CONFIRMATION THAT JJ WILL DIRECT STAR TREK SEQUEL YOU FULLY EXPECTED HIM TO DIRECT

Pro: Abrams is returning to direct.

Con: Kurtzman and Orci are returning to write.

Pro: More Karl Urban awesome.

Con: More terrible everyone else.

Barkatthemoon, Before he reprises his role as...The Real McCoy, in the next...Trekkin With The Stars, Karl will be fighting...URBAN Blight, in Mega City One in...Dredd!

Hey now, I think the cast did a pretty great job, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that Urban and Pine were my favorites from the film. John Cho too.

Expected but still good news. I really liked New Trek. And with the relationships established so well it's up to them to screw it up. 

Let's not forget that they were literally shooting what was basically a second draft.............................and still managed to make a good movie.  Star Trek '09 is 100% a Writer's Strike film.  I have a feeling the script that Orci, Kurtzman, and Lindelof come up with for Star Trek 2 will be MILES above the first one in quality.  If they can even match half the awesomeness of how the first one actually played out on screen within their writing, we are going to be in for a great time.  I'm not expecting a masterpiece, but I think it will easily be as good as the first.

As far as the cast on the last one goes, there really isn't a weak link as far as I'm concerned...................although I was least impressed with Zoe Saldana out of everyone involved.  Still, it is the ENTIRE cast that held that half-baked script together and made what could have been a disaster turn out to be a damn good flick.  The fact that they are taking their time with this one bodes extremely well and I can't wait to see what they have cooked up for us come (I'm guessing) Summer 2013.

Can we please have the Trek team explore a completely new world with a new alien species and not re-use any of the pre-existing elements like Borg / Khan / genesis / Vger / Vulcan diplomatics / vengeful Klingons etc. etc.?

You know, "To boldly go where no man has gone before"

?

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by FilmNerdJamie 

Pro: Abrams is returning to direct.

 

Con: Kurtzman and Orci are returning to write.

Which pretty much ensures that I'll be as cool toward the new flick as I was to the previous one.  I know I'm in the minority (so you don't have to reply by telling me that I'm in the minority), but I was totally underwhelmed by New Trek, and my interest in revisiting it is waning now that I know Orci and Kurtzman will be back (not that this is surprising in any way, just dispiriting).  My biggest problem with the first film was the stupid script, and I'm just not interested in another film that looks slick but is ultimately dumb and hollow.  Also, I just don't get the Urban love.  He did a passable impression of McCoy, but otherwise, I didn't think his performance was anything special.  Ah well...like I said, I know I'm in the minority here, so I'll just quietly back out of the thread now.

NEW TREK caused me to give a crap about the franchise for the first time in 10 years, so I'm game.

Darkmite8, I agree with you about this new...Star Trek, being the first Good film in the franchise, since Picard made First Contact, not with...Bjorn Borg, but the...BORG!  Keep on...TREKkin!

The script of the 09 movie wasn't amazing but it's also not as terrible as people often make out. On a plotting level it was often extremely dumb and reliant on absurd coincidences and nonsense, there's no denying it. But it did a pretty decent job with the characters and gave the cast enough to work with that they made an impression (aside from poor old Bana). Plus it was tight and to the point, which puts it ahead of a lot of the other writer's strike fodder of the time, not to mention the overblown tentpoles that start shooting before anyone's decided what the movie should be about.

Which isn't to say Orci and Kurtsman returning is something to be too excited about, any more than the idea of Purvis and Wade writing a Bond script.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Myers 

Can we please have the Trek team explore a completely new world with a new alien species and not re-use any of the pre-existing elements like Borg / Khan / genesis / Vger / Vulcan diplomatics / vengeful Klingons etc. etc.?

 

You know, "To boldly go where no man has gone before"

?

If you don't want them playing around with vintage Trek iconography you're probably going to be disappointed. The last one was a movie about Star Trek as much as it was a Star Trek movie - I always thought it felt as much like a follow up to Galaxy Quest as anything else - and I doubt they'll throw out this new formula after it went down so well last time. I'd rather they keep away from direct remake territory (Khan etc), but I'm not sure the 'new species of the week' style plotline you're suggesting would necessarily be a better choice at this point.

