Rick Berman hopes Star Trek 2016 is “closer to the movie we all want it to be”

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Rick Berman tweeted today about his high hopes for the next Star Trek film saying, “No one wants the next Star Trek movie to work more than I do” but adding that he might be more excited about the new Star Wars film. See details below.


Rick Berman tweets on Trek 2016
Rick Berman, executive producer of many Star Trek series (and, most recently, Star Trek: Nemesis), tweeted today about his growing excitement of the new Star Wars trilogy, co-written by Lawrence Kasdan (co-writer of The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Return of the Jedi) and how that might overshadow his excitement for the new Trek 2016 film. He added that he hopes the new Trek film is “a little closer to the movie we all want it to be”.

berman_on_set
Producer Rick Berman on set of Star Trek Nemesis, his last Trek production

 


 

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I actually don’t mind the last two Trek movies. I kind of like the idea of them using two movies to prepare the crew of the Enterprise for the five year mission and the ending of Star Trek into darkness seems to be pointing in the right direction. I do feel like they could had made the movie fit into the original canon without to many changes.

Funny… some of us were also hoping for television shows that were a little closer to the TV series we wanted them to be.

Oh that is laugh out loud funny.

Nemesis was the lowest grossing of all the ST movies and HE wants the next movie to work more than anybody else?

He should have wanted the same for his movies.

Well for once i agree with him. I hope this next movie reflects more of the Tos Series then anything. I hope it reflects.
Space. The Final Frontier. These are the Voyages of the Starship Enterprise. It’s 5 year mission. To explore strange new world’s. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.
That is what I hope it reflects. Not just some summer tent pole movie.

Not really news, is it? He’s excited about Star Wars and wants Trek to be good. Yeah. Very controversial.

Yes, an actual space exploration film where the really do explore strange new worlds and seek out new life and some truly alien civilisations is what we want to see, please!!!

@2 – PURE SPECULATION MODE: It’s entirely possible there’s things in his movies that didn’t turn out how he wanted. He may even be as unhappy with them, as some of us were. For example, I immediately think of Shatner with STV; his name is on it, but from what I’ve read, it didn’t turn out at all like he wanted. (Well, the ending at least.)

We’ve spent all these years blindly nerd-raging against a name on the TV screen, but I would be very interested in hearing Rick’s human, unfiltered opinion of his own productions. Surely we’re distanced enough from that era where it wouldn’t be seen as unprofessional to be candid.

Or, maybe he’s actually completely thrilled with everything. Again, just speculation. :P

Man…

Rick Berman is the absolute last person who should be criticizing the BR movies. Yes, obviously, there are substantial criticisms to be made, but Berman should not be the one making them.

Meyer, yes. Berman, no.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VrFV5r8cs0

“A man’s got to know his limitations.”

In answer to Berman’s quesrion, yes that is sacreligous.

Well, considering that there seems to be some support (here, at least) for…

Star Trek: Generations 2
Two Captains, Multiple Destinies

Maybe Berman is on to something….

He’s clearly speaking about the heart that has been missing from these films. Just because he made some lousy trek movies doesn’t mean he isn’t right. A lot of us want to see something different and better but we don’t have to be filmmakers ourselves

I hope it resonates with Bob that he now has two former trek filmmakers thy have essentially criticized the movies.

This is kind of like a former producer of the Bourne movies saying that he’s looking forward to the next James Bond flick.

There isn’t a lot there. Bond movies are basically anticipated by anyone interested in the spy genre so even if you’re deeply involved in alternatives, you might still concede you’re interested in them.

The question is why Mr. Berman would take to Twitter to say such things. I know that if I were in his position, I wouldn’t, unless I wanted to draw attention to myself.

Twitter is a good way to do that.

Twitter is also a excellent way to put your foot in your mouth.

Sour grapes. It’s easy to criticize success, it’s harder to go out there and do it. Berman’s material has its place, but it will never be considered the success of the Abrams movies.
Whether you like the new movies or not, you can’t deny the success the films have had both financially and rebooting the franchise.

There’s no need for him to publicly criticize Star Trek.

Rick Berman making any comments about the future direction of Star Trek is like Mark David Chapman making comments on future John Lennon releases.

