67 P Technobabble: I think it would be absurd to deny that ST09 was a big success with critics, audiences and at the box office. That I think of it as kind of a shitty movie is my personal opinion, of course, and I apologize if that wasn’t pointed out clear enough.

Fair enough, I’m not really trying to debate you, or annoy you. I like talking about movies too. The thing here is that I see a number of people talk about this movie as if it were a failure of some kind, as if it were a shitty movie, etc. and my point was that if that were, in fact, true, the movie would not have been a hit. So, unless every one of the thousands of people who went to see the movie came out disappointed, it simply seems a waste of time to keep ragging on the movie as if it were a statement of fact. Sure, we can make our own claims as to whether we liked it or not, but then we should say “in my opinion,” simply because the fact is the movie was overwhelmingly received in a positive way, and did some great numbers. This was my point. You haven’t spoiled anything for me, mainly because the movie, itself, did not spoil anything for me, and, after all, “the play’s the thing.” I’m a long-standing Trekkie, as well, and I accept this film as Star Trek just fine.
PS: the “competition between teams”-thing was just an analogy, and I accept that perhaps it wasn’t a very good one…

Wow! 4 times? Well…I hope to have a better experience with the DVD. I’ll be picking it up the day it comes out. I hope the added footage improves my experience. (I hated…HATED…the way the movie changed the ending. The USA’s secret weapon going bonkers would establish world peace?! How would that unite the planet versus an extraterrestrial threat?)

And I hope you give Star Trek II (A) a chance and that it works better for you.

Sorry, man, that I have to spoil your victorious feelings, but I didn’t even participate in your contest. I simply like to discuss movies, I don’t derive any winner-loser categories from them.

64 Circuit: Yeah, we reach, brother.
I for my part have rated Watchmen #6 in my All-Time Top Ten Films after watching it four times and now I can’t wait for the DVD to be released.

For the rest, we agree to disagree. Watchmen was uninspiring as a movie…for me. Which was a huge disappointment. I had high hopes after Zack Snyder’s 300. The early production photos looked amazing. As a movie…like so many others…the book was better.

As for Star Trek, I’ve seen it 5 times. Loved it. Wasn’t perfect by any stretch but I think the foundation of the relationships and a sense of wonder is there. But is was an “origin” story and that can be a challenge in it’s own right. I hoping for an Empire Strikes Back or Spiderman 2 with Star Trek II(2).

But…We reach, brother.

Your point is well-taken, I wasn’t very clear. It’s “unfortunate” for people who don’t like the film because they don’t get to enjoy the fun and pleasure all the rest of us are getting from it. And, no, I am not saying one has to adjust their point of view to fit into the majority. It’s just that when the team wins, the fans of that team revel in the victory. Those who continue to criticize the winners just come across as sore losers. And, no, there is nothing wrong with your opinion at all. But being one of the few cats in a roomful of dogs has got to be a pain in the ass, hmm?

I know that studios have complicated ways of calculating their net profits (or losses). And some biz insiders have commented on how studios like to downsize their profits for various reasons – for example in order to deny Jackson his due share in LOTR’s profits by claiming the movie barely made any positive profits. It is not transparent how much money really ends up in net profits. Therefore we’ll have to stick with published numbers.

My point was: Zack Snyder respected the source material. This may have resulted in a movie which is complicated and artful, because the comic was, too (if you wanna call it ‘graphic novel’, fine, but to me a comic is a comic and there’s nothing wrong with comics :-) These features will most probably result in a mixed response from the audience and critics, but, and that’s my point: screw the critics and the mass audience if you have a chance of producing a lasting piece of art!!! (And if it is a good film, at least a visible portion of the critics will acknowledge this, even if the audience doesn’t.)
JJ, on the other hand, displayed next to no respect for the original material, he aimed the film at a contemporary mass audience with full deliberation. And he succeeded, obviously, and it’s not too difficult: just stay with established patterns and recipes of contemporary blockbuster cinema.
So what I meant JJ could have learned from Watchmen, i.e. Zack Snyder, is how to treat original material with respect and care.

61 P Technobabble: “While I find it odd that some people continue to harp on this film as some kind of failure, or that it wasn’t a good film, I accept that they have a right to their own opinions. Unfortunately for them, their opinions do not reflect the reality of Trek09’s popularity and, yes, success.”

How does this last statement of yours line up with what you said before in your post? I mean, first you elaborate the obvious about personal tastes and majorities, and then you say it’s *unfortunate* for people who don’t like ST09 that their opinion does not reflect the majority. What?! What is it you want to tell us here? Surely you don’t wanna tell me (I absolutely hate ST09) to adjust to the majority and start to love the movie. Or do you want to tell me that there actually is something wrong with my opinion because it’s not the majority view? I don’t quite get what you want.

