Mark L. Smith To Write Script For Quentin Tarantino Star Trek Film

Deadline’s Mike Fleming reports that Mark L. Smith, best known for his script to The Revenant, will be tasked with fleshing out the story idea Quentin Tarantino recently pitched to JJ Abrams for a potential Star Trek film. Smith emerged as the front runner after being part of a writer’s room competition with three other writers, as we had reported two weeks ago.

When could we see a Tarantino Trek?

Fleming also reports that Tarantino wants to direct the project. If he does intend to direct, it would likely have to occur after he completes his next film, a story about 1969 and the Charles Manson murders, which he is in the midst of casting and is already set for release on August 9, 2019.

That makes Summer 2020 a likely target. Paramount recently announced dates for some of their other franchises. The third G.I. Joe movie is planned for March 27, 2020. A new property, Micronauts, based on the ’70s toys, is scheduled for October 16, 2020. That leaves the ripe June/July summer blockbuster area open, which could potentially be filled by a new Trek movie.

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This could be interesting :) I look forward to seeing more detail

Exciting news. Has there been any confirmation that this will be the next film, or is it possible we will still see the previously announced 4th film of the Kelvin franchise, featuring the story with Captain Kirk’s father, as the next film with this being a stand-alone film to follow? I’m really anxious to hear more. Is it Prime or Kelvin Universe? TOS or TNG era? With or without Patrick Stewart? Part of the existing canon or separate and unique? So may questions, not enough answers!

There are no official answers to any of those questions but I doubt the George Kirk storyline will stick around. Tarentino has his own ideas and that was something that I don’t think Paramount was overly enthusiastic about.

Given that there has been nothing about the George Kirk script since that initial announcement it seems like that isn’t moving forward. Think that Paramount must have gotten nervous about the franchise after Beyond was a pretty big drop from Into Darkness in terms of worldwide box office, which is a shame because Beyond felt like a good step in the right direction for the series.

Couldn’t agree more. Cheesy ending aside it was the first film of the reboots that really started to recapture that hard to define feeling that the TOS & TNG movies had conveyed.

I agree I think Beyond did a good job of going a similar direction of the show but I also think the story it told didn’t excite anyone and felt like something you seen many times on these shows and the crew being stuck on a planet. It just didn’t do anything different enough to get people interested although it was a decent enough story on its own.

But yes it being the lowest performing Trek out of the three and WITH most of the cast members up and have to renegotiate it looks like they just wasn’t in a rush to do another one. We knew one would come eventually the question was when, how much and with what cast. It could’ve been years away and of course it still might.

@Tiger2 – that is my issue with Beyond. The story wasnt epic. The idea of a film that is more like an episode is fine on paper. But at this budget and as a film once every few years, you need a bigger story. Maybe its cliche that the crew is ALWAYS saving the universe, but so be it.

Beyond did a better job at getting some of the character moments right (minus a laughing Spock) but it was just a small story and it also had its issues and needed more time in the oven.

STID was suitably epic but was horrible written.

Lets not forget that JJ Abrams is still involved in the production, so I suspect this will be another kelvin universe film.

The George Kirk story is very unlikely. Tarantino isn’t going to be interested in someone else’s idea. Also, it’s very likely JJ threw out that George Kirk/Hemsworth thing as a way to get some publicity for STB, which wasn’t tracking well at the time.

I’m pretty sure Tarantino stated he wanted to remake Yesterday’s Enterprise or City on the Edge of Forever. He also loved the Kelvin cast. I could easily see him making a film with them. Honestly I’m not sure you could do a better job of re-casting those roles… He also said Star Trek fell into a trap of having to feature the entire cast in each film… maybe a larger focus on a few and sidelining the rest.

I truly hope its not a remake of an old episode. Seriously do something original. I know they have done this in the past with TMP but I really don’t need an old story redone. It feels lazy to me.

Heh — “Star Trek TMP: Where Nomad has Gone Before”

But seriously, I wouldn’t mind an update/extrapolation from “The Doomsday Machine.” Like, do more of them wander into our quadrant/galaxy? YIKES!

I hear you but look what happens when you do something original like ”The last jedi” Star Wars fans are crying like 2 year olds. It’s so stupid.The truth is writers and directors don’t sit there and say I wonder what the fans want. They may say what we’re doing we think the fans will like.When it comes to the creative process you have to go with your gut has a writer or when you direct the film. You write and pitch the script and if the studio green lights it you go make your film. Changes are always made during shooting,but it never involves a thought of ”what will the fans think”. In the case of Star Trek and the Roddenberry rules, the TV series like DS9 added or got away from the ”rules”. Those rules never affected the story. And canon ,really ,do you really think when they made TOS TV show they thought about canon? I think you got to break rules for something to move forward. Personally the way Discovery is going it proves once again why Star Trek is better on the small screen.Even the original 6 films with TOS crew only one stands out TWOK ,Star Trek 2. You just can’t tell stories that Trek needs on the big screen in the time allowed.I do think for Trek to be successful on the big screen Just go with a new crew TOS crew is so done.Discover is doing that.DS9 did Voyager did Next gen did Enterprise did it.That way you don’t worry about finding actors that kind of look or act like the original actors. It’s a risk sure, but a risk that needs to be taken for Star Trek to keep on going. And stay away from remakes.

I just had to put my own two cents and say that I think it is complete BS that only one TOS film stands out or that Trek is better at TV. I know that’s the usual mantra Trekkies use but it is simply not true IMO.

Fans are upset at the LAST JEDI because it was a bad film. The plot was rudimentary and idiotic. It certainly was not original. I expected more from Rian Johnson but the franchise is broken beyond repair. One only needs to look at the second week drop-off for confirmation.

I reject the rehash stuff for TFA and maintain TLJ needed MORE connections to the rest of the saga. JJ can save it by doing more of what he did in TFA. But he has his work cut out for him now.

Its almost like Rian was trying to screw with JJ, to be honest.

Sorry, but TLJ had problems, which warranted the audience backlash.

It’s because Star Wars is a heap of sh*it and sci-fi for children.

Relax Captain. Deep breath.

Since this is the only Star Trek movie being talked about I seriously doubt that there will be a different fourth JJ Trek before this one. Unless Bad Robot/Paramount get cold feet and pull out of it this will most likely be the next Trek movie. Whether it will include any story points previously floated around for the 4th Kelvin film is anybody’s guess at this point.

No it will not. This will likely never get made. Paramount has nothing to do with this PR stunt other than being the current license holder to the Trek film franchise, and recipient of a pitch from a first look production partner paying to develop a spec script to present as concept.

Didnt JJ have writers working on the “George Kirk” story or did I imagine that?

Hi TUP, yes J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay were announced as the writers of the George Kirk story. I believe that they were also connected to the original 3rd film with Roberto Orci before it went in a different direction. That is one reason I wonder if there will be two films in development at the same time.

@Captain Danno — a production company like Bad Robot has many scripts in development at one time, some may get set aside, while another direction is pursued, the same scripts handed off to another team, re-written, merged, trashed, etc. et al. This happens every day in Hollywood. None of it is a guarantee of anything. Period. Until Paramount green-lights something, it’s all so much flatulence …

I think McKay and Payne’s script was Orci wanting to tie up the Kelvin uni timeline and go back to Prime. He probably wanted Shatner too.

So maybe they added George Kirk to that idea. I can’t say I’m really excited about that one.

Didnt Orci make some remarks, sort of seemingly annoyed that Beyond had elements of his story even though Pegg claimed they were not allowed to read it for fear of being tainted?

When the writers for Trek 4 were revealed, I was surprised because they had worked on Orci’s rejected stories and it made md wonder if they were risking a complaint from Bob if anything was even remotely similar.

We know Bob had Shatner in his story. But JJ likely did NOT have Shatner in his. In fact, perhaps the stories were similar but JJ used George Kirk instead of Shatner.

Seems highly unlikely they’d be working on more than one movie since they can’t seem to figure out how to even do one right let alone more than one at once. Most likely Tarantino’s idea is going to take Trek into completely uncharted territory, likely have less to do with Kelvin timeline and more its own story, and wait to be released long enough for Discovery to redefine the conversation around Trek and open up Tarantino’s movie to the possibilities that otherwise wouldn’t have been considered if not for Disco

Pegg and Jung were also dropping (bad) hints they were fleshing out a script, too.

All they’ve done is hire Mark Smith to write a script. No guarantee that it gets made at all at this point, all they are doing is exploring a concept. None of the above may be a very legitimate answer to all your questions.

Release it away from summer. Drop the budget. Focus on characters and tension etc

And respect the franchise. We see what happened when they didn’t (STID). Much the same way The Last Jedi sucks and disrespected the Star Wars franchise

I agree 100% about TLJ. That movie sucks. #notmystarwars

I definitely agree. While nice to look at, Star Trek doesn’t NEED a blockbuster budget. I’d prefer better storytelling over the flashiness. That also relieves it of some of the box office pressures that come with spending $150-$200 million.

Yeah… give us another TMP!

Ummm … no

And put everyone to sleep in the process.

Ironically, at $40 million, TMP was BY FAR the most expensive film of its time.

MattR,

I’m with you, man. I hate big-budget movies because they “necessitate” a lot of CGI, running around, ‘splosions, fights, blood, sometimes guts, and VERY little plot, except getting to the next action set-piece. So they can sell it around the world and so they can recoup that YUGE budget.

How did TLJ disrespect Star Wars? It was a fine addition to the series. Not perfect, but still.

I could explain but would need to spill many spoilers

If you made a list of what fans wanted it would be a list of things they deliberately didn’t do or screwed up. And you might say it’s not just for fans. But a franchise like Wars or Trek needs to have a certain amount of fan servicing.

I liked TFA because I thought it very well balanced creating cool new characters while providing fan servicing and growing the story.

TLJ doesn’t even seem like they watched TFA. Very disjointed between the two films.

JJ has his work cut out for him to save it.

Fair enough.

I liked it far, far better than TFA, actually. Screw fan servicing. It’s never made a movie good. Plus, I think it’s truer to Star Wars than any movie since the original trilogy.

The theatre I saw it in was full of families, and, judging by the applause, they were pretty thrilled.

Well, “fan snubbing” didnt make Jedi good either. It made it worse. Ill explain when an acceptable period of time has elapsed and we can dissect the finer details.

Im also seeing it again this weekend for a second perspective.

Spoilers, perhaps:

I had zero expectations (and was hoping we wouldn’t get another rehash) and expected to be disappointed by answers to the questions Abrams had set up (I wasn’t), so maybe that helped.

An EW writer had a good line (in a tweet) about it couldn’t possibly compare to the movie (grown adult) fans had been making in their heads for the last two years.

It seems like fans wanted Luke to be a Mary Sue, which wouldn’t be very darned interesting. Hammil’s personal feelings (whatever they are at this point) about what the character shouldn’t be doing don’t matter — this is his best performance and a hell of a way to end the character (if it’s indeed an ending — Obi Wan died in Star Wars). And there are parallels to Ben and Yoda — both dropped out of the fight, essentially. But it makes sense, he tried to resurrect the Jedi and realized that (look at the events of the prequels) maybe the Jedi made all this worse.

Uh, no. This argument that LS is/is not a Mary Sue is a diversion from the criticism that Rey IS a Mary Sue. The problem with LS’s character in TLJ is that HE IS OUT OF CHARACTER. In RotJ, Luke risked capture in order to both save his father AND stand up to the Emperor. Even after having lost his hand (thanks to his father), even after almost being murdered by the Emperor, Luke still was the optimist. That is 180 degree turn around from how the character was depicted. Even if you take into account that Luke blamed himself for over-reacting to his nephew being influenced by the Darkside, there is no way, IMO, that Luke would have just given up so easily as to wait to die, so that there would be no Jedi. The perfect set up for Luke’s redemption was when Yoda burned down the tree on the island, allowing Luke to find his own path, rather than follow the ideology of the Jedi (who, as stated, believed in absolutes, which caused Luke to over-react to begin with). Thus, as his final act as “the last Jedi”, Luke could still stop Kylo at Krayt, and then begin to chart a new path, free of the weight of Jedi orthodoxy, as inspired by his student Rey. But, no, he had to “become one with the Force”, which makes what he stated to Kylo Ren seem odd. Still, I liked the film overall, but I give it a “B+”: decent, but no follow-through from the set up of the previous film to my satisfaction.

dswynne,

Re: “become one with the Force”

So, in the original, when Obi Wan told Vader “You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”, vertically stabilized his saber and disappeared becoming one with the force, you thought he was just blowing smoke up Vader’s robes and that Luke, having arrived at a similar stage of his life, couldn’t possibly want or put to good use a similar transition?

@DSwynne – agreed.

My head canon is that Yoda’s actions were a course correction for Luke. When Yoda says Luke did not heed his instructions to pass on what he knew, it wasnt about teaching new Jedi the old Jedi ways, it was to pass on what LUKE knew to be true from HIS experiences in the OT.

Luke rejected the old ways in the OT. He rejected Yoda & Ben’s view that he should kill Vader and nothing else mattered (ie. let his friends die without him because he had to train to kill Vader). Luke was the opposite of his father.

So in his failure, Luke sort of recoiled to a place of “comfort” – the old Jedi teachings, the original Jedi temple etc. Yoda was making the point that Luke’s failing was ignoring what he knew to be true.

Luke should have shown up for real at the end, showed us his true power, saved the day etc. But once they got rid of SNoke, they had to get rid of Luke because Kylo is a weak villain.

Rey is a good character but she becomes weaker by the idea she’s a nobody. I get their reasoning. But in THIS story, the SAGA, it doenst work.

She’s either a Solo, hidden away, or, perhaps more interestingly, I’d have made her related to Palpatine. And that “dark side” that calls to her is him, still pulling the strings from the Dark Side. In that way, you connect the stories and create a different destiny for Rey to overcome. And it keeps Luke in the story in a meaningful way as well.

It also creates a dynamic between Kylo and Rey where Kylo is a Skywalker that desperately wants to escape the shadow of his Uncle and Grandfather facing a girl who, by blood, is more everything he wants and yet she rejects it.

It is hilarious how the fan venom has spewed from Trek to Star Wars. For the last few years I was saddened by the blinders most of my fellow Trek fans had towards the newer movies. It seemed like they just wanted everything to remain stale. I don’t need more retread scripts, actors, etc. I was excited for a fresh set of eyes and ideas. Same goes for Discovery. I love it! Is it my ‘old Trek’? Heck no. Why go backwards???

Now the Star Wars fans are doing the same thing. I saw the movie and thought it was very entertaining. Action, character development and so much more.

@Jack – Mark Hamill’s performance was tremendous, even in a role he clearly doesnt like. And rightfully so.

I think many of us DID want that one great show of power from Luke. In the same way fans were all drooling over Vader going nuts in Rogue One, we wanted Luke to show us his power.

If its me, that scene when he confronts Kylo would have been “real” and he would have crumpled a couple of Walkers and shown his great power.

The idea that Luke thinks the Jedi should end, they didnt give us a good enough reason. It was sort of contradictory actually. The thing I did like was that if this Luke was going to be filled with doubt, he sort of went back to the original Jedi teachings which we can accept were wrong.

The point of the OT was that Luke rejected Yoda and Ben’s desire for him to kill Anakin. He essentially went against the arrogant old ways. He was older, emotional, had love for people, looked ahead etc etc. He believed in hope and faith and love. So Luke’s idea of what a Jedi is was different from Yoda and Ben.

Ben Solo “falling” would not make Luke run off and hide. It was cowardly and not in keeping with the character. There was a much better story there. They just didnt find it.

The only reason that makes sense to me would be if Luke thought he would make it worse if he stayed. There is a line in Return of the Jedi (or Empire, I cant remember) where Luke laments that he’s jeopardizing the mission by being there and says he shouldn’t have come.

When he first holds his father’s saber in The Last Jedi, it was a missed opportunity. TFA established that saber as important. It called to Rey, it provided a force flashback to her.

I’d have had the same thing happen to Luke. Him cutting himself off from the Force so he doesnt know anything that is happening is an interesting idea. So he takes that saber and is suddenly overwhelmed with a sudden reconnection to the Force. Show us clips from the PT of Anakin using it, then A NEw Hope when Ben gives it to Luke, his fight with Vader in Empire and losing his hand. Have Luke shut that connection off…but is emotionally exhausted.

And later have him reconnect again and see all that he missed. In fact when Yoda appears to Luke, I REALLY wanted to see Ben and Anakin as well, which would make sense. Have Luke storm off from Yoda and then see Ben who has some words of wisdom. Luke continues to storm off. Anakin now appears, provides words of wisdom. Luke finally lets the Force back in and knows what he has to do.

Have him show up in the end for “real”.

Listen, they can make all the movies they want to that are “original” stories. The SAGA films SHOULD be related to one another. As it is, you had the first six films be six chapters of one story…and then this disjointed, unconnected trilogy.

Yes, me too. TFA just seemed like a “rehash” of Star Wars Episode IV.

I left the theatre with the same happy feeling I had when I applauded “The Empire Strikes Back.” Whooo-hoo!

I do have to say, though, the poor resistance seems to have some AWFUL reaction times. They need to do more battle drills.

Went and saw TLJ a second time tonight. I have to say I liked it much more the second time around. I’m still bothered by a few things but I the moments that clicked REALLY clicked. Its obvious Johnson was just trying to do something different, but I guess TOO different for some fans.

I can’t wait to see what his trilogy story will be about. With new characters and wiping the slate clean it may not get so many so upset about it. And I’m glad Star Wars is FINALLY telling new stories with new characters!

Hear that movie Trek? ;)

It’s not telling a “new story”; it’s recycling previous ones.

Its not recycling. Its continuing a SAGA story. Thats the point. Its the Skywalker Saga. Rian Johnson didnt get the memo or didnt see any of the previous SAGA films.

It was not a rehash. Thats just the cool word people use to dislike that which is popular. Its part of the saga. And Lucas always intended the films to echo one another. It HAS to play off the OT. TFA was very different from A New Hope.

