Star Trek saviour JJ Abrams joins the dark side: Star Wars VII Star Wars creator George Lucas has given the thumbs-up to the appointment of JJ Abrams as director of the seventh outing for the sci-fi franchise. Lucas said the Star Trek helmsman is the "ideal choice" to take the reins of the movie, which will be the first Walt Disney Co foray into the Star Wars universe since it swallowed …
I don't know what the film he called star trek was but it wasn't star trek.
I imagine that in the first two minutes he'll have darth vader go back in time 10,000 years and change history and then feel free to make some random film at best slightly connected to star wars and then try to claim he made a star wars film.
I thought the Abrams Star Trek was brilliant. It managed to simultaneously keep all the original characters and their traits, and at the same time give us a completely different universe for future films. If Abrams can work similar magic on the Star Wars franchise I'll be surprised, will Lucas really be able to let go?
Still, anything that gives us a decent story and dialogue will be a good start. I thought that generally star wars films were at best mediocre and at worst, something close to Plan 9 with top of the line special effects.
"top of the line special effects." ...like Ewan MacGregor talking into a Sensor Excel for Women spray-painted silver?
The concept of a "reboot" is as annoying as the usage of the term itself; If you don't like how Star Trek's going, don't write a frigging Star Trek movie. If you do like it, then there's no need for a "reboot," is there?
YOU DON'T NEED A REBOOT when you have an ENTIRE UNIVERSE TO PLAY WITH. When it comes to Star Wars and Star Trek, the last thing we need is a "reboot" when any moment in time you can [plot mechanic changes something and it's cool] with anything you like. Or when you can set it as far in the future or past as you need. The only reason to do a reboot is to ride off the success of someone else with the already known names, instead of building the names and story your self.
Really, if it's an open book (and both story universes have masses of room and scope) there is no need to reuse old characters or stories at all.
I didn't mind the first film, though it does not warrant repeat viewings. The plot is a mess, the Enterprise looks slightly crap and transporting to a ship at warp, come on. (Kevin Smith has talked at length about things like this, where a piece of science-nonsense irks the fans). But come on, the ground rules for transporters have been around for years, it's just fucking wrong.
Come to think of it, Spock has Kirk ejected onto a hostile planet for no other reason than he's pissing him off. That's a much bigger WTF moment for me. Why didn't anyone else on the bridge pull him up about this?
... transporting to a ship at warp, come on. (Kevin Smith has talked at length about things like this, where a piece of science-nonsense irks the fans). But come on, the ground rules for transporters have been around for years, it's just fucking wrong.
So Star Trek is fact now, I thought it was science fiction... Where can I find warp drives, replicators and holo decks then?
"So Star Trek is fact now, I thought it was science fiction... Where can I find warp drives, replicators and holo decks then?"
I think he's referring to the fact that in the trek universe at least the rules had been established - there are decades of fictional science to respect. Going back in time and rebooting the franchise is one thing, rewriting the laws of physics in the trek universe is sacrilegious to some folk!
I personally don't have a problem with the new Trek film, and I'll pop to the cinema to support the next one too.
One of the big problems with Trek has always been that the capabilities of the underlying technology changes depending on the needs of the writers. That violates the fundamental rules of both sf AND fantasy writing. You get to break the rules of the normal universe ONCE and work out the plot from there. For really good sf books and shows a fair bit of theoretical thinking goes into exactly how you are circumventing physics. And one of the more basic rules is that while you can play with alien psychologies, humans are pretty much humans no matter how long we've been around. So for example, if a typical human, upon finding a technology 100 years in advance of what he's got, would try to copy/understand/use that technology, then even in the future they'd do the same thing.
I agree. Being able to break the rules at a whim or any time the character/writer wants to, makes a poor story IMO. If it's just about the characters, drop the plot all together (a road movie or day of the life kind of thing), if it's about the plot keep it logical and consistent. Else it becomes pointless worrying about character X Y or Z when you can just "magic/raygun/timemachine" it all back or fix anything that comes up. Worse culprit is the stories that tell you from the onset that "this certain thing is impossible" then forget they set that rule half way through, and break it.
