Re: Star Wars originally planned to have 9 parts?
Episode IV was grafted onto the scrolling credits a year after Empire Strikes Back was released. It wasn't fore-planned as a trilogy.
Star Trek saviour JJ Abrams joins the dark side: Star Wars VII
Star Wars creator George Lucas has given the thumbs-up to the appointment of JJ Abrams as director of the seventh outing for the sci-fi franchise. Lucas said the Star Trek helmsman is the "ideal choice" to take the reins of the movie, which will be the first Walt Disney Co foray into the Star Wars universe since it swallowed …
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Monday 28th January 2013 14:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Star "Coronation Street" Wars
"I've just given up going to the cinema as there just seems to be one mediocre movie after another"
You've seen "Life of Pi" too? So ****ing boring that I wanted to scream, and stamp my feet like an angry toddler. A bit of mindless, commercailly exploitative Trek or Star Wars would be a blessed relief.
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Tuesday 29th January 2013 17:20 GMT Tom 13
Re: Can't really do much worse...
Agree about EP1.
Not sure it's even worth a look at the trailers for the new one.
I heard from a friend that Lucas feels that no matter what he would have done, he would have pissed somebody off so he's washed his hands of it. If true, I'd tell him the one thing that was GUARANTEED to piss people off royally was to make an obviously derivative movie based on the first (episode IV) movie for the launch of the prequel. Yes there were bits of the movie that were fun, but too few and not worked well into the plot. I've been of the opinion he should have farmed out 1 to 3 because the defined story arc is something heroic writers are bad at: heart breaking tragedy. We knew it was supposed to be the fall of a Jedi into the dark side. And at the end of the 3 movies, I still didn't believe the character would have moved to the dark side if he were real. He only wound up there because the script said he had to. Sort of a reverse Deus Ex Machina plot failure.
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Monday 28th January 2013 16:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Because the old Star Trek films were deep cinematic masterpieces? Come on, I love ST but it's just trashy sci-fi."
Star Trek and Star Wars (the original trilogy) both had decent characterisation, emotional depth, values; things Abrams does not really seem to recognise, which is why he is not qualified for either, let alone both.
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Monday 28th January 2013 11:57 GMT amanfromMars 1
CyberIntelAIgent Command and Control is a AIMediaBasedD Live Wire SMARTR Fire Operation*
Come on, Lester, don't just stop there whenever you've built up a head of steam ....... Fear is the path to Disney. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to internet flamewars. Internet flamewars lead to secrets exposed. Exposed secrets lead to loss of corrupting control. Loss of corrupting control leads to new power orders. New power orders lead to New Orderly Worlds boldly going where no man has gone before
*This program is brought to you courtesy of the MOD..... and believing otherwise, and in dogged official and semi-official anonymous spokesperson denials is an elementary component in Super IntelAigent Stealth which is guaranteed to deliver Stellar Active Service in Virtual Progress ..... Per Ardua ad Meta Astra and all that crazy jazz.
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Monday 28th January 2013 11:57 GMT Greg J Preece
Gah, don't mention the name Abrams... And don't you dare call him Star Trek's "saviour".
Star Trek XI was an atrocity. Even if you can summon the mental gymnastics to overcome the plot holes, the adherence to the "spiky haired young people who inexplicably know kung fu" demographic, the eye-burning abuse of lens flares and the utter stupidity required to write off decades of existing Trek, it looked, sounded and acted nothing like Star Trek. No diplomacy, no intellect, no sense of wonder or exploration, just BLOW SHIT UP!
Star Trek XII can go fuck itself.
Fortunately, I've long since given up on Star Wars. It was overrated to begin with, and the prequel trilogy was hilariously bad.
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Monday 28th January 2013 13:09 GMT Greg J Preece
It wasn't called ST 9. You're idealising ST to a ridiculous level, the original has none of those things you talk about. You're seriously trying to defend a show which had William Shatner as the lead as being serious, well-written TV?
The original doesn't have any diplomacy? Any idealism at all? You're seriously trying to tell me that Gene Roddenberry conceived of anything even slightly in line with Star Trek XI? Did you watch Star Trek at any point? Do you know what the Federation is supposed to stand for? Don't be a moron.
And if you're going to have a cry about how it's totally not related to the original Star Trek because it doesn't have the number XI in the title, then
a) understand what number XI is before whining, so you look less of an idiot, and
b) explain the part at the beginning of the film where Abrams bends over backwards to connect the film to its predecessors, then writes them off and pisses on their graves
Christ, I'm not even that big a Star Trek fan, but I've seen the majority of it. More than enough to know just how afwul Star Trek XI is.
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Monday 28th January 2013 14:06 GMT JDX
Greg... having watched every episode of ST, TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise as well as every single ST film made, and having read the books of all the original ST stories to boot, I still think the new film is good and authentic - clever even.
