Simon Pegg is out promoting his role in Terminal, and spoke to JoBlo and Yahoo about Star Trek, including how the cast feel about the latest news, a bit about Star Trek Beyond, and where he sees things going in the future.
Cast is excited for S.J. Clarkson
Pegg talked to JoBlo confidently about the future of the franchise while confirming producer J.J. Abrams has brought on S.J. Clarkson to direct the Star Trek 4 project, making her the first woman to helm a feature film in the franchise:
There’s so much more to do with those characters. I’m very excited about SJ Clarkson being hired. J.J. emailed us about that just before it was announced…Everybody was so excited. I think Zach [Quinto] has actually worked with her. I’ve seen stuff she’s done, and I think it’s a great choice, and it’s about time.
Pegg’s reference to Zachary Quinto working with Clarkson appears to be regarding two episodes she directed for the NBC series Heroes in 2009 and 2010.
And speaking to Yahoo, Pegg didn’t have any details on the plot but also confirmed reports on who was writing the film and where he sees the status of the project:
[Star Trek 4’s script is] being done by Patrick McKay and John Payne, and I’m not sure what the status is at the moment. S.J. [Clarkson] just came onboard, so it feels like we’ve turned a corner toward production, but I have no solid information.
As for the second Star Trek project in development, the one based on a story pitch from Quentin Tarantino, according to Yahoo, Pegg is still waiting for a status update and could only say “It’s an exciting prospect.”
S.J. Clarkson on the set of Jessica Jones
Says Beyond was an answer to fan feedback about Into Darkness
The actor also talked to JoBlo about what it was like for him to take on the screenwriting (with Doug Jung) for 2016’s Star Trek Beyond, contrasting it with 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness:
The thing with Beyond, I think the time is sort of born that out in terms of its popularity and the constant feedback I get from the Star Trek community, which seems very grateful, and that’s who we… ‘Cause I felt they were done a slight disservice, maybe, with Into Darkness, ’cause it was quite… It was divisive, I think…And so Doug and I tried to sort of pull it back to almost a giant episode was our agreement that we came up with.
On the subject of fandom, in his interview with Yahoo, Pegg defended fans who are sometimes derided for sharing their opinions, saying:
People love their stuff and have their specific opinions, and now they can rally those opinions with people who feel the same way. It’s the almost inevitable consequence of social media, really. It’s always been like that — they just haven’t had the ability to find each other and moan collectively. Well, it’s not moaning; one of the things I find to be reductive is when there’s a complaint about something, and it’s dismissed as moaning or butt-hurt fanboys. In fact, people’s opinions are valid. If someone doesn’t like something, it doesn’t mean they’re being spoilers or ruining the fun. That’s their opinion.
Simon Pegg in Star Trek Into Darkness
Doesn’t expect they’ll be doing Star Trek into old age
While Pegg is optimistic about the future of Trek, he does feel there is a limit to how many films he and his co-stars have in them. When asked what the future holds, Pegg responded:
I don’t foresee us being like the original crew, and doing it when we’re, like, unusually old.
Simon Pegg is currently 48. His The Original Series counterpart James Doohan was 71 at the time of the release of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy aged 60 at the time. The youngest castmember at the time was George Takei, at 54.
Cast of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Stay glued to TrekMovie.com for all news, whispers and more about the future of Star Trek movies. You can keep tabs on all updates on the next movie via our Star Trek XIV category.
So Doohan must have been around 75 in Generations
Generations was in 1994 and Doohan passed in 2005 at age 85, so pretty close, yes.
Yeah, depending on when they filmed the movie he was 73-74 years old. He was born in 1920. As far as I know him and DeForest Kelley were the oldest of the main characters.
Great, looks like Star Trek 4(14) is definitely a go. Interesting and appropriate comments from Pegg regarding the “moaning” and complaints from the “so-called” fanboys. Personally I really enjoy Star Trek Discovery and for a while I belittled some of the complaints about the new series but I stopped because those negative comments are simply their opinions and most have just as much validity as my complements. In a world where there is so much polarity, good for Pegg to remind all of us that just because someone has a differing stance from our own, that doesn’t automatically make them an idiot – just someone with a different opinion.
I agree in theory, but Pegg doesn’t follow what he preaches about so his words sound like a joke.
He’s the same guy who said f**k you to those who didn’t like stid, the same who said he has no respect for people who dare to like the prequel trilogy of star wars because he hates it (if my memory is correct, he also compared those movies to Lucas killing own kid??)
Even his response to Takei not wanting to be grateful for their ‘homage’ in beyond was full of condescending, lecturing passive aggressive ‘your opinion is invalid’ narrative.
At 48 now, he wasn’t exactly a teen when he made those comments..
You never know, maybe he changed his opinion because of all the fan feedback about his F— comment.