I’d love to discus though once spoilers are allowed! :)

I have lots of issues with the movie but, by far, the handling of Luke was the worst. Here you have a character who as little more than a boy saves his father’s soul from an eternity of darkness and resists the Emperor’s attempts to turn him to the dark side. He sees adversity again and again yet he always remains hopeful and optimistic and never gives up. To then write him the way they did in TLJ and have him be that bitter, cynical hermit who rejects everything he believed in for so long just felt completely wrong and no amount of rationalization by Rian Johnson could ever convince me otherwise. Even Mark Hamill himself has said he doesn’t agree with how the character was portrayed. Read between the lines and you quickly get that he was contractually obligated to follow the director’s vision so he soldiered on.

TonyD,

When has the STAR WARS franchise ever NOT portrayed its main elderly male human characters as bitter in their old age at some point?

I don’t recall Obi Wan Kenobi ever being so bitter that he cut himself off from the force or turning away from everything he believed in.

Even when he went into exile Yoda never turned his back on the Jedi order.

When Mace Windu discovered Palpatine was a Sith he didn’t go sulk in a forgotten corner of the universe.

TonyD,

Re: Obi Wan Kenobi ever being so

Obi Wan was a hermit! Cutting themselves off is the very definition of what hermits do, and what he was doing. He even whines, “I’m getting too old for this sort of thing.” Owen regards him as, an old man that’s “… just a crazy old wizard,” and Luke doesn’t even know his full name and rank, only “Old Ben,” because Kenobi is cut off and disengaged from everything he believed in.

He’s so cut off, Leia can’t just tell him as a retired general, “Here’s information vital to The Rebellion. You know what to do.”, but instead feels she has to beg and plead in order to convince him to re-engage.

Re: Yoda

Non sequitur, Yoda was not human. But if he was, he had abandoned recruiting and training new Jedi in his old age. Kenobi’s ghost even had to borrow a page from Leia to get Yoda to re-engage. So, yes, in both their self-imposed exiles, those two Jedi Masters DID turn their backs on the Jedi Order by standing by, contemplating their navels, twiddling their thumbs, or whatever it is that self-exiled Jedi Masters do to pass time while being inactive Jedi.

I am by no means a Wars expert, but wasn’t Obi Wan there to protect Luke?

DiscoTrek,

Re: protect Luke?

I’d say more like ready to exploit him at an opportune moment. If Ben’s job there was to protect Luke, he wasn’t very good at it. The moment the Empire touched down to look for the droids, he should have been at Luke’s side, if protection was his aim. Instead, he seems oblivious to the events falling around the one he’s supposedly charged with protecting. He didn’t even know why Luke had entered the dangerous Jundland which Kenobi’s excellent protection services neglected to prevent as well as his subsequent engaging a Tusken Raider in battle. Protection involves preventing threats from escalating to life endangering, NOT just responding to them at the last possible life endangering moment.

@Disco – yes, and Disinvited makes good points too. But a lot of unexplained. We know Ben was not above lying (or being truthful from a certain point of view) so whether Luke was ever in danger without Ben being there to save him, who knows. Maybe Ben trusted the will of the Force to deliver Luke to him when the time was right. We know Ben was there to save Luke when it mattered…

@Disinvited – I respectfully disagree

What we know of Ben is told to us by Luke’s Uncle who is biased in that he doesnt want Luke fulfilling his destiny and becoming a Jedi and what Luke knows of him (which is fleeting as Ben intended).

Ben is a hermit because he’s watching over Luke waiting for destiny to come calling. It does and he immediately springs into action. There is no question in his mind that he must train Luke to fulfill his destiny. He allows himself to be struck down to better fulfill HIS destiny as Luke’s guide.

We literally know nothing of Ben’s life between Sith and Hope. But I bet he wasnt sitting around knitting socks that whole time.

There is nothing bitter about Ben. The most bitter thing would be that he and Yoda want Luke to be their weapon to kill Anakin. But that is shown to us in the PT as the “ways of the Jedi” at that time, the arrogance. The whole point of Luke is that he rejects that.

The Last Jedi showed us a Luke who is nothing like the Luke we know and provides no reasonable reason for it.

Yoda’s reason for going into exile wasnt very good either (or well stated in Sith) but Ben’s was. They could not defeat Anakin and Palpatine. Their main job was to protect Luke, the last hope. The fact all hope was gone from Luke is an interesting idea but it didnt work the way they told that story.

TUP,

Re: Luke’s Uncle … is biased

And you yourself admit that Ben and Yoda lie to Luke which I say betrays a fatal flaw to the protection services theory. Clearly they are more than willing to USE Luke to save the Jedi, et al, but they lie because they clearly don’t TRUST Luke. They aren’t watching Luke to protect him. They are watching Luke to protect everyone else because they believe there’s a real possibility that he’s going to go bad, i.e. that he’s not the savior but someone else is. Yoda even says as much.

In fact, I’m willing to speculate that’s why Obi Wan was such a lousy protector of Luke on Tatooine, he was waiting, looking for any possible signs of Luke’s dark side to emerge in moments of crisis, before he committed to stepping in to save him.

Disinvited – I dont see that at all. I havent watched the OT for awhile but I never got the sense Yoda & Ben thought Luke would go bad. The implication has always been Luke was the savior.

The hard part is figuring out why they chose THAT moment. Especially Yoda claiming Luke was too old to train. You’d think they’d have begun training him from birth.

The implication there is the sense of destiny and fate. That Luke would come to them when the Force deemed it time. A lot happens that is either coincidence or the will of the force that puts the droids in Luke’s possession. We can argue Ben isnt a coincidence because maybe he follows Luke around all the time. But Luke running off instead of staying with Ben, only to find his “parents” killed by the Empire and thus his desire to become a Jedi…it all happens very conveniently.

But the one constant was Ben and Yoda wanting Luke to forget about his friends and the rebels. He was their weapon to defeat Vader and thus, defeat Palps.

We have no frame of reference for Ben’s time on Tatooine. Maybe he saved Luke a dozen times. Maybe the Force protected Luke.

We only have the change in Uncle Owen to imply something DID happen. Presumably Owen and Beru were on board with the “look after Luke until the Force wills him to become our weapon against Vader” when they took him. It seems to be implied that Luke knows Ben…but Owen now forbids his contact with him.

All good things to explore in a future Ben film.

TUP- You are aware that multiple stories in the old EU depicted Luke going full on Dark Side, in one he even worked for a ressurected Palpatine.

EU is irrelevant.

Up until Disney bought Lucasfilm the EU was canon, including the in continuity stories showing Luke as Dark Side. The original script for The Force Awakens even revolved around Jacen and Jaina Solo. It was JJ who got Kathleen and Lucasfilm to discard the old EU & decanonize it, bacause he didn’t want to be forced to follow the abysmal New Jedi Order stories.

The new EU is also canon, including the Aftermath novel trilogy, Marvel’s new Star Wars comics, and the Battlefront games. So no the EU was never irrelevant.

TonyD,

Re: Mace Windu

Mace Windu was not old.

@TonyD – 100%. After a week, maybe we dont have to avoid spoilers because Im dying to rip through the major plot points and rip the film to shreds.

But Luke’s treatment was the worst. And Jedi doesnt feel connected to TFA at all.

They over-reacted to fans’ whining about TFA being a rehash and decided to take the list of “what fans want” and make sure to not deliver any of those things.

They undermined the OT completely.

The big thing is, as much as the PQ sucked, it connects with the OT. This trilogy doesnt connect at all. You had the big happy ending at the end of Return of the Jedi and now this. And they arent explaining any of how this is happening.

JJ did a good job with TFA and set it up well to continue to connect to the OT. Rian Johnson should be ashamed of the film he produced and I cant believe JJ and Kathleen Kennedy approved that awful script. Worse, they signed him for three more!

You know JJ loved Rian’s script too the first time he read it, right? Folks who want the same trilogy over and over again, or who only want everything to connect back to ‘New Hope’ will undoubtedly hate ‘Last Jedi.’ Personally, as an old fan of the original trilogy, I love a movie that clearly knows the franchise it’s in, but isn’t afraid to go in new directions. More to the point, that’s the only way for the franchise to survive.

But hey, you’ve got ‘Solo’ in only a few short months to look forward to. Just like old times. Have fun with that.

Bingo, Holden! New directions made me happy.

Though I am looking forward to “Solo” as well :^)

New Directions is great for new projects. When you write a chapter of an existing story using existing characters, you OWE it to the fans and the franchise to make it make sense within THAT establishment.

TFA was not a rehash. And TLJ didnt have to be either. In fact, TFA set up a lot of new opportunities for TLJ. But writing a completely new character and slapping the name “Luke Skywalker” on it in the name of “new direction” is cheap and lame.

@Holden – yes but thats a simplistic way of arguing the backlash. I disagreed with people who said TFA was a rehash. It wasnt’. Its part of the saga. A saga that invokes a lot of “destiny” and “fate” at its core.

TLJ had little connection to the OT or TFA really. One of the best scenes of TLJ was almost a complete copy of a scene from Return of the Jedi because it works.

@TUP–we can argue in circles about about “rehash” and “saga” mean.

I think TFA added nothing new to the saga, but TLJ did. Maybe it comes down to how we define the saga of life itself.

But I recognize you disagree. LLAP.

@Holden – honestly, Im not sure we NEED something new added. The SAGA has a pretty obvious throughline – The Skywalkers. JJ sort of wrapped this up in Anakin’s lightsaber so, in a sense, he gave us something concrete to hold onto that was the constant throughout the saga.

Rian literally broke that apart. Now you can argue that turning it upside down is good. I disagree but the idea has merit. But it should still serve the Saga which I dont think TLD did.

I think we could have got a more sincere, familiar Luke and still learned something new. In fact, the Luke we got was a contradiction. He retreated to the first temple, studying the original texts (well, as he admitted, not really reading them), then wanted them destroyed, then was angry when Yoda destroyed them. Thats a great example of the uneveness of the Luke character in this film.

I can buy a Luke in doubt. Because basically he thumbed his nose at what the Jedi were in Empire. Yoda and Ben were still traditional Jedi’s. (ie. ‘he’s too old to start the training, too emotional etc’). Luke turned that all on its ear.

Ofcourse, when we saw Empire, we didnt really know that. It was hinted at by the dialogue. The PT showed us. Luke won because he had his own ideas of what the Jedi should be.

So if Luke felt HIS version of the Jedi was wrong, and retreated to the original texts and, in that way, began retreating to the safety of the traditional Jedi teachings (which we know are wrong and counter to Luke), I can buy that. But thats not what we got.

We got sad, angry, feel sorry for yourself Luke that ran away from the fight when his family needed him the most.

We needed a better reason. We never got one. In my humble opinion.

If it helps, I’ve not seen it yet (may not until it hits cable), and have read up on all the plot points. If the box office drops off more the 60% this weekend, rip away.

I’m not going to waste my time defending ‘The Last Jedi’ on a Star Trek website (it’s flawed but by far the most interesting Star Wars film in the last thirty years, precisely because of the topics so many are debating): but let’s put it this way . . . let’s say Luke remains the optimist who never shies away from adversity, and who has also mastered the Force in a way that he most likely would have in the intervening decades. That would mean Luke can just pretty much wipe out anyone at anytime. If anything, following that logic, Luke should’ve become a fascist leader. But he’s only for good, so . . . .

Point is, aside for forgetting the arcs of Obi-Wan and Yoda, there’s nothing remotely dramatically interesting about the Luke that some fanboys have created in their heads. I think Rian recognized that early on and made the right call (not the only right call, but a good one).

Fully agreed. And it’s absolutely in character for Luke, having seen the tremendous victories of his youth wiped away by the rise of the First Order, retreat into solidtude. TLJ was all about overcoming that.

Luke didnt see the victories of his youth wiped out by the First order. He wasnt around for the First Order. Or at least, that wasnt shown to us. If the First Order had arisen to a power position BEFORE Ben betrayed Luke, then your premise doesnt work because that clearly didnt drive Luke away.

He was portrayed as cowardly. They wont admit that and they never said it. But he effectively used the idea that people thought he was dead to run and hide…for no real reason.

Ben betrayed Luke and either kidnapped or turned a dozen of his other Jedi trainees. Why Luke thought so little of them he wouldnt try to redeem them or save them is anyones guess.

We know Ben isnt that powerful. Luke was so upset over Ben’s evil thoughts, that he considered killing him in cold blood…but then changes his mind and abandons his friends, family and the universe to a weak, but evil Kylo…who would only grow stronger and stronger.

Compare that to Luke in the OT where he refuses to kill Vader, essentially turning his back on Yoda and Obi Wan. It just doesnt work.

Because this isnt Luke 30 years later. Its Luke, what, 15 years later? He made his decision when Ben betrayed him. When he was still young…

If you look at thr state of the Galaxy in TFA and TLJ can you really be surprised at Luke’s lost soul and will to fight anymore? He is getting old, he has seen war, he has seen hope, he has seen success and celebration, and then all that is ripped away from him. That is going to make an impact on your mental and physical health.

Especially when you had the hubris to think that you were the chosen one destined to resurrect the Jedi order. And the students turned against you and generally destroyed everything everyone had been fighting for for 30 years.

So maybe this idea that there are two sides and nothing in between isn’t working.

There are some parallels to our last election.

Also agree completely.

ST ID is not only the best of the Kelvin era films to date, it’s one of the 3 best TREK films (along with WOK and TVH) and a genuinely great film in general (its The Empire Strikes Back of ST cinema). And, having seen TLJ for a second time, you are entirely wrong about that as well.

@hawk Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But damn. I guess it takes all kinds

Into Darkness is better than the abomination that is the 09, but that’s damning with VERY faint praise, as I’d say the same about crap like NEM. Abrams has precious little business being behind a camera ever, except for the continuing support he gets from undiscerning audiences who seem happy with his misuse of lenses and idiot story sense. But like the other guy said, I guess it takes all kinds.

Considering your critique of Mr. Abrams (who again and and again has proven himself a very skilled filmmaker who’s style blends classicism with the energy of contemporary action storytelling – – making skillfully involving use of several recurring narrative themes and relationship drama-concerns) is a response that comes from a seemingly thoughtful sense of cinema, I’ll assume you know basic film theory (though your your complaint about his poor lens choices is downright wrong, and just a little batty; I write this as a professional screenwriter-dirctor/producer with one successful feature film to my credit and the next in pre-production). Watch ST ID again and pay primary attention to his sense of mise en scene (into which his thoughtful choices of both lenses, set-ups and coverage each support and even, of themselves further the narrative, all of it clearly thought out with an editorial approach in mind that is, in a word, thrilling.) Hell, watch his tremendous pilot telefilms for both ALIAS and LOST and try and argue he has no business behind the camera or as an artist; they’re fun, gripping, pulpy and cool and benefit from an innate cinematic storytelling skill (and I literally thought of that last expression while watching both television productions and, with, to varying degrees, each of his features.)

-lens flare-

No kidding; the lens flare misuse alone, without even getting into the hysterical camera and cutting, makes most Abrams seem amateur-hour right out of the gate. I often liken it to a 7 year-old (or Roger Moore in OCTOPUSSY if you can recollect a particularly juvenile bit) playing with a zoom lens for the first time.

TFA is the only Abrams movie I’ve actually gotten all the way through without much to complain about, but that may be due to low expectations.

Hawkeye, given your own background and experience, I’m astonished to see you embracing his mise-en-scene, which I think I’d characterize as missing-the-point. Just the utter amateur embarrassment of seeing Pine and Cumberbatch square off when the latter is in the brig shows that the director couldn’t have been paying attention or caring. Here you have a really good actor absolutely wiping the floor with the other guy, who is just so outclassed. And the director didn’t do anything to protect against that, either on the day or editorially. I mean, it is like watching a high school thespian w/ jr high talent playing with grownups (granted, Pine has improved in recent years, but there it was just plain embarrassing.)

I disagree on Pine’s acting. The guy can act. It’s always the script that makes new Kirk look the fool.

I always use the same example; imagine Pine saying Kirk’s CHARLIE X line, ‘go to your quarters or I’ll pick you up and carry you there.’ It just wouldn’t fly, because he doesn’t have the authority or the goods to make it fly. The scene in the brig with Khan is a perfect example, he is utterly outclassed – not just with the dialog, but with the performing too.

Sometimes an actor who has the goods can flounder due to direction – Pierce Brosnan always had the goods to deliver a full-blooded Bond if you look at TAILOR OF PANAMA, but if you limit your viewing to his Bond work, you’d see him pushing to deliver more in WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH and coming off like a poor man’s Harrison Ford at times, like when he is yelling for people to get out of his way during the pre-title-sequence. I just think you have a lot of bad stuff going on in ID, including Abrams not trying to salvage that scene, which should have been memorable and compelling instead of something I found painful to watch out of embarrassment for Pine (empathy for somebody I don’t even like!)

@Kmart – thats a fair point, that Pine doesnt have the cache to play authoritative Kirk. But to be fair as well, we havent seen the character written very well for Pine to play yet.

Agreed. And the hints of Shatner that Pine all-too-rarely gets to sprinkle into his performance is really fun.

Personally I’ve found his style to be sterile and flat at times with an over reliance on whip pans, jump cuts and camera shakes. I will say I particularly liked the first half of Into Darkness but it lost me with the Khan stuff.

kmart
Abrams has precious little business being behind a camera ever, except for the continuing support he gets from undiscerning audiences who seem happy with his misuse of lenses and idiot story sense.

Amen.

The best thing that they can do with the next Trek movie is to not let JJ “I never got Trek” anywhere near it. And don’t let him near the next Star Wars movie, either. In fact, don’t let him have any creative input into any feature films. When it comes to movies, JJ Abrams does one thing, and one thing only, well enough to be included: he’s good with the nuts & bolts of production and special fx. That’s it. For the love of God, please, PLEASE don’t let him do anything beyond that! I’m on my knees here!

