosions.

It's only going to get worse.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[Anonymous Coward]

The way i describe how much the new star trek movies aren't star trek is by referring them to the opening scene of star trek into darkness. The scene on the planet was simply a way of getting kirk and pike together whereas in the series there would've been an entire episode simply about the morals of breaking the prime directive to save a species and frankly it would've been far more interesting than the first hour of Into Darkness.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[mythosaz]

I'm in my 40's with a good deal of my friends in their 30's and some in their 20's.

I spend a great deal of time championing old, must-watch movies. I especially enjoy the AFI lists published in 2007:
http://www.afi.com/100years/mo...

The heroes and villains list makes for a much better sell than the fairly dry top-10 list of AFI films. There's no denying how good Citizen Kane and The Godfather are, but somewhere after Casablanca and Raging Bull, while you've spent 11 hours watching some of the finest cinema ever made, you could use a little lighter fare.

1 CITIZEN KANE 1941
2 THE GODFATHER 1972
3 CASABLANCA 1942
4 RAGING BULL 1980
5 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN 1952
6 GONE WITH THE WIND 1939
7 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA 1962
8 SCHINDLER'S LIST 1993
9 VERTIGO 1958
10 THE WIZARD OF OZ 1939

The villains list... :)

http://www.afi.com/100Years/ha...

Dr. Hannibal Lecter (in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS)
Norman Bates (in PSYCHO)
Darth Vader (in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK)
The Wicked Witch of the West (in THE WIZARD OF OZ)
Nurse Ratched (in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST)
Mr. Potter (in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE)
Alex Forrest (in FATAL ATTRACTION)
Phyllis Dietrichson (in DOUBLE INDEMNITY)
Regan MacNeil (in THE EXORCIST)
The Queen (in SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS)
Now we're talking!

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[war4peace]

Looking at that top 10 list:

#1: couldn't watch it till the end for some reason.
#2: interesting but then again, seemed a bit flat to me.
#3: sorry, not my thing.
#4: didn't watch it, added to my to-do list.
#5: to me it seemed as light as today's movies, sans all the shooting :)
#6: Nope. Chick flick, as far as I'm concerned.
#7: Yes. Worth watching.
#8. Same as 7, but I'd say it belongs to "recent" movies category.
#9: same as #4.
#10: classic but couldn't bear watching it again.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[mythosaz]

Agreed: The top-10 list is a bit of a grueling watch if you're not in film class.

Easier to start with the villains and heroes list.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[HornWumpus]

The same jackhole who couldn't stop himself from making a (court drama/western/soap opera) with special effects added?

Roddenberry was the worst of the ST producer/directors. This idiot will no doubt do better.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[St.Creed]

I liked the Thin Red Line - it's both quality cinema *and* great action. Music was great too.

Recently I saw "the Snow Queen". Something like a European version of Frozen, with more story in 5 minutes than Frozen in its entirety. While I really enjoyed Frozen, I was much more impressed by the Snowqueen, which had very good animation and a much better story.
(I just checked Wikipedia: it *is* the precursor to Frozen, except they butchered the story. The original story was written by some hack called Hans Andersen, so why not, eh? After all, Hollywood scriptwriters are probably better than some foreign Danish guy when it comes to writing screenplay. Right? Right.)

I also liked Lost Highway, which to this day I can't say should be on list #1 or list #2. Or on neither.

Anyway, what I wanted to say was: ignore the false dichotomy between "good and boring" versus "awful but stimulating!". You can actually have both. But I admit it's rare.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[ConceptJunkie]

Well, you're clearly the target audience of the new Trek, then.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[Anonymous Coward]

Justin Lin is still miles better than JJ.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[ColdWetDog]

TL;DR

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you can say shit. You don't need to censor it.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[Boronx]

This is really a list of historical ground breaking movies.

Citizen Kane hasn't held up as well as film buffs like to think.

Vertigo is a good but not particularly memorable thriller. Psycho is way more important.

The Wizard of Oz, like Citizen Kane really only stands out in context of its time.

Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia are truly great movies even today. I'm not sure anyone has ever really recreated Cassablanca's magic.

Re:Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Yea alot of the old shit was done to a very low standard. I mean really Shit Standard. These days we demand stuff that is better. Just because its old doesn't make it good.

Sure it may have seemed good the first time because you where like 5 years old. Trek was and always will be "pop" TV and Cinema.

Re: Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[Anonymous Coward]

Roddenberry tried to stop ST:VI from being shown because he didn't like how they flushed his useless "philosophy" down the toilet. He was overruled and went to sulk in a corner. His tenure with TNG made it the worst part of an already weak show that today would be cancelled within three episodes. It was crap. It was badly written and badly acted. It only survived because there was little competition and once Roddenberry was ousted they steered the show in better directions. But ST is inherently bad. The Stargate shows are the real heirs to the spirit of the original: they're fun, campy, somewhat epic and way, way better.

Re: Nonstop action? Whattabore.

[Anonymous Coward]

lol stargate is complete shit based on idiotic ideas.

Shift!

[meta-monkey]

So, what you're saying is there's going to be lots of close-up cuts of Sulu stomping on the Enterprise's clutch and forcefully downshifting.

But hey, less lens flare amiright?

Re:Shift!

[jeffmflanagan]

>But hey, less lens flare amiright?

It seems like a reasonable tradeoff, and the first Trek reboot began with a Fast and Furious type scene of Kirk in a sports-car, so this change started happening with J.J. at the helm. I recommend watching the original series on BlueRay instead. It looks beautiful, and was brilliant for the time it was made.

Re:Shift!

[smooth wombat]

Don't forget Sulo leaning back in his chair as he uses one hand to hit the control buttons.

Re:Shift!

[Connie_Lingus]

So, what you're saying is there's going to be lots of close-up cuts of Sulu stomping on the Enterprise's clutch and forcefully downshifting.

that would be totally amazing, to be honest,

Re:Shift!

[Anonymous Coward]

"He's got antimatter in his blood and a warp core for a brain!"

I'm looking forward to Wuthering Heights: a Michael Bay film.

Re:Shift!

[sconeu]

Star Trek 3: Romulan Drift

Re:Shift!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just hope he remembers to disengage the parking brake.

Re:Shift!

[Anonymous Coward]

that's actually a pretty cool title

Re:Shift!

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Trek 3: Romulan Drift

Make it a "Fast & Furious" / "Star Trek" crossover! Warp-speed muscle cars!

Re: Shift!

[Anonymous Coward]

"The time it was made" was the late '60s. Grow up. Stop living in the past: until the reboot the audience for Star Trek was a bunch of losers: nerds, neckbeards, weirdos and creeps (but I'm repeating myself). Nobody in their right mind want their franchise associated with such a pathetic crowd. The reboot was aimed at the Cool Kids and it succeeded. They're not going back, and with good reason.

Re: Shift!

[Anonymous Coward]

The reboot was actually less successful than most of the TOS and TNG films (all except STV and Nemesis did better than JJTrek). The originals had interesting stories and concepts which stimulated thought. JJTrek is for "special" kids with no attention span or capability to expand their minds.

Re:Shift!

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be nice to see Vin Diesel beat the crap out of NuKirk. Everyone else already has.

sounds like relevent expertise

[Trepidity]

His skills in filming exciting race scenes will allow this incarnation of Star Trek to really do justice to the pod-racing scenes.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh God!

I have a couple of gift cards for my local theater and aside from the new Hobit movie, I have no idea what to watch.

Movies coming out of Hollywood have sucked - they bore me. They sacrifice story for special effects and battle/fight scenes - *snore*.

Unbroken looks interesting, but I'll skip the movie and read the book. I can't stand how Hollywood skips over the ugly details of characters and make them superhuman. Like "Beautiful Mind". Opie made Nash into a totally different person as well as completely messing up his mental illness's symptoms.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[Anonymous Coward]

The Audience is having high expectations of upping pod-racing scenes. Now that Star Wars sequels are underway, Star Trek have quite some catching up to do. If they can square the number of minutes of a good chase, Star Wars will be out of minutes due to the artificial limitations of episodes.

Captcha: pattern

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[Anonymous Coward]

He has a history of directing films with far too many sequels. I'd say Star Trek deserves this director.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[Shakrai]

His skills in filming exciting race scenes will allow this incarnation of Star Trek to really do justice to the pod-racing scenes.

Cool, we can finally re-film the worst scene in Star Trek history. The Dune Buggy chase from Nemesis....

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[jeffmflanagan]

I haven't been to the theater in a couple of months, but the recent Planet of the Apes, and Guardians of the Galaxy were both good, so there's a fair chance you can find something decent. Most movies are crap, but there are still occasional good ones.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[cyberchondriac]

Nemesis itself also being probably the worst Star Trek film in history. Though most of the TNG movies were stinkers, except the Borg one. I loved the TNG series, it's a shame that whatever the series had didn't translate over to the big screen very well.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[CohibaVancouver]

I have no idea what to watch.

1) Go to http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
2) Click "Movies"
3) Click "Certified Fresh Movies"

Enjoy.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[NotDrWho]

Nothing compares to Star Trek V for sheer, unadulterated suck. Nemesis was godawful, but V was so bad that you felt ashamed *on behalf of* everyone involved. I felt ashamed for them. I felt ashamed for their grandchildren who might one day see it. I felt ashamed for the alien species in the distant future who might happen upon the ruins of the human race and discover a copy of it buried in a pile of rubble.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a bad feeling about this...

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely blame Shatner for V. He should never have been allowed to write and direct.

I remember seeing it in theaters as a kid and thinking it was fucking awful. VI restored my faith in the movies, along with TNG restoring my faith in the series.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[Anonymous Coward]

They never were in direct competition with one another. Star Wars is for children; Star Trek is for grown ups.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[Sir_Eptishous]

4-6 sucked bigtime...

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[AK Marc]

I liked 6. Was a big improvement over 4 and 5.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[Shakrai]

That one sucked too, when you stop and think about it.....

Re: sounds like relevent expertise

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Trek is for pedophiles. FTFY.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[Anonymous Coward]

Guardians of the Galaxy was good??? WTF? Did we see different films because the Guardians of the Galaxy I saw was completely unfunny, poorly written, badly acted shit with some nice visuals.

Re:sounds like relevent expertise

[Anonymous Coward]

No way, Nemesis was FAR worse than STV.

TMP was crap, TWoK was awesome, TSFS was good, TVH was crap, TFF was crap, TUC was good, Generations was crap, First Contact was mediocre, Insurrection was crap, Nemesis was complete and utter garbage. The only things worse than Nemesis was the film that tried to copy it - JJTrek and the even worse sequel JJTrek 2.

What a nightmare

[endus]

First Abrams' complete disregard for the history and the message of every previous Star Trek in favor of everything superficial and minor that has ever been in the series, and now they bring in this guy, of all people? They should just have Vin Diesel play Kirk and put the series out of its misery.

I actually wouldn't have minded the 2 newest Star Trek movies as mediocre sci-fi films, *if* they weren't labelled "Star Trek". The lens flare bullshit and the incompetent/inconsistent portrayal of Spock are things I could get past, but not as a Star Trek movie.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Justin Lin will shock everyone by sending the crew back in time again and they will prevent Vulcan from being destroyed and bring the time line back to cannon.

I'm sure that will go over well with the fan base.

Re:What a nightmare

[Ralph Wiggam]

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Long time fans of the Star Trek franchise say JJ Abrams' enjoyable, engaging prequel betrays what Star Trek is all about.

http://www.theonion.com/video/trekkies-bash-new-star-trek-film-as-fun-watchable,14333/

Re:What a nightmare

[halivar]

the message of every previous Star Trek in favor of everything superficial and minor that has ever been in the series

I'm sensing that your Star Trek experience begins with ST:TNG Season 1 and ends with ST:DS9 Season 6, and includes none of the movies.