Notice he’s taken a lot of the “Beyond” criticism in stride.
Yeah, what a coincidence, though, he changed his opinion now that some of those ‘bitter jealous fanboys’ who disliked stid have liked his movie instead.
Doesn’t seem to me he really considers the criticism his movie got, though. He seems to play oblivious for the most part and/or blame its lack of success on stuff like marketing only..anything but his work. He is smugly preaching about how good him and Jung were even here.
I think because fans were much more happy about Beyond even if they still had issues with it.
And it did feel the most like Star Trek when compared to the first two. But no it wasn’t perfect and I think he recognizes that.
Tiger, you mean a side of the fandom that includes reboot haters. Not all the ‘fans’ were happier about beyond than the other movies.
I don’t like this preaching about ‘trek fans’ because most of the times, it’s putting us all in a box and making it seems that no one liked the reboot before..which is untrue.
It’s like those now claiming that all old trek fans hate discovery. Nope. Some do, but many others like it just fine.
I struggle to understand why a vocal side of the fandom, usually the most negative one that historically hated on every trek iteration that isn’t tos, must represent the whole fandom.
if people cared to read other message boards and sites beside this one, they’d easily see that even online there are tons of trek fans who loved these movies and had mixed feelings about beyond for a number of different reasons. They’d see that for every trek fan who complains the reboot isn’t their trek, there are ten more who like these movies and support them with their money.
I’m only speaking in general the film was better perceived than STID. It doesn’t mean all the fans liked it better obviously. And I’m not talking about these boards only. STID does seem to get the most hate out of the three although the 09 film still seem to be well liked.
And I don’t ‘hate’ the fandom, but I agree as well Beyond was probably a better Trek film overall than STID and it did a better job of capturing the TOS vibe which the two lacked in some ways. But if you feel differently that’s fine.
It’s obvious that what certain fans mean with the claim that the movie ‘feels more like trek’ has everything to do with pure tos nostalgia and fan service ONLY. Putting that aside, nothing makes beyond more ‘trek’ and stronger as a movie than the first two.
Darren Mooney, a trek fan editor who loved the first movies and didn’t hate beyond, eloquently put it over twitter recently:
he pointed up the fact, for example, that fanservice is beyond having “two characters who hang out just because they used to do ‘back in the day.’..”, and while he likes Urban, he recognizes that pushing Uhura and the reboot dynamics into the background to make room for McCoy and “established” prime relationships just because “that’s how it worked in the sixties” is pure fan service.
These elements that please some old fans – who are the most passionate and forceful, online, about what they think is ‘their trek’ and what isn’t (also re: discovery) – may also be the core reason why these people are more than willing to give Beyond a pass and are less critical of it about those other elements they criticize the other movies for such as the main plot, inconsistencies, lack of originality, the villain etc etc
The problem is that making a movie only for those fans means they forgot to make one for anyonelse, which was the goal of the first two and, ultimately, why they are liked by the general audience more.
Certain trek fans not only don’t understand they don’t represent us all as the whole fandom, they actually, strangely, seem to believe they represent the audience too so when the success or lack of a movie doesn’t align with their opinion/perception, they don’t know how to rationalize that.
But what’s funny about STID is that they THOUGHT they were making a film for the hardcore Trek fans as well, it just back fired. Why else use the name Khan and then remake an ending of a 30+ year old film I don’t any new fan has ever saw?
I don’t think STID is any less ‘fan service’ than Beyond was. The difference was how they went about it. One hit you in directly in the face while the other did it a bit more subtle.
Let’s not kid ourselves, ALL of these Kelvin films are made with hardcore fan service in mind. The fact that they are based around TOS characters is evident off the bat. But the first film brought in Leonard Nimoy to reprise a role he hasn’t done since the early 90s. His entire existence in that film was for nostalgia in the most direct way possible. STID went a bit farther remaking an iconic villain but sadly was probably a mistake.
Beyond, oddly enough, didn’t have any real hook to sell to old fans. It was kind of baked in the story in terms of dynamics and a bit of Starfleet history with Enterprise but none of that could be marketed the way the 09 film and STID could. Its approach was done in a more casual way and probably why it didn’t do that well. I do think most fans probably liked it but I agree the film was ‘meh’ in the sense nothing about the story compelled you to see it in the theater. And my guess is the first trailer did scare off a lot of people as well.
But yes its not any one factors but also why I don’t know if the Kelvin films will ever be a ‘hit’ the way Paramount expects because they feel almost too divisive now. But I guess no more divisive than Discovery currently is.
“But what’s funny about STID is that they THOUGHT they were making a film for the hardcore Trek fans as well, it just back fired”
Indeed. The fanservice quite possibly ruined an otherwise good movie. John Harrison didn’t have to be Khan etc.
