Reboots and prequels are a bad idea for everyone except studio executives and their shareholders. Creativity is shackled to previously-formed ideas and developments, and everyone involved vainly attempts to recreate what everyone loved about the previous version.
Don’t get me wrong – J.J. Abrams did a pretty good job rebooting STAR TREK. The alternate timeline gambit paid off, giving the movie a certain lift since it was no longer tied to the events of later years. This avoids what was, of course, one of the worst aspects of the STAR WARS prequels, as well as the recent WOLVERINE abomination – you knew what was going to happen later, so everything had to play into that eventuality. It not only saps the movie of drama, but it also causes an instant comparison to previous films rather than create its own identity.
But I didn’t really care for all of the time travel nonsense in the film. While necessary for Abrams’ alternate universe idea, it came off as a convoluted gimmick. This was particularly true of Old Spock’s magical reappearance in the ice cave, thereby converging the two timelines in a ridiculously haphazard way. However, by the end of the film, I wanted the franchise to shake itself free of the former timeline and to boldly move into new territory.
But clearly Abrams and his writers are not willing to do that. In this recent interview, Abrams breathlessly discusses the possibility of including Old Kirk in the sequel via yet another time travel device (ugh), or possibly including the infamous Khan in it as well.
WHY???????
As I asked in my initial review of STAR TREK, has there ever been a franchise that has crawled up its own ass as much as this one? For a series that is supposed to be about boldly going places, STAR TREK sure does spend a lot of time navel gazing at its own history. What good can possibly come of seeing a 70 year old William Shatner stuffed into a uniform, hamming up the place? It would be, in my mind, and affront to a cast that worked hard to carve out new identities in this reboot.
Even worse is the idea of bringing in Khan. Look, I loved Khan in the second STAR TREK film, and it would be great to see that character again in some capacity. However, Ricardo Montalban is DEAD. And trust me, nobody can recreate that character in his place. EVER. Thanks to the television show, we’ve seen Khan as both a young man and an old man. What can possibly be done with this character again? Abrams would be wise to put that idea aside.
Of course, Abrams has to appeal to the STAR TREK fanbase, which has all the imagination of ritualistically setting up a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. In a poll on Twitter by Peter Sciretta of SlashFilm, the three most popular “ideas” by TREK fans were:
1. The Original Crew vs. The Borg
2. The return of William Shatner
3. Khan
Wow. Terrific ideas, guys!
Here’s a better idea: either don’t make a sequel (ha ha ha), or make something original for once!!! The sequel will have over a 100 million dollars to play with, and a clean slate. Come up with something new … fresh … exciting. I realize that, by doing this, Abrams would need to go out on a limb and release something that wasn’t test marketed into the ground, but that’s the beauty of having a job in the entertainment industry. The primary point of that position is to be CREATIVE.
So my advice to Abrams would be: Experiment! Create previously unseen villains! Explore strange NEW worlds, and NEW civilizations! Boldly go where no one has gone before!!!
It’s amazing how quickly everyone involved in this franchise forgets their own motto.
18 Comments
They should definately go in a new direction with it now but you just know that the Borg are going to turn up somewhere down the line and as for the Shat making an appearance, please no.
DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT!!!!!!!
First: you’re right that the idea of Abrams including Kahn and Shatner the next time around is ridiculous, fan-catering nonsense that pretty much negates the beautiful simplicity of what Abrams created in ST just so that he could AVOID this exact thing.
But I think it’s just an idea floating out there and probably won’t develop. Remember 10 minutes after SUPERMAN RETURNS was released? They started talking about the sequel including Zod. I think that these knee-jerk reactions to reboot success, riding high the wave of fan approval, are inevitable and that it’s possible and even likely that cooler heads will prevail in the months of development to come.
But that having been said, on the second point you’re wrong: Khan could certainly be recast. Kirk has been recast; Bond has been recast; even Megatron (!) has been recast. There are very few roles anymore that can’t – and won’t – be recast. They’re not all successful, but some of them certainly are.
But ultimately, you ARE right. Abrams and company should simply come up with a more original idea for the future. I’m guessing that they will, with the requisite number of historic references, cameos and throwbacks. Did you catch the Tribbles sitting in a cage on Scotty’s desk?
