Summer SciFi Thread

[BvBPL]

There was one SNL (I think) episode wherein Walter Koenig did a skit called "Chekov Does Chekov" where he performs Chekov's work. I don't remember the play.

As for ST VI's Shakespeare, that was acceptable to me both because the Klingons where, as you imply, an evil Soviet empire analog and ST VI mirrored the contemporary nacesent movement towards East/West conferences and peace.

That and the title of the movie itself is a Shakespeare quote. Of course, what is the meant by the undiscovered country differs from Hamlet and ST IV.

And, let's face it, that was funny. Probably a lot more funny than neo-Chekov's line (in my totally prejudiced mind).

Edit: I did hope the new movie would have Harry Mudd. Alas.

 

[Glassfan]

The Star Trek reboot made me wish constantly for the death of Kirk.(

You're a sick puppy. If Spock could be resurected the first time arround, you would expect it from Kirk this time.

Did you like it as much as the first one Glassfan?

I'm a fan from the beginning. I like 'em all.

...I did hope the new movie would have Harry Mudd. Alas.

It was just a one-liner.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The Star Trek reboot made me wish constantly for the death of Kirk. It was pretty much a franchise killer for me. I imagine I'll see it eventually. But maybe not.

I wish for the death of this reboot franchise.

A thought: Does the success of the new Trek film mean the odd-number curse is officially over?

#6 wasn't all that great. And the only Next Gen movie that was remotely palatable was First Contact. And I hated most of that (loved the character of Lily and how she and Picard interacted).

I had to unsubscribe from the movie thread over at TrekBBS before I got run off the forum completely. Over there, you may not say one word against the Abramsverse without getting mercilessly flamed/trolled.

This movie is just another plagiarized ripoff of Classic Trek. And this time they've messed with the best of the original movies.

 

[Cutlass]

You're a sick puppy. If Spock could be resurected the first time arround, you would expect it from Kirk this time.

Alt-universe Kirk needs to be beaten with a 2x4 until he is either a) dead, b) a vegetable, or c), and least likely, something other than a complete waste of the air he breaths.

Instead they give this untrained, miserable excuse for a boy of 19 going on 6, command of a starship?

That is bullcrap writing of the worst order.

 

[Ajidica]

#6 wasn't all that great. And the only Next Gen movie that was remotely palatable was First Contact. And I hated most of that (loved the character of Lily and how she and Picard interacted).

You weren't a fan of Generations? For some reason I liked Generations quite a bit.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I didn't care for Generations because it was just a bad Star Trek story. And to this day I say the writers never bothered to do their homework regarding Kirk. Seriously, who the hell was this Antonia he spent his time with in the Nexus? Sure, they would have had to do a recast, but Kirk's soulmate was Edith Keeler. THAT's who he would have wanted to spend eternity with, not mucking around chopping wood and cooking breakfast for some woman he had an offscreen romance with.

 

[Ajidica]

I dunno. I found it to be the best 'Star Trek' story in a Star Trek movie.
Plus I got to see the Enterprise-D all done up in full HD with state-of-the-art effects. I still think the end battle scene with the Klingon Bird of Prey is one of the prettiest space battles I've seen.

 

[Lord Baal]

This thread has delivered one major surprise so far; M. Night Shyamalan is still making movies. I thought he'd have been buried in an unmarked grave after The Last Airbender.

I went to see the 2009 Star Trek film. I consider it one of the worst films I have ever seen. It was a sad, pathetic excuse for a film, which relied on every character making the stupidest, most illogical decisions possible at every moment. One of my first experiences on CFC, while still a lurker, was to read a 20 page or so thread about that film, in which Patroklus, among others, completely demolished the arguments of anyone who said it was good. The responses basically boiled down to "why are you ruining our fun, don't over-analyse." As if a film that can't stand up to even a cursory analysis could possibly be any good.

I will not be going to see this new Star Trek film. It's by a director so intelligent he claimed "the colon is everything people don't want to see in Star Trek," which is so inane I'm not sure if even he understood what he was trying to say. I also think it's somewhat ridiculous to hire Benedict Cumberpatch to play that part. To be fair, hiring an Hispanic to play it the first time around didn't make much sense either, but at least he wasn't a pasty Englishman, best known for being in one of the three thousand bad Sherlock Holmes adaptations that have popped up since Dr Gregory House made the airwaves. His adaptation wins the award for the most homoerotic tension between Holmes and Watson, though that's something, I guess.

I may see the film if a friend downloads it illegally and I'm really, really bored and interested in watching something just to rip it a new plot-hole, but that's only if I can really find absolutely nothing better to do with my time. To be fair, I'm so organised lately that I may very well legitimately run out of things to do. That's how I originally watched Predators and The Hunger Games, after all.