I seem to recall you were predicting misery and gloom on Discovery because Alex Kurtzman was hands on. That seems to be working rather well, despite your nearly having a stroke over it…..

Based on the 20min I’ve seen of DSC, it seemed awful to me. Whether that is due largely to Kurtzman, for whom I have little respect, or other parties, I can’t say. And based on what I’ve read of it, ‘misery and gloom’ DOES seem to be a big part of the DSC experience for a lot of folks who watch it.

The lack of non-fluff press about DSC is also another thing that suggests problems. I spent months trying to get a story going on the vfx, and got absolutely nowhere. After maybe 150 emails and phone calls, I was back behind where I had been at square one, with CBS saying they weren’t intending to do any of those kinds of stories till at least Feb 2018 (this was 15 weeks after they seem to indicate they were willing to proceed on a fully illustrated for the winter issue of VFX VOICE, for which materials were due by October.) This wasn’t reticence on the part of VFX vendors … at least two that I can recall were interested in talking with me again (I do a lot of this kind of thing), this time about DSC, but CBS was not forthcoming with go-aheads. Maybe they’re saving it all for ‘authorized’ editions, but having grown up on the well-researched CFQ articles of the late 70s through mid 90s, I’d be more interested in a different kind of story than just PR pap, and I think a lot of folks would agree with that assessment.

Have to say, I don’t enjoy Into Darkness.

I’m with you kmart I think STID is a great film that holds together a lot better than 09. And yes, JJ is a bit of a hack. Seriously, what has he done? He’s all about these mysteries and promises of a great payoff — and then never follows through. Lost. Trek. TFA has now been rebuked by the fan community and now the very story of TLJ. His grand plans have terrible execution. But yes, I also am of the opinion that TLJ was better than that remake of New Hope that came out two years ago. And that Beyond was fine but uninspired, making STID the best of the Kelvin Treks.

How did he not follow through on Star Trek? Both films were standalone and answered all its questions.

JJ didn’t follow through on a clear vision of what Trek was, aside from a string of callbacks and nostalgia fixes. ST09 set up some pretty interesting possibilities: the repercussions of Vulcan’s destruction, the vast galaxy of opportunities in the rebooted timeline — and then JJ and co threw it all away with STID, which was supposed to be a commentary on a post-Vulcan society, but instead was a rehash of TWOK. Then with Beyond, even though it was a good “bookend” to a trilogy, that shoudn’t have been the point of these films. It should’ve been a well-planned series with a clear vision. Instead, like everything JJ does, it became geared toward nostalgia and homage rather than anything truly visionary, and then he jumped ship for Star Wars, Beyond was slapped together, and now the fourth film isn’t coming out until like 2020 at best, and all the goodwill of the first movie has evaporated. And all this from the man who was supposed to save Trek, JJ Abrams. Did he make it work? Kinda. But if he really wanted to succeed, he would’ve made it last.

Well I get what you’re saying but I disagree with some of it. For starters, the KT films were not suppose to be serialized like other big franchises. It followed the other Trek films in the sense they are all basically standalone stories. The TOS films were the most ‘serialized’ with films 2-4 and had call backs to the other films but the stories in themselves told completely different stories with the exception of the third one. And all those were only connected because they had to bring back Spock in the third one and the events afterwards.

But that said, yes I think STID probably would’ve been a stronger film if they made it more about Vulcan’s destruction in the second film. It was clearly there in relation to Starfleet’s reaction to it and Section 31 but I think it would’ve been better if it was an actual Vulcan story line and ditched the Khan plot completely.

Beyond had a lot of problems in terms of just getting the film made and yes in many ways its the most standalone film in that there are hardly any call backs to the first film other than referencing Kirk’s dad and of course Prime Spock. It basically acted like STID didn’t exist. You can skip that movie completely and not miss a beat.

But I don’t really blame them for doing it that way but yes in today’s world where every story is serialized they probably should’ve did it that way from the start. That’s exactly why Discovery is so serialized because every sci fi show is today. When TOS and TNG was on the air not so much but thanks to shows like, yes, LOST, they all become that way.

So maybe the next set of Trek films will go that direction. Fingers crossed.

Agree with you, Albarosity, 100%. Let’s hope he does better with ‘Star Wars’ than he did with Trek.

TFA was really good and set up the trilogy great. Rian screwed it up and his script was so half baked it badly needed a lot of editing.

Its funny cause the haters will whine about those of us who dislike JJ’s Trek and say we’re biased. I like good films. JJ did a fine job with TFA (not perfect but fine). And Im now VERY glad he’s doing the next Star Wars film in the same way I wish he was NOT doing the next Star Trek film.

Abrams is good at evoking nostalgia (Trek09, TFA, that ET homage). Expanding on it, not so much.

I agree with this. Cumberbatch and the various action scquences make it the best film. “Star Trek Beyond” is such a mishmash. Not a bad movie, but when Spock..who should be one of the most featured characters is literally sitting this film out…then there’s a lot of waste.

Cumberbatch played a genocidal, whitewashed Khan. The real Khan was a charismatic leader (“there were no massacre under his rule”) whose Identity as a Sikh was core to his being.

Khan in STID was the only evidence one needs to show us that Orci and JJ never understood Star Trek.

One thing I will say about The Last Jedi, the whole casino subplot was a waste but Del Toro has the chops and charisma to have pulled off Khan. Too bad he saw the STID script and ran screaming from the room (while maybe its good). But a GOOD scrip would have made for a great Khan played by Del Toro.

Just how is Spock “sitting out” STB? His dialogue with McCoy is the trilogy’s best moment.

I liked STID, but it’s nowhere near the top of the list of best Trek movies. Glad you think that highly of it, but a lot of folks are going to disagree….

Good grief. Im not even sure I want to know how someone can think STID and The Last Jedi are great. Yikes. But we’re all entitled to our opinions. I have some guilty pleasure films that I know arent very good but I enjoy them anyway.

We can (and have) written thousands of words on why STID sucked. It sucking doesnt preclude you from enjoying it though.

You do realize your input to the “conversation” is idiotic and meaningless, I hope. INTO DARKNESS is in no way a “guilty pleasure”; it’s a genuinely terrific piece of filmmaking that is a very rare example of something that is difficult to create: the intimate epic. (And the way in which it continues and makes more complex the mythic narrative of the so-called “hero’s journey,” is not only technically efficient but artistically engaging and entertaining in terms of Jim Kirk’s arc – – which unfortunately got a little lost in BEYOND.) An to assure you I have some basic understanding and appreciation of what makes a movie great, my personal Top 10 Favorite Films are, generally: Star Wars (1977), MASH (1970), Blade Runner (1982), Citizen Kane (1941), Jaws (1975), The Conversation (1974), Manhattan (1979), Dr. Strangelove… (1964), Planet of the Apes (1968), American Graffiti (1973), Empire of the Sun (1987), Apocalypse Now (1979), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Right Stuff (1983), Swimming to Cambodia (1987), JFK (1991), Miller’s Crossing (1990) – – more than 10? So sue me.

That’s a pretty good list, EMPIRE is the only one you list that I’d object to and wouldn’t show up on my top 150 … and since I didn’t ever finish watching it, that is only a half-hearted objection.

My list of Best films would be, off the top of my head
2001
Stalker
Apocalypse Now
All That Jazz
Citizen Kane (I want to say Chimes at Midnight but it is hard for people to buy into a great movie having such screwed up sound problems)
Paths of Glory
JFK (along with the original STAR WARS, one of the best-edited films I can recall – the density of information imparted w/o upending the narrative is seriously impressive, even now)
The Conversation
Medium Cool
The Wild Bunch
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
Looking For Mr. Goodbar
Barry Lyndon
Children of Men
Under the Skin (the only movie I’ve ever seen that gave the impression it might have been DIRECTED by an extraterrestrial)
Her (after a lot of thought, this bumped THE AGE OF INNOCENCE off the list)

Then the ‘fun ones’ or favorites list would include
The Parallax View
1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers
From Russia With Love
The Tailor of Panama
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Glory
The Matrix
68 Planet of the Apes
Mulholland Drive
Lost Highway
Twilight’s Last Gleaming
The Professionals
Bite the Bullet
Point Blank
Will Penny
French Connection II
Robocop
For a Few Dollars More
Touch of Evil
Welles’ Othello
Marathon Man
Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind
Jaws

Yours is a fine list as well. I’m currently assembling on my Tumblr blog a visual run-through of my Top 150 favorite films (which I point out specifically because you mentioned that number as well.)

SO you’re a sophomore at NYU film school, then?

@HAwkeye – if that bit of insult was directed at me, its far too easy to point out that the real idiot would be the one that thinks TID is a terrific piece of filmmaking. Yikes.

Dude, no one begrudges your right to like it. I love Battleship but its not a terrific piece of film making. lol

On paper, STID was a great idea. I’ve always said that. The reason I really hope we see Bob Orci’s rejected Trek 3 ideas is because I think he’s a solid idea guy. He’s just not a great writer. And he was considered the Trek expert on the Bad Robot team so people deferred to his opinion to the detriment of both of the first two films, but especially STID.

A hero’s journey isnt great because it exists. If so, yes, STID was great. It had a heroes journey. But the journey was lame and poorly written and shallow.

We’ve debated this for years now and I could go on and on if need be. But the IDEA of the WARonTerror was great. The execution was not.

TUP no offense but this is what gets annoying about people like you. You come off super offended anytime someone questions something you like, like Discovery for example, but then have no problem bashing things you hate and question what others like.

You are the first one to complain anytime someone says something negative about Discovery, although there are just as many valid reasons NOT to like it just like you don’t like the Kelvin films and TLJ. But you seem to think its insulting to even argue about it. But meanwhile you slam anyone who thinks STID or TLJ are good films. Well, guess what, those are actually highly rated films, so yes plenty of people do. It has a lot of fan divides but they are generally seen as well made films even if you don’t like the story lines in them.

And for the record I didn’t love TLJ nor STID. But I don’t get on people’s case who do or question their tastes. Just because you determined it suck doesn’t mean it sucks to everyone.

@Tiger2 – the problem is when people whine and complain with no basis for it. So you’re attack on me (rather then my opinion) is not only offensive, its flat wrong and speaks more to you than me.

I have written essays about why STID sucks. Ill gladly do the same about TLJ.

I’ve made complaints about Discovery. I’ve listed what I didnt like. I’ve engaged in discussion with reasonable people about it.

But the whining with no reasonable opinion is rightfully ridiculed.

Try harder.

Aside from debating the actual quality of STiD, I’m more curious if you could explain specifically how it qualifies as the “Empire Strikes Back” of Star Trek . . . Just asking for a friend.

I’ll be bak later today with the answers.

Just an fyi—My friend is still waiting, Hawkeye.

other than being the 2nd one I would say it’s not

LOL

Hawkeye, I’m still waiting also.

ST ID could have been one of the better Kelvin era films if they had done 2 things differently – 1. leave John Harrison as John Harrison, a genius British scientist (not Khan, who would never be so easily manipulated). 2. Rather than Kirk going off to engineering (which was actually sort of preposterous) Kirk orders someone to his/her death for the first time in his command – making him question if he will ever be as great as his father. This eliminates the need to resurrect Kirk, while creating a genuinely dramatic turn with another form of self sacrifice – the burdens of command. It also creates even more depth of resonance with Spock’s self-sacrifice in ST TWOK – and eliminates the ridiculous Spock “Khan” scream – and the gratuitous Khan beating.

OMN,
Exactly.

I never saw Khan as being manipulated by Starfleet. I always saw him as going along with Starfleet and waiting for the right moment to set his plan in motion, which was to design the Vengeance to be operated by one person, i.e. him. He was playing the long game in STID. That’s my head canon, though.

I’ve always been a Trek first guy but I love Star Wars as well. Watching what they did to Luke was literally painful.

So, Kirk getting mauled by a bear and grunting out three hours of dialogue is out?

I kid….

Could be the first acting Oscar nomination for a Star Trek actor…

Paramount needs to quit thinking of this as a tentpole. They don’t have the resources to devote to the marketing, for what QT has done in the past, an 80MM budget, doing 300-400MM in box office is a win….

Problem is, November/December is a real tentpole window nowadays – Star Wars, Avatar(?), Bond, to name but a few.

2020 is a real long shot for a release date, under any circumstance. 2021, maybe in January or September. Assuming it gets made at all…..

Jesus Phil do you want a movie to happen lol. And I don’t think it would be released in January or September it will either be Christmas or Summer like they all have been. That won’t change because Trek is still a big franchise. It’s just not a mega franchise like the others to warrant $200 million budgets. But if Tarantino does end up doing it and can do it for under $150 million then I don’t see any reason it won’t be placed then. And more than likely they will try and get it out before 2021. If they have learned their lesson about any of this is you can’t wait forever for a sequel. If it happens in 2020, that would already 4 years (wow). Thats already pushing it but we’ll see.

I’d like one to happen, but the irrational exuberance on display here isn’t supported by any fact other then QT is on record as interested in the concept, and the studio has hired a writer to flesh it out. Other facts, Paramount is still broke. They have shifted their attention to other franchises. Trek hasn’t gained any traction in the Star Wars/Marvel era. Logistically, for a 2020 release they would need to be deep in preproduction now. They aren’t, and Paramount’s schedule isn’t just going to open up for Trek. Oh, and they just auctioned off a bunch of Kelvin Era props and costumes. I don’t doubt Paramount will revisit Trek, someday, but it’s not a high priority for them.

Micronauts, anyone?

I hate being reminded of STID. Me flipping my head back and sighing when Spock looked up and yelled Khan. Orci is a lazy ass writter

If there is one scene I wish could be edited out of the movie forever its that one.

But we don’t know that was Orci’s idea specifically. It could’ve been but that film had a few other writers.

I have a feeling it was Damon Lindelof’s idea specifically.

Wasn’t he the one who thought using Khan would be brilliant? Because “everybody knows Khan!!!” [shudder]

Marja, as I recall, you’re correct. And the deal was, write it like it could be anyone or Khan and if it works as Khan they will go that route. Though I dont know how it could be “Harrison” since he’s obviously a “super man”. But whatever.

They werent wrong to use Khan. They were just incapable of writing a story that worked for Khan.

Maybe there’s something deep I don’t understand. Why is there hate for TLJ? I liked it. First Star Wars movie I’ve seen sans Death Star.

@Marja – its hard to explain without spoilers. Now that its been out for two weeks, do we have to respect people who havent seen it yet.

And on that subject if this site is going to have threads devoted to a crappy show like Orville that has nothing to do with Star Trek, can we have a Star Wars thread to discuss to new film?

Ill say this, I saw TLJ a second time and disliked it less. On the surface its a well made film with some really good performances (Mark Hamill and Adam Driver in particular are tremendous).

But under the surface, its a mess. Its not only disjointed from the previous six films, its disjointed from TFA. It feels like Rian Johnson never saw TFA.

It also feels like they over-reacted to criticism of TFA being a rehash and went the other way. Rian might be smart but trying to outsmart fans is always a bad idea (same with JJ thinking he could “save” Star Trek).

They cheated us out of the things we wanted, like Luke back in action, Luke & Leia reunion. They cheated us out of the mystery of Rey’s parents. They cheated us out of the mystery of Snoke. And they gave us a Luke Skywalker completely unrelated to the Luke from the OT without a reasonable explanation for why he was so changed (they gave an explanation but it was half baked and silly).

They wanted to be emotional but took organic moments that could be emotional and played them for laughs.

Its like their mandate was to get rid of the original characters/ideas to serve the new ones. But it doesnt work that way.

JJ has his work cut out for him.

Ill give one specific example of a line I hated that could have been saved.

Luke reacts to Rey’s show of Force power (and he connection to the Dark Side) by saying he had only seen that raw power once before, in Kylo, and hadnt been afraid but is now.

That line is lame. Its a “fake” way to build up Kylo’s power (and Rey’s). Its a “tell me” instead of “show me” element. And it undermines the Originals. Had that line been “I’ve seen raw power like that before, in the Emporer…in my father…it didnt scare me then. I saw it in Ben…I see it in you. It scares me now.”

WAY better. Here’s why. It connects what is happening now to what happened in the OT and PT. It reinforces how powerful Palpatine and Anakin were while suggesting Kylo and Rey could be as powerful (rather then implying they are MORE powerful). It shows us a change in Luke and hints that Luke’s issue might be more HIM than the threat at hand, that he is scared now when he wasnt before.

And it supports a scene in Empire when Yoda cautions Luke who replies “Im not afraid” and Yoda says “You will be”. It tells us that the fearless Luke who believed hope and faith and goodness can triumph has somehow lost that. In a far more organic way then “duuuh, the new guys are strong”.

The film had many missed opportunities like that.

“They cheated us out of the mystery of Rey’s parents. They cheated us out of the mystery of Snoke. And they gave us a Luke Skywalker completely unrelated to the Luke from the OT without a reasonable explanation for why he was so changed (they gave an explanation but it was half baked and silly).”

TUP, I just posted a more detailed reply about this in response to another comment from you upthread (search for it), but the short answer is this: In a recent Rian Q&A, he revealed that everyone involved at the outset (including JJ) had never planned the total story arc for the three films; they were basically making it up as they went along. The reason TLJ had no explanations for the things you’ve listed is literally because JJ had never actually considered any explanations. He’d put that stuff in TFA purely because of the short-term dramatic impact.

@Jai – sure, but that isnt a reasonable excuse to not deliver those things. For starters, JJ was coming back to close out the trilogy so Rian was not obligated to provide answers.

And if you make a list of answers to the questions, Rian seemed to choose all the worst ones.

Kylo knew Rey in TFA. So she HAD to be someone. The idea of her as a nobody makes no sense. I can buy that JJ didnt know who she’d be but he must have had an idea. It was most hinted that she was a Solo. But being a Kenobi or related to Palps were relevant ideas to consider. Being no one was the worst idea.