For me, beyond has similar issues people found in stid, the difference is some kind of fanservice and lack of originality is given a pass to by certain fans. Stid was asked by many to be the kind of movie that, ultimately, beyond wasn’t either.
However, the movie was still more liked than hated so, as some people in other fanboards are now commenting Pegg’s words here, beyond ignoring it backfired because you have plenty of fans who were expecting the next movie to expand or continue the plot points started by the first two so Pegg&Co didn’t, truly, make a movie for fans in general as much as they only catered to the side that, for the most part anyway, didn’t even like the reboot (including the first movie). It doesn’t honestly seem to me they truly got what many criticized in stid either. It rather seems like they derailed the actual point by selectively paying attention only to the kind of feedback that would validate their own personal taste and opinions (thus the story they’d create regardless what fans ‘wanted’)
Validating own personal taste is just a way of rephrasing what Meyer said back in 1981 while TWOK was shooting, that he only had allegiance to what HE found to be good or of interest. And that is in large part why it worked, due to his taste (at that time), coupled with (and sometimes undercut by) Bennett’s position.
So I don’t see the problem with BEYOND outside of the obvious (antagonist not done right, climax runs way too long, spent too much money on stuff they could have scaled back on, like rotating sets and perhaps too much of the usually good VFX) — and right there that elevates it so far above the Abrams-directed films, with their imbecilic take on TREK characters and mind-numbingly godawful art direction (doesn’t EVERYONE work in an environment that makes it hard to read their workstation displays because you have banks of spotlights shining directly into your face), that it is hard for me to even compare them.
I’ve managed to get through the 09 all the way without fastforwarding exactly once, and it was a serious grind, after two other occasions when I just had to FF to get past the bigger-monster-eating-other-monster and some other piece of nonesense, and while I can watch ID start to finish, I don’t feel much interest in doing so.
The S31 stuff is okay, so basically the early and middle almost works, but they really missed on how to tell their own story, as I’ve always held that Pike should have died saving the ship, which would have kept this about Kirk, where it needed to be.
But I can tell you that even a good version of ID is still going to rankle, just because of that nutso open with the prime directive and the EnterSub. Honestly, the lens flares and the really inept staging and overcutting all make me see the Abrams films as like what Elon Musk’s offspring could afford to make as a fanfilm, the only dif from home movies is that I don’t see the out of control zoom lens (though the lens flare misuse is just as bad.)
I agree that the opening sequence of STID is one of the most unrelentingly dumb sequences in the history of Trek movies. It leaves such a bad taste in the mouth for the rest of the film, which isn’t really as bad (if one looks past Khan, Magic Blood, phone-a-friend Spock, etc).
….right….it’s so very dumb compared to the LAFF RIOT opening of Beyond…where miniature aliens….that we think are huge… due to the clever staging of the scene….turn out to be annoying little ankle biters. Kills me every time. Now THAT’s good Star Trek!!
Jonboc,
Well, I found the BEYOND bit to be genuinely funny (mainly the voice of the alien), but more importantly, it didn’t undercut the very underpinning of TREK, a la ID.
The opening of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was lackluster for me. It felt underwhelming. Nothing against actor Lawrence Luckinbill, the idea of a laughing Vulcan before the opening credits was meant to be funny. I suppose for some viewers that particular sequence was funny, for me just terribly flat our boring.
The difference is that Pegg tries to make it seems he was following what fans wanted when, in fact, he was just following his own bias, taste and opinions without truly, to be honest here, getting what was people’s actual criticism when it comes to stid (self serving too because who complained we didn’t have enough Scotty, btw?) In either case, he didn’t really do what the fans wanted (which is impossible anyway) but just what he wanted.
Few of us live up to what we perceive ourselves to be.
That’s what tended to rub me the wrong way about Mr. Orci. Most creative types can look back at something they have done and critique it accordingly….I’d expect him to be able to do that with STID, but unless I’ve missed something, the general attitude continues to be that it needs to be enshrined at the Smithsonian, and that his opinion is validated as such by all the money he made.
JJ was too hard on himself about stid, though.
>Notice he’s taken a lot of the “Beyond” criticism in stride.
That’s because Pegg still has a career. If his star diminished from ST:B with less-to-no writing/acting/… jobs, then he’d be far more vocal. My opinion, anyways.
Where is Pegg taking beyond’s criticism in stride, though?
I must have missed something because, so far, I only read him blaming bad marketing and just paying attention to those who liked the movie. He doesn’t even seem to notice the criticism, aside from the one regarding that infamous first trailer. That’s not my definition of accepting criticism. That’s pretending that it doesn’t even exist so you don’t need to reply to it.