I am very, very much looking forward to Elysium. I'm a big fan of Matt Damon, Jodie Foster and Neill Blomkamp's previous film, District 9. Funnily enough, Elysium reminds me of a Star Trek: TOS episode at first glance; The Cloud Minders.

This is the first I've heard of Gravity. I may give it a look, depending on my mood and availability when it is released over here. I'm not nearly as enamoured of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as I am of Damon and Foster. Though at least they're not the Smiths.

 

[dragonprobably]

Relevant to Valka's posts:

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Why is that relevant to my posts? It looks like nuSpock is barfing acid rainbows at nuKirk.

But it does help along my idea that nuTrek is really just a cartoon that uses live "actors" instead of doing all of it with drawings and computer animation.

 

[Lord Baal]

Why is that relevant to my posts? It looks like nuSpock is barfing acid rainbows at nuKirk.

But it does help along my idea that nuTrek is really just a cartoon that uses live "actors" instead of doing all of it with drawings and computer animation.

Cartoons are better.

To be fair, if nuSpock really did barf acid rainbows at nuKirk, it would improve nuTrek tremendously.

 

[Glassfan]

World War Z

June 21st

Directed by Marc Forster
Brad Pitt
Mireille Enos
James Badge Dale
Matthew Fox

United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) travels the world trying to find a way to stop the pandemic that is defeating armies and collapsing governments.

Spoiler :

We know, it's definitely not like the book...

youtube trailer

youtube Australian trailer (Short Attention Span Version - Crikey!)

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I have heard World War Z is nothing at all like the book (which is really entertaining - listen to the audiobook version to hear Mark Hammel do some stellar voice acting) and really bad. :/

For the life of me I can't understand why people *hate* Star Trek '09. Ok, so it's not like a traditional Star Trek movie, but let's be honest people, they had more or less ran the old franchise into the ground. Star Trek '09, while very different, was still seriously fun and entertaining if you could get over the fact that it's not like the old ones. Plus, it breathed new life into the franchise and made a whole new generation of trekies and expanded their core audience.

For one thing, young chicks really dug it...that says a lot.

I am going to see Into Darkness tonight and I've very excited.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Okay, there was exactly ONE enjoyable thing about the 2009 movie. Over at TrekBBS somebody made a thread called "QUINTO'S SPOCK SHOULD BE CONSTANTLY SHOUTING!" in homage to the fact that Nimoy's Spock did a lot of shouting in "The Cage/Menagerie" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before". The rules of the thread were simple: Whatever you posted had to be in all-caps. Shouting was mandatory in that thread.

It was a great stress-reliever. And so of course their mods shut it down.

 

[Glassfan]

I have heard World War Z is nothing at all like the book (which is really entertaining - listen to the audiobook version to hear Mark Hammel do some stellar voice acting) and really bad.

I've got the book and it's indeed a fun read. (apparently, Max Brooks is Mel Brooks' son)

I'm looking forward to the film, even if it's very different from the book. It's a big-budget flick with lots of special effects and CGI. Today there's a glut of zombie films on the Internet because, let's face it, all you need is a videocamera, a handfull of friends and some Holloween makeup. CGI is good...

 

[Lord Baal]

I have heard World War Z is nothing at all like the book (which is really entertaining - listen to the audiobook version to hear Mark Hammel do some stellar voice acting) and really bad. :/

I know it will be different from the book, but I'm hoping it's still a quality film. One would hope that Brad Pitt would make a decent first film for his new production company.

For the life of me I can't understand why people *hate* Star Trek '09. Ok, so it's not like a traditional Star Trek movie, but let's be honest people, they had more or less ran the old franchise into the ground. Star Trek '09, while very different, was still seriously fun and entertaining if you could get over the fact that it's not like the old ones. Plus, it breathed new life into the franchise and made a whole new generation of trekies and expanded their core audience.

For one thing, young chicks really dug it...that says a lot.

I am going to see Into Darkness tonight and I've very excited.

Popularity is not necessarily an indicator of quality. As I said earlier, nuTrek relies on all of the characters doing the stupidest possible thing at every moment. It also has more holes in its plot than the entire worldwide production of Swiss cheese. It's a terrible, terrible film.

Young chicks dig Jersey Shore. How is having young women like a film an indicator of the film's quality? I saw the 2009 Star Trek film with a young girl I was sleeping with at the time. She enjoyed the film. I slept with her after it. That does absolutely nothing to affect the quality of the film, merely the quality of my evening. I'd have much rather not slept with her than watched that film. That's how much I disliked it.