Snoke, I dont even care who he is, though making him Plagius connects to the PT and connecting the the chapters of a SAGA makes sense. But the offensive part was creating an almost Dues Ex Machina character, this uber powerful, all knowing, all seeing bad guy who says he was there throughout the PT and OT, which implies he is SOMEONE and was able to be hidden for SOME REASON…and then to resolution is to just get rid of him so we dont have to come up with a real resolution? SO FRIGGEN LAZY

And while Rian inherited a Luke in exile, he didnt have to keep him that way. Luke throwing the lightsaber was funny and unexpected but didnt serve the story.

We’d already seen the saber invoke a Force Flashback in Rey. A WAY better and more emotional way to open the film would be Luke holding he saber, gazing upon it and getting a wispy Force Flashback showing Anakin building it, using it, killing Younglings, losing it to Obi One, Luke getting it…losing it in ESB. Not only WAY more emotional, but you essentially recap Luke’s SAGA journey in one 30 second flashback scene.

Luke being in exile and abandoning his friends and the universe is so HUGE, it needed a REAL resolution. It made no sense at all. Again, make a list of ideas for why Luke would do that and you can probably come up with a dozen better than the one Rian chose.

“And respect the franchise.”

I’m sorry, but QT is NOT capable of respecting the Star Trek franchise. His whole career has been about incorporating insanely bloody scenarios into his movies… most of them gratuitous, out-of-thin-air and totally unexpected. He basically invented the “Red Wedding” moment years before GoT… His script for From Dusk Till Dawn and most of his other stories are full of these WTF moments.

And he does it for one main purpose: to teach the audience a cynical lesson about the self-destructiveness of human nature. It’s the very antithesis of Star Trek was about. While he may enjoy Star Trek for its inherent lethal capacities, his true mission is to fully unload and unchain those capacities. His artistic vision is to deprive Trek of it’s inherent moral high-ground because he believes we will never be abke to overcome our shortcomings… and to prove Q right that humanity will always remain a “grievously savage race”…

He will not tone down anything. He’s got his R-Rating and he may even give us an Unrated Director’s Cut later on…fully visceral and profane… The Naked Truth if you want to.

His work on Crimson Tide suggests otherwise.

@Smike – you’re perspective is wrong and disgusting. If you want to whine about QT’s respect for Star Trek, show some respect yourself.

@Smike – you’re wrong about QT. Stop whining about him and his films when you’ve never seen them.

Love this news. QT doing Star Trek is going to be a huge shot in the arm for the franchise…Couldn’t be happier

A huge shot of cyanide.

Not really. It looks like they are expecting him to make a moderately priced movie, with moderate box office results. That’s a win for the franchise, but he’s not going to catapult Trek into the same category as Marvel or Star Wars….

He may not be talking about how much money it will make, just that the film might be good and go a different direction the franchise needs.

And TWOK to this day is still the cheapest made Trek film in history and its safe to say that movie DID give the franchise a shot in the arm even with a fraction of a budget to TMP.

Trek is not Marvel or Star Wars. It’s supposed to be not-a-tentpole franchise. Intelligently written. We have a great cast, we just need a great script.

Some fans are still waiting ….

Exiting news indeed. It’s always better to make a Star Trek movie based on a brilliant idea, rather than struggle through scripts trying to come up with an idea. QT is a clever film maker who- given the right elements- could make a masterful production. I wouldn’t worry about gore, or exploding brains. Star Trek has to be made for the general audience, and ‘Award Winning’ film maker or not, he will have to adhere to the ground rules.

In terms of gore, I’m looking forward to seeing a hand phaser really do a number on somebody’s skull, sort of like CONSPIRACY on steroids. Really hope the ship to ship stuff has similar bite to it.

He already stated it would definitely be an R-rated Trek movie. And that’s fine, Trek needs more adult stuff. That’s what’s great about Discovery.

Great point. It seems wirh the other films especially STId they had ideas for scenes. Set pieces and then tried to connect them

The story was so bad.

Beyond was not as offensive but just sort of boring and a small story.

This news is all good. A story but QT. An outside writer with some legitimacy. And QT possibly directing? Wow.

Could end up being Q’s largest budget too if I recall.

I expect many Trek fans who are unfamiliar with QT will start to watch all his movies.

And be very confused…LOL

Personally I love Resevoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. None of his films are bad though.

Even Four Rooms which was a stinker, Q’s segment was the best one and brilliant.

He did the story for Natural Born Killers and True Romance. Did a rewrite on Crimson Tide to punch it up also

Everything Q does so well is exactly what the JJ films have been missing.

You forgot about Grindhouse….personally, I think QT is overrated, but my theater major son disagrees, too. I wish him luck with this.

VERY good news.

Star Wars is being run into the ground by Disney.

Paramount has decided to strike while the Iron is hot, so to speak.

@Section9 — Paramount has nothing to do with this.

By the end of the day, TLJ is expected to cross the $600 million dollar mark, in one week.
Thats hardly running Star Wars into the ground.

Thats 600 million WW.
Not domestic.
But I think that domestically, TLJ is in the 290’s now, not too shabby after only one week.

Of course, its Star Wars. People will rush out to see it no matter what. Thats why that franchise is bullet proof. Even if a film is bad, people still want to rush out and judge it for themselves.

Remember TPM made a billion dollars when it came out and people consider it truly awful. In today’s dollars it would be around $1.7 billion.

Now I’m NOT comparing TLJ to TPM or suggesting its a bad movie in general. I’m simply saying no matter what the film is going to make a lot of money even if everyone hated it. My friend thought TLJ sucked…he’s already seen it three times lol. Thats the kind of pull these films have to the point even when someone hates them they still go see it a second time and try to understand ‘why’ it sucked to them or go back with the hope they will like it more a second time. Few franchises gets this kind of response.

@ Tiger2: Or maybe people go several times in order not to miss a single one of the many things that sucked. You know, you gotta have ammunition for those endless rants on the internet ;-)

LOL that too. Although yes its clear TLJ is not as strong with the force as even its second weekend it dropped nearly 70%. Thats easily the biggest in the franchise history. For comparison TFA only dropped 39% in its second week two years ago.

So there is some effect but its still going to make a ridiculous amount of money for being Star Wars.

Exciting news! The Revenant was a great movie, very well written. Team that up with Tarantino Directing – it should be a fantastic movie. For the haters and naysayers – Tarantino doesn’t ALWAYS have blood and guts in his stuff. He has Directed TV episodes of ER and CSI in the past. His style is very unique. I look forward to seeing if this will happen. All depends if JJ likes the script… so far he liked the pitch.

His csi story was really good. Lots of tension and drama.

Agreed. I have no doubts that a QT Trek film will be the same way.

@Capt. ransom — I disagree. I found the REVENANT to be highly overrated and mostly unwatchable. It was a slow paced cerebral drama the approach of which will not work for Trek. Hopefully he’s got more than that to offer.

I think he knows they are two different genres and will write for them differently. I never seen the Revenant though, it had zero appeal for me to watch it and still does.

Come on Cadet, don’t start typecasting people by their last work like all the morons do. He is a great writer. I had no intention of watching The Revenant but when I did, I found it well written. And I have no doubts this guy has the writing chops. But this is all conjecture. This is just one of several pitches being made. It may never happen. But it’s a high profile pitch by QT… that is why it made the news.

@Capt. ransom — and again we disagree. I did want to see it, and found it poorly written, laden with cliches, boring, and uninspiring. Last work or no, those traits potentially inform anything the guy may have written. But perhaps you’d care to enlighten me on what superb screenplays he’s written aside from REV? Because I’m certainly not remotely interested in anything else he’s done. Go ahead … Shut me up with a masterpiece of scriptwriting he’s contributed to filmmaking.

Slow paced, yes, but cerebral
drama? Its a snooze fest.

Can’t believe this one got legs so quickly.

Makes me think his idea for wirh what Jj has in mind already. So George Kirk, time line stuff etc.

It just proves when A list talent is interested in something, especially a known commodity its easier for the studios to give it a chance. It doesn’t always happen but its nice this is. And I imagine Paramount wants someone who is highly regarded to direct a Trek film, even if this is going away from his usual work.

Given he’s said in the past he’d like to re-make “Yesterday’s Enterprise” or “City on the Edge of Forever” as movies, I wonder if Tarantino’s story idea would retread some of this territory with George Kirk as a stand-in for Edith Keeler, or the Kelvin as a stand-in for the Enterprise C. Time travel gives Jim the tough decision to send his dad back in time to his death.

A mugatu rapes Quinto!

Idiot

Did you see The Revenant?

Yes but really?

Apologies for the idiot remark. Long rough day here.

Oh, c’mon! Rewatch the bear raping Leo scene and tell me that’s not funny. (OK, you have to watch the making of video to really get how silly that scene is.) Cheer up! Have a cold one. Enjoy the holidays!

It would have been potentially funny if the Mugato raped Kirk or Spock. But what you wrote is the actor’s name and is basically a homophobic or at least gay related dis.

CmdrR
I’ll have to check it out!

Cheers!

The bear mauls Leo — I don’t recall a rape.

I hope that it works out.

I would love seeing Samuel L Jackson as bad ass Klingon.. “Qapla mutha f…..”

Almost everything I’ve seen of Samuel L. Jackson has been Samuel L. Jackson playing Samuel L. Jackson. So unless they want to go for some kind of comedy/parody I don’t think he’s a good choice.

Give us a new ship and crew. That has not been done on the big screen before. I always wanted to see a trek film that had a crew specifically created for the big screen. No reboot or an existing TV series making it to be the silver screen. I hope this film gets made.

This is a great idea. A stand alone. Although I do like Pine and crew.

One has to expect that this may just be based in the Federation universe…and that’s it. QT has never had a budget over 100MM, so that’s not likely to happen here. Stay tuned….

Wow this IS exciting. Look how fast everything is going once Tarantino was on board. Before it felt like pulling teeth to even get anyone to admit they were even thinking about doing another one and now they already have an idea and a writer.

And its just fun to think of the possibilities again like when we heard about the first KT film happening. I still prefer a show a thousand times over a movie so if it doesn’t happen I’m fine as long as we have Discovery but if it does happen it will be fun to talk about both.

I’m just curious will this be a fourth KT film or something else entirely. My money is on another KT film but I would LOVE for them to come up with something new like a new crew and ship like the shows always do. Like others said give us something original for the big screen. But that said if they bring the KT characters back I would be happy with that as well and maybe they can give them a better story line to go out on if this is their last one.

An original story with the current crew would be my choice but if they were to bring an episode to the big screen the the city on the edge of forever would be my choice.

Tarantino has said before that he would like to do something like “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. I could see that working with the KT Kirk & crew,az well as Stewart. Combining that and City on the Edge of Forever could also be something he has thought of. Both stories do have the similarity that fixing the timeline meant death for good people, Edith Keeler & the crew of the Enterprise C. Suppose Picard comes back, perhaps searching for Spock Prime, they had melded, or to simplify it, have him be KT Picard, or hell Mirror Universe Emperor Picard. Probably can’t bring the ship with him, or maybe, but most of the TNG crew is looking a bit long in the tooth.

I would assume the current slate of actors also. I find it hard to pass up Stewart’s interest though. Get him in as well. “Repair” the timeline and send this group out in high style.

I fear this will get stuck in development. But I’m negative that way

Don’t get me wrong, i’m stocked as i follow the development but is it just me or does Mark L. Smith on the photo above do a Facebook duck face?

Poor Star Trek.

Such a slow process. ANOTHER 2 years. One thing about Abrams–he does not produce films quickly, but at least when he does, they are of low quality.

That’s assuming it’s green lit at all. It’s very, very early in the process….

LOL.

Gosh, this so wrong, mirror universe kind of thing. I´d rather call KEVIN SMITH

Let’s save Kevin Smith for when it is time to find a director for my script about the formation of ILM. I even have a couple of composite characters (there are way too many players to do it justice w/o that kind of trick) in it that are vaguely Jay and Silent Bob-like.

DOnt every mention Kevin Smith and “Star Trek Director” please. PLEASE!

Gosh… this is getting worse quickly. Mark L. Smith, auteur of The Revenant, one of the bloodiest revenege “western” movies ever made and exactly the stuff Tarantino goes for. The rest of his filmography is equally disturbing (for a Star Trek author): just some mediocre horror movies with The Hole being the best of the bunch. It was even rated 12 in the UK.
Vacancy 1+2, the Martyrs remake, Séance… so he seems highly qualified to take on Star Trek…
Maybe his “Overlord” script is quite good…

This is a horrific course of events. Bringing in new audiences that way is by no means guaranteed. Not even the teenagers I’ve talked like the idea of an R-Rated Trek movie by QT… They love GoT and TWD, some of them even Spartacus, but they know Trek has to remain different.

You forgot to mention that The Revenant was also really good and highly acclaimed. Does the writer not get credit for that?

Good is good. Period.

So was Gladiator. That didn’t make Logan’s Nemesis any better.

Logan’s only legit contributions to GLADIATOR was some Commodus dialog, so don’t put the success of that on him. He may have gotten an oscar for THE AVIATOR, but his last contribution to that script was in 1996 or 1997, with other writers doing most of the heavy lifting on it afterward. Except for RANGO, which is mostly pastiche, and RKO 281, which was pretty much cut-n-paste from historical sources, I don’t think any Logan stuff that was done mainly on his own has turned out well. He just kept falling up into success after success.

“Good is good. Period.”

No, it isn’t. While The Revenant may have been good for what it was and critically acclaimed, even by the Academy, a script like that would be 100% incompatible with Star Trek. And so is QT’s directing!

But then: You guys are already talking about the FUN of a Mugato raping Kirk or Spock!

@Smike, dont be obtuse. If you’re argument is ‘yes its really good, but it sucks because of X, Y, Z’, then you’re being a whiny little troll. I dont care if a film is rated G or X, if its good its good.

You should throw your TV and Internet connection out the nearest window if you’re too prudish to accept that.

“I dont care if a film is rated G or X, if its good its good.”

Maybe that’s because your parents, your teachers, your laws, your media etc have never brainwashed you into the graphic depiction violence being “harmful”, “evil” and even “criminal” in some instances.

I envy you Americans and people from other countries because you never had to deal with that sort of censorship.
The acceptance of violence has always been part of your collective culture… The Wild West, lax gun control, you name it. The MPAA rating system was introduced as parental guidance AFTER the first horror movies hit the street. Here it was always about control, keeping even adults from watching certain scenes. And that concept, constantly present during my upbringing, sticks…
So yes, I can appreciate a bloody movie for what it is, but there will always be those second thoughts about this or that graphic depiction being obscene, overdone or superfluous. There will always be that bad conscience, that Superego once created by my cultural upbringing that keeps me from fully appreciating any adult material, no matter how good it is in the end.

I envy you that you didn’t get exposed to that sort of education. I’m even happy for you. And I’m happy for today’s youth that, even here, they don’t have to go through the same insane mind-blocking process I had to go through as a youngster.

@Smike – if you can admit that you were brainwashed into thinking violence and other R rated things were bad, then why cant you accept that you’re wrong? Stop being brainwashed! lol

And watch some QT films before you embarrass yourself further with incorrect descriptions.

“If you’re argument is ‘yes its really good, but it sucks because of X, Y, Z’, then you’re being a whiny little troll.”

Okay, lots of people agree that Lucio Fulci’s Zombie is a great all-time classic. Even Guillermo Del Toro fully backs the movie on the US Blu-Ray that I own. However, the movie is illegal in my country. Owning it is somewhat tolerated, but if I wanted to sell it, or give it away for free to a fellow ADULT, I would be committing a crime!

So yes, Zombie is a great movie, and it doesn’t “suck” for being full of graphic violence but that graphic violence makes it illegal on a morally charged basis over here. So how can I fully appreciate it, or anything like that on Star Trek as long there is one movie of equally graphic nature that’s still banned?

I can watch it – on a bad conscience – I can even think of it as a cult classic, but I am legally not supposed to, despite the fact it’s arguably less extreme than some episodes of TWD or The Strain which are legally available with 16+ and 18+ ratings?

But yeah, I fully understand you cannot empathize with me on these quibbles because you simply haven’t been exposed to such legal matters, let alone a parental upbringing that even condemned stuff like Alien or The Terminator?
I really get your reluctance to take my POV serious, because you simply cannot relate to these matters. Supposedly no one has ever told you that watching Alien is not good for you, watching From Dusk Till Dawn is morally wrong or selling Fulci’s Zombie is illegal and criminal. And therefore, I truly envy you…

And Harlan Ellison never write anything bloody and disturbing either…

And yes, there was a reason his original script was never filmed that way! Man, do I miss network regulations with proper franchises.

The world of movies and TV has gone to an all-time low…

It aint the 60’s anymore, pal.

What do you want Smike? Bring back Orci? Putt JJ in the chair? Dude you are nothing but a little B***H

Disco, c’mon, man. Have a beverage.

Auteur of REVENANT? Screenwriter, not novelist or director, as auteur? You might be able to make that case for Neil Simon or Chayefsky with a LITTLE success, but Auteur is a notion describing a filmmaker.

The Mormon guys got shafted again! JJ had claimed some time ago that their script for Trek 4 was the best he had seen. What happened?

Given the lack of any development on that Trek 4 idea (at least none that we knew of) Paramount probably wasn’t interested. It’s possible JJ thinks that Tarantino’s idea is better. Or he just thinks it has a better chance of being made because of the bigger names attached to it.

I’d wager JJ and the studio both realize the value of snagging the likes of QT far outweighs the value of getting Chris Hemsworth on board.

Maybe it was the best he had seen THUS FAR.

Maybe he’s just full of hot air

Was there a script for Trek 4 or just a STORY?

Doubt there was either, TUP. Outside of a contract for a fourth feature, for only Pine and Quinto, I doubt there was every a solid commitment from Paramount for another installment…..

Phil,

Wasn’t there a later contract for Hemsworth, as well?