I’ve got to side with Fortyseven and TUP here. I hate Nemesis as much as the next guy… Heck, it is the only Trek film I outright refuse to own, and that includes both of JJ’s films! But Berman has his name on a lot of GOOD Trek, too. Not saying he was perfect, but he didn’t do all bad. And like Fortyseven, if by chance anyone has an opportunity to interview him, I think it would be interesting to here his “time has passed and I can speak freely and with hindsight” opinions on some of the less well received bits he may have done.

But Berman’s not the devil. For that matter, neither is JJ or Bob Ocri… But as a whole, while I don’t dislike the JJ films, they are missing a certain je ne sais quoi about what makes truly good Trek, and if we have any hopes for the films to continue to regrow the franchise out of the oblivion that official live action Trek was in prior to ’09, they need to recapture that.

Maybe they will make a new TNG movie

I agree with Lurker in post #2. I like Rick Berman and appreciate his contributions to Star Trek but after the dismal failure of his last produced Star Trek film Nemesis he needs to just refrain from posturing about making a Star Trek film “a little closer to what we all want it to be”.I expect rabid fan boys to be haters of JJ Trek but Berman should know better. Anybody with one ounce of objectivity can appreciate the job JJ has done in rebooting the franchise. I don’t think very many producer / directors would have worked so hard to retain the character traits like JJ has done while moving the pacing and sfx into the big budget popcorn movie arena.

The majority opinion — not the consensus, by any means, of course — of those posted here is that Mr. Berman probably is not in the best position to criticize Mr. Abrams’ movies. This is also my opinion.

Most disinterested observers would agree that, objectively, there is no valid comparison between the performances of Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013), on one hand, and any of Mr. Berman’s Star Trek movies from a financial point of view as measured by gross receipts. The Abrams movies can be reasonably compared to that of moderate blockbusters, while Mr. Berman’s best Star Trek movie (Star Trek Trek: First Contact) arguably does not.

In inflation-adjusted dollars, Star Trek: First Contact grossed around $140 million domestically (2014 dollars), while Star Trek (2009) grossed around $284 million domestically (2014 dollars) and Star Trek Into Darkness grossed around $232 million (2014 dollars). Worldwide gross of (e.g.) Star Trek Into Darkness alone is $476 million (2014 dollars).

Mr. Abrams’ movies have been much more of a financial success in relative terms, at least measured in gross, using the same baseline dollars, than even the most successful of Mr. Berman’s movies.

My opinoion is that there isn’t much from a beancounter’s standpoint to lend credence to Mr. Berman’s implied criticism, if criticism indeed it is.

By comparison, the worldwide gross of Star Trek (2009) is $426 million (2014 dollars).

The worldwide gross of Star Trek: First Contact was $221 million (2014 dollars), or around 47 percent of that of Star Trek Into Darkness.

I have thus far omitted the figures for the other Berman Star Trek movies (Generations, Insurrection, Nemesis) as they are considerably less impressive from a box office receipt standpoint than any of the Abrams Star Trek movies. For those who are interested, however, the worldwide gross of Star Trek: Nemesis works out to be around $89 million (2014 dollars), which is less than 19 percent that of Star Trek Into Darkness.

It doesn’t seem particularly generous of Berman does it.
He didn’t appear to know what ‘we all’ wanted to see in a Trek movie so its rather inappropriate of him to presume it now.
I have more faith in Bob Orci to deliver a true Trek I think. And that is enough to make me more excited by the next Star Trek over Star Wars.

Disclaimer: Some say (Internet Movie Data Base, for example) that $100 million (domestic gross) is the threshold for a blockbuster. (At least one source apparently disagrees (from a quick look at Wikipedia) that the threshold is that low.) In that sense, then Star Trek: First Contact would be a blockbuster if released today. However, “blockbuster” is really a term of art and changes over time. As a matter of opinion, I do not believe that a movie that makes “only” $100 million in 2014 would be considered a mainstream or moderate blockbuster. A movie that makes $140 million in 2014 would be considered, in my view, a minor blockbuster, if at all. This was the domestic gross of Star Trek: First Contact in adjusted dollars.

The threshold for blockbusters, as I see it, has been vastly raised by the successes of the Iron Man movies of the world, with worldwide grosses measured in the billion-dollar range.

“Closer to the movie we all want it to be” according to what? The TNG movies?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!??!?!!?!?!!?

