m_s0 said:
doubleofive said:
You have to hear Mike's side. I believe he feels that Trek 09 is the best movie, as in general audience movie. He and I just did a commentary on Wrath of Khan this weekend (coming soon), so he's familiar with it. I enjoy the hell out of 09 (see our conversation on "The Whole Pre-Re-Quel Thing"). It's fun and it's getting people interested in the franchise.
I disagree. It doesn't get people interested in Star Trek. It gets people interested in the Star Trek reboots, which really bear little, if any, resemblance to Star Trek.
I've talked to a lot of people during the past couple of years about ST 09 and ST(I)D (har har) and every single one of them felt that even though they liked the reboots, they don't feel like giving the TV series or even the older movies a chance. It's odd, but the Star Trek stigma is still a thing. Kind of funny how people seem to subconsciously realize that this new Star Trek has nothing to do with actual Star Trek, hence why it's OK to enjoy it and even admit that publicly ;)
Here's something else that's funny: I've been recommending Wrath of Khan to a buddy of mine (a programmer and generally speaking a nerd) ever since the first STID trailer came out, but he refuses to watch it. Why? Because it's Star Trek. He loved STID, though, and didn't have any qualms about watching it.
All of the above is even more amusing considering that those old Star Trek movies (aside from the first one) were made with a general audience in mind.
This brings me to the "best general audience movie" part. If by best you (or he) mean it's dumbed down (and thus easy to stomach by non-nerds) and just doesn't require any involvement on the viewer's part, emotional or otherwise, than yeah, it's the best "Star Trek" movie hands down. By that logic Bay's Transformers (shitty script, unsatisfying, downright incomprehensible action scenes etc. Just a badly made expensive piece of crap) is a masterpiece. If by saying "best" he refers to the quality of the movie... consider me baffled.
I haven't listened to the podcast, but I might do that to get some fuel for the inevitable hate mail/post that will follow ;)
Oh, and btw: I enjoyed ST 09 for what it was.
Thank you.
I enjoyed Star Trek 09 but would never call it real Trek and ITD was one of the worst Sci-Fi movies I have ever seen and everything in it was just ripped off from a better movie or TV show. Really I don't see how you can call it the best. Heck the people I talk to who hate Star Trek and liked the movie when it came out seem to have forgotten about it or just see it as another throw away action movie that they had no reason to watch again once it was out of theaters,this is hardly good news for Trek.
You want to see how to do a reboot for a show that had a bad reputation that gets general viewers to give the new show a shot? Look at Doctor Who. This may be hard to believe but I became a fan in 95 so I know before the show came back it was viewed as a piece of low budget trash and it's fans were mocked even in some sci-fi circles. I mean I knew people who would only admit they were fans on Doctor Who message boards on the internet because admitting you were a fan in public was the quickest way to get mocked at all times. Then there was the fact that most people didn't even know what the show was. But look what happened after the reboot,now it's on the cover of magazines,you can buy T-Shirts in Wal-Mart,and I know people who started watching the reboot but rank a classic Doctor as their favorite. So what happened? Well In Doctor Who's case you had a smart producers who updated what needed to be updated like the format but also stayed true to what the show was about and kept The Doctor in character. It was marketed as a new show so people didn't need to know about the old one to enjoy it but because it stayed true to what the show was about and the character was not messed with when people went back and watched the classic episodes on DvD for the first time they were able to look past the bad special effects and see the things that they loved about the new show were there the whole time. I know so many people who used to see Doctor Who as silly or didn't even know it existed who now watch the classic series without shame because it is part of the same universe as the new show that got them into the franchise. if you ask me that is how you breath new life into a franchise. You don't dumb it down or rewrite the characters,you just update the format while staying true to the characters.