I wouldn’t be surprised be tells himself that his movie is the best of the 3 and the most popular and successful…he’s being all the more the predictable cliché of new writer passive aggressively sh*tting on the previous team to promote his work as ‘better’. Personally, I think this kind of behavior backfires.
…and Beyond did have that ‘giant episode’ feeling Pegg is saying they tried to accomplish, so they succeeded there. Overall I thought it the 2nd best out of the three KU films, as thin plot-wise as it was, it was good-natured and light. For me, the re-watch value is there, too.
Also remember they only had like 6 months to write the script from scratch.
…which is the real shame of it all, really.
All three movies were plot thin.
All had deep moments, though.
@ Marja…not to split hairs, but all thirteen Trek movies are a bit thin in the plot department.
Gotta love Pegg keeps ignoring the fact beyond was the least successful movie of the trilogy, not stid.
But what I love the most is his coherence…
I mean, some time ago about stid haters he said:
I guess stid haters were silly jealous fanboys when they disliked that movie, but now that they liked his movie they are acceptable folks you gotta respect ^
Always from Pegg (I found the complete interview again, Google the huffingtonpost):
Funny that NOW that his own movie ALSO is less successful than stid, he starts claiming that stid was ‘divisive’ (yep, and the same can be said about Beyond too, btw, but he wrote it so don’t hold your breath that he’ll equally pay attention to the criticism his movie got)
This isn’t the first time he’s like that. And yes, people can change their mind sometimes, but the above example seems to be more a case of hypocrisy and opportunism. If I were in the place of anyone who works with him, I’d have a hard time trusting his opinions in general tbh. I’d rather deal with a real, genuine, coherent hater than someone like him. He seems to have no issues spitting in the plate where he ate, so to speak, and stab claimed friends on their back.
He also told fans to Fuck Off when they correctly guessed Khan was in STID. Claiming ” It’s simply not true “.
contractual obligation
They all have contractual obligation to keep interviews spoiler free and be vague even to the point of misleading, but it isn’t the sane thing as purposedly and smugly lying and telling people fyou.
The way you choose to do things is key, and his way sucks. Constantly. He’s very hypocritical.
I remember that too. When they called him out on the lie, he admitted it:
“Simon Pegg: I lied, I’ve barefaced lied to people when they’ve asked me [about the film] because it isn’t a guessing game. It’s not like if you get it right I gotta go ‘Yes, confirmed.’ No, F*** you […] So yea absolutely it’s fun playing that dance. It means that no one will ever trust anything you say ever again.”
Indeed. Not sure people not trusting anything you say is something to be proud of, though.
STID WAS divisive. Just look at TrekMovie threads from 2013 if you don’t believe me.
Marja, I didn’t deny that – in fact, I said “yep, and(but) the same can be said about Beyond too, btw”
as facts suggest, his movie is less successful than stid and by numbers, even more divisive because the majority of critics and audience favored stid (see dvd sales too) still more.
funny enough, Pegg was the one who originally defended stid as the most successful trek movie before he wrote the least successful movie of the trilogy, hence my point about him being a hypocrite. If he wants to have issues with stid now fine, but he can’t serioustly act as if that movie is a flop while his own is perfect and the most successful…
Ps: in general, I wouldn’t use trekmovie’s audience as the sole means to understand what the collectivity of trek fans, let alone the whole audience, thinks about these movies. The comments section of this site has always represented only a small percentage of the fandom, and with very polarizing views that, on the long run, had further alienated different fans, especially fans of these movies who didn’t share all the negativity some had.
I guess I don’t understand the slowly developing dislike for STID (people liked it better a few years ago). The Kirk/Spock flip near the end…..ok, jumped the shark a bit on that part, but otherwise I thought it was a really smart, well thought out movie using an alternate timeline. I still like it a lot. Beyond (which is fine) is probably the weakest of the three (imo) and the one that most lives up to the “not Star Trek, just an action movie in space” criticism.
I don’t think the support for STID was ever that strong. It did well enough at the box office but most people didn’t come away from that film with any strong love for it. And over time that became more apparent.
Holden, relative. I think most of people loved stid, as showed by its pretty good results both on Rotten Tomatoes and the audience reviews. Thousands of folks give it good ratings. Even the dvds and digital copies still sell better than Beyond’s stuff.
It isn’t a movie I personally had a strong love for myself, but I won’t play oblivious over its success and pretend that some trek fans didn’t blow the hate out of epic proportions by painting the response that movie got in a way that totally clashes with facts, when you pay attention to them.