I believe we can do one thing which goes beyond uttering personal opinions or counting majorities: point out verifiable features of the film (any film, in fact) and base your verdict on such features (that’s subjective again, of course). This is what good professional reviews do for you. They don’t just say: Wow! The movie rocks! or The movie sucks big time! They explain various features of a film (how it’s cut, how the actors performed, the quality of FX, etc. etc.) and base their verdict on this. This way, even if a critic’s opinion does not coincide with your own, you can get some information about a film which might interest you.
As for ST09 I think we needn’t go over all the details *again*, as we can say, for example that it was fast cut, that there was hardly any longer scene (which means longer than 10 sec nowadays) which featured typical TOS interaction between the Big Three, there was no final frontier, etc. What your opinion on these features may be is your own business, of course, but we can discuss without subjectivity whether a certain feature is in the film or not.
I don’t want to suggest we start doing that here and now, because, as I said, it’s been covered excessively on Trekmovie. I only want to suggest that discussing a movie is more than just ascertaining the percentage of its audience which liked it, or its box office numbers.

Unfortunately, I have all too often read the following schematic response to critical remarks about ST09 here: The movie was a huge success with the audience, therefore your criticism isn’t valid (i.e. shut up)!

Obviously, no one makes a film with the intention of appealing to a minority of people. Trek09 was made with the intention of reaching a wide-ranging audience (in order to re-invigorate the franchise), and this is precisely what happened. If the majority of movie-goers felt that Trek09 was not a good film, that it had a lousy story, that the characters were not appealing, etc, etc, then it would be unlikely that it would have performed as well as it did. To me, this is simple logic and has nothing to do with opinion.

Yes, my opinion is that Trek09 was a terrific film (which I enjoyed enough to see more than once), and I found it to be a very satisfying two hours. If I thought the movie sucked, I A) would not have gone to see it again, and B) I would have told others that I didn’t like it. But apart from opinion, the film has done excellent numbers, and has attracted many positive reviews and repeat viewers, so those who did not like the movie are clearly in the minority. Since the film-maker’s intention was to produce a money-maker that would appeal to many people, I would say Star Trek is a success.

While I find it odd that some people continue to harp on this film as some kind of failure, or that it wasn’t a good film, I accept that they have a right to their own opinions. Unfortunately for them, their opinions do not reflect the reality of Trek09’s popularity and, yes, success.

BTW, Rotten Tomatoes pools professional critics for its “tomatometer.” It isn’t about voting…it’s just a compilation of what critics said in their reviews.

Also, $180mm in worldwide gross doesn’t translate to profit on a $130mm budget. The studio doesn’t get every dollar generated form ticket sales. I think (and I could be WAY wrong) it’s about half. Plus there are separate marketing costs. Unless Watchmen catches fire on video, it will NEVER turn a profit for WB. Which is too bad. I love superhero flicks. The more the merrier for me. So when one is dud…it can hurt the green lighting prospects for other genre movies. (I also hope that the hour-longer director’s cut of Watchmen helps me enjoy it more. I think the original mini-series is probably the best example of graphics storytelling ever made. So I had high hopes for the movie…but like so many other fanboys…I felt let down.)

Finally, I stand corrected on Watchmen’s Tomatometer score…it did edge into the positive “fresh” range….but no where near Star Trek’s 95%.)

I understood. I was just trying to be open about the fact that my familiarity with RT did not extend very far beyond ST09, but still wanted to chime in on the value of the Tomatometer.

” Do you suggest that different movies, e.g. movies which are somewhat off mainstream, would gather wider audiences if there was more advertising and broader distribution? Or do you think that examples like Scarface are rather exceptional?”

You know, I’m not really sure how well ‘Scarface’ was advertised, but it was distributed in over 1000 theaters (pretty good for 1983)—so I didn’t mean to say that it was necessarily lacking in exposure. I just meant to use it as an example of a film that was considered a box-office disappointment, but is obviously viewed in many circles as “great”—to the point where it is actually one of the more iconic films of the modern era.

But I think that, in general, whether or not an otherwise not-so-widely distributed film “catches a break” definitely can make a big difference.

In other words, “The Hurt Locker” may very well be every bit as great as critics are saying—-but since the industry is convinced that people do not at this point wish to see films set in the Iraq War (even though it is very much a character story, and not a political one), it probably isn’t going to get that break, much less suddenly show up in nearly 3000 theaters (as did the similarly praised “Slumdog Millionaire”).

It (”The Hurt Locker”) was released on June 26th, but despite being pretty much universally praised by critics from all directions (and even featuring a very well-respected actor with an impressive resume in Ralph Fiennes), it has only appeared in 60 theaters and taken in a meager $601,172 in Worldwide grosses.

This is definitely a film which suffers from a lack of proper exposure, due to the perceived notion among TPTB that people would refrain from spending their Summer dollars to see it because of the controversial nature of its setting. But 10 years from now, this could be widely considered one of the best films of 2009—in which case, the fact that it made very little money at the box office would be all-but-forgotten.