I've got the book and it's indeed a fun read. (apparently, Max Brooks is Mel Brooks' son)

I'm looking forward to the film, even if it's very different from the book. It's a big-budget flick with lots of special effects and CGI. Today there's a glut of zombie films on the Internet because, let's face it, all you need is a videocamera, a handfull of friends and some Holloween makeup. CGI is good...

Max Brooks is indeed Mel Brooks' son. I don't have this book myself, but I do have the prequel comic that Max Brooks put out. I work in a book-store and a publisher accidentally sent us copies of the comic instead of something else we actually ordered, so we got to keep them. It's quite good.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I've got the book and it's indeed a fun read. (apparently, Max Brooks is Mel Brooks' son)

I'm looking forward to the film, even if it's very different from the book. It's a big-budget flick with lots of special effects and CGI. Today there's a glut of zombie films on the Internet because, let's face it, all you need is a videocamera, a handfull of friends and some Holloween makeup. CGI is good...

Oh don't get me wrong, I enjoy hollywood flash and CGI wizardry. What I meant is that I have heard (from Owen I think and some online reporting) thay the movie had serious production issues and was rewritten a couple of times or something. What I really fear is that they borrowed the name of a really good book to sell a movie that has nothing do with the source material beyond the name. I am used to that to a certain extent - every movie based on a book faces that issue. I am worried that from what I have heard that this is the case to the extreme and it will do a disservice to the book.

@Lord Baal - yup, the plot had holes and yet it was still a fun movie. People knock on it as if they know it was terrible because XYZ reasons while completely ignoring the fact that most people enjoyed it. That counts for so much in any artistic endevour and even more so with a medium geared toward the masses such as summer blockbuster films. A flawless work with no audience is garbage because it is not liked while the flawed work with an audience is not junk because it is liked.

The other frustrating thing with Trek 2009 is how snobby some of the hardcore fans are about it. They treat the franchise as if they alone have rights to it and god forbid anyone not of their persuasion actually enjoy the new film - what do they know? People also hate the film for taking the series in a new direction even though the old course had hit a very lonely, dark dead end.

I also think thay specific hatred of the characters misses out on the fact they are all young and developing in the roles they were thrust into. The first of the old films began after everyone was already established while these characters literally started the first movie as recruits. You see them grow in both films and if there are more they will continue to evolve. It is fun to watch Kirk go from jackass farm boy to serious-sh!t maverick being all mavericky galaxy wide to responsible commander.

Tearing into a well-liked movie over plotholes is like tearing into a respected painting for an askew perspective. There are no real objective criteria in art, at best there is a systematic approach that influence critics have agreed is preferred but even thay changes with time, place and critical schools of thought. Thus, it is folly IMHO to discredit something that is well liked, especially when the fact that so many like something is held up as the problem itself, as so many of my fellow trekkies do.

Sorry for triple post and typos on phone.

 

[Lord Baal]

Rather than quote all three of those posts with my rebuttal, I'll simply type it here.

I don't care about the opinions of others when it comes to determining whether I enjoy a movie. I am perfectly capable of enjoying a 'bad' film. I just watched Jurassic Park III on Monday, for example. Twice, that's how much I enjoyed it.

Now, I will admit to being a Trekkie, and I know that this will influence my opinion on the "Abramsverse." But far from making me dislike the film before it even aired, as no doubt happens to some people, I actually want the nuTrek films to succeed; Star Trek is one of my favourite franchises - possibly the favourite, though I'm hardly going to sit down and quantify them all now - and I wish it nothing but the best. I was very disappointed by the cancellation of Enterprise and the sub-par quality of many of the motion pictures - II and VI are the only film I liked from the TOS run, and TNG's films fare even worse, with only VIII being enjoyable - and I was hoping that a film-maker with the influence and reputation of Abrams would bring something worthwhile to the franchise, especially seeing as how I do not blame him for the collapse of Lost, as many people do; he'd already all-but left the show when it's plot descended into Escher-like dimensions of confusion. The 2009 film, unfortunately and disappointingly, was not a good one.

That is not to say a person cannot enjoy it; as I said earlier, I certainly enjoy a lot of crappy films. I was sick on Monday, and one of my favourite things to do when sick in bed is simply watch a whole bunch of worthless popcorn films in succession. But just because a film is subjectively 'fun' does not make a film objectively 'good' (and yes, before anyone brings it up, there are several criteria behind a 'good' film, one of which is a consistent plot, which Star Trek fails comprehensively). Star Trek may be a 'fun' film - I disagree, but 'fun' is subjective anyway - but it is, most certainly, not a 'good,' or even 'mediocre' film from an objective standpoint. It is merely a bad film.

 

[Glassfan]

Now, I will admit to being a Trekkie,...

God Bless you. And God Bless Kaitlyn Grace.

Do you know this one?

Redshirt Blues

 

[Cutlass]