Perhaps your brain simply can't understand it is possible for two people to have the same facts at their disposal and come to different conclusions?
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Monday 28th January 2013 17:39 GMT IsJustabloke
Agree... It wasn't "Trek" per se but ...
it was a pretty good and entertaining film. I am the only fan of Star Trek amongst my friends and yet we all enjoyed the Star Trek movie allbeit for different reasons.
People that get as wound up about it as Greg need to work out what is missing form their lives that makes them so anal about a fukcing TV show / Movie series.
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Monday 28th January 2013 19:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Don't waste your time trying to explain them - people now are too used to videogames, sci-fi became just "zap around in a strange ship, blaste you laser around and kill the horrible monster - and add some kung-fu here and there, please, and yes, some scantily dressed women so nerds and not so nerds are aroused...".
Whatever needs a brain connected to undestand the plot and say "hey, it's an interesting point of view challenging mine", and not just a stomach full of popcorn is too much tor the director, the producers, and the target audience. Abrams is the perfect director for such kind of movies.
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Tuesday 29th January 2013 17:29 GMT Tom 13
Re: ore than enough to know just how afwul Star Trek XI is.
I am a fan of the original series even with all of its flaws. And you've absolutely nailed the problem.
Star Trek worked because Roddenberry had a utopian vision of the future, but was tempered by the realities of making the show for execs who were anything but utopians. When Next Gen came out, they gave Roddenberry a blank check to do what he wanted to, and without the tempering of the hovering non-utopian execs who wanted fight scenes and love interests in every episode, it stank. Until they booted Roddenberry high enough into the ranks that he no longer affected actual production and it became a watchable show. Star Trek XI is what happens when the non-utopian execs make the movie without the structure the utopianist envisioned. And it stinks just as much as when the utopianist ran the show.
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Monday 28th January 2013 13:42 GMT John Sanders
@Greg J Preece - It is a movie
You can not have those things on a movie which tries to appeal to the widest possible audience.
In a movie you can not have 8 characters and focus on all of them all the time, also the movie has to move at a much faster pace than a TV episode.
Startrek XI is guilty pleasure, you know it is not terribly good (black hole substance... abuse of time travel...) but it is fun to watch, and doesn't fall into SW-EP1 territory... at least not too much.
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Monday 28th January 2013 11:58 GMT Shasta McNasty
Reality Check
The reboot of Star Trek was a reasonable film. It was never going to live up to the fanbois who spent far too much time thinking about the minor technicalities of FICTION.
Now the same will be said of the Star Wars films, with the usual "not as good as the original" / "annoying new characters" / "Plot hole because the rules of FICTIONAL technology were broken".
Lighten up. The films need to be enjoyed by everyone, not just those who spent their spare time dressed up as FICTIONAL film characters.
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Monday 28th January 2013 12:43 GMT Sir Sham Cad
Oh boy.
OK, firstly, I agree that a film must appeal to a wider audience than followers of a genre TV series. That one you can have.
However, if you are telling the audience that this film takes place in a shared universe with the TV series (which, let's be clear, the first Abrams ST film took great pains to hammer home the idea that it didn't) then you need to have consistency with what the TV audience expects. OK, I've done my time as a die-hard Trekker who knew intricate details of each episode and the background of the technology and basically enjoyed getting proper nerdy about it and if a writer had to take into account all of the shit I know about Star Trek they'd be pretty fucked trying to write an actual story. Shared universes and continuity are a bastard to keep going for long without writing yourself into knots. That said, if you ask the audience to go into your film on the basis of a shared universe with a popular franchise then you invite that criticism if your product doesn't gel with that audience.
Star Wars is a little strange in that even the books and comics are considered to be on the "canon" scale (SW has about three levels of canon, unofficially, with "it's in the movies" as top level) so SW fans have a hell of a lot of material in that shared universe to base expectations from.
Yes, it's fiction but if you want yours to be *good* fiction then you do need to pay attention to details.
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Monday 28th January 2013 15:52 GMT Alan W. Rateliff, II
Re: Reality Check
I only had two issues with the rebooted "Star Trek," the first being its potential to become "Friends in Space." The second deals with Spock's "coming of age." In the original "Star Trek" universe, Spock finds himself after his contact with V-Ger, a very deep and soul-searching interaction with a sentient machine which desired to become human to counterbalance all its logic and immense knowledge. To me, it exemplifies the notion that knowledge and information doesn't produce answers, that a non-logical approach -- leaps of faith, if you will -- are required to adequately describe our own purpose.
The reboot, while entertaining and in some spots emotionally exciting, is not as deep.
Paris, deep...
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Monday 28th January 2013 12:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
James Bond
These debates remind me of how the Internet community was 'up in arms' and 'disgusted' at the choice of Daniel Craig as the new Bond. More than one voice was heard to say this is the end of Bond films, that it would flop, that Daniel was the 'worst choice'.
hmmm so a few films later what do we think?