It's camp. It's always been camp. It will always be camp.

Re:What a nightmare

[nightcats]

Agree completely. In fact, all the ST films failed to even approach the quality of the series. The best movie-length ST "films" ever made were the various 2-parters of TNG and Voyager, led by "Chain of Command."

Re:What a nightmare

[Shakrai]

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Star Trek's II, III, IV, and VI weren't watchable? Amazing how they managed to combine both action, a compelling story, and respect for the Star Trek mythos into commercially successful films....

IV even had an oddball plot about whales and was still the highest grossing film in the whole series, including the TNG movies that later came, and which totally sucked.

Re:What a nightmare

[afidel]

IV even had an oddball plot about whales and was still the highest grossing film in the whole series

Incorrect, the first JJ Abrams film was the highest grossing, both in raw and inflation adjusted dollars for the US box office. source.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

a movie being considered "watchable" is not a compliment, its rather a "this movie sucks balls, but it got some interesting bits on it that i'd watch it if i were bored and with nothing better"

Re:What a nightmare

[gstoddart]

Dude, you're far too wedded to the canon you've built up as something immutable.

As a long time Trek geek ... I like the fact that they basically burned the canon and made it so they can do anything they want to.

Because now they can focus on making (hopefully good) movies without every nerd in the world going apeshit and whining that something isn't consistent with the original series or some bit of fanboi Trek porn they read.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

At least he's apparently a fan. I am cautiously awaiting judgement after that fact.

Re:What a nightmare

[future assassin]

Only because its was so long since the last ST movie. I didn't min them but I personally got more out of First Contact and getting more into the Borg of things. Now a short series on the Borg and their side would be cool.

Re:What a nightmare

[GReaToaK_2000]

Wish I could mod you up. I agree with your assessment that the 2 movies were good movies IFF they changed the names of the characters and the Title of the movie. So make it Star Ship Battles - "The Search for MORE Money" starring Capt Krush, First Officer Shock, etc. and it would have been a playful, satirical bash of Star Trek much like Galaxy Quest with Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, etc.

Instead we have a "Star Trek" universe that JJ has TOTALLY F*&*ed up where people can use the transporter to get anywhere in the galaxy, super-magically powerful "Red Matter", lame plots and passable acting etc. etc.

You don't NEED star ships anymore because of the awesome transporter. Additionally, if someone with a spaceship DOES come at us we'll just transport photon torpedoes, nuclear warheads etc right into the oncoming ship and watch it explode like some massive firework. Hell we could keep asteroids from hitting the planet by using the same transporter technique.

So the next movie will be what??? Save (insert member of the main characters), Save the Whales (pick your species), Find God at the center of the Galaxy, or some other Star Trek movie because no one can come up with something original (that fits within the Star Trek Universe).

Here's the plot for any new movies with the Star Trek name...
Uh Oh... Something's happening with So and So on Planet Z where God is...
Ok, send 2 dozen Space Marines (via transporter) to Planet Z.
Check it out, kill what needs to be dealt with, save So and So, and say hi to God.
End of Movie.

Even WORSE, now JJ is going to F*&* up the Star Wars franchise. Granted I don't know if JJ can do worse than Old George did with E1 through E3, but I'm not wasting money to see it in the theaters.

Just Sad. I think Yogurt said it best when describing the sequel to Space Balls 2 "The search for more money".

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

Gene Roddenberry would disagree that it was only "camp". Sure there is some camp in there (which I think humanizes it), but that's not what it is ABOUT.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

I will thank Abrams for this: He provided the first opportunity for me to see people claiming they're into nerdy things they're not actually into just to score geek points.

"Oh the magic resurrection blood from Into Darkness breaks the universe! It's totally disrespectful to the canon" - Voyager, Season 4 Episode 12, Mortal Coil. 7 of 9's magical nanites revive Neelix from death. As in the movie, this is never remarked on or remembered for the next person who dies.

"Starfleet idealism being corrupted by ruthless pragmatism and cynicism? Pff, yaa, way to the franchise's entire point" - Deep Space Nine, Season 6 Episode 19, In the Pale Moonlight. One of the best episodes of the franchise.

"Transwarp beaming pisses on Roddenberry's grave" - Voyager, Season 1 Episode 10, Prime Factors. The aliens of the week have a transporter than can beam someone anywhere within 40,000 light years (for reference, the milky way is ~100,000).

Re:What a nightmare

[halivar]

Well, that's not what the reboots are ABOUT, either. But the camp is as ever-present as it was in TOS.

Re:What a nightmare

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I don't know if JJ can do worse than Old George did with E1 through E3,

Well, Lucas stuck around for all three movies. JJ is going to make two movies, realize he screwed up the setup so there cannot be a satisfactory conclusion, walk away, and blame the next director for fucking up his trilogy.

At least Lin has experience keeping a franchise going.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

The magical nanites have a technological explanation that sounds plausible. "Super blood" doesn't.

Also anything from Voyager is immediately suspect in terms of quality. There's a lot of shit in Star Trek.

Re:What a nightmare

[NJRoadfan]

Voyager tried to bring in more of the Borg side of things..... tried. There was also that campy interactive movie game too.

Re:What a nightmare

[NJRoadfan]

The concept of transwarp beaming made an appearance in TNG, Season 7 Episode 22, Bloodlines. It was called "subspace beaming" though.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

Using Voyager as your example isn't scoring you many points yourself. Voyager was one of the worst series.

I'll give you the DS9 reference, though. I'll also throw in a movie to support that same statement: Admiral Cartwright and basically the entire plot of ST VI.

Anyway, your support for the new films is admirable if misplaced. They suck. End of story.

Re:What a nightmare

[fahrbot-bot]

Instead we have a "Star Trek" universe that JJ has TOTALLY F*&*ed up where people can use the transporter to get anywhere in the galaxy, super-magically powerful "Red Matter", lame plots and passable acting etc. etc.

You don't NEED star ships anymore because of the awesome transporter.

I think many of your (valid) complaints stem from weak and/or immature writers relying on "magical" things and/or super tech to achieve the desired story line. I dislike "magic" in most stories as it seems to be used mostly as a crutch for weak writing, or a writer unwilling to deal with unpleasant consequences in a story.

My understanding is that the transporter was originally used to workaround using a shuttle craft for all extra-vehicular excursions (for screen-time efficiencies) and later became a useful story device. But, you're right that this new trans-warp beaming-device is simply "plot magic". Kahn could have beamed to a near-by ship and flown to Klingon space. (Furthermore, why didn't an Enterprise retrieval party simply re-use the trans-warp transporter to beam themselves as did Kahn... saving themselves the trouble of the trip.

The two J.J. Abrams ST films seem full of unnecessary / stupid things - like parking the Enterprise underwater to avoid being seen by natives when parking it in *orbit* would have accomplished the same thing. Granted, watching the ship rise from the ocean was a ST boner moment, but still technologically unnecessary. (JJ's signature move seems to be having the Enterprise rise up through clouds, water, etc...)

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, the numbers show that the JJ Abrams movies crushed the box office of the other films.

Of course, big box office does not equate to a great movie.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

Disagree... the canon was what made the series worth watching.

Without that its just another boring shootem-up... but with space ships.

Re:What a nightmare

[spydink]

relying on "magical" things and/or super tech to achieve the desired story line

Can't get much better than having Q and the holodeck for arranging any scenario needed to let the writers off the hook from coming up with stories set in it the ST time frame.

One might think that being in the future with a galaxy of worlds and species to explore would result in sufficient stories to be told, but apparently not...

Re:What a nightmare

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Hey, what do you have against Vin Diesel? Even if for the whole story he will say "I am Kirk" in fifty different manners, it wouldn't be as bad as some of the Shattner's acting, no?

Re:What a nightmare

[zippthorne]

Instead we have a "Star Trek" universe that JJ has TOTALLY F*&*ed up where people can use the transporter to get anywhere in the galaxy, super-magically powerful "Red Matter", lame plots and passable acting etc. etc.

and magic blood that cures any disease or ailment including death from extreme radiation exposure, yet the episode wasn't about the ethics of a systematic rare-blood harvesting operation or the distribution of its products.

Re:What a nightmare

[endus]

There's too much in the canon and too many people who love it to just burn it. It's just stupid, you might as well just start a new canon if you want freedom.

The thing is, even if you're OK with them burning the canon so they can do whatever they want, what they did with that freedom is make shitty action movies with horrible dialogue and no plot. Someone else mentioned that none of the movies really lived up to the TV show, and that's probably true, but the new stuff is just shit. How they've handled Spock's character is just pathetic....his scenes are basically unwatchable.

The technology is all way off too. It doesn't jive with the original in any possible way. I realize this is a geeky thing to say but its fucking *Star Trek* if we can't be geeky about that, we can't be geeky about anything.

Re:What a nightmare

[endus]

I wasn't talking about the technology at all. I mean, generally, its so far off TOS it just doesn't even make sense at all. I would give them leeway to make it look cool and facilitate some story elements, but they're just off in lala land. Its a completely different universe.

What I was talking about is more the character development, the message, etc.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a difference between being kidnapped and forced to team up with Abraham Lincoln to fight Ghengis Khan and Khaless as an elaborate attempt bye a rock aline to learn the difference between 'good' and 'evil (then the rock aline then misses the point at the end), and having to fight a dude who's buthurt that your government didn't save his home world from a natural disater (even though they tried) so he got some buddies together on a mining ship and travels back in time where he strats blowing up planets (but not before waiting around in the past for 20 years for "reasons").

One has a silly premis but once you accept the premis the rest largely holds together, the other juts keeps doubling down on the nonsense.

Re:What a nightmare

[endus]

I dunno man, have you ever seen Vin Diesel say anything in a different manner across every movie he's ever been in?

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

that would be a reasonable position if they used the opportunity to make something good.

What they actually did was similar to bulldozing the Grate Pyramids to build a Denny's.

Re:What a nightmare

[SgtAaron]

I think many of your (valid) complaints stem from weak and/or immature writers relying on "magical" things and/or super tech to achieve the desired story line. I dislike "magic" in most stories as it seems to be used mostly as a crutch for weak writing, or a writer unwilling to deal with unpleasant consequences in a story.

My understanding is that the transporter was originally used to workaround using a shuttle craft for all extra-vehicular excursions (for screen-time efficiencies) and later became a useful story device. But, you're right that this new trans-warp beaming-device is simply "plot magic". Kahn could have beamed to a near-by ship and flown to Klingon space. (Furthermore, why didn't an Enterprise retrieval party simply re-use the trans-warp transporter to beam themselves as did Kahn... saving themselves the trouble of the trip.

I've been watching Trek for like 30 years and didn't know that about TOS transporter. Thanks. I guess I need to read more Trekkie history.

The two J.J. Abrams ST films seem full of unnecessary / stupid things - like parking the Enterprise underwater to avoid being seen by natives when parking it in *orbit* would have accomplished the same thing. Granted, watching the ship rise from the ocean was a ST boner moment, but still technologically unnecessary. (JJ's signature move seems to be having the Enterprise rise up through clouds, water, etc...)

I wonder about orbit. They generally enter a moderate orbit, perhaps? A large starship streaking across the sky at regular intervals would be noticeable near sunrise/sunset. I'm nitpicking I suppose, but it reminds me of C.J. Cherryh's excellent Foreigner series, which had humans get really lost and end up finding a planet that happens to have an intelligent steam-age society. That light orbiting up there seriously got the natives thinking, "WTF?". (umm, I don't recall how much, it's been years since I read the first). But they were semi-advanced and had astronomers.

