The Gun Counter

Or 10 Ways Star Trek Isn't Star Trek Anymore.

Star Trek is a field which should lie fallow for a generation so the creative soil can regenerate.

I broke a self-imposed exile from movie theaters of 20+ years to go see the first Abrams Star Trek film when it came out. I wished I hadn't.

The new theme is good.

I keep thinking JJ Cale for some reason - He's quite good.

Darrell wrote:I broke a self-imposed exile from movie theaters of 20+ years to go see the first Abrams Star Trek film when it came out. I wished I hadn't.

I rarely(as in, haven't been more than a dozen times in the last twenty years) go to an actual theater, preferring to mostly wait for the DVD... I heart Redbox..

That said, when I do go, it's for something that makes me go "I GOTTA SEE THAT!". Last few have been The first Transformers movie, The Jayne Punisher film, The Avengers movie...

It was a pretty rant, but the title is all wrong.

1) Anyone who thinks JJ Abrams "ruined" Start Trek didn't see Nemesis (which is understandable, as SCOTUS has ruled that allowing LWOP prisoners and/or Gitmo detainees to watch it violates the constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment), or else they're mentally blocking the memory of such a traumatic event from their consciousness. That doesn't make it true.

2) The reboot was epic, and a frankly brilliant way to shake up the legos and reassemble the same things, only different.

3) The chief gripe, entirely sustainable, is with, first, last, and always, the unfortunate piece of diaper spackle "Into Darkness", which even the title foreshadows is an exploration into the underpants of a toddler.

4) Long before Zachary Quinto had his "Khaaaaaaaan!" moment, they'd let enough go in the movie that I deduced I was trapped in a horrible remake of Star Trek II, except without any talent, intelligent thought, or serious respect for basic rules of storytelling, let alone the "canon" of What Was Before.
A lot of my memories after that point are hazy, but I remember threats of gagging (both vomiting, and having a gag applied), considerable anguish and personal anxiety, and an urge to retrieve my ticket price, at gunpoint, if necessary. (See #1, above.) All I can say now is, I hope I didn't hurt anyone, and if I did, I'm sorry, but my only clear recollection from that time period is of a recurrent dream/nightmare where I had joined Al Queda in order to crash a 747 into the executive offices at Paramount Studios.

5) Like my solution, and much like the solution to the unfortunate Aliens III/IV/AVP-Weekend At Bernie's II-Rocky: The Depends Years phenomenon, the proper choice is to open the next one with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, or both, awakening from similar sweat-soaked nightmares, and realizing along with the audience that nothing in Into Darkness ever happened. Then picking up the usable threads of the franchise, and going forward.

6) Audiences will forgive a bad movie. (Ask Rob Reiner about North, or Tom Hanks about The Man With One Red Shoe.) What they won't forgive is an entire career where you refuse to learn, double down on the stupid at every turn, and rapidly become a self-parody just by breathing. (Ask Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson, Pauly Shore, Carrot Top, Keith Olberman, Bill Maher, Piers Morgan, Al Gore, Joe Biden, or CNN).

And yeah, I pretty much said the same thing last year, right here.

There's nothing useable from the reboot.

There was a book, The Making of Star Trek, written about TOS. It has an enormous amount of information on production techniques, etc. One point it laid stress on was how Roddenberry made certain that the basic universe made sense. With a series, that's critical.

Abrams threw all of it away.

Abrams isnt making a series

Not true; the salient point is that Abrams isn't making Roddenberry's series.