For Star Wars why don't we wait and see?
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Monday 28th January 2013 12:25 GMT Lee Dowling
Re: James Bond
What do we think? I don't know. I haven't watched a Bond since the first Daniel Craig one. The guy was more wooden than a entire forest - strangely his acting as a side-character in one of the Tomb Raider movies was infinitely better, and if you can't do justice to Bond on your first outing (my personal thoughts on "rebooting" Bond back to the darker Fleming original aside), on your first serious "big break", then I have no interest in subjecting myself further.
Similarly, Red Dwarf I haven't watched since Series 8 except as literal "test" episodes for myself. The whole "Back To Earth" thing was a shambles that I didn't even get through the first full episode of. I gave them another go for Series 10 and - although I watched two episodes of that - I was so disappointed that I'd rather just not watch them. Certainly, I consider my Red Dwarf DVD collection complete without them, as I do my Bond collection without Daniel Craig.
Personally, I don't "get" Star Wars. And Star Trek is like the equivalent of "ER in space", as far as I'm concerned. Interesting enough to watch, not enough to become a "fan" of. Unfortunately, I find Trek even worse than that and wouldn't bother to buy the DVD, and the movies - dear God, no. Star Wars was great if you were a kid of a certain age for the first 2/3 movies. All the modern ones? I have literally never seen past about 10 minutes of them.
Bear in mind that I do have a terminal case of nerd. Honestly. I am every male character from The Big Bang Theory all over - they have even "pinched" some of my own lines. I don't get the Star Trek / Wars fandom but if i did, I certainly would enforce any "blacklisting" of a certain movie / actor / director quite happily.
At one point, I would have been the sort of person who buys a "complete" box set, just because. "Supporting the film I *do* like", I used to think of it as. And then I realised that all I'm doing is paying people to destroy my favourite movies in retrospect.. I gave my Blackadder series 1 disc to my ex last time I moved and never bothered to re-buy it - but I have the others. A "complete" set to me now is whatever I enjoy watching - like having Matrix but not having those other unmentionable sequels. Having Alien and Aliens (best movie ever) and (yes, I admit it) Alien 3 and then nothing else from that franchise. It makes life more fun, it doesn't destroy your impressions of a good movie, and it saves you money.
I can't be the only one.
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Monday 28th January 2013 12:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: James Bond @Lee Dowling
Personally, I don't "get" Star Wars. And Star Trek is like the equivalent of "ER in space", as far as I'm concerned. Interesting enough to watch, not enough to become a "fan" of.
Yet here you are posting an essay on a news story about new Star Wars being directed by the new Star Trek director? A phrase involving doth and protesting comes to mind.
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Monday 28th January 2013 13:09 GMT Lee Dowling
Re: James Bond @Lee Dowling
"Yet here you are posting an essay on a news story about new Star Wars being directed by the new Star Trek director?"
Apparently it's forbidden to post on a public article, and mainly on a subject which concerns the post you replied to (i.e. whether people will abandon a film franchise "just because" or will plod along buying things from it regardless), without being a "fan" of the particular example the article is about, then?
Just because I *skimmed* the article, and skimmed the comments, and cherry-picked an interesting (and relevant) side-question to reply to doesn't mean I actually care about Star Trek/Wars at all. Hell, if that was the case, this month I've apparently got to be an expert on / fan of the Oric-1 (never owned one), helium-filled hard disks (don't exist yet), cryptography (I am, but let's not get into the gritty details too much), Twitter (don't use it, except for work, believe it or not), Gangnam Style (can't stand the tune), OfCom, and about four dozen other subjects.
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Monday 28th January 2013 15:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: James Bond @Lee Dowling
"Apparently it's forbidden to post on a public article, and mainly on a subject which concerns the post you replied to (i.e. whether people will abandon a film franchise "just because" or will plod along buying things from it regardless), without being a "fan" of the particular example the article is about, then?"
No, not at all. But if you're roaming the sewer like depths of subsequent pages of comments, then it seems a bit odd that you're repeatedly claiming to have no real interest in the main topic. There's some round here might not believe you.
Personally, I think you simply haven't got enough to do at work, there's a desparate shortage of new and interesting news on the Reg, and you're commenting on dull stuff like this to try and stave off suicidal boredom. Certainly that's the case for me.
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Monday 28th January 2013 12:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: James Bond
For Star Wars why don't we wait and see?
Because George Lucas has comprehensively pissed away whatever good-will was left amongst fans of Star Wars?
I'm trying to keep an open mind, but after the three piles of shite that were Eps 1-3, not to mention Lucas' interminable meddling with the original trilogy (ie. Yet Another Remastered Version with 3.1592sec of unseen footage) it's proving to be difficult.
Although, as others have pointed out, meddling notwithstanding 'Empire' stands as a crowning moment of awesome.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