Oh, and in First Contact they *were* noticeable from orbit, and as we know at that point there were likely plenty of people around with telescopes and eyeballs and tech savvy. Nobody else noticed Enterprise up there? Well, probably I guess, but it didn't matter in that story. No more missiles to shoot it down, save Cochran's!

But I suppose the Prime Directive made an exception to being noticed as merely a light in the sky :)

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't realise the JJ Abrams films were part of the same series of Star Trek films that featured William Shatner. I consider myself corrected.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

1. The tribble was a relatively miner thing (would be somewhere buried on page 5 or 6 of my personal list o' grievances). however the main problem with it is (Unlike 7's nanites which have an established madical function and are vague "high texh stuff") Injecting Khan's "Super Blood" into a tribble to cure radiation poisoning sounds redicilous. An average viewer can see that it makes no medical sense for that to work. It's one thing to use techobabble, it another to use bad techobabble.

2. The difference is that In the Pale Moonlight, is Sysco's confession that he did the morally wrong thing and explaining how he had the best of intentions and he just hopes it turns out to be worth it. What makes it work is that Sysco isn't an 'ends justify the means' type of character and we get to see him struggling with the conflict between his principles and the cost of sticking to them. By contrast Admiral Marcus is just a war-mongeirng douchebag who enslaves khan and prepares a military coup of the Federation for "reasons".

3. Aliens of the week can have any kind of magic tech they want, but if Starfleet has interplanetary beaming than they have no reason to have starships and that undermines the basic premis of the series. Note the that Tiskellians has similar capability in TOS, as did the Dominion in DS9, and the Iconians in TNG, but Starfleet never had the capability until JJ Trek.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

What? They *save* Neelix? I never made it that far in Voyager, but dear God, just let him die.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does that make you happy? Is the idea of naming a movie "Star Trek" so important to you that you need movies that aren't Star Trek to be so named?

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

Except they're making crap movies with uninteresting characters, and a total disregard for science in what is supposed to be a "science fiction" genre.

I'm ok with a reboot-- I'm not ok with the crap they've been foisting off on us and calling Star Trek.

Re:What a nightmare

[drinkypoo]

Dude, you're far too wedded to the canon you've built up as something immutable.

There's too much retcon in Trek to suggest that the canon might be immutable. But it's also valuable. The history not only provides back story automatically, but it also gives it gravitas for free if you just don't shit on it. Like, for example, the theme song to Enterprise. Ugh. That was some of the worst awfulness which was ever awful. I was constitutionally unable to watch that show if I had to sit through the intro music.

Because now they can focus on making (hopefully good) movies

They made exciting movies, but I don't want to watch them again, because they had no substance. They trotted out some characters we were supposed to care about, and then crapped on all the reasons we cared about them. If they were good movies, they wouldn't have needed to call them Star Trek. They weren't, so they needed Trek characters to bastardize.

Re:What a nightmare

[nedlohs]

And "Star Trek Into Darkness" out grossed "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" in inflation adjusted dollars. So clearly it's the better version!

Excuse me while I have a shower to get that ick off of me...

Re:What a nightmare

[gstoddart]

There's too much retcon in Trek to suggest that the canon might be immutable.

Not gonna lie .. had to look up retcon.

Vulcan was destroyed by time traveling angry Romulans. There is no 'ret' to 'con' ... they wiped out the future history of pretty much everything about James T Kirk, Spock, The Federation ,,, the canon was burned so completely they have a lot of room to do anything they want.

Like, for example, the theme song to Enterprise

LOL, I didn't see Enterprise until it was in syndication ... and once you got over 'nipple Vulcan' and up to at least the middle of season two I actually started to like it. But, yeah. It wasn't for everybody, and took a while to find its footing.

They made exciting movies, but I don't want to watch them again, because they had no substance.

Well, I won't argue the point. It was escapism and action since I'm a fan of both. However, the market wants that, and it sells tickets ... because most people have no substance.

But, sooner or later, we can hope that someone will remember they're making a Star Trek, and that Roddenberry had some really great vision, and to try to stick with that.

In the meantime, I will accept a romantic relationship between Spock and Uhura as a placeholder, and some really good action sequences.

Yes, I want Trek to tackle big issues. But, dammit, I want action sequences, and sex with green chicks. And the first two have done that.

The third is now so completely freed from specific expectation that they (hopefully) will make an awesome movie which satisfies a lot of people. If they don't ... well, then Star Trek has pretty much turned into Star Wars, and will be driven into the ground in the same way.

So, I liked the first two of the reboot, and they're still in the process of establishing the "new" Trek universe. But look at where that took Marvel with both the Avengers and X-Men. They have all the room they need to define it and run with it. We have Earth, and we have Klingons in a now very explicitly alternate universe ... and that's a *lot*.

If you put it in the hands of people who are fans, they'll make good movies if you let them. So while I'm afraid Star Trek movies will become simply action/space opera ... I really hope they do something more. But, if the best they do is some action films ... well, I might buy them in the sale bin of DVDs.

Re:What a nightmare

[Shakrai]

First Contact sucked too. I hate to admit that, because TNG was my favorite show, but it did.

This guy says it better than I can.

Re:What a nightmare

[Mike610544]

they managed to combine both action, a compelling story, and respect for the Star Trek mythos into commercially successful films....

Wait! ... amongst the things they managed to combine were such elements as action, a compelling story and ... i'll come in again.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

He sounded different in these movies: Guardians of the Galaxy, Bioler Room, Saving Private Ryan, Find Me Guilty, Pitch Black, Iron Giant.

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

As a long time Trek geek ... I like the fact that they basically burned the canon and made it so they can do anything they want to.

By shoving Kirk as Captain, Spock as First Officer, Uhura as Communication, Scotty as Engineer, ... Yea, really burning that canon.

Because now they can focus on making (hopefully good) movies without every nerd in the world going apeshit and whining that something isn't consistent with the original series ...

If only they had actually worked to make good movies and weren't so worried about "fanboi"s going "apeshit" about every inconsistency. Fuck, they already had the whole mirror universe to play around with which, honestly, they've consistently shown is one of the better regarded ways of "in universe" to FOIL Star Trek and do all sorts of plausibly radically different things without worry too much about consistency. No, instead, it was all about cashing in on nostalgia and the laziness of leeching all sorts of ideas (*cough*Kahn*cough*) to fill in for having to actually put a lot of thought into writing stories.

Honestly, I'd rather read bad "fanboi Trek porn" because at least then I could accept the people involved weren't complicit in trying to butcher a franchise. It's the same reaction I have about Metroid: Other M and its bastard story. I have no problem in trying something different or taking things a new direction, per se. Metroid the volleyball game. Metroid the sports racer. Fuck, all that's fine. Just make them *good* volleyball games or sports racers (like how most Mario games, no matter their incarnations, tend to be good) and don't pretend that the supposed effort somehow makes it okay that all they gave you was shit on a shingle.

But, yea, whatever.

Re: What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's time you grow up and learn that geeks are not an audience one wants to be associated with? That you don't have the numbers? That you don't matter at all? That people are actually embarrassed by your presence? That nobody wants to sit in a theater anywhere near a balding, middle-aged, overweight neckbeard with badly-fitting pointed ear in a polyester Spock uniform? When are you weirdos going to learn that you DO. NOT. FIT. IN. EVER?

Re: What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

End of story why? Because you the neckbeard says so? Lol. Meanwhile the next movie will rack in tons of money and a huge audience, proving yet again you're an insignificant minority. Suck it up, loser: old "Trek" is dead. Finished. Over. Some badly made fanboi production released on YouTube is bot going to change that. I can't wait for them to be shut down by copyright holders just to see you holler about and cry.

Re: What a nightmare

[master_p]

And he stole that move from Space Battleship Yamato...

Re:What a nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

Utterly wrong. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the highest grossing and The Wrath of Khan had the highest ROI.

Amounts in parenthesis are adjusted for 2009 inflation.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Budget: $46,000,000 ($134,178,424)
Box Office: $139,000,000 ($405,452,196)
Gross Profit: $93,000,000 ($271,273,771)
Gross Margin: 66.91%
----
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Budget: $11,200,000 ($24,572,366)
Box Office: $97,000,000 ($212,814,248)
Gross Profit: $85,800,000 ($188,241,881)
Gross Margin: 88.45%
----
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

Budget: $16,000,000 ($32,612,563)
Box Office: $87,000,000 ($177,330,816)
Gross Profit: $71,000,000 ($144,718,252)
Gross Margin: 81.61%
----
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Budget: $21,000,000 ($40,546,214)
Box Office: $133,000,000 ($256,792,693)
Gross Profit: $112,000,000 ($216,246,478)
Gross Margin: 84.21%
----
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

Budget: $33,000,000 ($56,373,265)
Box Office: $63,000,000 ($107,621,689)
Gross Profit: $30,000,000 ($51,248,423)
Gross Margin: 47.62%
----
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Budget: $27,000,000 ($41,996,653)
Box Office: $97,000,000 ($150,876,867)
Gross Profit: $70,000,000 ($108,880,213)
Gross Margin: 72.16%
----
Star Trek: Generations (1994)

Budget: $35,000,000 ($50,014,641)
Box Office: $118,000,000 ($168,620,790)
Gross Profit: $83,000,000 ($118,606,149)
Gross Margin: 70.34%
----
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Budget: $45,000,000 ($60,908,869)
Box Office: $146,000,000 ($197,615,442)
Gross Profit: $101,000,000 ($136,706,573)
Gross Margin: 69.18%
----
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Budget: $58,000,000 ($75,976,862)
Box Office: $112,500,000 ($147,368,914)
Gross Profit: $54,500,000 ($71,392,052)
Gross Margin: 48.44%
----
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Budget: $60,000,000 ($71,141,000)
Box Office: $67,000,000 ($79,440,783)
Gross Profit: $7,000,000 ($8,299,783)
Gross Margin: 10.45%
----
JJTrek

Budget: $150,000,000
Box Office: $385,500,000
Gross Profit: $235,500,000
Gross Margin: 61.09%

Re:jkgkhg

[sribe]

helm is not a verb

It most certainly is. Look it up. (Best to do that and check before being pedantic, instead of after embarrassing yourself...)

Re:jkgkhg

[king neckbeard]

http://dictionary.reference.co...
verb (used with object)
3. to steer; direct.

Justin Lin

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that Justin Lin 1, 2 or 3 ?

But but.. what will we do without lens flare?

[Maxo-Texas]

And even more lens flare?

Bring back Rick Berman - all is forgiven

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously.

While the guy was rightly hammered for some of the things he did, at least we got something which did look like Star Trek.

And equally seriously, it's a sad day when I find myself wishing for Rick Berman to come back because (overall) he still managed to produce something far better than what Star Trek has become since it's reboot.

Re:Bring back Rick Berman - all is forgiven

[NJRoadfan]

Just keep Brannon Braga away.

nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense! The last 2 were already a nonsense! Like an american pie made by hitchcock. Shame on them.

Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern action movies are incredibly boring.

There's nothing interesting about seeing normal human characters defy death ten or twelve times per minute.

There's nothing interesting about seeing them engage in combat or driving or some other activity at a level that even those with years and years of training and experience couldn't manage.

When a character has practically no limitations, there is no risk. When there is no risk, there's nothing interesting happening. The result? Bored viewers, even if the on-screen activity is rapid and frantic.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[jeffmflanagan]

Modern action movies are incredibly boring.

There's nothing interesting about seeing normal human characters defy death ten or twelve times per minute.

There's nothing interesting about seeing them engage in combat or driving or some other activity at a level that even those with years and years of training and experience couldn't manage.

