SPECULATION Connections with Star Wars Legacy

Let me elaborate a little more, Abrams had a very brief career as a screenwriter, and the last thing he had solo writing credit on before he managed to develop his own projects and schmooze his way up the corporate matter, was Gone Fishing.

His other writing credits are all far from examples of greatness, honestly his filmography as a whole is seriously unimpressive, and this isn't even accounting for the fact his best friends and collaborators in the business are Damon Libdleof, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and that says a lot about Abrams' taste.

I have no idea why people have so much confidence in him. I imagine it has a lot to do with Star Trek, and the thing is his take on Trek was not well received by Star Trek fans, and both films barely even made their budget back at the domestic box office.

How's he do it? Not because he's a creative genius that's for sure.

Just being honest.

 

Interesting opinion... counter-opinion... Traditionally speaking, even bad writers would try their darned hardest when working with the Star Wars property, and there have been plenty of bad expanded universe books of course... but I would say most of those that are bad, and from bad writers... are better than the rest of the stories they have written.

I general tihnk that writers try harder whne handed the Star Wars license...

As for his Star Trek film, its infinitly better than 90% of Star Trek material... STar Trek is a near-garbage franchise thath e managed to make actually enjoyable.

As well he is not writing Star Wars alone, and has oversight and other writers working with him.

 

Yeah life long Trek fan here. My opinion: I did not like the second new Trek movie as much as the 1st but the 1st was awesome. I was raised on TOS. I watched TNG numerous times. Even among Trek fans only some of the movies with the original cast were well received. Almost no one like "The Motion Picture." Eveyone fan and avid view liked "Wrath of Khan'. 3 is forgettable. 4 was charming. 5 was ridiculous crap that was far far far more divergent from the source material than the JJ films. 6 was good. Generations was entertaining fan service. First Contact was good. Insurection was a really great 2 part TNG episode that was not a very good movie. Nemesis was almost as bad as 5, "what if Picard discarded everything about what makes him Picard and just plays Kirk?". Trek was truly a ground breaking franchise that had incredible cultural impact. Which Voyager and Enterpise (which were okay) could not maintain. Hence the Reboot/Alternate time line.

As for JJ's interpretation of Trek he nailed the characters. If people don't recognize the portrayals of Scotty, Kirk, Bones and Spock as anything other than veneration for the original characters then there is no hope to please them. I am aware 2nd hand that the new films are hated by Trek fans but I am just not seeing it.

 

You're just not looking for it. There's was a huge backlash against Abrams and his total disregard for what Trek is really about in favor of making a point and clock action adventure in Star Trek clothing.

Trek 09' was dumb fun, and critics gave it a pass because it managed to do what it did with a half-baked script that hadn't been through rewrites (legally they couldn't because of the WGA strike) and it also set up potential for new adventures in a sorta familiar set up, but Into Darkness ruined all of the good will they had.

In fact the studios just fired Abrams' writing team from the second film, who were to be taking over director/producer roles on the third film.

But ya, you're a lifelong Trekkie fan and you think he nailed the characters? Are you being serious? He doesn't even understand those characters or the universe they inhabited. Karl Urban does a great impression of Deforest Kelly as Bones but that's as far as it went, Spock is an angry dick with a short temper and Kirk is a drunken idiot bro. The thing they nailed was the superficial aspects of their characters that will make less than average fans feel nostalgic (the Kobayashi Maru scene where Chris Pine is straight up delivering an exaggerated parody style version of Kirk comes to mind especially ), Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and Sulu aren't even close to their original counterparts.

 

True I have not gone looking much. I found a pole on a ST forum that had most people 20% give Into Darkness an A, once you factored in the A+ and A- it was over 50% were A- or higher. Granted that was just one poll on just one sight.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=209857

As for my opinion of the characterizations performed by the actors I loved them. You obviously disagree on that subjective matter. The very scene you are complaining about where Kirk obnoxiously handles the Kobayshi Maru was one that I loved. It had that slouching swagger. It was exaggerated because it was not a in the heat of battle situation. Meaning the character was more obnoxious than usual because of the situation. Something that never happened in the TOS because they never tried to show that type of moment. There were light moments but not that light. Either way I thought that it was just how Kirk would have behaved in that situation. Once again a film maker can't win. His actors nail their performances but because he tells an origin story (something the TOS never tried) he fails because it "disrespects the source." Where I saw real difference was that it certainly had a different film style and sensibility but I would say that ship sailed between the TOS and the first 10 films which continually updated the look of things without regard to the TOS.

 

It's not the look, it's the fact that Abrams' Trek isn't at all about a utopian future where peace keeping astronauts explore the galaxy.

His Trek is about explosions and destiny, not about exploring space for the sake of encountering other cultures as a set up to explore moral and ethical issues.

And it's not like other Trek films aren't guilty of this, but Abrams completely embraced that and threw out everything that made the series unique. It's just another dumb action series now.

He would have behaved like imitation Kirk clearly doing a parody of William Shatner? Okay man.

 

Considering the whole movie was centered on being explorers versus a military I think that is a bit unfair. Kirk literally makes that point. Marcus is trying to fight a pre-emptive war and turns to Khan and tries to get Kirk to go a military mission the moral question is argued by Kirk and Spock. Kirk makes a compromise and tries to arrest rather than kill Khan and then later makes the point that they are intended as explorers.

Considering that almost every parody of Shatner is of his playing Captian Kirk yes. The Kobayshi Maru test was like few or 0 scenes in the previous films or TOS. It was only ever referenced. So it was not Pine playing Kirk "on mission." It was Pine playing a very smug self righteous Kirk who knew he was rigging the game. It was brilliant in showing his disdain for the unwinnable situation.

 

There is a vast universe of difference between actually capturing that aesthetic and having those same thematic elements and a character just making a declarative statement that "this is what we do".

The difference is night and day. The difference is unseen hand of destiny putting Kirk in that chair cuz' he's got to blow up the bad guys and he's the only one that can do it!

 

So the fact that they argued about the militaristic nature of the mission to the point of losing Scotty. Rehash the dilemma several times. Decide not to perform the military mission. Defy the militaristic admiral and celebrate their opportunity to explore deep space was lost on you and you only picked it up the one time it was plainly said.

Your goggles that allow you to see the unseen hand of destiny must be the same ones that reveal which opinions are "wrong" I mean you are the authority on whose subjective judgements are correct.

 

That was me

 

I added credit. Great find.

 

I also love Star Trek. What i didn't like about Abrams Trekmovies is the worldbuilding. It's not the same Federation as on TV!

 

We are probably off topic at this point. But I don't think the new federation has had the same screen time to develop. The stories have been very much close to the ship. Though the scenes with Kirk answering to tribunals looked and felt very much the same as the older films.

 

Probably? For two of a little more than 4 pages, there has been discussion of Star Trek and now Kim Kardashian (albeit a good point that someone is too myopic to see and still can't help but be offensive and then try to edit out the evidence... but then edit back in something offensive again?!?) on a thread about Legacy connections to TFA. I'd say not probably, but definitely off topic.

 

Well he will join the rebels now his deserting life is in his past.

 

I guess if you are going to go down, go down in flames?