Why STAR TREK WORKS Despite Itself

I haven't seen you fixate on a film so much in a long time. You nailed it. This is a movie with an awfully dumb script, that got batted out of the park with humour and excitement, ala Transformers.

So true, Devin.

The cast, for me, was why this film worked. It felt like I had known this crew for years now...a group of friends taking me on another roller coaster ride.

And, it was funny. Not funny in a stupid way, or even a cynical, sarcastic one, but funny from the heart. The film made me care when I didn't even realize it. That's magic.

Very well put, and I can't think of a better reason for why it works: magic.

The movie won me over, in a big way, and I'm very aware of everything that was wrong with the screenplay.

Granted, I may be more than a little biased here, but I'm baffled by how you're willing to blame every single problem on the screenwriters while attributing every element that works to either the director or the cast.

Because a lot of the stuff you're praising--the great scenes, the sense of optimism, the action sequences, the way the movie updates and reinvents the classic characters while still respecting the source material, the breathless pacing, the fantastic sense of humor--all of that stuff doesn't just happen. Someone has to write it first. And the implication that J.J. just ad-libbed everything on the fly is asinine.

I'm not arguing that the script doesn't have its share of truly stupid plot contrivances, because it does. But it's hardly fair to blame the writers for everything you didn't like if you're not also willing to credit them for all the stuff you did. Throwing up your hands and screaming "I don't understand why I'm having fun, so it must be magic!" seems a little disingenuous.

You clearly have it out for these guys. Probably a bit too much.

Alex Billington must have written something saying he liked them.

The truth is more likely that Abrams threw in some bad ideas and that K/O had some good ones. Filmmaking is a collaborative process. Yes, the biggest flaws in this movie could be attributed to the scripting stage and I haven't exactly been wowed by anything this duo has written (Fringe is like some uh anomaly,) but I do think Slater makes a good point.

Orci and Kurtzman:
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Star Trek (2009)
Transformers (2007)
Mission: Impossible III (2006)
The Legend of Zorro (2005)
The Island (2005)

And a lot of television. They are likely very smart guys, but from that body of work, plus producing Eagle Eye, the films that seem to work are not because of a great script, and the things that are good are what the director imbues to the material more than the stories themselves. That's likely who they've mostly worked with (Abrams and Bay), but I wouldn't call the footing of any of those films particularly good. They have done little to distinguish themselves cinematically, we shall say, but with the films they are associated with, you see big fucking paychecks, and likely a lot of comittee work.

I think you did a good job of clarifying why the fundamental hypocrisy of liking one dumb movie over another often makes perfect sense and is grounded in quantifiable criticism.

I continue to be amazed at the fortuitous releases of Star Trek and Wolverine... two movies so fucking dumb, and yet one is a charming good time, and the other is an insulting joyless bore. A perfectly timed illustration of this idea. Jesus, I fucking hated Wolverine.

My first thoughts upon immediately leaving Star Trek was that it's an easy movie to nitpick, but a hard film to hate. I mean, how is it that there wasn't a single ship available on earth to shoot down the drilling platform (leaving it up to Spock)?

Anyhoo... I think when people say they want to turn their brain off in a movie, they don't really know what they mean. I think what they're saying when they want to turn their brain off is that they crave complete engagement - you want to be transported to that universe so completely that you don't notice the script, plot holes, techniques and other aspects that can take you out of the story.

Star Trek did that. And it was the alchemy that devin spoke of. The audience is so completely engaged by the characters and world that it is later that the plot holes come crashing home.

Besides, despite the gaping plot holes, I don't think the script was completely asinine. In fact, on a conceptual level it was very clever. It was in the details that the script fell over - and as Devin suggested, those details may have been fixable given a few extra drafts.

Orci and Kurtzman are capable of good work. I loved the first half of The Island, and I think they're doing an able job producing Fringe. But I wonder if Abrams bringing on Lindelof as an official writer of the next ST script indicates how frustrated he was with this one.

Sounds like they're gonna be Koeppin' it up for the world into the next decade.

I can't believe there are people who still think TRANSFORMERS was a good movie. It boggles the mind.