When a character has practically no limitations, there is no risk. When there is no risk, there's nothing interesting happening. The result? Bored viewers, even if the on-screen activity is rapid and frantic.

I agree completely AC, but most people seem to not share our view of these mindless action movies.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[allquixotic]

Indeed. Aside from that, "intellectual" threats to the characters (figuring something out with science and creativity; outsmarting an opponent; devising a diplomatic solution to a problem) create far more tension and build-up to the crescendo. The threat of massive loss of life could be the end result of whatever dreadful thing they're up against, but if their solution is to shoot the hell out of it, it's boring, because you KNOW there's no way the movie could proceed except for them to win. Sure, somebody you're attached to might tragically die, but even that trope is pretty old by now, even within the Star Trek film canon (Spock and Data).

What I've been wanting -- and not receiving -- from modern incarnations of 'Trek are basically the scenes that directors like Justin Lin and JJ Abrams would cut, if they even allowed the scenes to be filmed.

Like the drawn-out philosophical conversations between Wesley and Picard in TNG.

Like the near-total audio silence between lines of dialogue during Spock's death scene in the Wrath of Khan.

Like the many times that a character would *tell* a story through words rather than the viewer being *shown* the story through whizzy graphics.

Like when the activities of the Federation personnel vaguely represent the moral code and rules of engagement that they apparently seek to uphold.

It's not going to get better. The cognitive dissonance behind producing movies these days is stunning. If you don't meet quotas for number of CG-rendered frames and explosions per minute, they won't let you run it in theaters.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[ravenscar]

Exactly. I'll add in: perhaps a "bad guy" that isn't so bad or a situation with no right answer. Often, neither side is completely wrong in a conflict. It all depends on the point of view one takes or the way one ranks morals (say, freedom over equality for example). One of the things I appreciated most about the Star Trek series was the willingness to present and explore morally ambiguous topics. Things such as:
1. Should they get involved?
2. Trading one life for another (or others).
3. Are some values more important than others?

I liked getting to the end of the show and wondering if the characters really made the right decision.

It seems that's all gone now. The last times I really noticed similar themes were the BSG reboot and The Wire.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

You hit the nail on the goddamn head. This is exactly what is missing from the new Star Trek movies.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Triklyn]

i believe i will call you jaded hipster is rose-colored glasses

look at my art, see what i've made.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[jeffmflanagan]

>Like the drawn-out philosophical conversations between Wesley and Picard in TNG.

I've been rewatching TNG. It holds up very well, and is actually much better than I remembered it. This is another option for people who want to watch some real Star Trek instead of these action reboots.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[flappinbooger]

I'd like to see a story set in the Star Trek universe that isn't about Kirk/Spock and not about the Enterprise or space battles or StarFleet.

Rather, some other interesting story that takes place in that universe with it's set of rules - replicators, holodecks, no monetary system, intellectual pursuits, what have you.

What is illegal in that universe? What would a criminal do? Are there bad guys? What would a "good guy" do to deal with a "bad guy?" What kind of DRAMA is there? What do people DO who aren't in Starfleet? Hmmm? What's that LIKE?

Certainly Roddenberry's universe isn't so mind numbingly BORING that there couldn't be a non StarFleet story to see the other side of the society. Right? Please?

I think the closest I have ever seen was Ben Sisko's dad on Earth where he had his restaurant and the Founders were invading by impersonating Starfleet officials and there was martial law or something. There are other nuggets here and there on DS9, Jake Sisko being a writer, Quark's Bar, etc. The interaction between Odo and Quark were always fun but that is still just an inch away from Starfleet and it wasn't Earth. What do Humans on Earth do in the ST universe?

Anyone know of anyone ever looking at that?

I know "Cracked" once did a bit where they postulated that the ST universe would actually be horrible to live in. Well, is it?

Re:Action movies are boring.

[DigiShaman]

When all you want is candy (empty quick-fix sugar rush), everything else tastes bland; so you keep eating candy. Without question, most TV and Hollywood production in the last 10+ years is vapid crap!

Re:Action movies are boring.

[itzly]

A society with just good guys isn't evolutionary stable, so yes, there must be bad guys or genetic manipulation.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[jfengel]

Your description sounds most like Deep Space Nine, and yeah, I thought that was the best-written show of the series. (TOS is still my sentimental favorite.)

But it never made the jump to movies, and probably couldn't. TOS and TNG both got a lot more action-oriented on the big screen. The bigger screen raises the stakes, which is usually going to mean some kind of world-ending conflict rather than a mere interpersonal conflict. Even movie 4, which is the most personal and scaled-back of the films, had an apocalyptic frame story and a few good action sequences. And while Khan (the good one) was also a very personal story, it was also a classic Horatio Hornblower ship battle.

I'd love to see a new Trek series set in a place where they could tell smaller stories. I think that Starfleet would be kind of inevitable, since I don't see them ever giving up on the ability to tell action stories, but there are ways to make that less focused on the epic. There was, decades ago, a notion of a series set at Starfleet Academy, which could be good if done well. That's just one idea.

As long as it's all about the films, I expect them to continue looking a lot like they have been. They can do better than they have been, especially now that they've spent two films introducing the characters (who bear only a thin resemblance to the TOS characters), they can start to make the relationships work. (As opposed to pretending that we're going to care about a fake death sequence crammed full of fan service.)

Re:Action movies are boring.

[allquixotic]

There's an entire episode of ST: Enterprise devoted to depicting the life of freighter crews on early warp ships. If I recall correctly, they're only capable of warp 1 or 2, and this is first-generation warp, so it's much slower than the "Warp 2" you might hear Picard give the order for in TNG, or even the "Warp 5" that the NX-01 Enterprise is capable of. These crews spent a lot of time in deep space doing absolutely nothing except reproducing like bunnies.

The neat thing about the freighter crews as they were depicted in the shows, was that the crews were often families that would live and reproduce on the ship, spending their entire lives in space on a fairly small and poorly-armed vessel. They would occasionally take on new blood from outside their family unit (this helps combat the immediate idea of gene pool degeneration), but the majority of the crew would be biological relatives.

These crews were much less idealistic than Starfleet personnel, and were very much loyal to their families above and beyond any set of ideals. No doubt they'd encounter all kinds of sticky situations in space with pirates, Klingons, and even Starfleet, and have to defend their family, defend their ship, make ends meet, and survive.

A show like that would necessarily have to involve a lot less space combat (and fewer explosions therefore), because even a small warship like a frigate or a destroyer can *easily* overwhelm and destroy a freighter in the Star Trek universe (all time periods), as well as outrun them and probably have better-trained military crew for boarding parties as well. The freighter crew would have to get by on wit, cunning, deception, and probably a whole hell of a lot of sacrifice. Not much you can do with a small pulse cannon against a military vessel, when nobody in your family is trained in the kind of specialization that, say, Data would have, when he'd save the day every other episode with technobabble trick after technobabble trick.

What I said above is NOT in any way a knock against TNG, just saying that you're asking for a very, VERY different side of Trek, but I think it's doable, and there's a lot of established lore in this area that could easily be drawn from to create a series.

However, I don't think it would stick. The majority of the hardcore Trek crowd wants to see a crew on a Federation flagship, or at least a Federation-operated space station. The non-Trekkies would get bored by the lack of explosions. So it's unlikely that such a thing would make an appearance on TV or in the movies.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[CohibaVancouver]

there must be bad guys or genetic manipulation.

But in the Star Trek world, what would human bad guys do? Steal stuff? Why? Just replicate whatever you want - There's no money. Smuggle? How? Just beam it. Murder people? OK, maybe, but presumably if you murder someone in Gene-world you're immediately diagnosed with a mental illness and treated.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[flappinbooger]

Fascinating... I don't think I saw that episode, there are many of the ST:Enterprise eps I didn't see.

This non-starfleet trek idea may fit with a series of sci-fi books, perhaps.

I wonder if the author would have to get "permission" to write in the ST universe from whatever empire owns those rights, if Kirk/Spock are not part of it.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[0123456]

But in the Star Trek world, what would human bad guys do? Steal stuff? Why? Just replicate whatever you want - There's no money.

So Kirk didn't have to steal the Enterprise in... whatever movie that was.. he could just have replicated it?

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Jason Levine]

Maybe an animated series would be the best option. Not to mix Star Wars into a Star Trek thread, but I'm really liking what they're doing with Star Wars: Rebels. It's an animated series set just before the Rebellion began. The heroes are a group of "criminals" (as branded by the Empire) performing some shady actions while trying to do good and hurt the Empire. We know the big picture of where this Universe will head (Star Wars 4 - 6) and we know some big things that won't happen (our heroes won't bring down the Empire at all), but we don't know where the characters in this show are going which ads suspense. Any of the characters could die in any episode. Probably not (at least not so early in the series), but they could.

Imagine a similar Star Trek series that told the story of a crew of space pirates, smugglers, or something. A group that's morally ambiguous at best. A group that does good according to their view and who disagree with the Federation. You could vary stories from Them Vs. Federation tales (where each side could win the mini-conflict), visiting strange new worlds (but not with Federation rules in play), etc. This could be a very interesting series. (Not that I'm holding my breath as the current direction of Star Trek seems to be Big Stuff Blowing Up In Space.)

Re:Action movies are boring.

[newcastlejon]

Fascinating... I don't think I saw that episode, there are many of the ST:Enterprise eps I didn't see.

You're not missing much, basically just Archer doing his usual huff-and-puff self-righteous speechifying and Tucker once again reminding us that he's been in space before. A weak episode even by Enterprise standards.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[CohibaVancouver]

So Kirk didn't have to steal the Enterprise in... whatever movie that was.. he could just have replicated it?

Kirk needed to steal a warship so he could fly into prohibited space.

Why do criminals steal cars / boats / planes today?

To get somewhere: No money in Gene-world, so just beam yourself or walk onto a starship going where you need to go.

To part it out our sell it stolen: No money in Gene-world, so what good is that - No customers to fence them too, and no means for them to pay you.

Same reason I never understood the "Gold Pressed Latinum" nonsense. Even if you couldn't replicate it, what would you buy with it? Everything is free.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

... it's never been about money or material things. It's always been about power.

when your every want has been fulfilled, just like that of the man next to you. the only thing left to strive for is control over fellow man.

The federation is like congress but worse. Everybody wants to be president.

can you fabricate your neighbors wife? can you fabricate his life? his ingenuity, the respect of his peers? there are still things to covet, and we are a covetous bunch.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[flappinbooger]

Fascinating... I don't think I saw that episode, there are many of the ST:Enterprise eps I didn't see.

You're not missing much, basically just Archer doing his usual huff-and-puff self-righteous speechifying and Tucker once again reminding us that he's been in space before. A weak episode even by Enterprise standards.

Which is why I haven't seen all the ST:ENT episodes...

Re:Action movies are boring.

[mythosaz]

When a character has practically no limitations, there is no risk. When there is no risk, there's nothing interesting happening. The result? Bored viewers, even if the on-screen activity is rapid and frantic.

Odd, in a thread about Star Trek.

The major characters were always limited superheroes. In TOS, nobody could out-engineer Scotty, out-crafty Kirk, outwit or overpower Spock, and McCoy would always arrive with the cure at the last moment. In TNG, it was more of the same. Super-diplomat JLP would come out on top, and why have a Vulcan when you can have a super-Vulcan++ android, even stronger with better logic? You're never going to lose in battle, ship-to-ship or hand-to-hand with a Klingon at the ready!

We like seeing heroic characters swoop to the rescue: You're all clear kid; now lets blow this thing and go home, anyone?

Re:Action movies are boring.

[FlyHelicopters]

Often, neither side is completely wrong in a conflict.

While you are correct, there are indeed exceptions...

One of them would be the Borg...

