And I love movies and I judge them for myself. No critic’s opinion tells me what I think of a film. I don’t care what critics say. Sometimes I agree, and sometimes I do NOT agree. Transformers 2 sucked, but I enjoyed Pirates, all 3, and King Kong AND War of the Worlds, AND I would recommend The Proposal as an enjoyable lighthearted film, so don’t try to paint reviewer opinion stats as some objective gold standard of movie goodness or badness. I’m not buying it.

132: “You don’t understand their logic at all and completely misunderstood what happened in the film. Spock did NOT intentionally go back in time to attempt to save Romulus. He and Nero went back in time accidentally as the result of being caught in the black hole after Spock destroyed the star to prevent it from doing further damage after it had already destroyed Romulus.”

The star went supernova destroying Romulus. Spock wanted to inject the red matter into the star before it exploded, but failed. He was too late. Spock didn’t destroy the star at all. It went supernova BEFORE he could destroy it.

“Spock NEVER intended to reverse the destruction of Romulus, since he knew that such an effort was impossible, only resulting in the splintering-off of yet another alternate parallel universe.”

If he wasn’t going back to try and save Romulus, what was he going to do with the red matter? The star already exploded and there was nothing left to inject the matter into, except in the past. What was the black hole supposed to do? Suck up all the offending supernova energy spreading throughout the galaxy without sucking up anything else? That’s a rather selective black hole. At some point I’ll see it again in the next few weeks, but if you’re right, I suspect I’ll be trading one plot hole in for another one.

Maybe I’m the one who needs the Vulcan mind meld to understand the story.

But in either case THAT’S Star Trek too. Star Trek has never been hard science fiction and has always taken liberties with the science, but we love it anyway.

And don’t get so tightly coiled up over all these “what ifs.” What will be, will be. Bob and Alex are talented guys who like and respect this franchise and who respect the fans opinions. The measure of their talent isn’t Transformers 2, it’s Star Trek. In fact, I commend them for actually taking a cheesy Saturday morning cartoon and actually turning it into a fun and interesting action movie (the first movie), which I was skeptical could be done at all. So just relax, RD, there’s a long way to go before that sequel comes out to be so tensed up over it.

And there is nothing you can do about it anyway except “woe is me” about the future.

I mean, you can be grim if you want to be. I choose to be hopeful, because Bob and Alex have given me good reason to be hopeful with how they’ve handled the franchise so far. Doesn’t mean I’m not wrong, and that they can’t screw up the sequel, but it does mean that I’m not going to stoke a sense of dread about what might happen.

In a way, it’s disappointing that Transformers is pulling in the numbers much faster than Trek on the big screen.

Onto another opinion that I don’t read too much on the boards re: ST: Something Something….it’s entirely possible that the writing team might introduce an entirely new ‘regular’ character in the next movie (and not just a Lt. Hawk type). Throw a new face in the mix that the fans don’t recognize and it could really be interesting (eg: after Narada, the Rommies make truce with the Feds, as they were appalled by the destruction of their kindred on Vulcan and Kirk’s ‘goodwill’ gesture towards Nero at the end…and presto! a Rommie crew member on the E ala Riker training with the Klings. Tensions mount between Uhura/Spock/newguy because of the destruction of Vulcan.) Damn, just when I promised myself not to write another idea for the next movie…

Finally, looking at the list provided in a recent post, it’s entirely possible that by the time Trek finishes the trilogy/tetraology, the revenue will be massive. Note the number of 3rd installments in that list…

You don’t understand their logic at all and completely misunderstood what happened in the film. Spock did NOT intentionally go back in time to attempt to save Romulus. He and Nero went back in time accidentally as the result of being caught in the black hole after Spock destroyed the star to prevent it from doing further damage after it had already destroyed Romulus.

Spock NEVER intended to reverse the destruction of Romulus, since he knew that such an effort was impossible, only resulting in the splintering-off of yet another alternate parallel universe. In fact, time travel may even be impossible in Orci’s Trek universe, with the secondary results of the red-matter black hole sending them back in time completely unanticipated and unintended. Whether or not it is attainable, it most certainly cannot be used to change linear events within a single timeline.

You really think after Transformers made over $740M Paramount had no idea the sequel would do just as well if not better, based on other similar franchise sequels in which the debut did well?

And which list are you looking at? For the last 10 years, I only have to get down around #4 Pirates of the Caribbean to find a film the critics panned almost as badly as Transformers 2. And are you seriously going to tell me that all 3 Spiderman Movies, Star Wars I, II & III, Matrix Reloaded, Shrek III, Indiana Jones: Crystal Skull, MI:II and Ice Age:Meltdown are all intelligent movies? I’d say the top 30 films grossing more than $700M in the last 10 years are about 50/50 bad, dumb, poorly reviewed action films, Vs. intelligent well received action films.