@ The Glove – Amen, brother.
@ Burbanked – I thought you were dead.
You’re possibly right about the direction of the new movies, although Abrams is enough of a pop culture suck-up that I can’t see him passing on all the press a Shatner/Khan/Borg would surely provide.
I must have missed the Tribbles while I was sitting there, incredulous, muttering to myself, “So I’m supposed to believe that half of the Enterprise crew is found within a square mile of each other on a desolate ice world??”
Perhaps, Ray – but Abrams DID avoid the pop culture suck-up that including Shatner the first time around would have generated, instead putting story and character above it. That’s earned him some narrative credibility in my book.
And I just read a hilariously great line in Alexandra DuPont’s ST review here http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41016 that relates to your recasting question:
“The cast is a damned miracle. Really, “Star Trek”’s biggest revelation is that these iconic characters — like James Bond or Sherlock Holmes or Doctor Who — are open to interpretation; they’re no longer bound to the actors who originated the roles. Good Lord: They’re all Kirstie Alley now.”
I fail to see how abrams avoided it the first time around. Spock is in the first one.
Ray, you’ve really hit the nail on the head in one single line “either don’t make a sequel (ha ha ha), or make something original for once!” As far as I’m concerned, this reboot is a good film, but only because I’ve watched fuck-all Star Trek before. My opinion might be different if I’d seen more. It doesn’t matter how much praise this film gets, it will never be a true classic because it’s just not that special. It’s a continuation of someone else’s idea (however much Abrams wants to be Steven Hawking).
@Burbanked: Abrams didn’t even avoid Shatner, he just didn’t want to pay his inflated fee.
@Michael Edwards: I’d suggest that if the publicity-stunt value of Shatner’s appearance had been important enough to Abrams’ aesthetic, he and Paramount would have somehow found a way to pay the fee. That simply wasn’t their priority, which is what I’m admiring.
@Ray: in some ways, Ancient Spock is indeed stunt casting – but whether one enjoys the time travel nature of the story or not, you can’t deny that Spock’s involvement in it is rather critical to the plot. It’s not really a cameo by an old hammy cast member who’s simply there to continue his campy legacy, but rather a connection of the alternate time threads that the movie’s story seeks to establish.
@Ray: “… but that’s the beauty of having a job in the entertainment industry. The primary point of that position is to be CREATIVE.”
No, sir. The primary goal in Hollywood is to 1) keep your job; 2) make a profit.
Unfortunately, we celebrate and reward mediocrity.
Mark
@ Burbanked – Hmmmm … someone sounds like a Trekkie. Er, Trekker.
Look, the fact that Abrams decided to link this film up with the previous universe is catering to the fanbase. He knew it would piss them off to start the thing over again, so he created something that would make them jizz in their Starfleet-issued lycra panties – time travel anomalies – in order to justify the reboot.
And frankly, I’m just about sick of time travel bullshit, especially in STAR TREK. They have done it to DEATH. In this movie the time travel plotline is so ridiculous that it detracts from the whole. Of course, as a non-fan, I would have preferred a fresh reboot of the series without any needed ties to the past. And I think this film would have been better had they done that.
Why can’t these bastards just move the fuck on?! JJ and company got Tabula Rasa and it seems like they are just going to ignore that. They need to be more assuring in the fact that they can practically do whatever they want i.e., new direction, new villains, new bloody twists. Bastards!! Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ray, good point about the franchise needing to “pull it’s head out of it’s ass.”
Good advice to you too. Stop blaming the Trek fanbase for everything you don’t like about Trek -which seems to be everything. Trek fans have had the LEAST to do with what’s gone on in Trek the last 17 years. That’s Rick Berman you’re thinking about.
Or havne’t you noticed Trek went’ from being one of the top-rated shows when Rodenberry was alive to being disliked by even those who still had affection for the overall idea?
That means the Trek fans aren’t the drooling “fanboys” who will eat any turd Paramount lays simply because it has the name “Star Trek” on it, the way YOU drool for Star Wars and Spider-Man.
Trek fans have been among the most picky and the quickest to jump ship when Trek’s quality flagged.