The best example in the Star Trek reboot film was Kirk was standing in a shuttle transporter room when they were trying to figure out how to get back on the enterprise. (IIRC) the scene shows them trying to use the transporter when already standing on a warp capable craft. While slower, a "super boost to the shuttle speed" makes more sense than a magic transports pulled out of their behinds. Worse, the "magic plot device" now needs a "magic un-device" to stop it becoming an instant fix to every problem. Such as "Oh, how do we... just transwarp them. But what about...? Just transwarp". Same with the timetravel. If you add it into the plot, every solution becomes "just travel back in time and fix it", and "but what if we fail" becomes "we have a time machine, try agian!". ;)
/rant
Like Starship Troopers where asteroids get launched from the far side of the galaxy and arrive just in time for dinner? I don't think they were fitted with the Shooting Star Drive! But then Paul Verhoeven was only interested in the morality play - not in the technical details.
Phil.
Ground rules for transporters have been around for years? Sure, and they change according to plot. Always have.
Regardless, they've done warp transporters before. In TNG to be sure, and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who'll claim that 'that's not star trek'.
Only the most uptight fans try to claim consistency. Star Trek (and Star Wars) have technology that moves at the speed of plot - not according to actual rules. For example... we're on a 5 year deep space mission, but if we want to get back to earth we can manage that without upsetting our schedule.
Let go of the details and enjoy the story. There's nothing in the Star Trek reboot that's really outside of the norm for Star Trek. It could be worse, they could still have Brannon Bragga and Rick Berman hanging around their necks.
"Regardless, they've done warp transporters before. In TNG to be sure, and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who'll claim that 'that's not star trek'."
I think it was TNG, yes, in which they transported at warp off the ship. IIRC, a brief conversation ensued in which the doctor said something like "For a moment there, it felt like I was in that wall" with either Riker or Data replying, "For a moment there, you probably were."
I can't remember which episode, though. Or maybe it was one of the TNG films.
Or maybe I'm deliberately forgetting enough to try to counter the anorak it might look like I should be wearing.
I recall one of the early TNG episodes (might even be the pilot) where they do a warp-speed transport, though I think they dropped out of warp for an instant to transport, then jumped back to warp 9. But warp-beaming happened a lot - I vaguely remember the phrase "matching warp speed for transport". Might have been DS9 or Voyager though, but it's definitely in there somewhere. In fact thinking about it... "Best of Both Worlds" springs to mind...
Ground rules for transporters have been around for years? Sure, and they change according to plot. Always have.
No they haven't. You a social media consultant for Paramount?
The last Star Trek "movie" followed the same tired old unimaginative Paramount plot used in every Tom Cruise movie from the 1980's:
1. Rugged bad boy has no respect for authority and starts fights, breaks the rules, etc.
2. Father is dead and memory haunts him, people compare to him, etc
3. Opportunity for advancement to join Star Fleet / Top Gun / the Big Race / Big Trial / Big Fight / etc
4. Professional friction with a peer. who compares him to his father
5. Gets thrust into a crisis where he has to grow up. People compare him to his father
6. Obligatory "what would your father do" scene spoken by trusted figure starting with "yeah, I knew your father"/"I once saw your father" etc.
7. Saves the galaxy/Navy or wins trial/race/mission/whatever
8. Makes friends with peer in (4)
9. Slaps guys on the back at the end (really).
Show me a Tom Cruise movie from the 1980's that didn't follow this. Star Trek 2009 followed this exact formula right down to the slap on the back at the end.
Star Trek - TOS had original plots that were morality plays, where the right thing to do wasn't always evident.
I'll bet my bottom dollar that in Star Wars VII, it starts out with Luke dies, and his son follows the above formula exactly. An older Han or Leia or somebody keeps comparing the kid to his father. He fights the son of Palpatine, etc.
