this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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This won't be popular, but I LOVED his first two Trek movies. Acting was on point without making a caricature of the original people. The call backs in the Kahn movie were great. Both were exciting, engaging, all that.
I have no idea what happened in the third movie. Tried to watch it 4 times. Still never finished it, can't tell you a thing about it.
Begin my punishment. My body is ready.
I definitely enjoyed the movies, but at the risk of sounding like a gatekeeper, they didn't really feel like Trek. It felt more to me like an action sci-fi in the vein of, say, Avatar, with a coat of Trek paint to lure the fans in.
Still enjoyable, mind you, but not really something I remember when I think of the Trek universe.
The '09 Star Trek movie, judged on its merits as a Star Trek movie, was a pretty good Star Wars movie.
I agree they're not Trek, but they are much closer than any show after Enterprise.
Lol no, that's a ridiculous statement.
Reminder: the only new Trek since Enterprise are devoid of Berman / Roddenberry and are the Kurtzman abominations. Discovery and Picard are Star Wars sequel trilogy tier.
You do realize that Frakes is ALL OVER the new Treks? Is fucking Commander Riker not Trek enough for you?
The presence of the legendary Patrick Stewart, the most iconic of all Trek actors, does not make Picard a Trek show. It makes it even worse. It's like if you brought Mark Hammill back to Star Wars to be a grumpy slouch.
No I completely agree with you. Without those first two Abrams Trek movies, I probably wouldn’t have ever watched any of the Trek shows.
Him and Rian Johnson fucked Star Wars though. Completely ruined it for me and I refuse to watch any new Star Wars content.
I will honestly say that, as someone who did not like Rogue One (I seem to be in a small minority), Andor was one of the best sci-fi series I'd seen in a while. I recommend watching it. It's only barely related to the rest of Star Wars. There's no Force or Jedi in it.
Rogue One and Solo were my two favorite of the Disney abominations. They were solid movies. Andor was amazing and could be watched by anyone who liked sci-fi: the story was compelling.
If they told more stories about not-jedi or troopers, it would be great.
Yeah Disney seems to think that if they're not constantly bombarding us with references to characters and stories we're nostalgic about, people will lose interest. Doesn't matter if the story is shit, if there's a Skywalker popping their head into the frame every few minutes saying "remember me?", people will love it.
Andor proves that all we want is a good fucking story.
I'm at the point where I don't think it's that, but that the writers have been such high turnover/overworked/on-striked for the last 8 years that it's all they can come up with.
Like what's happening with Marvel right now, how multiple projects are having the exact same issue of having the overview but none of the specifics. Blade has been rewritten like 4 times now, Daredevil:BA has been reworked at least 3 times now I believe as well and recently decided that Netflix's content actually will be canon, so...
That is basically the same story for Star Wars. Except IMO it's even worse because J.J. Abrams basically made Star Trek a Star Wars movie and then when he got the opportunity to plan out a full trilogy he declines? Then when he doesn't like the direction he comes back and doesn't expand but retcons?
There's no plan because it seems like there's no longstanding consistent writers or team involved (Abrams + Kasdan, Johnson, then the Kasdan's again) to have a full overarching story.
All that said, there are elements of all of them that I think are done really well. I don't quite have the same perception of 8 for Luke's character, visions of the Dark Side had him falter and the action onset Ben's descent. It's nearly a self fulfilling cycle and I don't think it is entirely "out of character" for Luke so much as that scene to me feels like PTSD from his vision in Empire. He then emulates his Master Yoda, isolating and living on the land and minimizing his connection to the Force.
I think it works very well for his character with the circumstances surrounding it. What I'm more skeptical on is him leaving a cryptic pathway to finding him and the amount of time that passes through the rest of the movie, and his general demeanor when he's found.
I have other issues with it, but overall I think it would have worked fine if the next movie had supported any of it, instead of just trying to "fix" whatever wasn't part of the original vision. 9 has some aspects I like about it though, I think the Force Dyad was actually alright, their kiss isn't my favorite but the way I see it is more of a merging of The Force than romance. tbh I can't remember much else at the moment, I just know I'm like 50/50 on the sequels, there's some parts that are conceptually really good and pulled of moderately well and then others that just make no sense and would clearly have been avoided with any semblance of some foresight.
I actually loved the Last Jedi and it's by far my favorite of the sequel trilogy. The reason I liked it so much is that it took some genuine risks instead of retreading the same familiar story structure. While Johnson made some controversial decisions, it was way more interesting than JJ's retcon nostalgia bait fluff. I'm sad RJ didn't get to finish the trilogy.
I would have been interested to see where he went with it, though I do wish he would have reworked Finns casino plot
Yeah that space Monaco sequence was pretty lame. But other than that, I liked the movie
I’ve heard good things but after all this time, I still fume when I hear Star Wars. Maybe one day
Seriously, just watch it. It isn't a Star Wars story besides the setting. It is the singular thing that gives me some hope the Star Wars franchise can be better than it has been.
Hear here! Andor was a psychological thriller filled with conspiracy and intrigue with the window dressing of Star Wars. It could have taken place anytime, anywhere and still been the same show.
Andor is the best Star Wars has ever been, on my opinion. That said (and I think this is why it's so good), it's probably closer to Trek than Wars. It actually cares about the people in the world and their reasons for doing things. It cares about motivations and what drives people to do what they do. It wants to use it's position to analyze humanity, not just make a flashy action movie.
I hated the 2009 movie and Into Darkness, but Beyond was okay-ish.