And I didn’t see you blaming the “Trekkies” when Abrams decided to “reboots” things, and did it recycling the series most shopwork characters and employing the most-overused device in Trek history –time travel. What did the fans have to do with THAT?
Dump on Paramount, Abrams and Berman for the bad decisions, God knows they’ve made enough of them. But try to think for once before you blame Trek fans for anything, especially when you accuse them of being brandead zombies who will take any old crap Paramount throws them, when even you can’t deny that Trek fans abandoned ship over ten years ago, when they saw the studio was taking them for granted.
I give you the advice I give Matt. Swallow your petty hatred of Trek, and stop using the Trek fans as whipping boys for your own dislike of the franchise.
“I give you the advice I give Matt. Swallow your petty hatred of Trek, and stop using the Trek fans as whipping boys for your own dislike of the franchise.”
JaySmack: Just to clarify- knowing Matt personally as well as I do I dont know how you can claim that he also has a petty hatred of Trek (Ray’s disinterest is widely known though). Matt is a fan of the show, one of the biggest I know, so Im not really sure where your opinion has come from?
First of all, I like Matt. So don’t get it twisted. And my remarks were almost exclusively aimed at Ray, I only mentioned Matt ONCE in passing –at the very end. I had to go back and read my post again just to figure out why you even mentioned him.
I’m not criticising Matt personally. I can’t even see where you got that impression. I’m simply addressing that anyone who liked Trek before this “reboot” is bashed consistently. If you see a Star Trek article on this site it won’t be long before the column is bashing the franchise for being “beholden to the fans,” or praising it for not being so.
But the fans or prior continuity are NEVER respected in any way here. Apparently in these parts it’s an article of faith that Trek MUST be attacked.
Now, to explain why I mentioned Matt -in passing. I was addressing the slant of his columns, not making a judgment about his personal morality. Whenever someone says something stupid like, “This movie–Trek– isn’t made for the fans,” that person simply wants to dump on Trek, facts be damned. Because apparently facts would only get in the way of their Trek-bashing and they aren’t about to have that!
Now I don’t care if someone has an open bias, but they at least need to come out and say so, and not pretend to be some sort of neutral observer.
I have repeatedly reminded Matt that Trek fans were the FIRST to bail when the franchise was being mishandled, but he persists in saying things like (and I’m paraphrasing here!) “This movie will be accessible to a broad audience, not just the die hard fans who the series has tried to appeal to.”
Oh, do Matt and Ray mean the same fans who have been running away from Trek for over a decade now? Who are these “die-hard fans” they keep talking about who have been insisting that Trek be so badly mishandled? Not surprisingly they can never name any of these people.
Are there folks who think Trek didn’t need a reboot, just a creative team who would stop raping the franchise and go back to good storytelling instead of gimmicks and lazy writing? Yes.
Kind of the way people like Matt were so profoundly disappointed with the second Star Wars trilogy. Does that franchise need a reboot after 30 years? I never got into SW in the first place, so I would be as cool with a total rennovation as I would with someone simply making a decent SW movie. But I’m pretty sure Matt wouldn’t jump at a SW reboot no matter what form it took.
I’m not a die-hard Trekkie, though I’m sure some would like to typecast me as that because they can’t counter my arguments. I haven’t been loyal to Trek in over a decade myself. But when Trek was good there was nothing better. I liked Trek up until the mid-90’s and tried to get back into it during the last season of Enterprise, –which was actually pretty good BECAUSE THE SCRIPTS WERE FINALLY IMPROVING– but that’s about the extent of my Trek-love.
Loved it for five years, ignored it for over 10, came back for six months. Oh yeah, I’m a “DIE-HARD” Trekkie!
Secondly, it sounds dumb as a brick to talk as if just because Trek’s been around for 40 years that there’s been some ongoing 40 year long story arc. But that’s exactly what Matt etc have inferred by talking about “making it accessible to non-fans.”
Star Trek is like James Bond. I can’t think of ANYONE who bitches that they have to watch Bond from Dr No forward in order to “get it.”
When I read Matt say things like “accessible to a broader audience,” I wonder if Matt secretly does struggle with understanding Bond, even though they’ve been essentially making the same movie for the last 40 years.
