Comments on: JJ Abrams: Star Trek must escape the shadow of Star Wars

By: David P. Curcione

David P. Curcione — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 19:16:29 +0000

Star Trek Star Ships To meet to Worked with Star Wars Groverments to work together too! for Piece in all the Gallixies too!

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:24:35 +0000

Stat Terk Is BOREING Star Wars Bets out Star Terk Buy a long shot if need something help you sleep just put a Star Terk on that will put you a sleep.

By: Rosie

Rosie — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:58:07 +0000

The classic Star Wars trilogy is one of the greatest set of movies ever made. Both the characters and the plot were, in my humble opinion, very well developed and displayed. The prequels, on the other hand, more or less sucked. Lucas focused so much on the special effects and the background (which were very good in their own right) that the actual plot and characters were shallow and even pathetic.

Oh brother!

This sounds like the typical Star Trek vs. Star Wars CRAP I have encountered every now and then. Why in the hell must one franchise be better than the other?

By: Rosie

Rosie — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:56:35 +0000

This is idiotic. Since when has STAR TREK even been in the shadows of STAR WARS? Both are the two biggest Sci-Fi franchises in the history of Hollywood. One could not overshadow the other if they tried.

By: Elim Garak

Elim Garak — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:35:27 +0000

@ P Technobabble

You are exactly right sir. While I have my reservations about this movie, I am hopeful that it will introduce a whole new generation of people into the wonders of Star Trek.

By: Elim Garak

Elim Garak — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:27:10 +0000

I most certainly hope that J. J. Abrams doesn’t make the same mistake that George Lucas did with his Star Wars prequels. The classic Star Wars trilogy is one of the greatest set of movies ever made. Both the characters and the plot were, in my humble opinion, very well developed and displayed. The prequels, on the other hand, more or less sucked. Lucas focused so much on the special effects and the background (which were very good in their own right) that the actual plot and characters were shallow and even pathetic. I’m sure most Star Trek fans will be interested in seeing all the new special effects, but not at the expense of the characters and the story. I hope that Abrams has learned from Lucas’ many recent follies.

By: Charles H. Root, III

Charles H. Root, III — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:58:18 +0000

@ 98. Mr Lirpa -
Lighten up, Francis… My God man, what’s with the “personal attacks”, “hate JJ” and “unjustified bile” stuff.

May I address these in no particular order?

I don’t hate Team JJ. In sharing my opinion, I am critiquing his body of work. It is certainly not a personal attack. Quite frankly, if you IMDB JJ and compare his body of work to let’s say, Kubrick, Coen Bros, Speilberg, or David Lean some may understand why I feel justified in my opinion.

My hypothesis is supported by the following equation:

FY + A4k = BR

Now let’s assign values to the following variables in the equation:

FY = Forever Young
A4k = AWESOM-O 4000
BR = Bad Robot

Now remember, this is just a hypothesis. Further testing is required before a real theory can be published. Future tests will determine it’s validity by swapping the “FY” variable with:

Am = Armageddon
MI3= Mission Impossible III

To be honest, I don’t think this alone will yield a Theory of Everything, if you will, until we factor in a Orci/Kurtzman variable.

Dude. It’s a joke, not an attack.

I’ve heard music critics say that the Rolling Stones should’ve stopped making records after the “Some Girls” album. Does that mean they’re attacking Mick Jagger or hate him? Doubtful. It’s just their opinion.

Here another music analogy:

TOS/Roddenberry Era is to the Van Halen/David Lee Roth Era,
as TNG/Berman is to the Van Halen/Sammy Hagar Era,
as the ST09/JJ Era is to Van Halen/Gary Cherone, Mitch Malloy, Who Even Cares Anymore Era.

BTW, that’s a joke too.

@ 201. Imrahil:
Very nice… Expect to catch flak. I always do, ha ha.

By: P Technobabble

P Technobabble — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:03:55 +0000

In spite of what some think, Star Trek’s popularity has definitely been sub-par with Star Wars. This is apparent in many ways, but here’s a couple: minimal Star Trek reruns, and shrinking space in bookstores. There was a time you could find Star Trek reruns on numerous local stations, playing at important time-slots. One of the local Boston stations runs TOS remastered at 2:30am on Saturday morning. Apart from VOY and DS9 on Spike (and they’ve just been dropped), and TNG and ENT on Sci-Fi (even here, Trek is waning), it is hard to find Star Trek on tv at a decent hour (I am certainly aware of TNG going back to syndication, and one can only hope it will achieve what TOS achieved in syndication). Of course, Star Wars has no tv programming to speak of, but Star Wars is a film franchise, unlike Trek, whose roots were always in tv (even the films had tv budgets). As for bookstores, both my local Borders and Barnes & Noble have reduced shelf space for Star Trek by more than half. Where there used to be several rows dedicated to every Trek series, now there are a handful of recent books. Whereas the Star Wars books are fully represented, taking over much of the space that used to contain Trek books.
Star Trek was suffering from overload and burn-out. Much of Trek had become familiar, worn and banal. Certainly, it was not always this way, but I ask you: if TOS began on tv today, what do you think would happen to it? Do you think it would gather the same sort of following it did during the 70’s in syndication? (It wasn’t a success during its original run, remember?)
I think JJ is a very smart guy who knows how to make movies and how to attract an audience. I still keep reminding all those who say, “JJ is not a Trek fan,” that it was JJ who made Star Trek part of his Paramount deal. He obviously believed that something could be done with Star Trek, and he’s doing what he does best: movie-making and attracting an audience. If Star Trek turns out to be a major hit, does anyone really think Paramount will worry about a minority of nay-sayers? The same sort of hard-core Trek fans who diss Star Wars never had any effect on the box office success of SW, so those who are dissing new Trek are unlikely to have any real effect on the box office.

By: Christine

Christine — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:36:26 +0000

Tbonz: “The last three Star Wars movies sucked. They were visually appearing, but the stories and characters were lacking.”

THANK YOU. SOMEONE WHO KNOWS GOOD MOVIES.
You know, they were almost kinda like “Star Trek: TMP” (nobody shoot me!)

BUt, anyways, what’s this? A SHADOW? Nuh-uh. I beg to differ. Star Trek has been a phenomenon since the early ’70’s, if I’m not mistaken, and it started in ‘66. Maybe it’s been overshadowed in terms of special effects, but shame on JJ Abrams!! It sounded like he was baggin’ on Star Trek!

By: Capt. Pike's First Lt.

Capt. Pike's First Lt. — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:22:13 +0000

“The key to me is to not ever try to outdo them because it’s a no-win situation. Those movies are so extraordinarily rendered that it felt to me that the key to “Star Trek” was to go from the inside-out: Be as true to the characters as possible, be as real and as emotional and as exciting as possible and not be distracted by the specter of all that the “Star Wars” film accomplished.”

JJ gets it… it’s about Kirk, Bones, Spock… It’s about the Enterprise.

It is also about getting a generation that grew up with the fanciful but empty Star Wars eye-candy to come to our Franchise and say “Hey, this is cool.” I think JJ is right on here… From the inside out… the inside being the people that we’ve come to admire, the characters we love.