..."and transporting to a ship at warp, come on."
Actually there were a couple of pre-existing examples of that in canon. Granted they had barely worked out how to do it by the Next Gen era and even then they only attempted it in the most desperate situations. Spock-the-asshole did rank pretty high on my WTF meter, but Spock and Uhura as a couple pinned the meter out.
Ok all plot points taken but....
...JJ didn't write the script. He was the director. Put the blame on Orci & Co who actually wrote that crap. JJ has gone on record saying he isn't really a Trekkie...but do you have to be to be a director? So JJ is directing Star Wars...I still want to know who the hell is writing the script.
"transporting to a ship at warp", I know, I just found it completely unbelievable. I mean traveling faster than the speed of light and also being able to disassemble a person into pure energy and transmit them via a particle beam to rebuild them into matter at a given target is perfectly believable, but doing both at the same time just didn't make any sense.
@jb99
are you complaining about the time travelling aspect of the reboot? because, i seem to recall there was a TOS film where they came back to the 1980s and stole some fish, wasn't there?
also, you know that Abrams just directed it. he didn't write the script. if you have such a problem with the plot of the film then you should take that up with Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman
TOS managed to do time-travelling in both the actual series and the movies (basically ST4). But a pretty big element in all time-travelling stories was that you were *not* supposed to alter the past! There's the one where they intercept a weird alien agent and try to stop him from sabotaging a US Missile Test ... only to find out that the sabotage was supposed to happen!
The ST4 one had them retrieving whales that were going to get killed anyway, so the effects of doing that in the past were negligible, while the benefits of bringin 'em to the 23rd century were on a "planet saving" scale.
I imagine that in the first two minutes he'll have darth vader go back in time 10,000 years and change history...
Lucas has already done enough changing of Star Wars history without the need for a time travelling Vader plot. In fact, imagine all the things Abrams could fix...
Han *DID* shoot first!
Jar Jar Binks wiped from existence
Jedi Council actually do something other than talk
Darth Maul as actual main recurring villain of the prequels
"I imagine that in the first two minutes he'll have darth vader go back in time 10,000 years and change history and then feel free to make some random film at best slightly connected to star wars and then try to claim he made a star wars film."
After what Lucas did to the franchise in the last three movies, one can only hope!
The bridge of the Enterprise was an ergonomic nightmare. In the first couple of minutes of the reboot we had lights shining directly at the crew. Bright, white, blue purple colours and reflections of those colours from transparent or reflective surfaces - massive sensory overload. That's before we have Abrams with his lens flare and cameramen with severe muscular spasms. Best watched with a pair of sunglasses!
Phil.
It's a sad reflection of Trekkies' obsession with anal details that for another Star Trek movie to get produced, the director had to turn it into a space-faring version of Primer in order to comply with the sacred, unmodifiable, and now pretty ridiculous "canon" - followed by the inevitable wailing from fans because the new movie failed to take into account the direction in which Captain Kirk farted during a rehearsal for a deleted scene in an episode from the original TV series.
"Flogging a franchise that was originally planned to have 9 parts before Episode 4 was even written?"
iirc, Star Wars was originally planned to have the one episode, until it became a massive hit, which is why Lucas had to reinvent the back-story with prequels.
Why in SWE111RotS, when all those vehicles are flying past the window, they don't cast any shadows?
* Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith:
"iirc, Star Wars was originally planned to have the one episode, until it became a massive hit"
No. The very opening of the first film writes "Episode IV: A new hope" on the screen.
IIRC, the planned masses of fighting robots etc were far in advance of then-existing budgets and technical capabilities. Don't forget that the one noticeable movie he'd done before is "American Graffiti", a laidback slice of adolescent life (and not a big hit) --- not the kind of thing that makes you say "here's $500M, mr Lucas, go invent some tech and make this movie".
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