I kind of liked M:I 3, though.

I don't think Jon Peters had anything to do with this. Not enough giant spiders.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...iews-Star-Trek

It always feels weird to be in agreement with Devin. Not about the movie - the movie is BARELY average, and the constant comparisons to "Iron Man" (lean where this is bloated, smart where this is stupid, sharp where this is a clusterfuck) are groin-grabbingly off-base. But about Orci and Kurtzman? Spot-the-fuck-on. These two are the worst kind of big-ticket writers - seemingly prized for their ability to pound something unweildy into recognizable shape (read: formula) and devoid of the skill or desire to infuse it with anything genuine.

On "Transformers," they were excused with "well, it's a 80s toy commercial for Michael Bay, how good COULD they make it?" Well, this time they had Star Trek for the creator of "Lost" and they still couldn't do it. And... dammit, it worked. Star Trek is now just another summer tentpole franchise getting by on flash and charm with the script as a second or third afterthought. And next on the horizon: McG's "Terminator." Lovely. Somebody might as well hand Bret Ratner the keys to "The Prisoner" for the hat-trick...

I'm sorry, but everyone but Devin who is making this arguement against the film... It's like everyone else who loves this movie is seeing it with dates, having a great god damn time, while the people who say "meh" and want to rant are the smelly super nerds sitting in the back of the theater who haven't washed their hair or that faded black Batman T shirt in about ten years.

How could you not have a great time during this film, or for that matter during Transformers? What do you come into the theater expecting that the film doesn't give you? Devins article basically says these films work because on a scene for scene basis they're relentlessly entertaining. To think that someone walked out of Transformers thinking "That was fucking BULLSHIT" just does not compute for me.

Thank you SO much for summing up the EXACT same feelings I hold for the film but didn't know how to appropriately and succinctly express them...I knew there was something off about it but yet quite so right about it at the same time and I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Thanks a bunch, Devin, for saying what I wanted to say, but just didn't know how to.

http://www.theonion.com/content/vide...urce=a-section


Lawls.

On the New Optimism: I love how Kirk, without hesitation, offers Nero rescue from the singularity, seeing an opportunity to make peace. That's what Star Trek is all about. We're so used to sending villains to quippy send-offs straight to the briny (and don't get me wrong - we get that here, too, a few seconds later); but it's Kirk's brief overture that makes all the difference. It's a better future out there.

Lol, that's what Trek's all about? Really? I do like the idea that they're a peace keeping humanitarian armada, but it didn't take long for Kirk and Spock to kill him. Kirk pretty much said "Oke dokie! Fire."

One thing that bothered me a lot during the film were the obvious Lucas-isms...

a) The monster chase with the bigger monster eating the smaller monster.

b) Scotty getting beamed into the cooling system. WTF was up with that anyway? Why was there a bunch of choppy/slicey blades chopping up the water after its passage through the convoluted pipes that seemed to be cooling nothing?

After watching Trek, my mate and I sat down and pretty much picked apart all of the plot holes. Throughout the conversation, however, we could not shake just how damn enjoyable the flick was.

Like I said - easy to nitpick, but hard to hate.

I thought Transformers was just kind of boring. I don't care about the cartoon or anything. But there were too many characters and I didn't like them. Which would be fine, except I couldn't tell the Transformers apart and therefore didn't really get into the action. And it was really, really long.

Once the summer season sets in I eat alot more paint chips. Thanks for noticing babe.

Has "it works great so long as you don't expect it to be or use it as anything other than a background detail to an otherwise good night out" really become a proper metric for judging the quality of a film?

For that matter, when did having a standard even slightly higher than "Wheeeee!!! Shiny thing go-boom!!!! Hooray!!" become the indicator of social pariah-hood?

As to expections; in the case of "Star Trek" my expectation was one word: Brains. It BARELY got halfway to successful on that front. In the case of "Transformers," another single word: Joy. It failed utterly.