OK. I’ll add my two cents here. IMHO, STID was indeed the weakest of the three. By FAR. I think I share the opinion that I felt it would have been a ton more palatable had they done the same or similar movie but removed all things Khan from it. This would include Nimoy’s cameo, the restaging of Spock’s death as Kirk’s and Kirk’s “death” itself. The goal was to make Kirk “earn” the chair. I get it and it makes sense. But the Khan elements were just far too distracting and the “death” was lacking of any kind of real loss. Mainly because we knew this was movie #2 of what are normally 3 picture deals. And next because we have only been invested in this version of these two as friends for only less than two movies at that point. I would wager the film would have done the same or similar gate had Khan been removed as the only people that really probably offended were the hard cores like me. I get that they need to make the films for a broad audience. Not just the Trek fans. But it is possible to please them both, if they put a little more effort into it.
And for the record, my opinion is that Beyond did lousy gate a large part because of the marketing and particularly that first trailer. Also, I think the two sequel films gate were affected by the films that preceded them somewhat as well.
But Beyond was nowhere close to STID though. The marketing certainly was but the film itself wasn’t as hated.
Tiger, better being either loved or hated like stid if the majority still liked it and made it successful and critically acclaimed, than being like beyond where some old fans love it online but in the end of the day, it doesn’t influence the overal success of the movie because most of the audience didn’t care about it.
Better being hated or loved than getting ‘meh’ feelings, or positive reviews saying that the general plot was nothing special and that old fans would probably enjoy it more than fans of the first two or the general audience. The first movie was too hated more than beyond by a certain side of the audience, but there is no doubt that the first is still more popular and successful than beyond.
Some people really don’t understand that what some old trek fans want isn’t what reboot fans want, let alone what the whole audience wants, so when these people like a movie, their comments end up being more bad pubblicity than anything else.
Us trek fans are already a minority in the audience so making a movie just for us would be counterproductive, it figures if pleasing only a side of our fandom can make a movie successful. It’s a minority of the minority, it’s just hopeless.
It definitely was Marja. It was crazy just how outspoken people were about it. I honestly believe everyone who made it did with the best intentions but this is also why you should build stories around blatant fan service, especially if people feel you got it wrong.
Except STID wasn’t the most successful or most seen Star Trek film of all time. Looking at ticket inflation, the film comes short of ST09, TMP, and VH, and barely surpasses Khan. And that doesn’t take into account the many people who’ve discovered those films since their release. Sounds like he’s just playing nice with those few fans still nostalgic for STID.
Pegg is right about Beyond its a very good movie he did really well considering the short time frame to get it launched.
I agree.
I just wish they’d had more than a brief glancing moment between Uhura and Spock at the end.
Oh well.
Pacing is why it ended that way they also cut the ST5 injoke trailer lines after McCoy says about do you really want to head back out again!
For me, the first movie is hands down the best and much better than both stid and beyond where they failed to make a worthy sequel and recapture the magic the first created. We would make an equally strong movie only if we combined the two sequels together using their good elements, but both have their hit and misses aspects. Both are stuck in nostalgia at the expense of developing the potential of this trek’s reality and its version of the characters.
Glad you liked it. For me, Trek 2009 was dreadful beyond all measure.
I find that the movies have good middle chunks but are lacking in the openings and endings. I usually start the 2009 movie with Kirk as an adult, then turn off when the romulan part of the plot takes over near the end. For STID I skip the Khan start and watch until the “I am Khan” line comes up. I’ve only seen Beyond once, but from what I remember, only the motorcycle bit and the revenge ending were tedious.
ST09 was a great foundation on which to build on. They waited too long with STID to capitalise as well as they should’ve and Beyond was just a “meh” for many. I think its terrible how Trek has been managed post ST09, where the sky was the limit.
Anyway, SJ Clarkson worked on the awesome “Life on Mars”, so I live in hope.
I agree, I think with STID they just decided to take the easy way out by remaking a classic Trek film. If they had only gone for more original stories, more adventure, new aliens, new unknown lifeforms and got the idea of exploration back to the forefront it would have been better I think and it certainly looked like that was the direction they wanted to go after ST 09 but like I said, I think they just wanted to take the easy way out by remaking The Wrath of Khan. They tried to salvage this a bit in Beyond, but by that time it was a little too late. Whatever happens I want something new and original for the new film, don’t take the easy or convenient way anymore, be creative and use your imagination.
ST09 rushed the characters into their bridge positions. I think it was a mistake and they were robbed of any meaningful journey in that film, particularly Kirk who went from Cadet to Captain.
Yes, Frost. Kirk going from Cadet to Captain asked us to ‘suspend disbelief’ just a little too much.
To play the Devil’s Advocate here… One of the themes of Darkness was that perhaps Kirk was given the chair too soon. It was about him learning to respect the position he was in. I think they succeeded in that aspect. My issue was with HOW they got him to that point. It was poorly executed. (The Khan stuff as well as the “evil Admiral”.)
Will Scotty be getting facial hair anytime in the future? Can’t wait to see what Clarkson has in store for ST 4.