Definitely the statement have to be judged, not the person. And Berman did a lot of good work for trek. He has every right to critizise everything he wants, as like every one can critizise he or she wants. But Berman should not wonder that his critic may not hit the spot.

First the thing, that he is more excited about JJ Star Wars then the next Star Trek Film is kind of funny. That implicates, he actually like JJ ‘s creative vision’.

Then: Berman had maaaany chances to make a good AND financially succesful Star Trek Movie. He failed. The movies were good for Trekkers (Nemesis may be an exception), but that was all. Then ENT was not as good as it could have been.

Berman was addicted to Star Trek, without a question. But in the end he ruined it. JJ made Trek exciting for Non-Trekkers.

Berman is more of a Star Wars fan than Star Trek I guess.. lol. Seriously, Rick Berman should stick to doing what he does best, and that is being quiet.

Yeah, we all hoped Nemesis would be the Trek movie we wanted too, bub.

Some free advise:
A good Trek story should even work as performed on a cardboard stage, as in TOS.

A couple of things writers should understand:
Kirk represents humanity, so not just selfish, horny frat boys.
Spock represents logic, not screaming nuts who strangle Kirk at every opportunity.

Write stories that put these characters to the test, and ask yourself; “What’s it about?”

You guys are reading too much into what he said, as always.

As for those who keep saying that the new movies lack ‘heart’, how ironical since it’s precisely the things that add ‘heart’ that are criticized here or simply ignored. Listening to some, the movies should be a cross between a videogame or a documentary about the army without any interpersonal relationships and characters that look like robots. And yet ‘BR trek has no heart!’

When all is said and done Roddenberry didn’t like most of the old movies. So whatever..
Still, there are elements from the reboot he would probably approve.

Yes i am excited about Star Wars too. If it werent for Abrams it would have sucked like ep. I-III did.

Berman is responsible for as much good Trek as he is bad and doesn’t deserve the crap be gets from people. But for him keeping the property going after Roddenberry’s health began failing the franchise would’ve died out long before Abrams & Co ever came near it. The critics should stop and realise that, irrespective of what they thought of his later output.

One thing is also for certain, he got the idea of Star Trek a damn sight better than the likes of Orci, Kurtzman & co. I think he’s absolutely right in what is says and, hell, I agree with him, I’m more interested in the next Star Wars more as well…..mainly because the past two Treks show that’s what Abrams is suited to, and Star Trek it’s not. Star Trek won’t be truly Star Trek again until it once again embraces the concept of exploration, both physical and metaphysical. I seriously doubt that Orci will be the man to do that is his prior disgusting tirade against the fans is anything to go by (which is happily ignored by those still lining up to kiss his backside on here).

People need to stop and think about what made Star Trek successful for gave it longevity. JJTrek is short term successful and it ultimately relies on the non-fans to work. But people going on about box office grosses need to ask themselves, how many of those casual non-fan audience members just went for an exciting action film, and how likely are they to become long term fans? Was there any great surge in DVD sales of past stuff of the back of the JJTrek films? No. If we judge by short term success then TOS, the very series that gave rise to JJTrek, was just as much a failure as any of Berman’s stuff. But no, it grew in re-runs and the reason was because it have great ideas and people were slowly attracted to that more and more.

If most of you want easy to digest, dumbed down Star Trek then good luck to you. You will no doubt be very pleased with what you get in 2016. But I agree with Berman, irrespective of his past, what Abrams has so far produced has not inspired me and the last effort, Into Darkness, was so far away from the Star Trek I know, love and want to see that it has completely swept away any interest I might have for the next entry (and I never thought I’d say that about a movie potentially reuniting Shatner and Nimoy). What’s more is that what Berman may have been, I have a very sour stomach for the idea of watching any Star Trek delivered by a man who regards the fans as immature children not worthy of his hefty Hollywood status.

Orci & Co have a chance for redemption in this fan’s eye come 2016. Let’s see if they take it.

Cmon guys. Cut Berman some slack.

I find it dissapointing that we tend, and I emphasizing “tend” to because it’s not always the case, to judge a person based on their final piece of work rather than their whole body of work. If Nemesis, being the final film as it was, had been a raging success we’d all be saying how wonderful Berman was but because it fared poorly he’s the guy who destroyed Star Trek.