I can only speak for myself, but as to "Transformers" my revulsion is simply at bad filmmaking top-to-bottom. Yes, I'm aware, the 'source material' isn't exactly The Iliad. "It's just a toy commercial." Fine. That's no excuse for how singularly awful that film's script is - the series and the old comics on their better occasions achieved the equivalent quality of reasonably-endearing pulp scifi, Bay's film can't even manage THAT. Plus it's poorly directed, FULL of unecessary (and awful) characters, features probably the worst character (re)design since the Godzilla remake and Meagan Fox is NOT "hawt" enough to excuse how bad an actress she is.

All this Kurtzman/Orci hate is, frankly, a lot of horseshit.

Look, I freely admit to being biased in their favor, for professional reasons I'm not gonna get into here. And nobody is arguing that they're geniuses of the highest order.

But everything on their filmography is, at the very least, entertaining. Their work on Alias was stellar, and they've got a knack for taking properties that are either fundamentally retarded (Transformers) or hopelessly stale (Star Trek) and finding ways to make them fun and accessible for mainstream audiences. Which is a pretty rare commodity when it comes to summer movies. Case in point, Wolverfuckingrine.

And saying that their good movies only work because of the director is the sort of auteur theory bullshit that drives me insane. You can make a bad movie out of a good script, but a bad script will always produce a bad movie. ALWAYS. Always always always.

I'm not saying you have to respect or even like their work, but the worst hacks in Hollywood? Really? Hackier than Garant and Lennon? Worse than Justin Marks? The Wibberlys? Akiva Goldsman? Steve Oedekerk? Paul Haggis? Friedberg and Seltzer? In an industry that's largely nothing but shit, two guys who made a couple of fun TV shows and a few entertaining movies are somehow the worst of the bunch?

I just don't get it. It's like they ran over your dog or something.

Bob, have you read the article this thread is even about?

Dude, you call Transformers bad filmmaking, that's not the same thing as bad storytelling. Transformers was very well made.

The Legend of Zorro doesn't really approach entertaining, Slater. But your point is sound.

I think the case with 'hacks' is that they get tagged as 'the worst' depending on how current and successful they are at a given moment. Orci and Kurtzman are riding high on both at the moment, so it's a juicy moment to have at them.

Listening to interviews of the pair, the two of them are clearly not morons. They know what they're working in and do their work as professionally as they can while picking the right battles to fight. When you're working to make studio franchise tentpoles, coming up with a work of vision is not going to be the norm. Especially the way movies are made now. It's not even necessarily the norm when it comes to films made outside of the studio system.

EDIT: Though I do wanna know the story about Slater being biased in their favor...

This is just a case of Devin trying to spark discussion or generate hits by being hyperbolic. The worst hacks in the industry is INCREDIBLY hyperbolic considering Wolverine was a week ago. I could write you a better Wolverine script in a week and I'm amatuer. Besides, Slater probably understands the issue more than Devin by a fair bit anyways.

It's impossible for me to refer to these writers as the worst hacks in Hollywood when whoever is responsible for Night At The Museum 2 is still alive and working. How can a 2 min trailer be that painful to sit through?

As far as K/O's filmography goes, I've liked most of their films to varying degrees. Their strong suit is in writing dialog and creating likable characters. Humor and action flow naturally from the story. I definitely wouldn't say they're interested in thematic richness as a way of elevating summer films though.

ETA: MY post just oddly dovetailed with the discussion. Ex-State guys are responsible for Night at the Museum? wtf!

WOLVERINE being bad does not prove that Kurtzman and Orci aren't hacks. "The worst" might be hyperbole, but otherwise everything Devin says stands.

The problem is almost all he said until a few posts ago was "they're the worst hacks in Hollywood."

They wrote "Legend of Zorro"? god that movie was pure crap. which is sad since I love the first one.

...

...Excuse me?

It's a NARRATIVE FILM! Michael Bay is not Maya Deren. "Telling a story" is it's #1, basic, foundational FUNCTION! Everything else -LITERALLY - <i>everything else</i> is extra. Gravy. Bonus material. A narrative film that tells it's story poorly FAILS at the most basic level - and is thus BAD FILMMAKING.

If you want to be a stickler to Transformers because you didn't like the story, do what you want to do. That's one more movie I'll enjoy and one more movie that you get to hate.