I’d love to see Pegg-Scotty with facial hair finally!
hope its out in time for the 40th anniversary of the movie series.
but out fall/winter 2019, not rushed out for the summer.
Due in 2020 isn’t it?
@JP — I hope not. I never liked Scotty with a beard.
@JP … or that dumb haircut from the beginning of the third season
Doohan had a killer beard in the 70s, very Sean Connery like. Going ‘stache-only made him look like a railroad engineer from the 19th century in the TOSflicks, didn’t dig that.
This is great News I guess they may Start Casting in June and they may Start Filming in July.
This is going much faster than a lot of us thought with practically no real news about it for years. And now it looks like everything is firing on all cylinders. My guess, my ONLY guess is it was the budget that was holding things up since it clearly looks like it wasn’t the story or who would even direct it. It seems like Paramount was scared of making another one until they probably felt comfortable with how much it would cost. What else could it be since it sounds like its literally the same story they announced back in 2016 and even bringing Hemsworth back with the same writers.
Hopefully it will start filming this year although summer may be a bit early. But it would be nice to have two Star Trek productions filming at the same time again!
Chatter aside, this hasn’t been green lit yet. All the usual pre-production that needs to happen before anyone steps in front of a camera hasn’t started at all yet. Assuming that it was green lit today, principle photography would start first quarter 2019. At the earliest.
‘trek’ movies, like the bond films, can be good, great or disappointing but never truly bad.
each has something to commend them, even ‘final frontier’.
To this day my worst film hands down is Nemesis and I have seen that movie five times lol. Thats the thing about Trek films for me, even the bad ones grow on me in time. I never hated any of the Kelvin films like others but never loved them either. But I can honestly watch all of them no problem.
OK, TMP is still a real chore to get through. I think I seen that one maybe three times tops.
‘nemesis’ has its moments, riker and picard’s last scene together being one of them.
a nice call back to ‘farpoint’.
‘its been a honor serving with you’
‘the honor was mine’
TMP looks better in the dvd director’s version but i watch original on blu ray a lot.
must be that goldsmith score brings me back to it.
‘stop competing with me, decker!’
If Nemesis had a more competent director who didn’t cut out all the character interaction scenes in favor of more action then it would have been one of the best Trek films ever made. I heard once that the actors actually wanted to make an Actor’s cut of Nemesis to fix some of the mistakes of Stuart Baird. I still remember watching the deleted stuff of Nemesis on DVD and shouting at my screen at how and why were these scenes cut. Usually I don’t get like this over deleted scenes because in most films they are rightly cut, but here oh my god, talk about ruining a film. Having said all this though, yeah I can still watch and enjoy Nemesis which again comes back to Tony’s point even the “bad” Trek films have lots of things to enjoy.
ironically stuart baird is usually brought in as an editor to ‘save’ films that have got into a mess in post production.
Which goes to show that being a good editor does not necessarily make you a good director.
Nemesis doesn’t define Baird as a bad director.
I like the job that he did with with U.S Marshalls.
He could have done much better with a film that was a sequel to “The Fugitive”. I would just say he did a competent job. You would think they would have given him another directing job by now if he wasn’t a bad director. Now don’t get me wrong, he is a very good editor, but his directing is just bland.
‘executive decision’ is his best film so far.
that twist with steven seagal!!!
Even though it was entertaining, the direction was still Lacklustre in my opinion.
he’s 0 for 3, they’re all seriously unwatchable. He just burns film to be able to cut-cut-cut, and relies on Goldsmith to make the thing seem professional and push the right buttons. I actually can’t think of a director I dislike more, and that’s saying a lot (I at least got through FORCE AWAKENS and enjoyed it, which is the first time ever for me with any Abrams-directed product.)
Just ask George Lucas!
they really should have kept the scene with the new no.1.
See. and I think the cut scenes show just how awful Baird was at staging – that Data/Picard scene is just endless, and shot in the most boring way possible. Baird has no business behind a camera based on his three high-profile opportunities … except for hiring Goldsmith each time (a crutch that is sadly now no longer an option), I don’t think I agreed with any of his creative calls.
Just to clarify — I’m not saying Baird wrecked that cut scene, which deserved to be cut anyway, because Logan’s script is terrible — but that he didn’t do anything to bring the scene to life, which it absolutely needed. Compare it with the very lengthy Picard/Doherty scene in the middle of INS … Frakes doesn’t have to pull out crazy camera angles, but he does keep us involved in the scene (which, admittedly, is at least better written than the NEM stuff, though still infuriating for its own confused state, which can be applied to most of INS.)
I recall watching the deleted scenes from Nemesis. It seemed to me that the bulk of them were cut for pacing and seemed to be the right move. We really didn’t need more dialog from the Riker wedding and the alternate ending wasn’t anything to write home about. What was I missing, Alphantrion?