Another good example is the Emperor...

The Reapers is one more...

And returning to reality, so was Hitler and Japan during WWII...

Sometimes there really is evil in the world, and sometimes there really are good people, and the good people must stop the evil people, no matter what it takes...

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Grishnakh]

Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans do not agree with you. They don't want to see anything intellectually stimulating, and they are not bored by characters with practically no limitations.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Maquis would be the perfect fit.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your proposal sounds very much like Firefly ;)

Re:Action movies are boring.

[GNious]

hmm

You cannot "replicate" an original, and replication can be detected, so collectors would plausibly pay well for e.g. historical treasures (various TNG+DS9 episodes)
You cannot replicate guns or weaponry, at least not legally, so criminal groups would need to find a supply of these (DS9)
Non-Starfleet personnel have replicators, but these may have other/additional limits, including limits on energy usages (Voyager-style rationing, but much more lenient)

Besides trade in Originals, you could have religious fanatics (prolly bad theme currently), philosophical extremists, anti-government nuts (Star Fleet's Teaparty?), Romulus-supported insurrectionists, Marquis-style separatists ... lots of options for people to behave "criminally" or just undesirably.
Heck, they could prolly do a Dark Angel (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099817/) thing in the Roddenberry-universe ...either way, I just wish someone would make a Star Trek movie... been over a decade since the last one already.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw this. I think they called it Firefly.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[AmiMoJo]

I think most people do find them boring, it's just that they get suckered in by the trailer and the hope that it won't be a waste of two hours. I have to admit, I've seen all four Transformers films and every god damned time feel like I've been cheated out of a small part of my life with the promise of it being good this time, because I so want it to be...

That's the basic problem. People have too much free time and since reading is hard and WoW addiction is unhealthy they turn to movies and TV. 98.7% of movies and TV are total crap but what else is there to do? And the next episode might be a good one...

Re:Action movies are boring.

[AmiMoJo]

Sounds kinda like Firefly. Although there was action, the ship was unarmed and there were never any technobable solutions.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[rtb61]

What you are seeing is second set action directors taking over and the effort spent on story is the bare minimum required to attempt to tie the action scenes together and generally it fails pretty badly. Greatest comparison of before and now, they killed one Vulcan in the wrath of Kahn and the viewing public went nuts, they destroyed the whole planet Vulcan in 'Star Trek' and the viewing public did not give a crap. The most memorable thing was a suspended cadet becoming the captain of the fleet flagship of the federation of planets because from the gut thinking is better than an experienced lieutenant commander who is an instructor at the academy the cadet was kicked out of, something straight out of Saturday morning cartoons. You can tell how well the movie did not by the temporary initial release tied to marketing and what else is available to watch at that time but by how many TV series it launches, including animation. So no successful reboot that was all just B$ marketing, a complete failure and now each time another star trek movie is made people care less and less about it.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[cbhacking]

The episode is "Fortunate Son", season 1 episode 10. Directed by LeVar Burton (who has apparently directed a lot of Trek since his days on TNG). http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...

Of the handful of Enterprise episodes I've seen (most, unfortunately, from season 1), it was one of the better ones. I'm told the show got better in later seasons but I have never seen anything from later than mid-season-2. It's not *all* dross, though.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or how about life on Earth. One thing I've never got form watch Star Trek is what kind of government or socioeconomic structure, or demographic and ethnographic makeup, does Earth have. Does it have a (semi-)independent government based somewhere (Rome? Geneva? Johannesburg?) or is it practically communistic in nature? What kind of ideologies, or even religious beliefs and faiths, are there, if any (even if underground)?

Re:Action movies are boring.

[ArcherB]

One of them would be the Borg...
The Borg (sounds Swedish) didn't see themselves as evil or believe that their mission was unjust. They wanted to add other civilizations to their own, making both sides better. The Borg did not have the problems most civilizations have such as crime, starvation, jealousy, etc. Who wouldn't want that?

Another good example is the Emperor...
The Emperor wanted to bring order to a chaotic galaxy. Sometimes, the only way is with an iron fist.

The Reapers is one more...
Reapers were changed against their will. What they became was not their fault.

Any position can change depending on the perspective. People... or cyborgs... don't see themselves as evil They are doing what they think is best, twisted as it may be.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[0100010001010011]

DS9 was great with the philosophical questions.

I wish we'd explore more into the quadrants than "lets reset the clock and start over"

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're describing sounds a lot like Firefly....

Re:Action movies are boring.

[flappinbooger]

What you're describing sounds a lot like Firefly....

hey you're right. ha. Maybe that's why it sounds like such a good idea.

Although the firefly universe isn't quite what the ST universe is... Hmmmm... Firefly, but in the ST universe?

Re:Action movies are boring.

[flappinbooger]

Or how about life on Earth. One thing I've never got form watch Star Trek is what kind of government or socioeconomic structure, or demographic and ethnographic makeup, does Earth have. Does it have a (semi-)independent government based somewhere (Rome? Geneva? Johannesburg?) or is it practically communistic in nature? What kind of ideologies, or even religious beliefs and faiths, are there, if any (even if underground)?

exactly. All they ever go on about is starfleet headquarters.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[flappinbooger]

I saw this. I think they called it Firefly.

yeah.... And the people who actually WATCHED IT liked it, but the tools at the .... Nevermind.

  Well, worse things have come out of my brain.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[ColdWetDog]

Um, OK, but in the ORIGINAL Star Trek, the Captain, First Officer, Medical Officer and perhaps some hot looking Ensign would beam down to unspeakable horrors on some random planet in T-shirts and yoga pants.

How sensible was that?

Re:Action movies are boring.

[ColdWetDog]

The neat thing about the freighter crews as they were depicted in the shows, was that the crews were often families that would live and reproduce on the ship, spending their entire lives in space on a fairly small and poorly-armed vessel. They would occasionally take on new blood from outside their family unit (this helps combat the immediate idea of gene pool degeneration), but the majority of the crew would be biological relatives.

These crews were much less idealistic than Starfleet personnel, and were very much loyal to their families above and beyond any set of ideals. No doubt they'd encounter all kinds of sticky situations in space with pirates, Klingons, and even Starfleet, and have to defend their family, defend their ship, make ends meet, and survive.

They were Moties !

Re:Action movies are boring.

[FlyHelicopters]

All evil people have some claim to wanting to do good, that doesn't make it so.

The Emperor is a good example, his claim to wanting to bring order to a chaotic galaxy is just nonsense, it is about power and control, nothing more or less.

Pretty words to cover up evil.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

You just described something not unlike Firefly.

Re: Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

I learned a RoShamBo in a game. It goes like this:

Good defeats evil. Hands down, no questions asked. Every time.

However...

Reason easily defeats the good. "Waste of time." "Naive." "Ignorant."

And Evil? Evil has the easiest time in the world, coiling Reason to its ends...

Re:Action movies are boring.

[cb88]

It was a pretty cool episode... gives you better background on Travis since he grew up on those ships..

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Deep Space 9 got into that at least a little bit. Homefront (S4E10) involves the president of the Federation who is not a human, but is apparently democratically elected and based in Paris. The episode never goes into detail about how the civilian government is structured, but between the president and the scenes with Sisko's father, it provides much more of a picture of civilian life than Star Trek usually does.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

" ST: Enterprise"

Yeah, too bad about that theme song... Never ended up watching many of them. Seemed super gay.

Quantum leap was the shit, but some people just don't know when to quit.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[VanessaE]

Same reason I never understood the "Gold Pressed Latinum" nonsense. Even if you couldn't replicate it, what would you buy with it? Everything is free.

Because not every culture used replicators to the same extent as Federation cultures did. Remember who were the biggest proponents of latinum-based economics? The Ferengi, who were all about gaining wealth by pretty much any means; their entire culture is built around gaining material wealth. A replicator needs feedstock in addition to energy, and those don't necessarily HAVE to be free.

Voila, there's your money-based economy in the face of replicator technology.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[BigZee]

All your points are valid. The main issue in doing that sort of thing is that it's much more difficult to do in a movie. The ideal situation is for Star Trek to move back to TV. I don't think it makes sense for a new series about the Enterprise (Kirk, Spock, etc). It should either be a new era beyond the next generation or it should be along the lines of DS9, in an existing era but with a new ship and cast. Whilst I have enjoyed most of the movies (not 5 or 10), Star Trek has always been at its best on TV.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[JackieBrown]

I started back up at the end of season 2 / beginning of season 3 on netflix. It was pretty good. I have no desire to watch season 1 or 2 to see what I missed, though.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[JackieBrown]

Very true. And very limited to Americans. That is why these movies do so poorly oversees....

I think the sad truth is that that movies are now made to appeal to the broadest base (and nowadays this includes the people in Europe and Asia as well as the Americas) there is many issues "safe" to tackle.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[93,000]

You are exactly right. And in addition to that, the stakes are so fricking high in every movie that everything becomes meaningless. If they're not working to save the entire earth, they are working to save the universe.

I remember watching that 'Captain Phillips' movie with Tom Hanks and thinking 'Wow, that was pretty intense,' and then thinking 'Wow, that was all about saving one dude. What a concept.'

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

One of them would be the Borg...
The Borg (sounds Swedish) didn't see themselves as evil or believe that their mission was unjust. They wanted to add other civilizations to their own, making both sides better. The Borg did not have the problems most civilizations have such as crime, starvation, jealousy, etc. Who wouldn't want that?

See ST: voyager. There was crime in the collective as the collective saw it. Voyager happened to use that to their advantage. This does not take away from your point though and people shouldn't take it that way.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Dutch Gun]

Modern action movies are incredibly boring.

Action movies are awesome if you care about what happens to the characters. I think too many directors and writers seem to forget about this part, or maybe are just inept at creating interesting and empathetic characters. For all the billions of dollars that Hollywood spends on flashy effects, it's always astounding to me that one of the most difficult things is still apparently writing good dialogue and creating interesting characters.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[14erCleaner]

Have you seen Caprica? While it's set in the Battlestar Galactica universe instead of Star Trek, it is a mostly planet-bound drama set in an age of interstellar travel, examining the implications of technology on the populace. Themes include religion, ethnic gangs, terrorism, and corporate greed. It was well reviewed but tanked in the ratings.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[MTEK]

Mad Max version of Star Trek?

Re: Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that many (not all) non stop action movies are boring, for the reason of the factor of risk being important, as without a sense of risk then there is no fear and no excitement. Eg The latest superman movie, surprisingly no kriptonite = felt like watching the rendered clips of a video game. Also had the same feeling during the last battle in The Avengers, especially when Hulk is ordered to "smash", and felt like everyone had their cheat codes activated.

However I think the fast and furious series are pretty good IMO. Some of the plots are not bad either. Although there were many scenes of improbable survival, I was kept entertained by the creativity and finesse in how they succeed through the situation. Tokyo Drift however, I only enjoyed for its cars ... and Japan.... nothing else.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite part was when they used Morn to pass along intelligence to Sisko. I did enjoy seeing those episodes put into the series.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Xacid]

This might qualify: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Basically they arrived at some utopian society for some R&R and Wesley, of course, inadvertently gets sentenced to death for breaking some law. I'll leave it at that. :)

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

And all that freighter stuff was pretty much ripped off whole cloth from C.J. Cherryh's Alliance/Union universe. I'd rather have a new idea that 30 year old recycled ones.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit! You just knocked me back 40 years - I was never a huge Niven / Pournelle fan but I loved that story.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[flappinbooger]

Have you seen Caprica? While it's set in the Battlestar Galactica universe instead of Star Trek, it is a mostly planet-bound drama set in an age of interstellar travel, examining the implications of technology on the populace. Themes include religion, ethnic gangs, terrorism, and corporate greed. It was well reviewed but tanked in the ratings.