Thats my thought. JJ sure spoke like Hemsworth was “in” which would tell us 1) he had him secured in some way 2) he had an idea that was fleshed out enough that he could secure Hemsworth

JJ could read the menu at Dennys and declare it the best script ever. It’s a throw-away complement meant as a diversion, nothing more.

This should not be a follow-up to Beyond if he is going to direct and make it R rated. This is Star Trek…making it an R rated film would go all against what Star Trek stands for in my opinion.

@Riker001 — if Paramount had its act together, and we’re doing a series of Trek movies as Disney is with Star Wars, then I’d love one of the “in-between” movies to be an R rated adult oriented horror/drama. It’s a side of Trek that exists but is rarely glimpsed. Imagine an adventure in the Mirror Universe that did not have to worry about network censors. Or a planet that promised blood and gore, and the crew actually witnessed it? This is not a bad idea, but it is when Paramount can barely manage to crank out one mediocre film every four years. The next movie needs to be an epic PG-13 romp that pulls in wide audiences with a story that excites the masses and redeems the name. Then they can make their boutique movies, for niche audiences.

I agree with you 110% with everything you just mentioned! I think it would be awesome too…as a one off and it’s own story. I don’t think throwing this in to the mix with the current 5 year mission narrative is a good idea. I think it would throw everything off.

“I think it would be awesome too…as a one off and it’s own story.”

Not even as a “one off”… Star Trek’s entire reputation is at stake here… if it’s officially Star Trek, it sticks…forever… it cannot be undone, it cannot be unwatched. It will be part of the complete journey. Every future “legacy” trailer will feature images from this movie, every box set will be rated according to this movie…

This feature will “devour” all of Trek’s inherent innocence and beauty.

Can’t go backward with Anton gone.

“then I’d love one of the “in-between” movies to be an R rated adult oriented horror/drama.”

The entire idea of an “in-between” movie is beyond me. Once it exists, it’s part of the legacy and comes at a very high price: the inherent moral high ground of ALL OF STAR TREK!

They can never just “go back” to PG-13 Trek. No matter how many PG-13 movies they eventually make, this is the one that determins the rating of any complete box set. I know it’s not an issue in the US, but in Europe, video releases are subject to rating certificates and any complete movie set will thus be rated by the highest rated movie… if it’s 18+ with this one, all of the boxed Trek movies are 18+…

But I guess, I do not make much sense to you anyway…

Not really how an R rating goes against everything Trek stands for…

Easy… an R-Rating, especially one made by QT, violates the proper visual decency, respect, dignity, reverence and tastefulness that Star Trek stuck with even in its darkest hours of war, death and turmoil.
Thematically, Trek has always been about death and loss, but it is one thing to deal with that in a dignified, tasteful way like Trek had done in the past, and it’s a completly different thing to atrociously exploit these themes for bloodsoaked entertainment.

That’s a strangely narrow view, like saying you shouldn’t see F bombs in Bond movies because there weren’t any in the first 49 years. Well, there were plenty of F bombs in the novels (set off with dashes), and the really wimpy one they dropped in the godawful SKYFALL sank without a trace – no feedback on it at all that I can recall.

I’ve been expecting seriously grotesque imagery since before TMP came out, when I read of the transporter accident in the novelization. I remember telling somebody that the film version was going to be toned down, because it was a hard-R in the novelization — never thinking we’d get the Disney version that turned up, it was so nothing. People SHOULD be getting painfully vaporized in Trek films, just like you should see consequences of gunshots and knife wounds in mainstream contemporary films … UNLESS you are positing a future where phaser beams specifically kill painlessly, and that hasn’t been the case with Trek (excepting the never-developed GR notion of a phaser that kills while giving the victim the feeling of a century-long orgasm.)

‘Tasteful and dignified’ is what you get when you have a culture so worried about appearances that you get Eminiar VII in TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON, one where the truth of the horrors of the real thing trump what needs to be shown and said. If you want TREK to stay safe and ‘tasteful and dignified,’ you want it to remain an adolescent, not maturing into what it could and should be.

“If you want TREK to stay safe and ‘tasteful and dignified,’ you want it to remain an adolescent, not maturing into what it could and should be.”

That’s the whole point of it. I always want to watch Star Trek with the eyes of the 14-year-old who once fell in love with it. I always want to keep to the fond memories of watching it with my late father as it was the ONLY TV program we actually shared watching due to his dislike for gross violence even as an adult.

I can handle gross scenarios OUTSIDE Star Trek. But Star Trek should never “mature” into anything a 14-year-old wouldn’t be legally allowed to see in cinemas in my country and that wouldn’t have been banned some 25 years ago.

That’s how I feel about it. And NOTHING can spare me from those narrow-minded emotions, no matter how hard I try to rationalize the opposite, no matter how many R-Rated or TV-MA productions I watch to cope with these feelings, no matter how much I talk about it, online and offline, to family, friends, colleagues and myself 24/7!

BTW: They can have as much profanity, nudity or explicity on James Bond as they want. I have no feelings for that franchise that always used to be gross and sexist. But this is STAR TREK!

That’s a very interesting observation, and gives me some perspective, even though it is a very different take on things for me.

Just as I started watching TREK in reruns when I was 12, I was finishing up my last year of playing little league. Not sure if you have a similar experience, but Little League was more of a life- and perspective-altering event for me than nearly anything else, as instead of learning the expected stuff like value of teamwork (which I also didn’t see much of in Cub Scouts), I learned or had baked into my psyche a cynicism that really soured me on people (but was just a snapshot of the 70s, since this went down around the time of Watergate.)

We had a team that was mostly players who didn’t get picked after tryouts, when the league found another couple sponsors and added another pair of teams. We were supposed to be crap. Instead, with the help of a terrific coach, a former minor league pitcher named Ivan Gates, we caught fire and were winning right out of the gate, and getting better as the season progressed. I didn’t get better for awhile … except for a successful bunt, I didn’t even touch the ball with any of my first several at-bats, but this guy kept pitching batting practice to me till the sun went down … and one day (after getting my eyes dilated!) … I started hitting everything.

We were tied for first place for most of the season … and then something happened. I knew my opposite number, the first baseman on the other first place team, and recognized his dad, who was the league president. He started umpiring all of our games … and suddenly I was getting called out on a strike 3 that bounced in front of home plate! The officiating was completely biased, and this guy even had the nerve to umpire his own son’s games, too. When our coach protested, he was ejected from the whole league. We crashed and burned in our last few games, and while i stuck with little league for another two seasons, it was never like that first season in terms of fun and excitement – I felt like a kid equivalent to somebody who did their term of duty in Nam or something, somebody who felt he’d seen all the bad stuff go down and now just expected more of the same. (When the original BAD NEWS BEARS came out a couple years later, I told people it wasn’t a comedy, it was a documentary — in the movie, that team even sported the same colors our team had … again owing to Ivan Gates, who when he saw the uniforms provided by our sponsor, W. T. Grant stories, set them aside and paid for proper uniforms for us himself.)

THAT is when I re-encountered TREK, entering syndication on KTVU channel 2. It struck a welcome and perfect balance for me … they didn’t always win, or win big, but they tried, and they were a charismatic bunch (most of them anyway.) TREK didn’t exactly counter my cynicism, but it tempered it, making me appreciate things a bit more for how they were, and for the effort that goes into making things go down RIGHT.

I’ve spent most of my life seeing things pretty much as my post-little league self, knowing somebody’s dad is going to come in to ump the game if things get too good — yet haven’t ever found any kind of decent defense against that happening (this last 13 months especially.) I don’t really expect the arts to provide them, just to give some relief and illustration to the universality of this point of view of mine. So I don’t mind TREK with the darkness, because that is part and parcel of things, but I don’t think I’d want TREK to drown in it either. I do kinda see (and now respect) your position on the show, even if we’re not going to see eye-to-eye on it.

“So I don’t mind TREK with the darkness, because that is part and parcel of things, but I don’t think I’d want TREK to drown in it either.”

The “darkness” I’m not worried about. Trek has always had its bleak moments, themtically and even visually. After all, it is a show about grotesque new alien life and dangerous out-of-this-world situations. It’s Trek’s destiny to somewhat up the ante and push its inherent boundaries a little further at the final frontier.

I’m fine with all of that, but unfortunately, there is that mental blockade within me that was once created by the laws of my country and my paternal upbringing. It divides the world of movies into basically two realms:
1. good, family-friendly, toned-down 12+ movies, that respect the human dignity of fictional characters even in death
2. bad, adult-oriented, gross 18+ movies, that have no respect for visual dignity and should be banned.

There are shades of grey inbetween, but QT is clearly in Section 2.
This perception of age certificates stuck within me even as an adult, because even when I was 25, 30 or 35, my dad begged me not to watch that stuff that wasn’t good for anyone. Today is the second anniversary of him passing two years ago.

My father truly thought of horror and hard action as pure evil. He taught me that horror fans were “poor, poor people”, victims if you will…and the penal censorship laws of our country backed him on that back then.

I’ve never fully agreed with him on that and yes, despite that upbringing I tried to watch horror movies from 17 onwards, but it took me until I was 24-25 to largely appreciate the genre against the backdrop of his ongoing squeamish remarks.

The ONLY series we would ever watch together was Star Trek! All five shows, all 12 movies, three of them even in theatre (my dad never went to cinemas for any other film). Star Trek was OUR franchise we would appreciate together.

That’s why it hurts so much seeing Trek turned into something my father would have condemned and walked out on within minutes.

He had his reasons. Different upbringing, different types of movies in the 50s, his first-hand wartime experience as a boy, various life-threatening diseases, the bloody suicide of his first wife and last but not least the entirely hostile attitude towards graphically depicted violence of our country.

I want to overcome these quibbles. I truly want to. But I’m not sure how I ever can appreciate a full-on QT Star Trek movie without betraying my father’s memory.

I guess these issues are part of an ongoing mourning process, and today, two years after his death, I should be able to close that chapter. Even my father would want me not to suffer from these ideas he once implanted into my mind in order to protect me.

Your father needed therapy too.

Lots of you guys are telling me to grow up to finally become an adult.
Does that mean that my father had never been a full “adult” because he couldn’t watch any of that “adult” material.
This is what keeps me puzzled. Does it take to appreciate QT and consorts to be mature? Does it involve enjoying bloody violence and grim storytelling to be recognized as an adult?

There are MANY adults even now that would disagree. People who are disgusted by the sort of full-on explicit, graphic exploitation of death and violence. Are these people immature little kids in your eyes?

So you aren’t a mature, adult person unless you fully embrace graphic violence within your favourite franchises, franchises you signed up for when they were still family-friendly? I just don’t get it.

Grow the hrll up smike and get a frikkin clue. Your father was wrong, predjudiced, and quite probably stupid.

“People SHOULD be getting painfully vaporized in Trek films, just like you should see consequences of gunshots and knife wounds in mainstream contemporary films …”

You know, while part of me agrees, I have been raised to a different morality by both my father and the law of my country. It took them DECADES to liberalize censorship laws and that process is far from over, with lots of 70s and 80s classics still banned even from adults like Romero and Fulci movies!
While I’m more than happy, things are relaxing these days, there will always be a part within me bound to those squeamish second thoughts I’ve been brainwashed into…
There will always be that shadow of a bad conscience when watching uncensored R-Rated scenes.
In Germany, it’s never been just about youth protection and age control… it’s always been about penalizing crimes against “human dignity” in my place. And those reflections are so deeply embedded within my psyche, they are impossible to overcome.
And when I read comments like yours, 66% of myself fully agrees but the other 33% openly rebel against that acceptance. It’s ID vs SUPEREGO I take it…

@smike – “While I’m more than happy, things are relaxing these days, there will always be a part within me bound to those squeamish second thoughts I’ve been brainwashed into…”
“There will always be that shadow of a bad conscience when watching uncensored R-Rated scenes.”
“In Germany, it’s never been just about youth protection and age control… it’s always been about penalizing crimes against “human dignity” in my place. And those reflections are so deeply embedded within my psyche, they are impossible to overcome.”

SEEK THERAPY. I am not being mean. I am worried about you. You exhibit extremely unhealthy mental attitudes, and you admit in the comments I just quoted that these attitudes affect your life. If you feel “brainwashed,” you should seek therapy with a professional psychologist. If you feel a “shadow of a bad conscience” over movies, you should seek help. If these issues are “so deeply embedded within” you, YOU SHOULD SEEK HELP.

Please, stop taking this as an attack. It’s not. You are a human being who clearly suffers from mental health issues that HURT YOUR LIFE, and as a fellow human being who has fought mental-health issue, I am worried about you.

Gosh, the mental health theory again. I am NOT crazy. Fixated and unbalanced, maybe… but quite obviously you do not live in a country that…
1) has legal courts banning certain movies for crimes against human dignity (§131 penal law)
2) has many 18+ releases CUT with the uncut version put on an index, an index that once even featured titles like “The Terminator” or “Total Recall”
3) demands any domestic online buyer of 18+ titles to personally receive them at the doorstep, providing your ID card.
4) prevents 16+ and 18+ titles from being broadcast uncut before 10 / 11 PM.
Had you grown up in such a place, you would understand which “brainwashing” I’m talking about. It has never been just about “youth protection” but about morally condemning vast portions of “adult” entertainment, brainwashing society into believing the graphic depiction of violence was ethically wrong and should be legally punishable.
Those were the standards I had been raised to. Things ARE changing even here, but far too little and too late for me to fully appreciate the world of adult entertainment as “normal”…
There are still people in my place who think horror should always be 18+ or even 21+… While QT-directed movies strangely never got banned, his writing efforts certainly were (From Dusk Till Dawn, Natural Born Killers). There is more acceptance for it now due to changing viewing habits, but I’m having a hard time coming to terms with R-Rated / TV-MA stuff becoming the new mainstream…

Yes, I agree. Smike needs therapy. He’s also a jerk. The “I have a different morality”. No, you’re just a jerk. And I am worried for your mental well being.

BTW: When I saw the TMP transporter accident for the first time at the age of 13, I found it quite disturbing even in its non-graphic form. The sound editing alone gave me the creeps back then, but it’s because I hadn’t been used to ANY intense content back then. It took me years, even as a young adult, to be fully able of watching stuff like Alien without freakin out.
No wonder, there wasn’t even an uncut version of The Terminator or The Predator available on DVD back then, let alone 90% of all 80s horror movies. Be it Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, Halloween, Friday 13th, you name it, all contents were chopped to pieces back then even for adult 18+ releases.
Even today, there are 70+ minutes missing from the cut 18+ releases of the Saw series! But at least you can get that stuff from the UK or Austria these days…

I saw TMP the first time when I was 1 year old, I watched it many more times before TNG started when I was 10, not only did nothing in TMP disturb me, the brain bugs and dead bodies in TWOK didn’t either, nor did watching Kruge crush an alien snake with his hands, nor any other thing in any Trek film. My parents are decidedly not an R rated film audience, in fact I’m fair sure the closest to an R rating they ever watched with us was Thunderheart, didn’t have any effect on me watching Steven Segal drop an I beam on Chief O’Brien in Under Siege, or seeing Ben Sisko play a murderous mob boss in The Big Hit, or seeing Worf as a trainer of assassins in an absolutely horrible movie with Shannon Lee (daughter of Bruce, sister of Brandon). There is nothing wrong, immoral, or evil about R rated films.

SMike has to be a troll account. Its too ridiculous not to be.

I’m on board with this development!!!

As a huge Star Trek fan, IMO this is very good news. ST Discovery is doing just fine on the TV side but there seemed to be some stagnation on the Paramount movie side of ST and this might be exactly the kind of kick start the movie franchise needs. To have Star Trek TV and movies going at the same time brings back the glory days of the franchise that we saw in the late 80s and 90s. Yeah a little concerned about what Tarantino might come up with but remember IDIC and no matter what, I am sure it will be interesting.

“Yeah a little concerned about what Tarantino might come up with but remember IDIC and no matter what, I am sure it will be interesting.”

You’re overstretching the concept of IDIC here IMO. Thematically, there should be no boundaries. Trek could deal with anything, but it has to be done in a style and manner that doesn’t damage the franchise’s reputation for good.

Tarantino is most likely incapable of that. While he’s got talent, he has been consumed by watching too many grindhouse movies in his youth and he honestly believes that incorporating those elements into each and every genre he touches, is an enlightening improvement.

He most likely regards the Trek universe as an overgrown sandbox full of brand-new tools to visualize bloody death. Visceral transporter accidents, bloody bar brawls with Klingons, gorey phaser varporization FX, people sucked into the vaccuum of space in splattery glory, lethal space monsters going fully berserk, green Orion dancers being exploited in full nudity and eventually killed off with fountains of green blood like those vamps at the Titty Twister… This universe in Tarantino’s hands is like a loose cannon…

This franchise is in grave danger. DISCO has already pushed the boundaries of the franchise very very close to a point of no return. Tarantino is the one to cross the line for good…

Roflmao.

I’m still not sold on the idea of an “R” Rated Trek, but I am happy that Tarantino apparently isn’t involved in the writing. If this all does happen, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it end up getting pulled back to a PG-13 rating as you can still get away with so much under that rating.

I’d imagine if its QT’s story and he’s directing, then he’ll have a lot of influence over the script as well as working with the writer on it (or at least meeting to discuss somewhat regularly). I imagine Q is just too busy right now to sit down and hammer out a script.

QT will make the movie intense. That’s what he specializes at. He won’t do the gratuitous blood or language, but he will do some psychological sheat and enough of the other to get the R

I just saw The Last Jedi and I have to say I liked it a lot. What’s great about this QT possibility is simply authorship. Any great director with a POV (who likes ST) is welcome. Even a Spielberg or DePalma! It would be interesting.

This is some of the best Trek news I’ve heard in ages. I don’t like all of the stories that Tarantino tells but I LOVE with a PASSION his style of film-making, the panache, artistry and sheer bloody-minded insanity of it is a total joy to me. I’m very happy indeed to see what this writing/directing team brings to the screen because the Kelvin-universe stuff is (in my opinion) popcorn-filler, dumb stereotypes of characters, dialogue written by five-year olds and flash-bang effects and lens-flares to hide the crap underneath. Like I say, just my opinion – I know lots of people here enjoy these movies and I’m happy for that… but now I’d like to see a different type of story and cinematic story-telling style.