Did you see the one with Data and Picard?, I thought the discussion there was good. I don’t remember the whole detail of the scene but that the dialogue wasn’t bad and I liked the alternate ending too. Wesley’s scenes from the wedding should have also been kept to make him more than a glorified extra. Apparently there were more scenes though than the ones from the extras, the actors even wanted to have an “actors cut” of the film. I believe the original cut was somewhere close to 155 minutes.
It’s been a while and I do not recall extra scenes with Data and Picard. I would need to go back to the disc to check. Regarding the wedding, I think it went on about as long as it probably should have. Maybe a bit TOO long. Any longer would have been a bit much, IMHO. And you can never do wrong by cutting out a Wesley Crusher scene. Few liked that character anyway. The only thing I would have done myself is cut out the Prime Directive violating desert chase on the planet surface. Or at least come up with an alternative that didn’t feel tagged on just to have an action sequence. Even Baird himself in his commentary said, “This is just an action sequence”. Even he seemed to think it was there just to liven up a slow part of the movie.
I just watched Nemesis the other night again for the first time in a long time, and found it surprisingly enjoyable. Maybe I’m just a little nostalgic for the TNG gang, but I liked it. I find all of the films rewatchable, except for STID. No can do. It’s just taking up space in my dvd collection.
Dan, the one and only one reason I have a copy of The Voyage Home is because it was included in the BD box set of the first six movies! When I was buying the films on DVD I skipped it.
I understand, Tony. But there is one film in the series that I find difficult to watch. The Voyoage Home. When DVD’s came out I bought all the films EXCEPT that one. When the BD set came out I bought the set but didn’t watch TVH for years. Finally watched it for the 2nd time about 3 years ago. It’s actually even worse than I remembered. And I recall coming out of THV in the theater thinking the franchise was dead. Yes, I was wrong about that. The general non-fan population seemed to like it. Conversely, I do not to this day understand the hate for Nemesis. Sure, there are bad elements in it. (Argo, for example). But overall I found it to be engaging and a very nice send off for the back up cast. That entire last act was really good.
I think in order to enjoy The Voyage Home you have to be engaged with the story. If the story doesn’t get you, then it is a very difficult film to enjoy because it doesn’t actually have lots of action beats. This was the comedic Trek with an underlying message about protecting animals, but not everyone can enjoy all forms of comedy. Personally I loved The Voyage Home, because it made me think about certain issues and made me laugh at the same time and at least had some kind of internal consistency. While watching Nemesis, I couldn’t find this consistency, the characters were acting out of character and I was always asking questions to myself like “So if this is B4, Where is Lore? and why is no one mentioning Lore? Why is Picard an Off Road Racer? What were they doing on the planet with the dune buggy? Why doesn’t Picard and Shinzon look more similar? Who are these Remans? Why haven’t we seen them before?” If I have to ask this many question, then the film is obviously not working because it doesn’t give me any answer, it just makes me ask more questions. Saying all these, there were parts of Nemesis that I enjoyed too, especially at the end.
I disagree. I think the less you know about Star Trek the easier it is to enjoy TVH. That is the film where everyone is acting out of character. None of the jokes landed. This is the fault of the writers. Shatner showed he has comic timing from Tribbles and as Denny Crane. There were tons of inconsistencies in TVH. Time travel became a tired and worn concept. The plot made zero sense from day one and they gave our characters 100% complete control of time. Thus removing any sense of urgency to succeed at what they were doing. I get the message but it was way too obvious. Pie in the face, or even “Let That be your Last Battlefield” obvious. I don’t mind underlying messages but I really don’t like being preached to.
Regarding Nemesis, I will agree that B4 works better when you ignore Lore. Which I love doing because Lore was a tremendously stupid soap opera concept to begin with. Data’s evil twin? Puh-lease. Data can’t use contractions? Are you kidding me? I agree with the Argo sequence. Picard and Shinzon are decades apart in age and Shinzon was beaten in the mines. They looked similar enough for the story to work. (BTW, an early concept was to have Stewart play both roles) The Remans were originally mentioned in TOS. Romulus and Remus were twin planets. Although Remans were never fleshed out ever. A also agree that the Nosferatu look of them didn’t work for me but that is more window dressing than anything else. All the characters in Nemesis seemed to behave like themselves and acted as we have come to expect them to. Yes, there were some flaws in the film. But Insurrection had a ton more and was easily the worst of the TNG features. From my point of view the main reason people seem to be annoyed with Nemesis is because it was not quite a good a sendoff as TUC was for the original guys. It wasn’t but I think it was still pretty good in it’s own right.
but ‘voyage’ was able to get the casual viewer in to see a ‘trek’ movie, not just fans.
being ‘out of character’ seemed to entertain them more.
