Comments on: EXCLUSIVE: Report From Paris Star Trek News Conference w/ Q&A

By: trekboi

trekboi — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:07:57 +0000

Zoe looks like she’s about to cry in that picture.

ANTHONY- i just heard the comittee members (past and present) of the local Star trek Fan Club in Australia- “AUSTREK” (2nd oldest in the world at 33 years) got a preview screening of the film last night- what do u know about these events- who decides who sees them?

This is Not a rumour a now Ex friend who didnt get me in with him saw it last night.

By: John Sullivan

John Sullivan — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:18:59 +0000

#97 – I agree rebooting is easier, and perhaps it is the path of least resistance to gaining the most amount of money in the least amount of time, but it is not creative or intellectually honest. Not that Hollyweird has been either in a very long time. Would I wish that Paramount would just come up with some brand new expensive space epic the way George Lucas did in the 1970’s? You bet. But the kind of heroes like that who want to take a chance like that are as rare in Hollywood as they are in Washington D.C. at the Senate. It’s a mechanical process now, and nothing more. By the way, I don’t know anything about any of these actors, but Pegg seems to be the witty one, and they all seem to be a very nice group of young kids. Zoe seems to be the one with the most interesting past – tramp stamps and all.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 08:25:41 +0000

Re booting these days is much easier than creating new characters.
You simply ‘ sweep the plate clean ‘ , and start again ( using the main ingredients of the original and trying to duplicate its success)

By: Night Hawke

Night Hawke — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:21:09 +0000

So the franchise is one of the most successful of all time, has 10 movies and 5 tv series’. However the 9th & 10th movie that were weak movies by most standards, as well as a prequel series (which are rarely successful) which was also weak.

Suddenly the franchise is failing the tried and true fans can’t support it? then who supported it for the previous 8 movies and 4 tv series’?

Star Trek doesn’t need a “reboot” to be successful, it needs a decent tv series and/or movie. Both of which could be reached without changing a thing. We don’t need Kirk revisited we need a captain who can kick ass not a diplomat that will negotiate his way out of everything.

anyway i guess i’ll be in the theaters on may 7th to see how this movie does.

By: Doktor Mandrake

Doktor Mandrake — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:04:43 +0000

…of course, I’m sure anyone could forgive the man if he has actually gone from ‘never got into’ to ‘non-fan’ given the effusive welcome the forward thinking hardcore dish out at every available opportunity.

quite apart from semantics and silly infighting what this keeps coming back to is very simple:

group(s) of fans think someone else’s intellectual property is theirs

company wants to exploit IP

fans demonstrate on numerous occasions that no matter how fanboi-ish they get about collecting each format, watching multiple times etc they don’t repay studio’s investment by themselves

fans decide that nobody understands them and if franchise doesn’t love them then noone should have it and set out to wreck any attempt to do anything with said franchise other than make self-referential work that noone but a lover of encyclopedias would go to.

don’t get me wrong, continuity’s a good thing but if it’s straight-jacketing the story then slavish adherence at least needs to be called into question.

most of the more important aspects of canon from a story-telling point of view (dates of missions, names of ship types, sizes of ships, acceptable ship design parameters, permissible speeds (TOS vs TNG warp scales) even names of important species (i’m thnking of ‘vulcanians’ here – oops there goes a lump of TOS season 1) were so full of holes and rationalisation already before they even started making movies or DS9, VOY and ENT that it’s really pretty silly acting like anything that isn’t in accordance with ‘canon’ is blasphemy. Canon is derived from what has gone before, sure. What has gone before doesn’t stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

I really liked DS9 in a lot of ways, but I can see how it could be fairly impenetrable to a casual viewer. The other side is that constant explanations also detract from storytelling. A balance needs to be struck. Canon as ’scriptwriter’s guide’ is entirely fair enough. Canon becomes suspect the moment ‘fans’ start colouring it with their own view of the universe. FWIW I agree that I would have been more inclined to watch ENT if the music and titles had been a bit less Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The premise was good, the storytelling fine, technology and ships a little suspect, but it’s not like finding a fossil dinosaur with a ‘ban nuclear testing’ banner in terms of cultural impact.

What has always lifted ‘trek out of unfavourable comparisons to other SF genre shows has been the human element, the character development and interaction. This is way more important than any silliness about what a piece of fictional hardware can and can’t do and what it’s serial number should be.

By: cagmar

cagmar — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:19:27 +0000

wow, okay, so let me get this straight. JJ Abrams has gone from “I never really got into ST” to being an active “non-fan”? He’s not even trying to be polite to Trekkies anymore. A non-fan is like someone that actually disliked it, rather than just not rooting for it.

But don’t worry, fans … he will only take out his distaste for past Trek on the things he deems insignificant or unimportant, like any part of the interior of the ship, the stardates, the intellect, and you know, that crazy science fiction stuff. Just a few details. It’s gonna be totally okay, fans

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:38:12 +0000

Nope…France did not ” converted bedsheets into flags of surrender to the United Federation of Planets! ” .
For your information, France actually never showed the complete OST serie , DS9 ,ST Voyager, ans even Enterprise on TV…
ST 5 The Final Frontier wasn’t even released in Cinema but became a direct-to-video !

And , quite honestly , most of the french-asked questions were pretty ” loose” regarding the new film during the Press Conference ( ‘ Do you think there should be Gay people aboard the Enterprise ? ‘ – I do not make this one up …)

I think Paramount Publicity War Machine choosed on purpose to have this event settled in Paris to try to convince us poor french that the ST franchise is not just a US-based phenomenon…

By: John Sullivan

John Sullivan — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:26:46 +0000

The actors walked off the plane, and France immediately converted bedsheets into flags of surrender to the United Federation of Planets! I shouldn’t make so much fun of France – in contemporary times they’re handling the Pirates of Somolia better than most.

By the way I have updated my news page to include a great tribute to Paramount for their visit to Kuwait, crediting this page. See: http://www.realspiel.net/News1.html

By: TK

TK — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:16:19 +0000

D**m it! I’ve just read post#79, I was staying clear of spoilers, until #79!!! aaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

By: Jarod

Jarod — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:30:29 +0000

How could Zephram Cochrane be from Alpha Centauri, when he was the one to develop faster-than-light space travel?