My only problem at the moment with QT directing is that he’s more of a magpie than JJ is…
If anything his Trek movie may be even more full of homages than any of the kelvin movies.

Homages are great if done right. Star Trek (and Star Wars) lend themselves very well to call backs and homages. You want to give the fans what they want. And its really not hard to deliver to the fans AND create something new and interesting for “main streamers”.

Think what QT could do with the Borg. A serious Star Trek horror film.

No thanks. Voyager castrated The Borg. They were reduced from unstoppable terror in TNG to annoying inconvenience in Voyager. After season 1 of Discovery I never want to focus on The Klingons ( dull, stupid cavemen warrior race ) or The Borg ever again.

what was that alien race that whupped the Borg? They had bio-ships and were VERY intimidating. Maybe use them.

Species8472.

It would’ve been interesting if they made it to the alpha quadrant.

PLEASE, Paramount and Disney, please… Look, we know you’ve got the power. And nobody’s saying you’re both not the man. You’ve made your point. Nobody doubts that you have the power to do whatever you want. OK? We know you’re calling the shots. Just PLEASE stop inflicting JJ Abrams moves on us! PLEASE… What do we have to do? Just name it. I’ll pay double! TRIPLE! It would be worth a $60 ticket to see a movie that JJ Abrams had absolutely nothing to do with! Please, I’m deadly serious. Just name your price! I’ll do whatever you say! I’m starving for a sci-fi/action movie with a hint of meaning and a cohesive story from start to finish! I’ll even watch all of JJ Abrams’ movies and Michael Bay’s movies, too, if it means no more JJ Abrams movies! PLEASE, it doesn’t have to be like this! We’ve learned our lesson!

I’m starving for an *original* sci-fi/action movie with a hint of meaning and a cohesive story from start to finish!

(Star Wars: TFA was a cohesive story, but all of its meaning was blatantly lifted from the original trilogy)

True. But TFA was infinitely better than TLJ.

both good movies with nostalgia, just needs more character developments for Luke, Snoke, Rey and Kylo. Fantastic visual feel good stories but lacking the satisfying arcs.

TFA was so much better and arguably a much more difficult task. It set up a lot. It basically pitched an easy ball over the plate and Rian whiffed.

Its almost like Rian never saw TFA. He not only didnt pay off what was set up in TFA, he’s contradicted it.

Kylo might be the best character because he has a lot of depth. Unfortunately, that depth comes at the expense of him as a viable main bad guy. But I like the character and the actor.

What Rian did to Luke was an abomination. And not even the best story.

The idea of TFA as a rehash likely impacted Disney’s creative with TLJ. But what people need to accept is, its part of the SAGA. These are chapters of the same story. It HAS to be connected. TLJ makes it completely disjointed. It undermines the Original Trilogy.

JJ has his work cut out for him to save it. But as much as I dislike his work on Star Trek, his Star Wars film was good and he understand Star Wars a lot more. He understands that its a saga film and has to be familiar and deliver elements of the previous movies. To work, the trilogies must be echos or shades of the previous films, just as Lucas intended (but wasnt good enough as a writer to bring to life).

“It undermines the Original Trilogy”

The original trilogy (which wasn’t even planned out as a trilogy) has already been undermined manyyyy times. Usually by Lucas. Anyway someone will make a top fan edit of TLJ. Out go the jokes, in come some deleted scenes.

I dont agree that the OT has been undermined many times. The PT didnt do it any favours, certainly. But I dont count any of the expanded universe stuff. So the narrative of our heroes ended with Return of the Jedi and we pick it up with TFA. TFA treated the OT with respect.

TLJ did not.

“TFA was so much better and arguably a much more difficult task. It set up a lot. It basically pitched an easy ball over the plate and Rian whiffed.”

Rian isn’t the only one to blame. He recently did a Q&A where he revealed that the trilogy’s overall storyline had never been planned from the outset. Basically, everyone involved was making it up as they went along. TFA’s big questions about Rey’s parents, Snoke’s backstory, the reasons for Luke’s self-imposed exile? JJ set those up in his usual “mystery box” way, but he’d never actually thought about the answers.

So think about that again: All the things “set up” were just for short-term dramatic purposes. No actual explanations had ever been considered. Classic JJ.

@Jai — this has become Bad Robots MO. That’s why CASTLE ROCK is coming apart at the seems. Everybody thought it would be such a cool idea to build an anthology series around Stephen King, but nobody thought through how to do it. This is why Bad Robot can’t control a budget, as this kind of make-it-up as it goes mentality has resulted in rewrites and reshoots, of major portions of the projects. If Paramount has any sense, they’ll cut BR loose at the first opportunity. It’s too bad as I suspect LOST set the pattern for his demise … Rewarded handsomely for making it up as he goes. Unfortunately that doesn’t usually work, especially on any kind of budget. As usual with BR, they will go over budget fixing a problem they never should have had to begin with and start selling the next snake oil while everyone’s distracting by the former project.

@jai – that might be true but if TLJ was Rian’s best effort to resolve the mysteries, he needs to go back to writing school. It came off as a tongue-in-cheek “screw you” to JJ.

TFA was not a cohesive story because it implied a lot more than it eventually showed. The scene at the end with Luke and Rey was just an extended trailer for TLJ, which, surprise, took all of the goodwill of TFA and all of the mysteries set up and chucked it out the window for flash-bang action. Just like STID did to the Trek fanbase. Yet both of those sequels had more competent stories than the movies that preceded them. TFA was a rehash, nothing more, and all that it built up for later payoff has now been paid off…and it didn’t amount to much.

@Albatross – you’re right about TLJ. TFA was a difficult task which I think JJ did very very well. He set up TLJ and Rian screwed up what was a pretty easy task, really.

These are movies.
Nobody is inflicting anything on you.
If Bad Robot makes another Trek film, don’t go.

JJ delivered the highest grossing domestic box office of all time with The Force Awakens. Third highest, worldwide. I doubt Disney or Paramount is going cut him, or Bad Robot, loose anytime soon.

Hmmmmmmm, Taratino’s favorite episode is City on The Edge of Forever, they’ve hired a writer known for writing adaptations, Pine and Quinto are the cast members under contract, and in the Kelvin timeline events can be revisited…..

With Disney buying 20th Century Fox, I can imagine a recombining of CBS and Paramount might be on the agenda and an attempt made at consolidating the whole franchise. Star Trek, more than any franchise, has had the opportunity to mix together the various Treks and the owners blew it. We could have had a Godfather II-style film telling a proper science fiction adventure film crossing TOS and TNG years ago, for example, rather than a gimmick torch-passing film, plus countless other combinations and spinoffs. I suspect a 14th film will stand as an attempt to pull things together and move forward in a more focused direction across all media. Having a name like Tarantino’s to kick things off would be a good start in publicity terms.

@Dom — Viacom and CBS will recombine in the near future. They’re just trying to keep CBS stock from taking a dive until Viacom can turn the ship around. Until Paramount is headed back into the black. and Viacom reorganizes some of its cable deadwood networks, it’s not going to happen. Paramount needs to cut loose Bad Robot. QT may make for good PR but not for Trek. And frankly it’s a move that wreaks of desperation by Abrams trying to hand onto all the shift franchises … CBS doesn’t want Abrams, so Abrams is likely out, and QT along with him. CBS likely has a master plan, and it just might involve taking back the Trek film rights from Paramount, pending a future merger.

No offense Curious Cadet, but thats a whole lot of assumptions.

You’re basing all this on what exactly?

Im not sure I’d say its desperation. Unless Paramount was uninterested in a JJ idea for a Trek 4. There is expense to what they are doing now so they clearly feel preparing a script is worth the hassle.

I’d suggest that QT’s interest was exciting to JJ (and likely paramount) and his idea was something JJ liked. We speculate about a time travel or time bending story because of QT’s stated favs plus it would dovetail to what JJ hinted at when Beyond came out.

So it could be as simple as QT publicly said he had an idea, someone said to JJ ‘you should call Q’, he did and the idea meshed with JJ’s own and Paramount said “we’d like to see that script”. And voila.

I agree, its still a longshot. And the end result SHOULD be CBS in charge. I said that for ages. If CBS feels comfortable with Discovery and Paramount is not comfortable with Bad Robot, why not let CBS produce a film that Paramount distributes? Win Win. Sort of like Marvel producing Sony’s Spiderman. Let the better creative people handle the creative part.

Plus, JJ is pretty busy. He has to SAVE Star Wars after Rian Johnson ruined it.

“Having a name like Tarantino’s to kick things off would be a good start in publicity terms.”

I honestly cannot believe anyone even remotely concerned about this franchise would welcome the “publicity” QT can provide for. QT undoubtedly has his fanbase. There are many cynics out there who are into his bleak worldview and ultragorey exploitation style. And that’s all fine… but this simply doesn’t agree with Star Trek!

What would a Star Trek reborn out of such a tremendous shift look like? Deprived of all its optimism and dignity, catering to inaffectionate, indifferent crowds of young adults and teens who grew up watching GoT or TWD like we used to watch TNG back then? Each and every sequel itching for more blood, guts, gore and boobs… because it’s cool these days…

That “direction” potentially launched by this Tarantino movie would lead us where no man should ever go…on Trek! This wouldn’t be Star Trek anymore…

Yes, Trek has always featured mature issues, but that does NOT support the idea that Trexploitation is okay. Because in the end, all this says is that Trek had been able to deal with war and death WITHOUT those extremely graphic depictions.
Why isn’t it sufficient now? Just because millions of people’s hearts and minds have been degenerated by the likes of GoT or TWD?

@Smike – PLEASE, enough. If you really think because YOU are a prude that QT doesnt bring press and cache to a project, you’re nuts.

He will most certainly shake things up and provide for lots of media attention. But the question is whether THAT sort of “rebirth” is worth the price we have to pay.
I’m NOT religious, but I’m trying to use a religious allegory. If you expect the Second Coming of Christ, you certainly wouldn’t settle for the Devil reborn in his image.

And QT is the closest thing to “the devil” as far as movie-making is concerned… pointless, out-of-thin-air and grossly overdone bloodshed, bleak, depressing stories with (almost) everyone to die, be it fate, be it their own shortcomings and stupidity.

There is more to his movies that meets the eye, but he attracts an audience that’s mostly straight-forward into guts and gore. I know some of his “fans”. They don’t care about the acting or the story, they are into the bloody pay-off that kicks in in the final act. And that’s the audience we want to invite into our Star Trek family, the audience that we need for the franchise to survive? SAD!

SMike – you have never seen a QT film so stop trying to convince anyone you have. I gave a summary of Pulp Fiction in this thread that blows your position out of the water.

Grow up.

I really have a feeling this won’t be a film that focuses on the Kelvin Timeline’s Kirk and company. They talked in the past about doing other Star Trek stories in that universe and I just have a feeling that it could be the first of what would be similar to Star Wars anthology films. I could be wrong but I’m sure Paramount would let Tarantino do just about anything he wanted if it meant he was directing. And then there’s the Patrick Stewart angle to this as well. It’s interesting for sure.

My thinking is – QT always makes films for $100m or less. If they have a huge hit with QT’s Trek – they may well try and make a Star Trek 4 with a much smaller budget. Make it for around $100m and if it grosses $350m again like Beyond you’ve got a hit. There is absolutely no need to spend $200m+ on a movie. Except for greed.

More fantastic news! After enduring the blandness that is Discovery, I’m more than ready! Glad to see this on the fast track.

I see Star Trek continuing it’s legacy by evolving towards the ultimate area of exploration and discovery.
Suppose the area that lies between galaxies is not just the empty void of inter-galactic space it appears to be, but is instead populated by a scattering of rogue stars and planets that are passing between galaxies.
While the multiverse may appear empty and stagnant, the light from both The Milky Way, and Andromeda could simply be canceling each other out.
Imagine a starship exploring this region of space at super fast speeds, and coming across freakish aliens, and things that seem out of The Twilight Zone. They don’t always need to have a modern day equivalent for the viewer to enjoy what they are experiencing visually. Why not go outside the box a bit and jump into the hyper-theoretical, and metaphysical aspects of the universe. Make Star Trek more cerebral, and thought provoking. Maybe put more science fiction into the format. With more emphases on the fiction part.
What does the Star Trek (B)oard (O)f (R)espectable (G)entlemen have to say about this advanced concept for the franchise?

Cool. I like it. I’m for anything that’s gets Trek off the pretentious “look how relevant we are” soapbox and back to the awe and wonder and adventure in discovering the unknown.

George Kirk script with Chris Hemsworth? Heck, I’m still waiting for the filming of the script from just a couple of years ago that William Shatner said he and Leonard Nimoy were supposed to have some type of roles in together!

That was the Bob Orci rejected story. Sadly, it never happened. I say sadly because I’d have love to see Shat and Nimoy one last time even if they werent playing THEIR characters, even if Bob proved to be unable to write an interesting Trek story

Bob has teased releasing the story in some form a few times. Hopefully it happens.

Is Paramout even allowed to go back to Prime universe Trek? I though splitting up the property after the CBS/Paramount split was their way to deal with the issue, with Paramount doing Kelvin and CBS doing Prime. Same reason they ruled out cameos by JJPrise crewmembers on Discovery, right? Therefore I’d say this will most likely be Klevin timeline Trek.

What about if it’s *just* Picard who gets thrown back in time and they have to decide whether to restore the Prime timeline ( plan C – restore the timeline *somehow?!?!?* ) and have Kirk meet George or leave it as it is…

blah de Blah. I dunno. An older Picard meeting the Kelvin crew could be cool ?

They wouldn’t restore the timeline because there is nothing to restore. That’s simply this universe now.

And why would Paramount destroy the universe that is completely different from Prime and distinguish it’s own canon from CBS?

That’s the point of having it.

I dont believe Paramount cares about the distinction. They have to license Star Trek from CBS anyway, regardless. The point of a new universe was for Bad Robot to own derivatives of THEIR creation. Paramount doesnt care either way.

@KKK — I don’t love any idea that brings Picard into the mix — the TNG guys had their shot. Stewart’s way too old to plausibly play Picard in such a story. Leave them be.

That said, Orci himself told us directly on these forums that there’s nothing inherent in the movie preventing the timeline from being re-set, part of his effort to ensure the film would appeal to everyone. The events of STID certainly helped explain why they didn’t already, and the death of Spock cemented it. As far as I’m concerned, the Kelvin universe is the Kelvin timeline which has been overwriting the original timeline since Nero arrived, in keeping with Trek canon. The KU was a marketing gimmick dreamed up, and sold by Orci. It’s not canon.

Unfortunately, it’s not a commercially plausible idea. Bad Robot took so long to get STID out, and then following BEY, it looks like another 4 year wait, so the only people who even remember how we got into the KU is us. Audiences would just be confused by a restore the timeline film. That doesn’t necessarily prevent them from doing one, so long as the audience doesn’t have to rely on previous information.

Curious Cadet,

Re: Stewart’s way too old to plausibly play Picard

Wait, so you are saying Stewart is too old to plausibly play the interesting old Picard that he created for ALL GOOD THINGS?

@Disinvited — I’m saying I don’t want to see that. Been there, done that. Let’s not revisit it again now that Stewart doesn’t need make-up. And yes, I have my doubts as to whether he can play that character with any credibility anymore … He might just as well have done a better job at it in “AGT” than he’s able to now. Just like Shatner is really too old and not credible to take a lead role in any serious story now, at least as Kirk. At a certain point these old guys have become parodies of themselves, and only serve as fan pandering appearances.

Curious Cadet,

Re: I’m saying I don’t want to see that

It may be true that you don’t want to see that, but as he took what he did in AGT and brought it successfully forward in his dotage to LOGAN, I’d SAY your worries about whether he could do it now are unfounded and unwarranted. Given the fact that he already did what you claim he couldn’t for that other character, I even have to ponder whether or not you are just plain biased against old actors? And I am equally mistified why, in your mind, you keep thinking he’d absolutely have to have a bigger starring role than he did in LOGAN, which I note absolutely was NOT titled XAVIER AND LOGAN?

@ Disinvited: Stewart’s role was always smaller in the X-Men movies. I mean, sure, he was their leader but because of the wheelchair he was kind of left out of the action. With TREK he used to be the lead character. Would he be willing to settle for a small supporting role in a TREK movie lead by another crew?

DIGINON,

Re: Stewart’s role was always smaller

An observation that’s neither here nor there as to his taking part in a new Trek film. It acknowledges the point that Stewart will take smaller roles; yet you, nonsensically, try to claim that he believes himself to be a bigger deal in Trek movies than Leonard Nimoy and won’t take a smaller role as Leonard did.

No one, least of all me, expects nor wants Stewart to jump at a poorly written smaller role. I want STAR TREK Movies to feature the best writing, and that includes the whole cannoli, i.e. even the smallest of parts.

@Disinvited — no ageism at all. For the same reason some on here proclaim Shatner’s days as Kirk over, I posit that so are Stewart’s as Picard — the Picard we know. Sure, put the character in a wheelchair and let him give heavy monologues about the profundity of peril and magnitude of humanity they face. But that’s not the role being suggested here, nor is it really one I want to see shoe-horned into a script. It’s little more than fan service. And frankly, I just don’t think he can do it convincingly anymore. You liked him in LOGAN, but LOGAN failed at the box office, and I can’t say it was Stewart’s best work. He got the job for the same reason Nimoy got the job. And it was not his best work either. Part of the problem with Trek is the core fan base resistance to recasting these roles, and a tendency to latch onto specific actors as characters they’ve played.