I think I have, I'll have to check and make sure. thanks for the heads up.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[DerekLyons]

There's an entire episode of ST: Enterprise devoted to ripping off Robert Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy

TFTFY.

Seriously, read Citizen... RAH handles it so much better than TV.

Re:Action movies are boring.

[g1nG3Rj0urNAl157]

I agree wholeheartedly with your insightful analysis. And, I also think that DS9 was THAT show that displayed the complexity of plot, character development and overall narrative richness that is the stuff of a good story. Why can't we have more of this kind of show and/or movie. Lin knows nothing about Trek, just as Abrams knew nothing before him. I'm forced to copy and paste my comment from below, which is lost below the pretty funny "helm" comments: My mind is weighed down by the senselessness of this decision [to choose Lin over Frakes]. Why ignore the director of Insurrection, First Contact and directing credits of Voyager, DS9 and TNG? KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Waste of Time

[Java Commando]

Great. That's all this once proud franchise needs is yet more pointless explosions and simpleton dialogue. Star Trek has been dumbed down so much, by their own admission, that I pretty much don't even bother watching the reboots. All the impressive CGI in the universe won't conceal the fact that these movies are brainless, patronizing wastes of time.

Gene Roddenberry would be appalled by what's become of his creation. And everyone who grasps what Star Trek originally was intended to be knows it.

Re:Waste of Time

[hyades1]

I never have a goddamned moderator point when I really need one. You'd get it..."Insightful" or "Informative", not sure which.

Re:Waste of Time

[0123456]

I watched the reboots, but I honestly don't remember anything about them, except there was some time travel stuff and that guy from Shaun Of The Dead. And I think there was lens flare. But I may be imaginging that.

Everything else was just Generic Hollywood Movie Of The Weekend.

Re:Waste of Time

[ADRA]

No, they're cookie cutter sci-fi plots which could've been perfectly viable on their own under a different handle, but instead they legerage their name and eliminated the entire multi-generation build-up for Star Trek (though admintedly pretty bad in the last 90's/00's). After the first reboot, I gave up on it entirely.

I see the next epic sellout to be Terminator. Arnold has single handedly ruined that franchise by continually being the pivotal character who's relevance was spent after the second edition. Third, fourth, and what would've been the final movies would've been much better showings if they didn't try to ham fist Arnold's character into every single one. As for the reboot, once again, fuck it. Ther entire franchise didn't exist anymore, so who the hell cares. Even Emilia Clarke can't save that production for me.

Re:Waste of Time

[puzzled_decoy]

As someone who was never a major fan of Star Trek, I guess I need this explained. What, in fact, *was* Star Trek intended to be?

Re:Waste of Time

[war4peace]

Nothing wrong with that, if you approach the movies without high expectations. After all, they're obviously made as offerings to the great dollar sign.

Re:Waste of Time

[afidel]

Space Opera/Cowboys in Space, the idea that TOS was some masterwork of American literature is laughable, which is why I love the reboots so much =)

Re:Waste of Time

[Mariner28]

TOS was born in the time of Vietnam, the Cold War, and the Civil Rights era of the 1960's. Roddenberry's vision was what mankind (after a devastating WWIII) could achieve after it had had overcome racism, class warfare and sexism. Well, maybe TOS didn't quite get there with sexism, with Kirk having a green girlfriend in every port - but you know what I mean ;-)

Re:Waste of Time

[Chris Mattern]

No, that's just how Gene sold it to the network: "Wagon Train to the Stars", to quote his concept document. But Gene intended that to be a trojan horse--he wanted to take the chance to also touch on larger issues. "A masterwork of American Literature"? No, not really, although they did have master science-fiction writers do some of their scripts (Theodore Sturgeon on "Amok Time" and "Shore Leave", Harlan Ellison on "The City on the Edge of Forever", Robert Bloch on "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "Catspaw", and "Wolf in the Fold", Norman Spinrad on "The Doomsday Machine") But it also used be more than just non-stop action, too. Not anymore.

Re:Waste of Time

[cmdahler]

It was a broad view of what humanity could accomplish once their petty differences of race were resolved and the race was looking forward through exploration. The series episodes nearly always involved a serious moral dilemma that the crew would solve through a combination of pragmatism and idealism. The action and comedy of the episodes were merely wrappers around the real message Roddenberry wanted to convey: that if we humans would only just stop fighting each other over trivial nonsense, we could make tremendous progress in exploring the universe around us, revel in the wonder of finding new things we couldn't possibly imagine at the moment, and discover that there are a lot bigger and more interesting things out there that worrying about whose skin happened to be a slightly different color.

The JJ Abrams movies especially simply ignored this basic concept and just went with the action aspect with a little extremely surface glossy history thrown in to make it look just a tiny little bit less like a completely 2 dimensional sci-fi flick of no substance worthy of consideration. As simple standalone sci-fi adventure movies with no tradition or history behind them, they were fairly decent - glossy, amusing, decent action, a reasonable stab at making a futuristic movie look "real" (except for that totally moronic throttle on Sulu's panel), fairly well-done and reasonably well-acted - in short, worth killing two hours of your time for - but they had virtually nothing to do with the original concept of Roddenberry's series beyond the names of the characters.

Re:Waste of Time

[Yunzil]

Yeah, but here's the thing: Gene Roddenberry is dead, and a lot of the original Trek stuff is godawful boring shit. It's time to move on.

Re:Waste of Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there are several difefrent series with difefrent tones and primary themes. Hoever they all share a couple things:

1. Optimistic view of the future where humanity has "grown up" and is now beyond the problems of today like racism, sexism, nationalism, and religious fanaticism.
2. A platform for generic sci-fi storytelling in space.

The original series was hugely progressive for it's day on presenting people as equals. But for the most part it was a mix of "Horatio Hornblower in Space" and "Planet of hats of the week with an aesop at the end". It's main themes were that you have to take risks to make progress, that you should take responsibility for your mistakes, and that you shopuln't judge a book by it's cover.

The ToS Movies are largely about getting old and handing the world over to a generation you don't completely understand.

The Next Generation was mostly about unintended consequences, and forgiving past mistakes so you can work towards a better future.

Deep Space 9 was about how problems don't juts go away because you decided to work towards a better future, and how it isn't as easy as "live and let live" when not everyone is playing be the same rules.

Voyager was about family, and had an overarcing theme, that principles only mean anything if you stick to them when it's inconvinient, but the good ones will be worth it in the end.

The TNG Movies were a diverse lot:
Generations was about sacrifice, and that what makes a hero is the willingness to walk away from their happy ending for a chance to give somone else theirs, whereas what makes a villan is teh wilingness to sacrifice other for your own benefit.
First Conatact was a sci-fi Moby Dic. It's about Picard's inability to forgive the Borg for what they did to him and the futility of that obsession.
Insurrection, was about government accountability, and how if something is wrong it doesn't become less wrong because you do it while no one is watching.
Nemesis was pretty crappy. It's basicly a ham fisted remake of the Wrath of Khan with little real "point".

Enterprise was a coming of age story for Humanity (Vulcans are the boring parents that mean well, Andorrans are the 'cool rocker' older sibling that gets the protagonist into trouble, the Klingons are the schoolyard bully, etc.). It's showing the struggles and mistakes made along the way to that optimistic future I mentioned earlier, as well as brining back the wonder and curiosity that got downplayed in the more serious series immediately before it.

JJ trek was a mostly incoherent action flick the only moral whch can be extracted from it being: one should never fail to thwart a natural disaster that threatens to wipe out people who don't like you and told you not to help them thwart the natural disaster

Into Darkness, was a more coherent action flick that had a bit of a "think before you leap" lesson hidden in it somewhere if you look at it in a mirror while hanging upside down.

Re:Waste of Time

[puzzled_decoy]

Man, I wish I had mod points for this.

Re:Waste of Time

[antdude]

Future Star Wars will be like this too. :(

I wonder if there will be a crossover. :P

Re: Waste of Time

[Anonymous Coward]

It was bad then and it is bad now. There's a reason it was cancelled: nobody sane watched it. It didn't go away because a sadly bunch of lowlifes hung to it like flies to shit and that gave enough leverage to a mediocre hack like Roddenberry to pimp his ridiculous ideas to producers, convincing them there was an audience for it. And there was: an audience of lowlifers. Today this wouldn't fly. Everything you despise about the reboots are what made Doctor Who relevant again. And since there's now a bigger and way more presentable audience you can go hang yourselves, freaks.

You mean the ones from...

[Anonymous Coward]

The TOS/TMP movies?

It would be pretty hilarious to watch the shuttlepod racing scenes. Especially if they have a young upstart Kirk, roll up in a pimped out workerbee! Maybe with an antimatter fogger system for his ten thousand credit outboard impulse engines (worker bees had impulse, or they were strictly reaction thrusters?)

That said: While I liked Tokyo Drift as a refreshing alternative to the over the topness of 2F2F, everything after that sucked just as badly as Abram's reinterpretation of Trek, and soon to be reinterpretation of Wars.

This is really an example of why copyrights need to be shorter than the life of the creator. So that if people start butchering a franchise this badly the fans can fork it and take it in another direction, especially if it might be one that fits better with either the creator or the collective fan's vision of it (A good example of Roddenberry vs Lucas, the former being the fans helping keep it more to the original vision, while the latter being 'in spite of' the 'creator's' vision.)

great

[slashmydots]

Wonderful. Two directors in a row that want to turn it into a soap opera and have no respect for the series or its style or history. Get ready for another Dragonball Z the live action movie.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollywood has to appeal to Republicans since they're the ones with money and control that town from the buildings to the gutters to even claiming the shit which they charge ten times as much to process as they do other cities. You can't do anything there without getting the block GOPper to approve it. When I lived in a condo just behind Loews, I was beaten twice. Once for replacing my curtains. The Republicans required they be tan or beige. I worked nights so I put in black-out curtains that had a white liner. I was beaten again for buying a Honda. Republicans are racists that hate Japanese. Heck, they even decided to drop atomic bombs on them. There has never been a larger expression of hate in the history of mankind.

Again, the Republicans rule Hollywood, and they're stupidf so they force smart people to make dumb movies.

New director, new cast?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only one I'm cool with is McCoy.

Matt Damon as Kirk would be a definite improvement.

Re:New director, new cast?

[endus]

I agree about McCoy. He does a good job. If the writing weren't so patronizing I think he would pull off the character really well.

Re:New director, new cast?

[sconeu]

Karl Urban *NAILED* the role right from the beginning. John Cho sort of has the Sulu character down... remember Sulu always wanted to be a swashbucker (see "The Naked Time").

I'm still iffy on the rest of the cast. There are times when they seem to to fit into the characters, but then there are the horrendously awful moments...

Trek is still alive ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So we're going from bad to worse eh ? I guess it could be considered an improvement.

Re:jkgkhg

[BarbaraHudson]

helm is not a verb

Nowadays you can verb pretty much anything. (See what I did there?)

Artistic license

[Okian Warrior]

I like what J.J Abrams and Zack Snyder (who directed "Man of Steel") have done to the franchises. They start with the established plotlines and take the stories in new directions. It's an artistic license that gives us fresh, new interpretations of the characters such as superman killing someone (General Zod) or Spock having an emotional outburst (over Kirk's death).

I anxiously await the Michael Bay version of "Hamlet" or the Justin Lin version of "Macbeth". This site has a good overview of directors taking artistic license, including an unannounced (but upcoming) superman movie.

For reference, here's Kevin Smith talking about how movies get made.

Re:Artistic license

[0123456]

I anxiously await the Michael Bay version of "Hamlet" or the Justin Lin version of "Macbeth".