I think the sheer amount of time this movie's been in development for will probably help it out. I mean, you look at Transformers or Iron Man 2... they had to get those movies entirely scripted in a few short months. This will have had a solid three years of brainstorming, conceptualizing, and planning behind it before it finally shoots -- that bodes really well for the quality of the finished product, I think.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul C 
If you don't want them playing around with vintage Trek iconography you're probably going to be disappointed. The last one was a movie about Star Trek as much as it was a Star Trek movie - I always thought it felt as much like a follow up to Galaxy Quest as anything else - and I doubt they'll throw out this new formula after it went down so well last time. I'd rather they keep away from direct remake territory (Khan etc), but I'm not sure the 'new species of the week' style plotline you're suggesting would necessarily be a better choice at this point.

From a business point of view, it's completely understandable. If I were in charge, I wouldn't do it in any other way. It's just... personally, looking back at the original series, I got to know Star Trek as a crew venturing into the unknown. There's a dashing hero in Kirk, and they're touching ground on worlds never seen before, fighting monsters, helping people and banging hot chicks. I want to be thrilled what they might discover next. And not "oh, Klingons again". No matter if he's a tattooed, clean shaven, one-eyed, constantly naked albino Klingon, it's still a Klingon and not something new.

Abram's Star Trek did it both, but the original half of it turned out quite smaller. It was the icon everyone loves meeting people playing the icons we love fighting an enemy who wasn't all too original. We already had doomsday devices and Romulans. So as a whole, it just felt like a variation of known stuff. As a passing of the torch that's okay, but creatively it'd be uninspired to continue including known elements. I want New Kirk and his crew to find his own iconography, and not just live a best-of of the other series. I don't want Pine as a reminder Shatner was awesome, I want both equally to be awesome on their own. It'd be easy to put the Borg and Khan into a second movie, with a cgi Data cameo and using Vger as a new doomsday device (= 700m+ gross)... but they should find their own icons.

Yeah, I already think it was lazy to re-use the Kirk crew instead of introducing a new Star Trek crew.

I don't get how everyone wasn't aware Star Trek was a joke when New Trek came out. I also don't get how even now people don't seem to be aware of it.

Where did all this unearned reverence come from?

stelios, Well...Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise were...Awful, Star Trek series.  The Original Series is...Classic, while Deep Space Nine, under Ira Steven Behr is equally Awesome!  The final...3 1/2 seasons under Ira Steven Behr was a...Huge  intergalactic war between The Dominion and several Federation Allies.  The Federation Docked the...U.S.S. Defiant a cool Blockade Runner with Weapons a bit too powerful for it's size, and it had a Cloaking Device.  Also during the...Dominion War, Federation Capital Ships even had Fighters.   Gene Roddenberry never wanted them.  That is another first for a Federation Ship!

      Adding Worf as 2nd in Command to Sisko was equally cool.  The Next Generation had Worf (The Token Klingon), but he was really the...6th or 7th important character. Season 4 of DS9 Featured a war with...The Klingon Empire.  With DS9 Worf also dated Sisko's best friend Lt. Jadzia Dax, portrayed by Terry Farrell whom once went...Back To School with Rodney Dangerfield!  Dax and Worf became lovers, which gave him something else to do.  DS9, did not seek out what was...Out There, because several aliens came...To Them, as the Station is docked next to a Wormhole.  Well I do not know if you don't like...Any Star Trek Series, but I do agree that JJ Abrams Star Trek is not as cool as TOS, DS9, The TOS FIlms (outside of ST V), are worthy of song.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMulder 

I think the sheer amount of time this movie's been in development for will probably help it out. I mean, you look at Transformers or Iron Man 2... they had to get those movies entirely scripted in a few short months. This will have had a solid three years of brainstorming, conceptualizing, and planning behind it before it finally shoots -- that bodes really well for the quality of the finished product, I think.

I always thought it was weird that people thought "more time" ALWAYS equaled "Instant Quality."

Back in school, the papers I wrote at the last minute were JUST AS GOOD as the papers I wrote early.

(Which is to say, awful. But that's irrelevant).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabe T 

I always thought it was weird that people thought "more time" ALWAYS equaled "Instant Quality."

 

Back in school, the papers I wrote at the last minute were JUST AS GOOD as the papers I wrote early.

(Which is to say, awful. But that's irrelevant).

 

It doesn't ALWAYS equal instant quality, but I think it sure increases the likelihood of quality. It's all just a hard-to-prove assumption, and lots of good films have been made really quickly of course (War of the Worlds or First Class come to mind), but I think having the chance to really deliberate over what you're planning reduces your chances of settling for "good enough," especially when you have to go from scripting to filming in about a couple months.