Really that’s faulty reasoning. The guy has headed up some of the best Star Trek in history. And he has overseen the greatest amount of production work in Star Trek than anyone else has. Of course there will be failures when youve done that much Star Trek. Im sure if it had been anyone else the same kind of failures would also have been evident. But he has also overseen some critically acclaimed work as well.

Yeah i think he is qualified to make the statements he has made.

Rick berman created the character of Neelix, I think I have made my point!

As much as i respect Berman’s work on TNG and DS9, lets hope Star Trek 3 has everything to do with the first 2 Movies and nothing to do with Generations, Insurrection and Nemesis.

#29 “If Nemesis, being the final film as it was, had been a raging success we’d all be saying how wonderful Berman was but because it fared poorly he’s the guy who destroyed Star Trek.”

Your reasoning is backwards: precisely because Nemesis failed so spectacularly, it destroyed Trek. It was the final nail in the casket that was built over the course of years of Berman leadership.

“The guy has headed up some of the best Star Trek in history.”

Yeah, well as long as Berman was around, he was bound to hit the target some time.

I think, it is very ironic that people in this forum say, Rick Berman isn’t in the position to say anything about Star Trek’s future or to criticize the last two movies while at the same time they criticize the hell out of the last two installments and speak for treks future like they have invented it. Trekkies can be so funny.

If someone can say about trek its Rick Berman because he was responsible for a few of treks best hours! I believe, if his work didn’t exist, trek wouln’t have been around for decades! And in my personal opinion every TOS movie loses in direct comparison to the TNG movies.

Ok, this last point is just an opinion. But please think about my first point before complaining about Rick while at the same time saying anything bad about into darkness.

Yeah,Trekkers are sometimes the ones giving Trek fans the bad rep that they have,lol! Kinda funny really.

Rick Berman was in charge of the franchise for about 15 years, and ran it into the ground. He’s the guy who killed Kirk in the first place and stood in the way of bringing the character back far sooner.

He is the man responsible for Voyager and Enterprise.

He has no idea what kind of movie we all want. If he did, he’d likely still be in charge.

@ #30 JED – Yes, you have. And very strongly. Good point! ;)

Rick, bubby, it’s more accurate to say you are hoping for the next Star Trek movie to closer to what YOU want it to be.

And what the devil do you mean by a Star Trek movie that doesn’t work harder than you? You mean “dumb down” so it’s easier for the lesser intelligent to understand what’s going on in the movie and not learn about themselves by their own accord?

Or do you still prefer Star Trek to be like Ba’ku like Son’a rather than a Son’a like Ba’ku? To dumb it down for you, not to appreciate life even in a fast pace world, but to slow everything down with questionable virtue? To dumb it down even further, you want Star Trek to be more like Admiral Dougherty and less like Captain Jean Luc Picard?

From what I understand of all the haters, the answer is yes.

35. BringBackKirkPrime

I think the opposite is true. Rick Berman is the man who managed to achieve that Star Trek became a phenomenon not only in the US but in Germany and other countries as well. Without Rick Berman Star Trek would have been dead from the beginning of the nineties. He made more hours of trek than anybody else and not only Voyager and Enterprise which are both an enrichment but DS9 and TNG. He made 4 feature films with First Contact being one of the best trek films of all time.

And I find it kind of laughable that the only mission of you seems to be to bring kirk back. You should name yourself after that mission. ;)
Seriously it can’t be the only important point of trek to get Shatner back. Maybe nice if he is in it but it was ok, that Kirk died in Generations.
It really should not be so important to resurrect KirkPrime. That is not the only thing to make a trek movie great. Or is “The Godfather” a bad movie because there is no Kirk in it?

A really hope that Trek (2016) won’t bring up that kind of nonsense some of the fans here do just to bring that charakter back. Then we would have a new contender for the worst trek movie, ever.
But I trust Bob that he is smarter.

This comes across as passive aggressive. Rick had the opportunity to go out on top and be remembered as the guy who led the Golden Age of Star Trek, or stay on past his creative prime and be remembered as the guy who ran Star Trek into the ground. The last time I heard something about hin, he was trying to write a memoir of his Star Trek experiences that nobody wanted to buy. Too bad. He did a lot of great work that for many fans is overshadowed by later failures.

19. Buzz Cagney –
“He didn’t appear to know what ‘we all’ wanted to see in a Trek movie so its rather inappropriate of him to presume it now.”