I would actually pay to see those.

Just not very much.

Re:Artistic license

[Anonymous Coward]

There's artistic license, and then there's taking some hacksci-fi action movie script plagiarized from an old buck rogers serial, and slapping the Star Trek logo on it to make it marketable.

Re:Artistic license

[Anonymous Coward]

I anxiously await the Michael Bay version of "Hamlet" or the Justin Lin version of "Macbeth".

I hope they pick the right person to play the lead character...

Re:Artistic license

[MightyMartian]

Man of Steel sucked. Even the ponderous Superman Returns was better. Hell, Superman IV was better.

Re:Artistic license

[fahrbot-bot]

I like what J.J Abrams and Zack Snyder (who directed "Man of Steel") have done to the franchises. They start with the established plotlines and take the stories in new directions. It's an artistic license that gives us fresh, new interpretations of the characters such as superman killing someone (General Zod) or Spock having an emotional outburst (over Kirk's death).

I anxiously await the Michael Bay version of "Hamlet" or the Justin Lin version of "Macbeth".

At this point, I'd probably more enjoy watching the Muppets do Star Trek.

Re:Artistic license

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, Superman IV was better.

Come on now. Nothing is worse than that piece of crap.

Slashdot needs a +1, sarcastic moderation

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes sarcasm is done so well around here, it deserves to be recognised as such.

WHAT!?

[Anonymous Coward]

More ass-rape, anyone?

Re:jkgkhg

[gstoddart]

Wow, if you're gonna be a grammar nazi, you should at least endeavor to fact check your own crap.

Because you're completely wrong.

Goodbye Lens flare...

[gurps_npc]

... hello "RAMMING SPEED!"

Frankly, I wish they would go back to the core Star Trek TV values:

1) Duplicate an earth culture on another planet.

2) Have zero contact with Earth, letting Kirk do whatever he wants.

3) Make some kind of social commentary relevant to today that will seem weird 10 years from now.

4) If possible have someone claim to be a God, or demonstrate godlike abilities. Apollo was done already, so lets go with maybe Thor?

Re:Goodbye Lens flare...

[Z00L00K]

Steve McQueen might pull that one off.

But it would probably shock the viewers of today that have an attention span of 5 seconds.

Re:Goodbye Lens flare...

[fahrbot-bot]

Frankly, I wish they would go back to the core Star Trek TV values:
1) Duplicate an earth culture on another planet.
2) Have zero contact with Earth, letting Kirk do whatever he wants.
3) Make some kind of social commentary relevant to today that will seem weird 10 years from now.
4) If possible have someone claim to be a God, or demonstrate godlike abilities. Apollo was done already, so lets go with maybe Thor?

The SyFy channel just tried that w/Ascension...

Re:Goodbye Lens flare...

[Gavagai80]

They did ramming speed already in Nemesis.

Re:Goodbye Lens flare...

[drinkypoo]

I was going to say that they shouldn't use Thor because that was already used in Stargate, but the reality is that half of DS9 was stolen from Babylon 5 so what the hell? Go with it.

As much as I love sci-fi and watching ST/SW

[future assassin]

at this point I'd rather see new movie ideas that get the next generation of sci-fi fans going. Sick of 20 year remakes or reboots or what ever the fuck they call them next. Hell gimme some more Matrix or Firefly rather than Star Trek or Star Wars.

Re:As much as I love sci-fi and watching ST/SW

[Anonymous Coward]

Rebooting Star Trek with the original crew was a stupid thing to do.

There is so much scope in that universe to create an entirely new franchise. It's a federation, and yet the majority of any characters seen are human - possibly makes sense for TV make up budgets, but not necessary for films.

Make something that focuses on mainly non-human characters, and have cameos of the stars from the TV series to anchor it to something familiar.

Re:As much as I love sci-fi and watching ST/SW

[Anonymous Coward]

Im convinced that the 1993 writers strike never actually ended.

Re:As much as I love sci-fi and watching ST/SW

[meta-monkey]

No, the Matrix was a work of art. The last thing I want is for them to ruin it with a sequel. Thank God they never made any.

Meh

[Berkyjay]

Star Trek has been dead to me since J.J. took over and "rebooted" the whole thing. No big loss here.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

In fairness, I thought the first JJ Abrams Star Trek had it's good points and bad points. I was willing to give the "reboot" a chance, especially because a transition like that is bound to have its rough bits.

After Star Trek: Into Darkness, nope, I'm with you.

Re:Meh

[AK Marc]

#1 had the stupid ice world monsters. On a planet with no life, there wouldn't be massive animals. And if the bigger creature killed something, it'd likely eat it, not discard the large animal to chase a smaller one. But pointless *chase scene*. And I couldn't watch it without picturing JJ saying "Make the mining ship as scary as possible, I don't care if it's useless as a mining ship. It should be scary, like it's own character. Scarier. More personality and less practical! Muhahahahaha." every time the ship was on the screen, inside or outside shot. The ship being a "character" like JJ makes everything. It made me flash back to Lost, where JJ made a hatch. Yes, a door, unto a character with more back-story and explanation than most of the actors got. Like a big "fuck you" to everyone watching. JJ only does character development for inaninmatte objects. That's why he did Star Trek, because he could ignore the humans, as they had a back-story, and instead make "red matter", the ships, the planets, the tech and other things the characters, and not have to waste any time developing humans.

Bad Revamped Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

The new Revamped Star Trek sucks. Why could they of not thought of something more creative, perhaps something with the Deep Space Nine storyline or Voyager.

Re:Bad Revamped Star Trek

[Eosi]

Hrm, They are all about the same. Frankly the TOS movies and the reboot have much in common (Khan and one sided space battle for instance), and over all, are kinda cheesie. The series was worse, more so with TNG. The early episodes with Will Wheton where bad. Data having sex... Really? How many times did they have time loops, bubbles, or alternate time lines?

The novels are much better than any of the shows, but even then, they still have those same campie moments. Star Trek is like a day time soap, in space... "Turn in this week to see who Diana Troy is dating".,...

Re:Bad Revamped Star Trek

[jaklode]

Wesley Crusher was the best character ever seen on television.

Re:Bad Revamped Star Trek

[Archimonde]

I just couldn't watch any episode he was in as I would pass out from cringing. Luckily, I didn't miss anything.

Re:Bad Revamped Star Trek

[gmhowell]

Wesley Crusher was the best character ever seen on television.

I thought you usually used your "CleverNickName" account?

It's an interesting choice -

[the_skywise]

As I was discussing with enraged friends last night:
Obviously the plot won't be one of exploration or discovery or anything resembling hard sci-fi but then this is "AbramsTrek" and Lin's a good match for this.

Lin can do good action sequences and FF's storyline (simple as it is) has always impressed me with how much heart he could squeeze out of those characters. I could easily see him doing a good rendition of Arena or Errand of Mercy. (And if you do those stories Orci I want a finders fee). The question ultimately lies with the script and whether or not Orci screws him over.

McCoy: "Can he do it?"
Spock: "If he has the script, doctor. If he has the script."

Working Title and Plot

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Trek 3 / Fast and the Furious 8: Intergalactic Drift

Vin Diesel goes so fast he travels into the future where his incredible skills are needed to save the Federation in an intergalactic race. He, of course, will be a loose cannon who proceeds to steal the Enterprise, paint her black and purple and trick her out. During the race the there will be a tense action sequence where the Enterprise and a Romulan Bird of Prey will be drifting around our sun and the Bird of Prey will loose it and fall off a space cliff and explode. At the climax of the race the Klingons are about to win when Captain Diesel mashes down on the NOS button, blows fire out both nacelles, and smokes past them.

I don't see how this could be bad for either franchise.

Re:Working Title and Plot

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically what you are saying is it's going to be a theatrical release of an episode of Voyager?

Re:Working Title and Plot

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't work. It sounds too close to Star Wars podracing.

2 Star 2 Trek would make me 2 Angry 2 Cry, but I look forward to Hamlet Returns: 2 Burnout or Not 2 Burnout.

Re:Masturbate fast and furious with fellow GayWADs

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, get out of your parents basement and get a fucking job. Posting this same lame ass comment on almost every story is plain stupid. If you hate DICE so much, STOP COMING HERE AND READING SHIT. Damn dumb ass people....

New SciFi Energy Kickstarter

[willworkforbeer]

Image a world with a device that converts Star Trek nerd rage into electricity.

If the grid dims, just announce a new Star Trek / Star Wars crossover movie and watch our green future come true.

We'll stockpile some 'strategic nerdrage inducing' topics for peak demand periods...

Such as:
"Help me, Wesley Crusher, you're my only hope"
"Starfleet says we can't exceed Warp 3 on the Kessel Run"
"I felt a disturbance in subspace, like a billion midichlorians just experienced a transporter malfunction."

Star Trek 3: Romulan Drift

[CaptSternn]

Woo hoo! Now the Enterprise will have rivets in the warp core and hull, a 47 speed transmission and 5 stages of NOS. We will have a scene where Scotty's screen says "danger to warp core" as rivets shoot out killing random red shirts. Kirk will engage the NOS, driving them to warp 12 as they drag race a bird of prey. Sulu: "I live my life a quarter sector at a time." Vin Diesel can be a Klingon and Paul Walker will be a Ferengi that crashes his transport ship and dies in a fire (too soon?). I'm waiting for the new Star Trek movie where Riker wakes up and we find out the Abrams films were all just a bad dream.

Re:Star Trek 3: Romulan Drift

[GReaToaK_2000]

Wish I could mod you up with Funny or Insightful.

You forgot one thing though, Kirk would have a Transporter Bomb (TBomb) sent to the engine room of the Bird of Prey at the last minute when it looks like the Enterprise will not win the IntraGalactic drag race.

Star Trek's goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Trek was intended to be an inspirational message for the future and to motivate people into trying to build that better future.

I know that sounds unbelievable to today's 20 somethings given what has happened over the last ~10 years, but believe me, back in the 1980s/1990s, this positive message for the future was taken very seriously.

Re:jkgkhg

[SuiteSisterMary]

See also fun words like 'verbalize' and 'denounce'. Note the roots of those words.

Am I alone in not being bothered by the lens flare

[damn_registrars]

I saw both of Abrams' Star Trek movies in the theatre. I didn't think the lens flare was that big of a deal. I didn't think it really added much to it, but I wasn't bothered by it either. Yet here again I see people complaining endlessly about it as if the lens flare was to Star Trek what Jar-Jar Binks was to The Phantom Menace.

Seriously, I think this is a cool move.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I'm going against the grain with this, but Justin Lin is a talented director.

He took FnF, and while making some good fun action sequences, he's been able reinvigorate the franchise by making the characters a FUN group of people that you root for and care about, something that Star Trek needs to continue more than anything. He was also responsible for the paintball episodes of Community, which were great.

Star Trek doesn't need to be action-packed, but having an obligatory action sequence or two that is really well shot is almost as important as making sure that the crew are a fun, dynamic group of people that seem like they've been through a lot together, something I always felt brought out the best of the different Trek crews. From his previous work, I think that is something Lin is capable of.

The real issue is whether or not Roberto Orci is able to pull a decent script out of his ass.

Re:Seriously, I think this is a cool move.

[Triklyn]

he did "better luck tomorrow" which, you know is pretty damn good. Big plus, John Cho was in that.

People seem to think that just because he found incredible success with the FF franchise that's all he did, does or can do. You know, sometimes you gotta do a project to pay the bills, and FF is pretty much paying a lot of bills.

Star Trek 3 - Moar Heist edition?

[TheBilgeRat]

Heist + Star Trek == ???

I am intrigued.

Re:Star Trek 3 - Moar Heist edition?