I have said time and again I’d love to see a Trek RED-type film, with the old cast reunited to pull off some absurd assignment that would never be plausible in the real world. It would be excellent fan service, and wouldn’t require these larger than life actors to be realistic in their portrayals. This is a movie QT could knock out of the park. And I don’t mean a parody, I mean letting Shatner be Shatner, and Stewart, Stewart. The actors have outsized their ability to reasonably portray the characters they once did with aplomb. We see Shatner, and Stewart now, where we once saw Kirk and Picard. Their legitimate Trek days are now squarely behind them.

You don’t have to agree with me, but that’s how I see it, and I’m definitely not alone in that viewpoint. There’s no objective resolution here. You say tomat-o, I say toma-toe. What is objective is why spoil a blockbuster effort to revive a franchise by putting such a subjective actor into a leading role? Anything less requires a significant amount of finagling to get such a minor character into any plausible story, and immediately overwhelms the effort — for proof, look no further than GENERATIONS. It’s been demonstrably proven to be a bad idea, time and time again.

Curious Cadet,

Re: LOGAN failed at the box office

I’m not sure how you are arriving at the conclusion that a movie that cost $95 million to make (cheaper than ANY of the current crop of Trek films) and took in $616,225,934 worldwide (more than ANY one of those in that same crop) is a failure, or if you regard the crop as failures, how you see LOGAN has a BIGGER one? LOGAN’s BO certainly seemed to outshine the previous year’s STAR TREK BEYOND which was the only one of the crop NOT cursed with a classic character/actor appearance which seems to challenge your apparent contention that the subtraction of same always makes for guaranteed BO non-failure and I remind you that the franchise had already likewise to Trek recast a younger Xavier/actor before recalling Stewart to the role of old Xavier twice in the MCU franchise?

It’s beginning to seem to me that you merely fear that including classic older characters and their actors will somehow siphon off essential million dollar funds that somehow would have been used to make their big-budgeted Treks better? I am curious how Curious Cadet would have spent Nimoy’s salary in the last two Trek films that Leonard appeared in, to make those films better without him? CGI-aged Quinto?

One thing where we both agree is NOT seeing the return of older classic characters and their originating actors ala the 60s’ BATMAN series window celebrity head pop, i.e. merely inserted for fan-service.

@Disinvited — infer what you will; I can’t stop you. But it’s not what I’m stating. That said my mistake about LOGAN, I was thinking about another film I guess. I seem to recall one of the Jackman films not doing well critically or financially, but I clearly have my wires crossed. Either way, it’s not really germane to the discussion, for which I also apologize since Stewart’s performance is a servicing supporting role, not that being proposed for the swashbuckling Captain Picard to co-star as Shatner did in GEN (badly).

As for Nimoy, it’s not at all about money. It’s about the sad specter of a beloved actor slogging through a part between gasps of oxygen between takes, a minor supporting role serving only to legitimize a series of movies I happen to think was the wrong direction to take Trek, just as killing off Kirk was the wrong thing to do to legitimize TNG. In my opinion, both actors made the wrong decision. I’m not being paid to figure out what to do with Nimoy in ST09, so why put that burden on me as if that will legitimize or change anything?

Franchises are built on fresh new faces capturing the audiences imagination with a compelling story. Having Stewart reprise his role from an earlier incarnation of the franchise that has no relevance to modern, unacquainted audiences, stoking fan interest, is simply not the way to go about it. An audience shouldn’t have to go into a movie knowing anything about the movie, much less have to endure a convoluted story in order to get a particular character into it, which no doubt about it, even to play a minor role Picard would have to have significant brain power employed to explain his presence, and then the question is, why? Especially if like Nimoy, and Shatner, he wasn’t really up to the role they wrote for him, or it the appearance posed more questions than it solved.

Curious Cadet,

Oh so you think the fault totally falls on the actors accepting roles written and directed by fresh-faced writers and directors too impossibly young to have a clue how to write aged characters or for the aged actors playing them, well? Well, we both seem to agree QT can and does do such well, and I would be surprised if he’d write a swashbuckling role for Picard in light of that. However, while I’m not suggesting he should focus on it, I do think he could tailor the writing, as he did for Christoph Waltz, to allow Stewart to deliver an award-winning performance, even if some, such as yourself, think there are expiration dates on such things.

@Disinvited — all your biased inferences, clearly an axe you have to grind. Not mine. Looks like we’ve come to the end of having a reasonable debate here.

Curious Cadet,

Re: all your biased inferences

My apologies if you felt that somehow I was asserting that my exploration of the possibilities were indeed facts in your case. The question marks were intended to indicate that I was seeking answers not providing them. I just got caught up in my fascination of the how you could have possibly gotten the facts of LOGAN and Stewart’s performance in it so wrong.

I should have picked up that you weren’t interested in exploring it, but when my focus is had the social blinders go up.

Agree to move on.

Curious Cadet,

Re: expiration dates on such things

Apparently VARIETY’s Brent Lang,

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/ct-patrick-stewart-on-logan-and-weinstein-20171205-story.html

“Patrick Stewart is generating Oscar buzz for his work in LOGAN.” – PATRICK STEWART ON ‘LOGAN,’ HARVEY WEINSTEIN AND RETURNING TO ‘STAR TREK’ — Brent Lang; VARIETY; Dec 5, 2017

knows of more than my singular self that thinks Stewart comports himself well in his old age.

But, of course, I see where both our concerns may be legitimate expectations from that same article:

“Oh, lord. I cannot think of another instance in which that [Stewart reprising his STAR TREK role] might happen. My feeling is I hung up the space suit and left all that behind a long time ago. Maybe if someone came up with a brilliant idea, I’d do it. One thing that might interest me would be to bring all the existing casts of STAR TREK from the last 50 years together for one big story.” — Patrick Stewart

However, please note that I’ve NEVER advocated that Stewart write it.

I think age is partly an issue but I think the fans would get over it pretty quickly as both seem to be still very popular in the fan base. I would love to see Stewart back BUT same time I argue why they wouldn’t bring him back for the same reason they will never bring Shatner back and that is they wouldn’t attract any new fans. At this point the only people who would care would be the old fans and thats not how you build on Star Trek, its simply another piece of nostalgia and fan service, which I’m all for personally, but understand why the studio itself is not that interested.

So I agree with you, its probably not a good idea to go down that road. Star Trek has to evolve, I say this again and again. While I think the Kelvin films and Discovery are not quite the direction I would’ve took them I do like they are doing it with new casts at least. And if the Kelvin films are done I hope they decide to do another set of characters entirely.

Tiger2,

Re: … they wouldn’t attract any new fans.

According to Paul Ryan, that’s not the problem. He would say male Trek fans simply aren’t doing their part to generate the 3 new Trek fans it would take to replace them to properly grow the Trek consumer-based economy.

Any argument that includes “so and so is too old…” is a non-starter. Come on guys.

@Alex — where the hell does this kind of crap come from? You didn’t read it anywhere official, because this isn’t official. CBS owns everything, lock stock and barrel, including the Kelvin timeline. There’s no published deal to my knowledge relegating universes to one studio or the other. The only tangible concern here is the royalties that have to be paid for using Bad Robot introduced elements in non bad-robot productions. Paramount can do anything they want with the exclusive license to make Trek for features. As far as I know there’s no restriction on what they can do. And there’s certainly nothing at all that states what you claim.

I’ve decided that I will look forward to this if we get to see Samuel L. Jackson playing a Klingon.

2020? Can please Disney buy the franchise, so there are Trek movies every year?

LOL yeah they are buying everything else these days. We know we will get a lot more Trek if they were in charge.

Not necessarily. Even if Disney owned TREK they wouldn’t pump out movies every year unless they believed them to be viable. There is a new Star Wars every year because they make billions at the box office. The Marvel movies are a similar story although they come in slightly under a billion. If you take another Disney franchise, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, these have much longer breaks between movies even though the last two entries made a billion and almost 800 million globally. The highest performing TREK made less than 500 million globally so I kind of doubt that TREK would be very high on Disney’s priority list.

No of course but they would certainly put more effort into it than Paramount does. And one thing Disney just knows how to do better than Paramount IS market their films. I’m not saying the KT films would’ve made a lot more money but they would’ve been marketed so much better which Disney has really learned to do and why so many of their films make money hand over fist.

For that alone, I would want Disney to have them.

I said it earlier, but anyone can make money grave-robbing. You can also break into elderly actors’ legacies, murder them, then grab everything that isn’t welded down. This is Disney’s M.O. More money does not guarantee better stories. Quantity doesn’t equal quality. There’s only 76 original series episodes. Yet, here we are 50 years later still enjoying them. Are you sure you want to see Shatner on the actual bridge of Enterprise reciting Rocketman? Careful what you wish for.

Why hasn’t Paramount extended universed this Trek franchise? We wouldn’t have to wait for the lone Trek movie every 5 years and we could have TNG era movies, JJ universe films and mix in some other stories.

Okay, just one more attempt at explaining my issues with Smith-written, Tarantino-directed Trexploitation. I fully appreciate that Star Trek has always dealt with some highly mature concepts. Thematically, Trek has never shied away from death, war and controversial matters and it is supposed to do that in the future.

But let’s briefly think of WHITE HOUSE DOWN and OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN for a moment. Exactly the same theme, almost the same plot… WHD is PG-13 whereas its bloody intense counterpart OHF is rated R.
As a matter of course, Star Trek would have taken the WHD approach to deal with such a topic in the past.
But now we got QT at the helm, who will not only choose to follow the OHF approach but double its intensity due to his inherent trademark style.

WHD covers the same content as OHF but it does so while still being suitable for kids and young teens. That’s what Star Trek has always had to offer. And this is taken away from us in cold blood in favour of catering to those “changed viewing habits” of a post-GoT media landscape. This is moral bankrupcy of the worst kind and it challenges the franchise’s reputation in an irredeemable way.

And no, thematically, the movie is not morally inferior per se compared to a potential PG-13 counterpart. But the graphic, visceral exploitation of that plot most certainly is, especially within Star Trek, a franchise that used to be defined by its heightened sense of morality in the past.

Most R-Rated movies would benefit from a PG-13 self-censorship from my POV. There are exceptions though. Star Trek isn’t one of them.

None of that ramblong diatribe means anything. Not are your conclusions dwfinitive for anyone else but you.

Agreed. It doesn’t matter to anyone else but me. And that’s all that matters to me. I don’t care about any of YOU, I care about MY Star Trek I’ve lost. I care about MY world falling apart.

If anyone one of think I care about anyone else’s Pro-Tarantino opinion on that matter, you are gravely mistaken. Those of you who (somewhat) agree, are welcome to do so. Those are the ones I want to reach. Anyone else who openly applauds these developments are entirely irrelevant for me at this point. There are simply no words I have left for you…

I don’t hate you and your opinions but you cannot expect me to follow you. I’ve hated Tarantino for the better part of my life, almost as long as I have loved Trek. Those two items brought together… that goes boom… just like matter and anti-matter or pasti and anti-pasti…

Smike,
Okay, NOW I get where you’re coming from. It’s like me dealing with the casting of Daniel Craig as Bond, which over a decade in still seems more than heretical to me, owing to the fact that appearance-wise, the guy is much better suited to playing one of LeChiffre’s henchman in CASINO ROYALE than playing 007 (and that was just on appearances – turns out Craig’s acting choices and tastes and how they have influenced the series have been just as damaging in my opinion, in ways I couldn’t have even guessed at, since previous performers hadn’t been able to influence the storytelling quite so strongly.)

Personally I don’t understand your hatred of Tarantino; while I haven’t seen all of his movies, I have enjoyed PULP and KB1 and INGLORIOUS over & over again, and think there is real wit present that leavens the more sordid elements (sort of like how very early Bond films, when faced with grotesque situations that censors were ready to veto, offset and overrode those about-to-be complaints by salting the end of the scene with choice Connery bon mots.)

“Personally I don’t understand your hatred of Tarantino; while I haven’t seen all of his movies,”

I’ve seen most of them (all but Death Proof) and in most of them, it eventually comes down to (almost) every character dying a bloody and pointless death towards the end. The interesting, carefully conducted and sometimes even beautiful set-up is hacked and slashed to bits and pieces, the final acts almost always becomes an exercise in atrocious exploitation and cynical vanity.

Okay, there are other, even PG-13 movies that have everyone dying in the end. Take Rogue One! But their deaths are not in vain, they are not pointless. They are a sacrifice to keep the glimmer of hope alive. In QT movies, there is no hope, no reason, no nothing… It’s nothing but bland cynicism and misanthropy.

And if fully appreciating THIS is what it takes to become an adult, I choose to remain immature…

You havent seen all of his films if thats what you think. I watched some of Pulp Fiction last week as it was on TV. The content that gets it an R rating is mostly language. There is virtually no nudity (I think we see Bruce Willis in the shower but its not sexual). Opening: In the resturant with Pumpkin and Honey Bunny. No explicit violence at all (they wave guns around) Jules & Vincent retrieve the briefcase. Again, there is explicit language. But when Jules shoots the first guy on the couch, we here a gun shot but there is no smoke, no flash, no blood, nothing. Decidedly non-graphic. Jules shoots the second guy in the shoulder and its the same. No explicit detail of him being shot. In subsequent scenes, the guy has blood on his shoulder. When Jules and Vincent kill hims we never see the victim get shot. QT uses a glow/flash on screen, we hear gun shots and for the first time we see the guns actually show that they’re firing (smoke, etc) We never see the victim actually get shot. No graphic violence! We then get a long dialogue scene of Wallace talking to Butch. No violence. No action at all in fact. The screen is filled with the back of Wallace’s head and Butch’s face. Why? BECAUSE…the focus is on what is being said, not “action”. The next plotline is Vincent and Mia. Vince goes to buy drugs. No violence whatsoever. A “controversial” scene shows Vincent shooting up in detail however. Vince drives to pick up Mia where he has a drink and we hear “Son of a Preacher Man”, the song from 1969, used effectively. NO VIOLENCE. Vincent and Mia go to a 50’s style restaurant. They talk, the focus again being on their faces because what they are saying is important. They order dinner and begin eating it. What action! They then engage in my favorite scene, the twist dance contest. How vile. NO VIOLENCE. They go home where Mia puts on music, a song written by Neil Diamond in 1967 by the way and dances while Vincent has a conversation with himself familiar to most men – trying to talk himself out of sleeping with a girl he knows he shouldnt. NO VIOLENCE! Mia OD’s. We see her with blood and vomit on her nose and mouth. No VIOLENCE. Vincent takes her to his dealer’s house for help. A great scene of panic unfolds where QT expertly has his characters interacting in realistic and interesting ways (exasperation etc) that while at times amusing also ramps up the tension and suspense. We finally get some violence in this film, if you can call it that, when Vincent ramps a needle into Mia’s chest. They then go home where she tells him a joke. Look away if you must. We then switch to the Butch story, the one that arguably isnt as effective as the others. He kills his opponent in a boxing match. We do not see this at all as it happens off screen, an off choice for the uber violent QT. Hmmmmm Butch goes to meet his wife at a hotel where they chit chat about her tummy and go to sleep. The next morning Butch realises his wife didnt pack his father’s prized watch. Earlier we see a flashback where a soldier friend of Butch’s dad visits young Butch and gives him the watch telling the story of how he hid it in Vietnam and smuggled it back. Again, its a scene with no violence and no action, only that of your imagination as the characters simply tell us a tale. Butch returns to his apartment (a great scene that sort of uses tracking to set up tension). We finally get some real violence as he finds a huge gun on his counter and finds Vincent in the bathroom and shoots him. This is a tame death scene by modern standards as we see Vincent hit briefly. The aftermath is worse as we see blood on the wall and Vincents body with blood on it. Very tame. Butch then runs into Wallace where he drives into him (violent but tame). They engage in a violent fist fight. Perhaps the most violent aspect of the film in fact but no more violent than most 80’s action TV shows. Wallace does shoot a guy in the groin and we see it. The guy deserved it. But its violent as far as a one shot gun shot can be. We switch back to the Vincent & Jules narrative where they are in the car and discuss an incident shown earlier (where a third guy was hidden and shot at them, missing). Vincent turns to discuss with a cohort in the back… Read more »

One other thing, what QT did a lot in Pulp Fiction was hint at violence, not show it. But its so effective, I bet you remember it as more violent than it actually is. Because as a story teller, he is so good, you have imagines in your mind.

Even as I wrote that out, I was amazed at how non-violent Pulp Fiction was. It was mostly talking.

So if QT answers all your criticisms and makes a Star Trek film like Pulp Fiction, you should be very, very happy.

Smike, why does your opinion matter more than anyone else’s? Its quite clear that the majority disagree and yet you still come here to try and convince people. You’re complaining about a film that doesnt have a script and is FAR from being greenlit and no one knows anything about it.

And by the way, the R rated version of the White House attack film was WAY better than the PG-13 one.

“Smike, why does your opinion matter more than anyone else’s?”

I’ve never said that. It only matters more TO MYSELF! In the end, I have to wrap my head around this and find a way to appreciate those changes or not, and at the moment, I’m unable to do so.

“Its quite clear that the majority disagree and yet you still come here to try and convince people.”

I don’t want to convince anyone at all. That has NEVER been my intention and I know I wouldn’t be able to. But giving my POV in great detail is still important to me. There ARE people agreeing with me, even here. They may be the minority on this site, but they exist.

In real life, almost everyone I talked to about it agreed with me. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but even the people who like QT, think he’s got no business taking on a once family-oriented franchise. Heck, even some TWD-gushing teenagers think that way.

You keep beating the dead horse about Star Trek when its not Star Trek, its YOUR narrow perspective that simply doesnt fit into todays world. Its time to give it a rest.

Star Trek is not “family oriented”. Its a sci fi adventure/drama. Once you get out of your head the idea that Star Trek was created in the 60’s to appeal to your desire for family fun in the 2000’s, the sooner you’ll understand what’s going on here.

“Its quite clear that the majority disagree”

BTW: The QT positivity may have a majority rule here but if you look at the comments over at Deadline, YouTube or TrekBBS, the understandable negativity is through the roof.