‘The plot made zero sense from day one and they gave our characters 100% complete control of time.’
not so, it seemed very easy to get to time warp but the ship could easily have been destroyed in transit.
‘I get the message but it was way too obvious. I really don’t like being preached to’
again, for the casual viewer to take in but really ‘trek’ has been preachy for decades.
At least he doesn’t have the love it or leave it mentality. But honestly, I wouldn’t care if his Scotty was recast. He has not come close in my opinion to getting the character right. Others have done a good job playing the original characters, but I still feel Pegg was miscast.
Interesting you mention this, personally out of the all the recast characters his depiction of Scotty for me actually resembles a spoof the most. While I watch the films I can relate to all to other characters but when Scotty comes it takes me out of the movie a little bit. It seems like he is trying too hard, but would be better if he just lets the character be more natural.
Pegg plays himself and it gets redundant. I might argue he got the role because of that, Scotty being the only available pretext to give him a part among the main crew since he couldn’t play Chekov, Sulu or Mccoy.
The others are different too, but they are more in a “actors making the character their own version” way which is fine and pretty much the purpose of a reboot.
Urban often falls into the making an impersonation/parody/trying too hard trap too, but in his case it’s because he’s too much influenced by being a tos fanboy than him playing himself (if anything, he wants to play DeForest out of respect for him, but it goes at the expense of making us truly see HIS own Mccoy. He doesn’t give himself a chance)
See, even if Urban is parodying, he is actually doing it in a good way and with respect to DeForest Kelley. With Pegg like you said I just see Pegg playing Scotty and the parody doesn’t really work as a result. I mean I am sure Pegg does have more range and he could really do better if he put more effort into it.
I feel that Pegg was sorely miscast, and in ST09, Scotty was just horribly written.
And yeah, it did feel like Scotty was just a buffoon, when he was the exact opposite on the show (the dumb ST5 head bang notwithstanding).
Scotty was a brilliant engineer–the best Starfleet has to offer. The miracle worker.
And when he was in command, he always kicked butt. He had the brains to be a captain, but the gift to be an engineer.
They got him so wrong. I love Chris Doohan’s version of his father’s character. Terrific, and it stinks that a fan film portrayed Scotty better than a real film.
The last 2 movies did better with Scotty, but I’m not a fan of Simon Pegg’s version.
I loved Karl Urban’s McCoy. That was the best casting they did. Kirk, Spock and Uhura were very well cast too. Sulu? Eh. And I felt Chekov was not right either.
I would have no problem with Scotty bring re-cast either, and agree Pegg plays the character to spoof him. Montgomery Scott was a bad a*s character in TOS, up for a scrap, ready to take command when he had to, and was Hell on Wheels once he got in the captain’s chair. The Enterprise was a very dangerous ship the few times he was in charge. Pegg doesn’t bring that persona to the character at all, instead using him for punch lines and goofy interaction with his little alien sidekick with the acid-snot.
Of the KU main players, Urban does the best with McCoy, imo. He has the gravity as an actor that Kelley had, but not the great writing Kelley had to work with the character, which is a shame. Pine does a decent Kirk, and Quinto, well if he’d stop weeping every film, might make a decent Spock. I know Nimoy liked him, so there’s that. I don’t make a comparison between Nichelle Nichols and Zoe Saldana, because the character of Uhura is so vastly different, multi-layered in the KU universe than in Prime.
If these actors had better scripts to work with, I think it possible they’d make the characters they play properly shine.
“Diplomats. The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank.”
“This is Lieutenant Commander Scott. The Enterprise takes no orders, except those of Captain Kirk and we will stay right here until he returns. And if you make any attempt to board or commandeer the Enterprise, it will be blown to bits along with as many of you as we can take with us.”
Yeah, I cannot imagine Pegg reading those lines convincingly. But then, KU Scott is not the same as Prime.
It’s hokey dialogue.
Exactly, I don’t think the producers of the new films were really aware of the characterization of Original series Scotty, or they just didn’t bother with it. It’s like they took all the cliches that popped up about Scotty in popular media and meshed them into Pegg’s version. I would have been fine if Pegg had actually played him a little more serious, I don’t expect the characterization to be exactly like TOS, but he could have put some harder edges around the character.
From my point of view part of the reason Pegg got cast is because in the reboot Scotty was written more as comedy relief than anything else. Not saying that was a good or bad decision. It’s just different.
So basically they wrote the character to the actors strength. I would have preferred if Pegg had considered moving out of his comfort zone a little and be more dramatic.
I thought Scotty had a lot of dramatic stuff in ID, he’s the only one really bucking Kirk’s headstrong stupidity early on.