[JDLazarus]

Isn't Heist + Star Trek just Star Trek III, The Search for Spock... where they steal the Enterprise in the first 5 minutes?

Re:Star Trek 3 - Moar Heist edition?

[TheBilgeRat]

Isn't Heist + Star Trek just Star Trek III, The Search for Spock... where they steal the Enterprise in the first 5 minutes?

Sure enough! I guess the choice of director is apropos after all...

Re:Star Trek 3 - Moar Heist edition?

[meta-monkey]

Ya know, to be honest, that wouldn't be that bad. So long as the cause was somehow noble, and they had to use their brains to find a sneaky, non-violent solution to a problem instead of just blowing shit up...

I'd prefer exploration and maybe a suspenseful first contact, trying to understand a truly alien species before conflict erupts. But anything where they don't just immediately jump to photon torpedoes and punching would be a step up.

And the summary mentions:

[Black Parrot]

Francises/sequels: 4
New movie projects: 0

Yeah, it will never happen but...

[MitchDev]

How about a whole new story line without all the throw backs to previous Star Trek movies?

ST:Into Darkness, I'm looking at you, way too many "homages" to Wrath of Khan...

So sad

[barbariccow]

Every star trek movie since the reboot has been so sad, as a long time Trek fan (every episode, every movie, countless times). There is no surprise, there is no twist, there is nothing to keep you thinking about afterwards. I still think of plots from various episodes and movies, like Generations. To be able to have long discussions with people, was Picard right in how he ended The Nexus? In my opinion, he basically made all the lives killed by Soran except the last system to be lost in vain.. when really he could have used the Nexus to cause peace across the universe, basically holding power similar to Q..

What is thought provoking, or otherwise entertaining about the last star trek movie? Cheap effects, cheap "Hero Rush" elements all over (well I shouldn't say cheap, it cost a bajillion dollars to make, when the original Star Trek episodes were done for a budget less than a Corporate banquet these days..)

I just wish they would go back to the original... Why use the "Star Trek" name if you aren't going to use the Star Trek universe or anything along the themes it carried for decades? Why not just make a sequel to a terminator movie, or "Die Hardest in Space" if you're going for just mindless explosions.

Re:So sad

[0123456]

Why use the "Star Trek" name if you aren't going to use the Star Trek universe or anything along the themes it carried for decades?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (I would have put more, but Slashdot believes the dollar sign is a 'junk character')

'Star Trek' on the poster sells better than 'Generic Sci-Fi Action Movie #57'

Re:So sad

[Yunzil]

Every star trek movie since the reboot has been so sad

"Every" being two? And you misspelled "awesome".

Re:Am I alone in not being bothered by the lens fl

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I alone in not being bothered by the lens flare

Yes.

Lin is not just Fast and Furious

[steelfood]

There's a lot of decrying of him turning Star Trek into Fast and Furious In Space, but people here either have forgotten (or more likely haven't bothered to find out) that Justin Lin did other things before taking over the Fast and the Furious franchise. Both Better Luck Tomorrow and Finishing the Game are two very good (indie) movies, the former being something of a drama and the latter a dry comedy.

That he made his name doing muscle car racing films to pander to the masses is in no way indicative of his creative ability and vision. Of course, he could still screw it up, but it probably won't be in the ways that people here are assuming.

On the plus side, I can't wait to see Sung Kang's cameo or bit role. That guy always has a presence in Justin Lin's movies. Hell, if this takes off, there might be significantly more minority characters in prominent roles in the Star Trek universe. Now there would be somewhere no one has gone before...

Re:Lin is not just Fast and Furious

[Triklyn]

John Cho's already on set too :) so familiar environs

Re:Lin is not just Fast and Furious

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, the 1st reasonable view of this decision.

Guys, give Lin the chance,worse case it will end up like any other JJ movie--cause all his movies follow the same act/plot/cast conflicts.

Re:Lin is not just Fast and Furious

[Anonymous Coward]

Hipster. Lin is F&F, sorry. Name dropping 2 indie flicks no one has ever heard of only reinforces the point. Also, apparently in your ST universe, having basically one of every race on the bridge didn't count as going where no one has went before. Ugh, you probably love the Abramanation that is to new trek. Pike off, berk!

Re:Lin is not just Fast and Furious

[Triklyn]

:) don't know about that guy, but i saw better luck tomorrow maybe a decade ago. It was good. the point being i'd definitely heard about it.

And now....as Kirk...

[Anonymous Coward]

Vin Diesel.

Re:And now....as Kirk...

[the_skywise]

He'd make a good Roc... :)

Re:jkgkhg

[Triklyn]

... why'd you instruct him? less to point and laugh at now.

Re:jkgkhg

[Triklyn]

obligatory xkcd btw:

http://xkcd.com/1443/

Why can't we have good directors like Marvel has?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we please sell Star Trek to Disney. Paramount/CBS have had decades to screw it up. It's time for a group that understands how to write an interesting AND believable plot. Not "run away from black hole at warp speed after throwing the warp core out the trunk" or "freefalling giant object with no power enters atmosphere & doesn't turn everyone inside into jello smears."

You have one of the longest lasting franchises with arguably one of the largest fan-bases & that is the best director you can get? Really?

There is a TED talk with JJ where be basically says he prefers to write deus ex machina plot points:
http://www.ted.com/talks/j_j_abrams_mystery_box?language=en

This guy is no better than JJ, and that says a lot.

Re:Am I alone in not being bothered by the lens fl

[Skater]

I don't recall noticing lens flares in either movie. But that might be because I went to be entertained for two hours or whatever, not to nitpick the movies apart because they don't match my exact definition of what Star Trek should or shouldn't be.

What I'd like to see

[ArcadeMan]

Remember that two-episode arc in Enterprise where humans are conquerors and other races are their slaves? If we're going to get crap action movies, they might as well use alternate Universe stories.

Maybe that's the solution... Makes movies and TV shows for both Star Trek timelines. The scientific and diplomatic Star Trek that we love (DS9, TNG) and the shoot-first-asks-questions-later action Star Trek set in that alternate Universe.

Maybe call the timelines with names appropriate for them, or at least non-racist terms. I'd hate for them to settle on something as stupid as "Star Trek White" and "Star Trek Black".

Re:What I'd like to see

[gmhowell]

Maybe call the timelines with names appropriate for them, or at least non-racist terms. I'd hate for them to settle on something as stupid as "Star Trek White" and "Star Trek Black".

Wait, are you asking for a grim and gritty reboot of "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"?

Re:What I'd like to see

[ArcadeMan]

No, I'm asking for something in the lines of the mirror Universe so that people who want action will get it and leave the non-mirror Universe stories, characters, plots and original idea of Star Trek alone.

Re:What I'd like to see

[gmhowell]

(I know, but whenever I see 'black and white' in a ST context, I reflexively go to Frank Gorshin.)

Re:Am I alone in not being bothered by the lens fl

[damn_registrars]

Great! Apparently there are two of us on slashdot, then! I thought every slashdot user other than myself thought the lens flares were the most important aspect of either movie (to complain about).

Trek Star

[Anonymous Coward]

Just change the name to something like 'Trek Star', or at least make a statement that you (the studios) don't consider this canon, and I'll be happy.

Old Spock collect call

[Carnivore24]

As long as we don't have another Spock on speed dial moment we should be good!

TRICEPS

[Gliscameria]

Can't wait to see a jacked helmsman in the three point turn position showing off those triceps. I hope they add a review viewscreen just for him.

If...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was super-mega-rich I would spend all the money necessary to buy/convince/force Woody Allen to direct the next series of Star Wars and Star Treck movies... just to see you all cry in despair.

Re:If...

[Irate Engineer]

Mel Brooks FTW

Re:jkgkhg

[sribe]

... why'd you instruct him? less to point and laugh at now.

Ah, but we can point and laugh even harder the next time--because I doubt the advice will stick ;-)

Any Wonder Why People Pirate Movies?

[Irate Engineer]

Star Trek, Star Wars, The Hobbit...all potentially great story lines, but all dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, with meaningful story replaced with CGI and endless fight scenes. Each show in the original series had more plot than any of these movies. I saw about 20 minutes of the last Trek movie for free at my friends house, and I have to say that I'd probably refuse a free showing of it again.

And the movie producers wonder why they are fighting such a battle to prevent piracy? The reason is that the perceived content in these movies has an assigned monetary value of $0 by most consumers. I haven't been to a movie theater in maybe 15 years - there is simply nothing coming out of Hollywood worth the cost and effort. My DVD player has been collecting dust for years as well, as nothing now even warrants purchasing or renting a DVD.

Stop

[WindSword]

Please stop destroying my chiildhood memories

Wait a minute.

[mark_reh]

Haven't there been about 20 star trek movies already? How is this one number 3?

It's like the star wars movies coming out all out of sequence and without numbers. How the hell are you supposed to know which comes after which?

And don't get me started in "Final Fantasy 2-14". I guess it wasn't really final after all, was it?

Get off my lawn!

Sequels

[Anonymous Coward]

So just making sure I've got this right. The director that did the first sequels has moved on to direct another sequel. Meanwhile, a different director known for his work on 3 sequels of a third franchise is going to direct this sequel because the OTHER sequel he was going to work on was postponed. The breadth of creativity in Hollywood is astounding (or maybe it says more about the average audience that these movies are the "blockbusters.")

Re:Am I alone in not being bothered by the lens fl

[cbhacking]

The lens flares were excessive but were not by any means the major problems with the movies. I actually thought the 2009 film was pretty well done too, for all that the "sci-fi authors have no sense of scale" thing was taken to an absurd level even by Star Trek standards.

Into Darkness contained so much shit I really can't forgive it for the excessive suck, though. The idea of a transporter that can put a few hundred pounds of mass safely on the surface of a planet in another star system, for example, is an absurdly overpowered superweapon along the lines of a modern nuclear missile submarine during WW1. That was far from the only problem with Into Darkness, but it was more than enough. Nothing else in the show makes sense once you have something like that. Then again, with extremely rare exceptions, Star Trek has never appreciated the military prowess of the transporter.

BS!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of horse shit...complete betrayal to the original story line...

The Wrath of Riddick

[ChadSmith4920]

Ridddiccckkk!!

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

I laughed more than i should have!

Seriously, Vin Diesel as Picard would kick ass.

[master_p]

Since we are in a different universe, they might as well do a Picard movie, and their is no better actor to play him than Vin Diesel.

The great Diesel could kick some serious Borg butt in this movie, and destroy the Romulans/Klingons/Kardassians as well in the proceedings, leaving the door open for the Federation to anex the whole galaxy.

Joking aside, Diesel would be a much more believable Federation Officer than a 30 year old with a 15 year old face...

engineering is a brewery

[Anonymous Coward]

When they decided to make engineering into a brewery I knew the movies would suck. The smartest part of the ship couldn't have been dumbed down and more. You space travels all happen from getting drunk. Drink more beer dummies.

Hmmmm

[MitchDev]

Galaxy Quest is probably the best "modern" Star Trek movie, especially compared to the past two offerings....

Action movies are boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think painting with a broad brush like that is a little much - certainly most action movies are bad and unfortunately bad action movies are the norm in the genre. That said, I would love to see this guy surprise us though and tone himself way down and stay away from action as much as possible.

How long till Scotty says

[Anonymous Coward]

"VTEC just kicked in, yo!"

Re:Am I alone in not being bothered by the lens fl

[Anonymous Coward]

The new Star Trek films are still garbage made for the mentally impaired.

Jonathan FUCKING Frakes!

[g1nG3Rj0urNAl157]

My mind is weighed down by the senselessness of this decision. Why ignore the director of Insurrection, First Contact and directing credits of Voyager, DS9 and TNG? KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!