Orci and Kurtzman are no great shakes, but there ARE huges chunks in the movie which are plainly first-draft material (Spock's bog-standard expositioinary flashback was painful for me. Ditto Nero's "you were a great man!" nonsense. And that's just the dialogue). Had they been given the opportunity to redraft, I wonder what a polished version of their stupider scenes would have ended up like.

"James Kirk was a great man, but that was another life" was one of my favorite lines. It's classic Kirk vs the new younger Kirk who needs to prove himself. That's largely the point of Kirks arc.

Very thought provoking peice. I have to admit to enjoying the film so much at the time I missed things like the cheating bit in the cave conversation. (Well not missed, but didn't twigg it made no sense).

Still a great film but I totally agree with what you were saying about the script being unfinished. Another example of this is why was Pike in a wheelchair at the end of the film?

It's clunky and contrived. Why is Nero lecturing a guy he doesn't even care about while trying to choke him to death? Suddenly the simple miner is an arch-villain.

How about being old enough to have seen STAR TREK I-VI in the theaters? You know, like when this like story, character, and consistency mattered?

No offense, Domingo, if you think that the writing and directing on this film is even close to the quality of those, then you're part of the reason that STAR TREK and other Hollywood fare are being dumbed down, when they don't have to be.

This "Oh it doesn't need to be that good" attitude of the audience is baffling to me. It's one thing to say that about the latest Michael Bay film. It's another to lay it on an iconic series like STAR TREK, that used to pride itself on being better.

Okay, this is coming from someone who liked TRANSFORMERS and MI:3.

As much as I dislike Goldsman, the day Orci and Kurtzman adapt something even half as good as A BEAUTIFUL MIND, you'll have a point. And while CRASH is far from perfect, it at least attempts to deal with realistic issues that are totally foreign to these guys. You can spout all the Haggis hate you want but he's a much better craftsmen than these two.


I've worked with producers who know them and they're supposedly real nice guys. But so's Paul W.S. Anderson. And that didn't stop him from taking two of Fox's biggest franchises down to a LCD for the mainstream audiences while not even understanding what made the previous films work.

To me, thats what Orci and Kurtzman have done.

While you do have a point about Friedberg and Seltzer, at least they didn't piss all over one of Hollywoods best and biggest franchises.

There's a lot of stupid in this thread, but nothing touches Moviebob. Anyone who says Chris Pine is a brokeass Hayden Christensen should be kicked off the internet. That's not even a valid opinion. That's like saying the world is flat.

What franchise did they piss all over? Just Zorro. And who cares?

Also, Transformers is better than A Beautiful Mind.

ETA: I don't have a problem with most of Akiva's work. I actually really enjoyed what he did on Fringe recently and Hancock is flawed but fun.

There is what, like 3 really good Trek films other than this one; tops. The franchise is not exactly a pillar of solid awesomeness. The reboot is easily better than half of the original stuff.

Beautiful Mind is a screaming piece of shit. Holding that up as a touchstone of good screen writing adaptation is laughable.

Being old apparantly damages your long and short term memory. There has only been one truly agreed upon great Trek movie before this, right? This film had character up the ying yang. It had story. It had story flaws and consistency problems, but so did KHAN. I'm not a huge fan of (old)Trek and I could tell you Khan never meets Chekov face to face in the TV show, despite the fact that he knows exactly who he is in the film! Kind of a huge fucking story error, wouldn't you say?

What is it about this new films directing you had a problem with? Not enough static camera? Come on, what did JJ do to stir the goddamn masses aside from make a kickass film that young people are digging? Jesus fucking christ people, writers strikeis are going to happen. I'm sure your memory of the previous Star Trek films is golden, but as a guy who saw them recently I can tell you they aren't as amazing as you seem to think.(except Khan)

1) He's not a simple miner the moment his home planet is blown up and he's transported here. He's very clearly a pretty pissed off dude when he killed the Kelvins captain.

2) Lecturing somebody about how inferior they are while you choke them is a super good time.

3) He's physically and mentally inforcing to Kirk that he can't win. Creating drama and tension and all that wonderful stuff we like in the third act.