The presumption might be on the part of you and so many here. By ‘we all’ he might have been referring to himself and his compatriots and friends. He wasn’t necessarily speaking for all of US.

26. Jemini
“You guys are reading too much into what he said, as always.”

Yup

Star Trek needed fresh blood and a new viewpoint long before the Berman era ended, to be sure, and Trek did become stale under him. But so much GREAT Trek occurred during his reign that I can’t hate the guy.

That’s pretty funny in a sadly ironic way. Who is “we all?” And what examples would he serve up as movies we all want to see? Insurrection? Generations? And franchise-killer Nemesis?

I can’t imagine there are many people that want to see movies like that anymore…let alone “all”of us.

Don’t you just love it when someone thinks they can speak for “all” of us?

Rick Berman can only dream of making movies as commercially and critically successful as the last two Star Trek films.

#40 possibly the presumption is mine. But perhaps he should have made it more clear that he was talking about a few of his mates rather than Trek fans as a whole?

As it is i’m going to continue to believe that he is of the belief that he knows best and is still speaking for us all, as he clearly and mistakenly thought during his tenure in control of the franchise.

So far we have David Gerrold, Nick Meyer, and now Rick Berman comment negatively about JJ Abrams’ Trek movies.

Things that make you go hmmmmm.

Some unfair comments coming here.
Berman’s movies were given a much lower budget than Abrams’

One of the problems with ilIbsurrection and Nenesus was that blockbusters were getting bigger but Trek movies weren’t!

41. Check the Circuit

“I can’t imagine there are many people that want to see movies like that anymore…let alone “all”of us.

Don’t you just love it when someone thinks they can speak for “all” of us?”

I love it much more when someone blames someone else for something straight after he did exactly the same thing one sentence ago. :-D

Of course Berman doesn’t look forward to it, it’s based on TOS…it goes against his skewed thinking that TNG is what Star Trek is, rather than Star Trek…the classic series that the movie is based on!

It’s not blasphemy for him to not be excited….now, if a new movie comes out that gets Berman’s rubber stamp of “Trek Certified” ….THAT will be extreme cause for concern!!

As long as Bad Robot’s Trek and Rick Berman are on different pages, things are unfolding as they should.

Interesting “they” chose to post a picture from Nemesis instead of let’s say…. First Contact?

Berman is just saying what we all feel. LaVar Burton stated the same general thing.

“At the end of the movie, I really care about what happens to the characters … but I’m pretty much missing Gene Roddenberry in J.J.’s interpretation … and at the end of the day, that’s just not OK for me.”

Why can’t Berman voice nor have an opinion too? The Berman haters need to take a valium. If anyone has earned the right to be critical of ST, it’s Berman.

@ 28. El Chup – October 22, 2014

I’m glad I read your post. You’ve expressed my feelings exactly. Great post.

In 2009 we are almost unanimously optimistic for the next movie and the future of Trek.

Can we honestly say we feel the same for this next movie?

Sadly, I’m not as fired up for this next one as I was in an anticipation of STID.

Now I’ll never be more eager to see new Star Wars stuff… that’s just bonkers, but I’m more “cautious” leading up to this next film than I was for STID.

#28 “One thing is also for certain, he got the idea of Star Trek a damn sight better than the likes of Orci, Kurtzman & co.”

I don’t think he knew beans about the idea of Star Trek, but he damn well understood soap operas.

@17 (Hat Rick): Sorry, but even adjusted for inflation, NEM is still the worse performing film, even more so than FF.

And to all who seem to give Berman a pass: he was the one who hired Baird (no experience, no understanding of ‘Trek) over Frakes (has experience, has an understanding of ‘Trek). Berman also refused to bring back Denise Crosby as Sela, who, IMO, would have been a neat fit in the NEM’s plot, for personal reasons, while giving Spiner too much carte blanche in the film’s story. Coupled that with how the film was marketed and released, Berman is the LAST person who should be critical of the NuTrek films.

And just a reminder, check out Red Letter Media’s satirical take on the TNG films, as to why Berman “lost” the franchise:

Star Trek: Generations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h06WKYFYdlo

Star Trek: First Contact

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7Lr8cdZwHQ

Star Trek: Insurrection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlV3bsafkq0

Star Trek: Nemesis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZjkHUrEuHc

Food for thought.