As an intermittent Trek-fan, I can tell you that this “reboot” was nothing more than making Trek like every other flick for the mushy-brained set. The Brett Ratner-ization of a franchise, you could say.
They used the most icon-heavy characters and the same shopworn plot-device to get through it.
What’s “fresh” or “exciting” about that?
If ANY movie has ever been made the the “die hard fans” THIS movie was! But this fact is conveniently ignored.
Trek was hardly having a great run the last ten years. But does Matt acknowledge that the stuido mishandled it? Not even once.
Does he admit the fan base has been bailing, so clearly THEY weren’t even pleased with it anymore, and hence his “broader audience” line is invalid? No.
Instead he continues to confuse Star Trek fans with Star Wars fans. SW fans will line up two abreast around the city to get into a first showing. Trek fans won’t.
So, again, I ask, who are these irrational Trekkies that Matt has been fighting a holy war against? What is so complex about a franchise that is pig-simple to get that it needs to be “accessible to a broader audience?”
And how does using THE flagship characters of the series and THE trademark plot-device of the series constitute “fresh”, “exciting” or a “reboot?”
I think I’ll be waiting a LONG time if I expect to get an answer from the Trek-bashers on that one!
Because I’ve NEVER seen Matt complain about how UTTERLY inaccessible Serenity was. I hadn’t seen a single episode of Firefly, as most people hadn’t, and after hearing the die-hard Firefly fans CONSTANTLY going into orgasmic hyperbole about how “smart, fresh, funny” that show was I figured that the movie would be at the very least, good.
Not only was it pure shit, Whedon made NO effort to take his overly-dense, underdeveloped franchise and explain to the audience why the crew was robbing people, why they were on the run, what the “war” they kept talking about was fought over, who was fighting it, or even who won. Or even to explain where the Mad Mad cannibals came from and not just how they got that way.
If you had not watched Firefly from Episode one –and paid VERY close attention to each episode!– you would be completely lost. So why have neither Matt nor Ray attacked and reviled Serenity/Firefly as the gold standard of franchises that cater to the fans and doesn’t give a crap if non-fans don’t follow a thing that’s going on?
BTW, Firefly fans were RAVENOUS about Serenity and THOROUGHLY pleased with the final result. They had as much to do with it’s crappiness as Whedon.
So, like I said, when someone complains NON-Stop about Trek being in the iron grip of fans –fans who abandoned it over a decade before!– and needing to be “accessible to a broader audience –when the concept is so pig-simple that even a three year-old can get it– but doesn’t say a sentence or even a single word about how inaccessible and fan-beholden Serenity –or Harry Potter as another example– was, then YES, I’m going to say that person has a bias.
Because they do.
That doesn’t mean I hate Matt, or even Ray for that matter, although Ray has an open-bias of another sort.
It simply means their inconsistency is GLARING and somebody needs to call them on it.
Now, if Matt has by not inference tried to make Trek fans responsible for the franchise –if he has not said “this movie wasn’t made strictly for the fanbase”– then PLEASE tell me about !
If he or Ray has indeed reviled Serenity over and over as inaccessible and enslaved to the fans then PLEASE show me where they said this even once, much less repeatedly, like they have with Trek.
ANYTIME Trek is mentioned here, out comes the bashing. But of all the stories on Serenity/Harry potter etc we don’t get the anti-franchise rants. No mention of it at all.
That’s what I’m talking about.
Anger is a path to the dark side.
Woooo … someone needs a sedative slipped into their Romulan ale.
Of that diatribe, I will only address one question:
“If he or Ray has indeed reviled Serenity over and over as inaccessible and enslaved to the fans then PLEASE show me where they said this even once, much less repeatedly, like they have with Trek.”
SERENITY is even more retarded than most other franchises. I have no interest in even typing its name, let alone discussing it. I really wish the three fans of that show would give it up already.
A long answer, but not one that addresses the only question I asked? How can you qualify him having a “petty hatred” of Trek? I didnt ask anything else…
Finally Ray, we agree on SOMETHING!
Simon, I did answer your question. You either weren’t paying attention to the answer, or you didn’t get an answer that you wanted.
If that’s not enough for you then I have no control over that.
@ JaySmack – On what do we agree? That you need a sedative?
LOL