002 Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace $1,306.39
004 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest $1,168.75
010 Spider-Man $1,015.46
012 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End $1,002.90
016 Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith $950.76
017 Spider-Man 3 $929.75
019 Spider-Man 2 $906.23
020 The Matrix Reloaded $883.63
022 Shrek the Third $833.84
024 Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones $802.53
025 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull $786.60
026 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl $779.08
027 Transformers $739.19
029 Mission: Impossible II $727.86
030 Ice Age: The Meltdown $714.60

The $600M films really start to get bad: War of the Worlds, Tarzan, Kung Fu Panda, The Day After Tomorrow, King Kong, Mamma Mia!, Meet the Fockers,etc.

In the end, just because a studio may be risk adverse, doesn’t mean they don’t make bad decisions.

And while we’re at it, why don’t we take a look at Orci/Kurtzman’s track record: The Island, The Legend of Zorro, MI:III, Transformers, Watchmen, Star Trek, Transformers 2 – all of which average out to about a 50% critical review ranking on Rotten Tomatoes, mostly due to Star Trek’s 95% review rating, which can arguably be credited largely to JJ Abrams. And let’s not overlook their producer credits: The Proposal & Eagle Eye, both of which received terrible reviews.

So far, only Transformers shows what they can do with a sequel. And what happens if Abrams decides not to direct?

Regardless of how much the movie cost, they made it all back and a profit too, correct? That’s what I recall. I can’t recall the budget of TMP right now, but despite the profit it didn’t do as well as expected. And when your expectations are disappointed the wallet goes back in the pants, even if they make money on the deal, they don’t like risk and they were disappointed.

“Why didn’t the studio just play it safe and insisted on a smarter script? Because they wanted the money.”

Yeah, they wanted the money, but they used the same team for the second movie as they did for the first because they wanted the second to be as successful as the first, and they are averse to risk. They had no freakin idea so many people worldwide were going to be in the mood to make ape noises at the screen for two hours over transforming robots. I guarantee you they are more surprised than anyone at how well Transformers 2 has done.

And I liked Transformers (the first one). It was fun. And I seriously doubt Bob and Alex intentionally turned out a simple minded script. They probably did the best they could to aim for the same type of film as the first one under the conditions they had, and just missed.

You don’t HAVE to make lame movies to make money. So the idea that they are going to just make lame stuff because they want money makes no sense at all.

Titanic wasn’t lame. The Dark Knight wasn’t lame. Harry Potter isn’t lame. Transformers 2 is a fluke, not the rule, because high earners are also generally good movies. It isn’t until position # 28: Independence Day, on the list I looked at, where you finally get to a genuinely crappy movie all the way around.

So I don’t think the facts support this idea you seem to have that more stupid stories equals more money at the box office.

Therefore, the meddling begins with Spock and Nero as they leave the Trek Prime universe.

So, they’d better get to work on that, pronto.

You mean for 1029th time?

Star Trek has been responsible for some of the most incoherent conceptions of time travel literally imaginable. Sling shotting around the sun?

But we love it anyway, right?

Okay. So what I said addresses how Bob and Alex conceived of it working in Star Trek ‘09. Lots of people are angry because they think that Bob and Alex completely destroyed the TOS timeline, and that everything in that timeline never happened and no longer exists. They think Bob and Alex wiped it all out.

Bob and Alex, on the other hand, contend that Spock (moreso Nero, actually) created an alternate and parallel timeline by meddling in the past. That is, by changing the past, a parallel timeline was born that exists in addition to the timeline from which both Spock AND Nero came from.

So we’ll grant them that premise. So far so good, right?

The problem then becomes that destroying the star that will destroye Romulus in the future of the Trek Prime universe creates an alternate timeline that saves the Romulus for the ALTERED timeline, but leaves the Romulus from Spock’s timeline unsaved. Because any change made that did not happen before immediately begins an alternate universe. So the future in the Trek Prime universe where Romulus was destroyed remains unchanged, just as all the adventures and characters of the Trek Prime universe remain unchanged, according to Bob and Alex’s thinking.

Romulus in Trek Prime is gone.

So Spock was ultimately on a mission of folly. Even given the logic behind the time travel that Bob and Alex stated, Spock’s mission wouldn’t have saved the destroyed Romulus of the Trek Prime universe.

Nope, investment dollars dropped because TMP ended up being one of the most expensive movies ever made at the time, which Paramount went a long with because they thought they were gonna make Star Wars grosses. When they didn’t they needed to trim costs. TWOK was produced for the same budget Star Wars was, and despite being a significantly better reviewed movie, did not gross as well, but it did perform better than ST09 is now against its competition. After that the budgets went up, mainly due to ROI which is in the same ballpark as ST09 finally hit.

Also, the original Transformers was a pretty well reviewed film and the story fairly smart. After they made $750M the sequel is one of the worst reviewed films ever and stands to challenge The Dark Knight. So, everyone involved in the sequel pandered to the lowest common denominator and it paid off. Why didn’t the studio just play it safe and insisted on a smarter script? Because they wanted the money. It’s the same studio now with Trek. Its made a lot of money and part of what got it there is what audiences are responding too: Kirk’s swollen hands, Scotty’s sidekick and a lot of action and plot-holes that makes no sense if you think about them too hard. Hmmm. What will Paramount do next?

# 112, I forgot to say, is where I point out why the Bob and Alex time line premise is illogical.

Watch “The City on the Edge of Forever” and “Mirror, Mirror”