(Apparently unlike you, I care about ridiculous plot holes so big they destroy the entire premise of Star Trek -- after all, (a) how is Starfleet anything but a farce if a mutinous cadet can be promoted straight to captain, (b) what's the point of starships if you can just beam between star systems, and (c) what's the point of any dramatic conflict if you can fuckin' cure death?!)
Pike tagging Kirk like that jolted me right out of the first movie. Just... no. I still found it enjoyable overall, but the contrivances really detracted from the experience.
To be fair, Into Darkness isn't the only Trek thing to have that problem. Lower Decks even makes the relative ease with which main characters return from the dead a plot point.
I agree the films aren’t good trek but they’re still a fun watch, imo, if you keep them in context. If start trek was an action franchise, they’d be presentable outings.
They're fairly good Star Wars movies wearing Star Trek cosplay. If they weren't called Star Trek then people wouldn't have an issue with them. The problem is they are attached to a series about asking questions and looking into humanity, not action.
The third one was just…fine. Like I’m so ambivalent towards it, I don’t have any feeling about it.
I was the same, can't remember it now but it was said to be the best by a lot of people.
Khan was a mockery because of the takeout and magic blood.
The worst part was that Khan was already "brownface" with Montalban playing him, but then they literally made him white.
Not just white, but the whitest man on Earth with the most English name ever.
You mean Burlington Coat-factory?
"on point and not a caricature" you say? https://youtu.be/k9vHopyEtzs?si=nBc7zRs0_h29MNMl
Right? I like Zachary Quinto as an actor, but that Spock was not Spock. And yes, I know, the Kelvin Event changed everything... so why not just invent new characters instead of shoehorning new personalities into beloved ones?
Because JJ doesn't have original thoughts, but sure does love to pander to nostalgia!
B/c like modern AI, it was more "cost-effective" to simply take the older ones, and do whatever they wanted with them, regardless of our consent.
And just as lazy.
Heaven forbid we have all original characters. We can't even have them in Disco and SNW and I like Disco and SNW... but Star Trek and Star Wars both have this Dickensian issue where every show has to be connected to every other show not just through the worldbuilding that has already been done, they actually have to share characters at least sometimes. As fun as crossovers can be, if they were even just kept to a bare minimum it would be nice.
They're doing a Starfleet Academy show next. I assume it will have Tilly in it. What if it had zero characters in common with any of the other shows except for the very occasional crossover or reference, and maybe never with any of the main casts of any of the other series?
When Gene Roddenberry was in charge, things were better. I guess that's almost stupid to say b/c of how trivially obvious it is but... there it is. He was the original mind behind it all, and without him, the rest is simply cashing in ca-CHING on what he built. I could barely finish watching Enterprise, and (don't hate me, at least not too much) haven't been able to force myself to watch anything newer since. Even at the price of "free", it isn't the same return on investment compared to e.g. re-watching old episodes of Babylon 5 or something.
But please, don't mind me and definitely I hope that nobody deprives themselves of at least checking that stuff out to see if it might be for them.
Oh okay. But peak Trek literally was when Roddenberry was ousted, during the Berman era. As much as Roddenberry is worshipped, his contribution to Star Trek is rather small by now and Star Trek has outgrown his legacy. TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT and the TOS movies all came after Roddenberry.
True, like DS9 was arguably the best of all, but then Enterprise was... not, so while I agree about Berman it's somehow like the closer to Roddenberry the better while the further away the worse.
TNG, DS9, and VOY really grappled with deeper ethical situations and made you think, much like TOS, so were true to the universe setup and purpose for which Star Trek was originally designed. Enterprise I guess tried to do that for like a hot minute but then just became so boring I could barely stand it even just in the background while I did other things.:-(
For everything after that it's not really fair for me to speak of what I lack direct knowledge of, except to say why I didn't bother investigating on my own - bc they too looked the same as in trying to cash in on the franchise, without putting in the effort to fully deserve a place alongside them (or so reviews seemed to suggest). i.e. they weren't told for the purpose of delighting and amazing the audience - as TOS, TNG, etc. made you feel - but rather simply to exist as yet one more thing to click on. i.e. they were sitting on this cash cow and wanted to find a way to collect from nostalgia of the past rather than make something that truly deserved to exist for its own sake.
It's wonderful to be creative and make up your own universe that tells whatever story you wanted told - e.g. Farscape, Doctor Who, even Andromeda as controversial as its star may be - and Star Trek was one of if not the best universe... originally, and with some fantastic sequels too, but eventually it's like what happened when Disney bought out Star Wars, it became all about cranking out that assembly line whimsey.
I really don't like the new shows either. They're too flashy, it's all about the spectacle.
Try the Orville though. It's what TNG was but modern and with a bit more humour. I think it's amazing.
The first one was pretty great, I couldn't get through the second though and actually heard good things about the third. The second put me off even trying the third.
As incentive to watch it, Abrams had no involvement with Beyond and it was basically a Simon Pegg production, and Pegg genuinely loves Trek.
I found it an okay film that did the best it could with pretty weak material beforehand, but mostly forgettable. If Simon Pegg was given a clean slate, he could have done something much more interesting.
Just a small nitpick: Star Trek Beyond was directed by Justin Lin, not Abrams, and was written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung. Abrams only produced.
Agreed.
Also, I don’t hate the SW 7-9 any more than the previous six. They are sci-fi spectacles and none of them were brilliant pieces of writing. Plot holes and magic galore.