Combined with my personal conversations with relatives, Trekkie friends, colleagues, students etc., I don’t think there is an overall majority in favour of an R-Rated QT Star Trek movie… Just sayin’

@Smike – I have yet to see a single reational criticism to the idea of QT developing a story. If the story doesnt work, dont make it. This is not a greenlit film.

Most of the people losing their minds indicate an ignorance to QT and what he’s done. And if the people upset over where QT might take Star Trek would prefer a Bob Orci-driven Trek, then they are clueless to begin with.

So, do you prefer a more Disney-esque approach to the Trek franchise, or simply a sanitized version? My opinion is that we do not know what QT has in mind. We do know that he loves TOS. We should wait until this project moves further along before making any sort of pronouncement.

Yes, hopefully something leaks out that gives us a clue as to the story. Clearly people know…hopefully the Trek media is beating the bushes for some info!

I just want to say Merry Christmas to everyone here all around the world. We may fight and argue about every little thing here but we all love our favorite past time. And here is a little something in the spirit of Christmas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiSn2JuDQSc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cCTgRax94o

Have a Merry Christmas and make it so!

I hope you all had a wonderful Merry Christmas.
Did anybody get any Trek or scifi/genre related swag?
If so, feel free to regale us with tales about your new goodies!

Same to you, Tiger2, I hope you and yours was very merry as well!

QT’s love of the time loop / alternate timeline stories suggests the possible return of William Shatner. I could see old Kirk vs young Kirk where they are opposed to each other for two totally valid reasons.

Maybe William Shatner’s Kirk is living the good life with Joan Collins in a third timeline, and Chris Pine’s Kirk has to fix it. . . . Mark L Smith, you have my permission to borrow this idea.

@Joe Cool — God I hope not.

Shatner sort of threw cold water on the idea when asked on twitter though it seemed more of a “dont get your hopes up” post (ie. HE would be open but THEY arent). He implied he wouldnt be back as long as JJ called the shots. And knowing Shatner, if they had even spoken to him, he’d likely not be able to keep that secret lol

Anyone, even the posters I really respect, who crap on the idea are missing the point. Good story is good story. And sometimes, even bad story still makes seeing a legend worth it (for example, seeing a terrible Luke Skywalker in a terrible film was worth it because its still Mark Hamill and he was still great).

I think the opportunity for Shatner to work with QT as a director, with Trek likely being QT’s last film, will likely trump any any negativity he has for JJ, especially if JJ is just sitting in the producer’s seat. And QT is a HUGE Shatner fan. If there is any chance we will get Shatner in another Trek, it’s now. Finger’s crossed!

I hope you’re right Jonboc. I didnt know QT was a Shatner fan, so thats one positive for sure!

Yes TUP
It was in that nerdist podcast where he talks about the time travel episodes. He basically says that he got into Trek because of William Shatner.
Hopefully he includes him in a meaningful way but who knows what this story could be about? except Tarantino, jj and Smith

We’re well beyond any talk of age. We’ve seen examples of good stories involving aged actors and ofcourse, the technology is rather “regular” to make actors look younger anyway. Shatner looks younger than he is. Could they shave 20lbs off him? Thin his face a bit? Sure, easily. If it even mattered.

I’d love to see Shatner as Kirk directed by someone as good as Tarantino. He gets such wonderful performances out of his actors.

Not sure I agree. I think Bill’s shrewd to steer clear of these films. The money would no doubt be amazing, but he has a difficult relationship with Trek, if his “Captains” doc is anything to go by. I don’t blame him for not wanting to work with Abrams. JJ seems to play the public stereotypes, rather than the true character moments. He’d just want Shatner to come on screen, deliver a halting speech with a Pollack-esque pronunciation of “cloud,” speak-sing Rocketman, then die again. I wouldn’t want to see that.

Example, I saw BB King on his last tour before he died. It was embarrassing. He could barely play guitar, he couldn’t remember lyrics, and his stage patter was senile rambling. I felt awful for him. He was one of my great music idols. I don’t know how many people saw him like that, but it was rough. Someone was clearly taking advantage of him.

My point is, Bill is still sharp enough to know when he’s being exploited. Look at Generations: he signed on for one great death scene, only to have the entire thing switched in the end. Once bitten, twice shy. If someone brought him a good idea/script that really understood his James T. Kirk, I’m sure he’d do it. But they’re only going to exploit his infamy, not celebrate his work.

As for Mark Hamill, he’s been a great ambassador for the last two Wars, but they still exploited him. Han Solo’s death was equally stupid. It made zero sense. No one thought that through.

I tried to defend the Abrams’ Trek films, but looking back through the lens of his Star Wars garbage, the grave-robbing is glaring. I don’t know if Abrams’ is to blame or not, but he seems to have taken a good deal of responsibility for those movies, so close enough.

@Kirk – I agree that JJ would likely not use Shatner properly. But QT might. He resurrected (for lack of a better term) careers for a few actors and used others in interesting ways. He’d get a great performance out of Shatner.

Regarding Star Wars, my impressions is Ford wanted to be killed off.

@TUP Hey, I’m down for Shatner if they do it right, but I’m not holding my breath. It would be great to see Bill play Kirk without winking at the audience. He’s been doing mostly comedy this century, so a return to dramatic form could potentially be amazing.

I don’t agree with @CuriousCadet who feels Shatner can’t believably play Kirk any longer. He can’t play the young firebrand Kirk, of course, but an elderly Kirk who has regained his Admiral rank? I’d watch that.

@Kirk1701 — then you know Shatner much more intimately than the public persona, and characters we’ve seen as of late. Perhaps there is a director who can get the performance out of Shatner that would make for something watchable, and not just some sad exercise. But Shatner couldn’t be the star of, nor even a major role in any new film. There’s no market for that, except a select few of us here on these boards, no matter how good or bad, and that’s not really going to do the franchise any favors.

Now, give me an intimate film like MR. HOLMES and I’m in. The same goes for Patrick Stewart. But that’s not really what fans want, nor is being discussed on these forums. Nor is that what’s going to light a fire under a franchise that sees a film on average of every 4 years at the box office. If Paramount had Trek operating like Marverl or Star Wars we could have our cake and eat it to, but without that infrastructure, opportunities can’t be wasted on fan service.

All these former actors have had their chance to make a mark on Trek, and have done so admirably time and time again. But this constant desire to have them suit up one more time and go through the motions for some kind of fan sentimentality is sad at best. Time to move on, and that includes the TNG cast, whether any of them could convincingly pull it off just one more time, or not …

@CuriousCadet I don’t believe I was saying otherwise. I’m happy enough with the new cast to keep watching. I don’t think anyone is going to cast Bill as the star of the film. I don’t recall saying that either. I’m not even advocating for Bill, as I said. I’d only want to see it if they did him justice. Doctor Who did a wonderful thing for Tom Baker, for instance. His appearance in that anniversary special was beautiful. I think Bill would definitely go for something like that, but I’m speculating.

I actually agree with you. Don’t waste Bill on nonsense. He’s too big a screen presence. I think Nimoy’s appearance in Into Darkness was a huge waste. Leonard was too good for such a terrible deus ex machina like that. His death in Beyond would’ve been far more poignant had they skipped him in Darkness. But that’s beside the point. If you’re going to use Bill, use him properly or don’t use him at all. I think he’s been shrewd enough to steer clear thus far.

I dont insist that Shatner needs to be de-aged. But lets not forget the tech exists to do just that. There is an upcoming Netflix film that will use tech to de-age Robert De Niro for a good chunk of the film.

We saw it in Ant Man.

So is there a role that uses Shatner as Kirk in a Cameo (or even extended cameo) where they can effectively make him look like TUC Kirk? Why not? Its still Shatner’s performance.

I question why “de-age” at all? What about a “Mr. Holmes” type thing where Kirk tries to figure out why he’s still alive in the Nexus? Perhaps he’s stuck in a time-loop where he keeps reliving his death on that bridge. We could flash back to the current cast as he tries to piece together an old adventure that informs his present dilemma. I always felt “The Alternative Factor” would’ve made a great film. The episode was really botched, but the idea is so compelling to me. Maybe what we saw is Kirk’s Nexus memory, where Pine & Co experience a true multiverse. They would be two concurrent stories and only converge when they both break out of their separate loops. They don’t even need to meet. Kirk Prime goes peacefully to his rest and Kirk Kelvin lives to tell another tale. I should be charging for this storybreaking, lol!

Further thought makes we want to fix “The Alternative Factor.” Maybe Lazarus IS a liar. He’s actually a cosmic troll. Like an actual troll like in the fairy tale, “Three Billy Goats Gruff.” He’s trapped Kirk in that “alternate” universe, which turns out to be a pocket universe. Kirk is made to relive his death on that bridge for eternity seemingly. However, this isn’t enough for Lazarus. I’m not sure of his motivation yet, but we relive a similar experience with the Kelvin crew. The difference is, we know Lazarus is lying about being two alternate beings. Enterprise is trapped in a similar time-loop of “winking out.” The solution is to trap Lazarus in his own pocket universe, so he cannot waylay passing starships. This frees Kirk Prime to his final peace and the Enterprise to more adventures. That’s my pitch if anyone from Bad Robot is lurking. Let’s talk details!

I agree that there is nothing about William Shatner today that screams “de-age”. 99% of people that rip on him will not look half as good as he does at his age. Or be half as active or half as wise.

But it depends on the story. If they want a Kirk from TUC, then its not hard to de-age him.

My point being, age is a silly argument. It simply doesnt matter. Either he fits the story today or you can de-age him appropriately.

What if Kelvin Spock is trapped in the pocket universe with Kirk Prime in a reverse of Star Trek 09’s Delta Vega? Kirk P and Spock K have to work out a solution from inside the pocket. Perhaps Kirk K and Spock have been butting heads again. Spock decides to transfer off Enterprise, but is waylaid by Lazarus. Kirk K is still onboard Enterprise and cannot contact Spock in the pocket, so they have no idea Kirk P exists. Kirk K simply wants to rescue Spock. At the conclusion, Spock K is recouperating in Sick Bay where he recounts to McCoy that he’s met Kirk’s other, older self, but begs McCoy not to tell Kirk K according to Spock P’s initial advice to live his own life. McCoy reluctantly agrees. We exit the Enterprise with Kirk welcoming Mr. Spock back to his position on the bridge. The camera rises away from the bridge, up through the ceiling sensor in a backwards version of “The Cage’s” opening shot. We hear the Courage fanfare and we’re out.

Question: should Spock stay on Enterprise or move on? Maybe he’s been offered the Vulcan Ambassadorship and cannot turn it down now that Spock P has passed away? Maybe he wants to study the Kohlinahr?

One easy thing would be to use the Nexus but it was such a stupid idea in the first place Im loath to suggest it. But if they come up with a good story, so be it.

That likely requires *some* de-aging of Shatner. Perhaps something odd-ball happens with the space-time continuum because Kirk “died” on the ENT B and he was meant to do something really important later. Since you can enter the Nexus and time doesnt matter, you could go in and bring Kirk out before he left to help Picard.

Shatner then ends up back in the deflector control room on the Ent B but hits a force-field before the explosion and is saved. Yadda yadda

Actually that makes a nice little TV show.

Q also works.

@TUP No love for Lazarus’ pocket universe? I think that’s much more interesting than the Nexus or Q (though your logic is sound regarding the Nexus). Maybe Lazarus has caught a version of Kirk in the pocket universe who is allowed to age, but not die. No need to de-age anyone. Shatner can be all of his well-earned 87 years. It doesn’t hurt that Bruce Greenwood strongly resembles Robert Brown. That’s an interesting layer of meaning with Pike in the Kelvin universe. Lazarus takes on Pike K’s appearance to razz Kirk K. Maybe Lazarus is a rogue Q, not TNG Q. He’s been booted out of the continuum for being evil without cause. Or he’s another god like Apollo, maybe a Titan. I’ve used the Norse/Germanic troll image before. I think Norse/Germanic mythology fits well in the ST universe.

Seriously, Bad Robot? JJ? QT? Lost sheep to shepherd, lost sheep to shepherd, you got yer ears on? I’m available for meetings.

@Kirk – sounds very interesting. I try to think what would confuse fans the least. The Nexus sucks but its already confounded fans once, so its an easy entry point. For me, the only way the Nexus works is if its NOT the main plot point, but a means to move the plot (ie.get Kirk or whatever).

Although, when it comes to confusion or whatever (and it comes up a lot of when people say its too hard to explain Kirk’s death etc), keep in mind in trek 09, the entire precipitating issue happened BEFORE the film even started and was explained to the audience through a 30 second mind meld, complete with flash backs.

It was essentially a recap montage. if they can do that once, they can do it again.

@TUP I think the Nexus is best left alone. I’d sooner return to a TOS episode than a mediocre TNG film. TWOK did the same thing and is still considered the best Trek movie yet.

Confusion is part of the game in a good sci-fi. You want to dump the audience into an unfamiliar place and make them wonder how it all works. The sense of wonder is key to hard sci-fi. You want to tap into that desire to experience strange and marvelous things that are impossible for present-day humanity. How did these characters get where they are? Apparently life exists elsewhere in the universe, what kind of life is it? Is it malevolent or kind? Is any of this scientifically possible? These are all questions we want to be asking when watching sci-fi. Further, we want to be asking these questions with a childlike thrill in our bellies. We don’t want these questions asked with a sardonic snort. (Not accusing anyone, just pointing out for the record.)

Ford wanted Solo killed literally for decades.
I believe that he suggested it for Return of The Jedi.

@Kirk1701 — this has nothing to do with age: Shatner can’t believably play Kirk anymore. And to the extent he can convincingly, he can’t play a major role in a new movie with a new cast. And what story would they tell that is able to easily explain Kirk’s presence such that the audience isn’t perplexed or bored?

This is the same old story by Trek fans. Dress the actors up in their old costumes and parade them around the screen again for the amusement of the fans who love them, without any consideration as to how they would be received by new audiences. Trek isn’t Star Wars. It never has been. Even the best films have always struggled to find a new audience. Bringing back Shatner, or Stewart, or anybody else isn’t going to save Trek, anymore than Hamil or Ford saved Star Wars. It’s only going to get in its way and prevent the ideas and concepts from making a fresh start for new audiences, and rebuilding a franchise that has for too many years relied on the actors who established the beloved characters, instead of the characters themselves. I hate to say it, but the sooner these actors aren’t available to fuel these endless discussions of bad ideas, the better.

I believe I said that.

@Curious – I disagree. Can Patrick Stewart play Captain Picard from 1987? Well maybe, he looked really old back then haha But no one is suggesting William Shatner squeeze into a gold tunic and play James Kirk from 1967.

Anyone notice Mark L. Smith is performing a very clear “Blue Steel”?

Was just about to say that…

With all this discussion about what we want, have we thought about what the actors want? I think that Pine and company would jump at the opportunity to really dive into their roles. As QT had stated, each TOS episode could be expanded upon, and be given depth. Imagine an episode that homaged “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, in light of what is going on in politics today for example. Or perhaps a QT movie based on “A Private Little War”. And if QT could pull it off, imagine the talent that could be recruited. Though I doubt it could happen, I would love to see a Trek directed by Christopher Nolan, or by Ridley Scott. At the very least, I want the Russo Brothers or Edgar Wright. But it is up to us to stop being so narrow-minded, by assuming the worst when it comes to producing the film.

Well said. And QT saying there are episodes of STar Trek that could easily be expanded into feature films shows his focus is on the ideas.

When an actor like Patrick Stewart says he’d LOVE to work with QT, you know the respect he commands

How the hell anyone who has been a Star Trek fan for longer than 2009 can think this is a GOOD idea, is beyond me. I’ve been a Trekkie since the mid 1970’s (when I was 5), and I was just fine with TNG, so adding to the universe has never been a problem for me.

But what we’ve been dished since Enterprise has been a crap-fest. And now, an R-Rated “Pulp Fiction” Star Trek? Worse of an abomination than Discovery.

I doubt that Tarantino is trying to do a science fiction version of Pulp Fiction.
He is a Trek fan.
Lets see what he can do.

Yeah, Pulp Fiction in space. hahaha

When people say stupid stuff like that as an attack on the idea of QT making Star Trek, it shows they dont know anything about QT so their opinion doesnt hold any water whatsoever.

I guess missed the Pulp Fiction on a Sub that was Crimson Tide. Or the Pulp Fiction CSI that QT did.

See, I’ve been a fan since the original series, and I think TNG and it’s spin-offs were the abomination…well, that’s too strong a word…they were decent, not great…but decent television series. But they were a long LONG way from the Star Trek I knew and loved. Truth be told, outside of some great episodes of DS9, and maybe 5 episodes of TNG, I found 24th century Trek, for the most part, unimaginative, and dull. JJ brought the creative adventure and fun back into the fold and I couldn’t be happier. QT is one of the most imaginative and revered film makers of our time…whatever he brings to Trek has to be better than the watered down, pretentiousness of Discovery…and will probably be more true to TOS than anything Berman put on the table during his almost 20-year reign. I had lost interest in Trek, Discovery seems to be a lost cause…but now the franchise has my attention once again and I couldn’t be happier!

Been a Star Trek fan since 1977 eminence, not only is this a good idea, Tarantino will not be making “pulp fiction in space” which you’d know if you knew even the slightest thing about him besides his name.

@smike

Since your clearly unaware of what an R rating actually is. Did you know that Star Trek 6 was originally given an R rating by the MPAA? Do you know what they changed to drop the rating to PG-13? They changed the color of the Klingon blood, thats the only change they made, the only thing.

Galaxy Quest was also given an R rating originally, for 1 line. When Weaver and Alan’s characters round a corner and see the “chompers” for the first time Weaver exclaims “Well screw that” but it your watching her mouth she clearly says a word starting with the letter f, which if you check out the commentary on the dvd is exactly what she said, and the test audiences loved it, but that one word was all it took to get an R rating, so they dubbed it over.

Are there making more Star Trek Movies?!?!