And I am cheerleading for proposed “Halo” Director, Neill Blomkamp ( post #18 ) for “Trek movie reboot II”, so that your fears of J.J. moving on after his stint HAVE LESS CHANCE of coming true…ANYONE really EXCEPT Uwe Boll or Paul Anderson!

It’s the Directors who are able to call the shots (as opposed to the ones at the mercy of too much studio interference) that are the main driving force of any GREAT movie. It is they, more than anyone surely, who either makes a great movie due to their casting decisions and other creative choices, or a DUD.

Imagine, say, if “ALIENS V PREDATOR” had been done by Ridley Scott or James Cameron. It may have stood a chance.

The deleted scenes that are described in this thread are not on the single-disc release that Paramount issued shortly after the film came out. The deleted scenes are available on the 2-disc collectors edition which is in stores now. $9.95 at most Best Buy stores.

As for video game movies, as a rule they stink. But having seen a lot of the proposed design artwork on various websites and reading interviews with the various parties involved HALO has a shot at making the genre rise above the mediocre crap that has been forced upon us up to this point. The film has not been cancelled its just that the studios that were involved bailed on it. Peter Jackson and WETA are still continuing development work on the film while they continue to seek a new studio partner/distributor.

Finally NEMESIS was a stinker from the get-go. Stuart Baird has a lot of good credits under his belt. He started as an editor and that gives him a much better insight to directing then some others have. You can only do so much with a lousy script and Paramount was more interested in getting another Trek movie out than taking the time to get a good script and do it right. Its a case of decision being dictated by greed than any real motivation to release a great film. J. J. Abrams will probably be a brath of fresh air to the franchise. The downside of this is that this will likely be his only outing in the Trek Universe. Unless he directs this film only has a shot at being better than the worst Trek film and as good as any of the other films. It won’t do stellar boxoffice without a dynamite story and an ad campaign that drives ticket sales. With a weak ad campaign and a lousy script the film will still do decent business only because it says STAR TREK on the title.

Paramount has a habit of turning down other properties because they believe that STAR TREK is the only francise they need. They passed on B5 and then developed their clone DS9. They are passing on HALO because they believe that TREK XII will save thier butts and breath fresh air into the series. Again, Abrams will have to direct for this to happen or it will just be an ok TREK film.

There is no rule that says you can only have one genre (sci-fi) franchise at a studio. Until Paramount gets over this concept they are doomed to crank out mediocre Trek films and they will consistently miss opportunities to make good films that appeal to a wider audience than the STAR TREK does.

I love TREK but if I were running Paramount I’d be looking for more franchise opportunities instead of counting on MI or TREK films to keep the doors open.

If you put out Star Trek again after Nemesis (5-6 years) and Enterprise (2-3 years) the casual viewer is going to feel that it’s just re-hash yet again.
Both the core fans and casual viewers can both really want Trek after a long break. Each series had it’s charms but it was tooooo much to soon.

I don’t want Abrams Trek to fail but everyone was crapping fun bubbles when John Logan was going to write Nemesis and what a turd that was.
New producing blood is a good thing and hope that Paramount gives Abrams his room to breath.

Not to slam the other creative forces but design, costumes, music, etc need to start from scratch, not the group that worked on Trek series and movies for 16 years. They did great but that also needs new blood…..

Darth “I’ve got your nemesis” Ballz

To an extent, I understand where you’re coming from, but the ‘decade rest’ ideal is what die-hard fans who’ve stuck it through all the recent incarnations of the show need.

Many, many of us threw our hands up in disgust more than a decade ago and walked away from Trek. It ceased to be anything like essential viewing for mainstream audiences by the mid-90s.

Given the show barely developed beyond occasional changes of name and cast, we watched other stuff while Trek droned way in the background, ignored. It might as well not have been on, for all most of us cared. The anodyne movies didn’t help!

Among the casual viewers and the fans who were driven away, there’s plenty of demand for good Star Trek under a new creative team. I think we’re getting that now, after our decade away from the show!

Dath “prarie dogg’in” Ballz

1. The videogames that have been made into films did not actually have any form of a plot anyways (perhaps except resident evil, though the games plot can be argued to be rather weak.)

2. Everyone that has come in to either produce, direct, or write a videogame film have been some of the lowest denominators in the areas of creativity and originality. With the likes of Paul Anderson (director of Mortal kombat and Resident Evil——-i still want to kick him in the balls for Alien vs. Predator), Uwe Boll, and a small handful of others videogame movies have gotten a very bad presentation because in the end……….these guys just really suck at making films. The big problem from this is that like many things in hollywood, if a studio exec sees that a few videogame films failed then that “must” mean that “all” of them will fail.

Look at it this way, if other creators had been involved with now familiar projects that we have come to enjoy we may not have such affection for a little green muppet with words of wisdom, college students or billionaires dressing up in costumes, or even with a man wearing “point ears” and spoating notions of logic may have all seemed like crap as well. Its all a matter of who does it and how well they do it.

All they’d need is a distributor!

I also hope Abrams directs the film. I’ve really enjoyed the various TV episodes he’s directed.