Internet How Star Trek [2009] should have ended.

[Pipcard]

There was a Dyson Sphere in an episode of The Next Generation.

 

[Andy44]

Can you tell me how to tell if a film's "script, plot, pacing, characterization and acting suck"?

Yes. If the opening credits say "Michael Bay" or "J. J. Abrams", all of the above will suck.

Likewise, if the cast includes any of the following names:
Ben Affleck
Nicolas Cage
Kristin Stewart
(this list is incomplete)

There is a pretty good chance the movie will suck. All of these actors have on occassion accidentally wound up in good movies, so it's not 100%.

 

[RisingFury]

Even the special effects are awful because they look fake.

Exactly! This is in stark opposition to all other Star Trek films and series', where the special effects look totally realistic!

 

[Pipcard]

Now can you tell me why it sucks instead of just saying, "it sucks because it was directed by this person"?

 

[Andy44]

Now can you tell me why it sucks instead of just saying, "it sucks because it was directed by this person"?

Because the aforementioned persons suck. Duh.

---------- Post added at 01:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:29 AM ----------

If the movie has Mila Kunis in it, I will likely watch it, regardless of whether it meets my other criteria for sucking.

 

[Pipcard]

Ad hominem ("because the persons suck") + circular logic. Okay then.

 

[ISProgram]

I could've sworn that Trekkies (you guy know who they are, presumably) said that Star Trek (2009) was one of the best such films of Star Trek. Interestingly, they hated Into Darkness...

...I have to find that source.

 

[Urwumpe]

Such things tend to be highly subjective.

The destructive rating of "sucks" yes.

But then, you can really also rate movies by artistic skills and technical qualities. Take Johnny Depp there as example - his greatest virtue is not that he played in the right movie. The important detail of him is timing and articulation - which not every actor has.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I could've sworn that Trekkies (you guy know who they are, presumably) said that Star Trek (2009) was one of the best such films of Star Trek. Interestingly, they hated Into Darkness...

...I have to find that source.

I can't speak for all trekkers of course, but I could put ST-09 as "one" of the best. I mean, it was alright. Particularly if you keep in mind the tongue-in-cheekness of it, and that it hit all the proper stereotypes (Bones complaining, Kirk w/ green alien hot chick, Spock being Spockish, Scotty being awesome, etc).

I'd put STII Wrath of Khan above Into Darkness, but I enjoyed both. The final Frontier is at the bottom of the stack.

Something to keep in mind with Trek, is that in order for it to be really-really good, it's got to meet a mystical formula that really can't be defined. For example; on one end you have the top notch episode of City on the Edge of Forever (with a very young Elizabeth Taylor, and penned by the awesome Harlan Ellison) together with Let That be your Last Battlefield, on the other end you've got the campy low-brow episode of The Trouble with Tribbles. One one side is some of the best writing on television at the time, and the other is sight gags and a bar fight. For every great episode of Trek there are several that are utterly forgettable.

My take on the franchise - Some had the magic (TOS, TNG, DS9) and some not so much. Voyager was hit or miss, but overall pretty OK. Enterprise got better I thought towards the end, but it was too little too late.

If you want to see Trek in the purest form, check out the indie films stuff on youtube, one of them got George Takai to reprise his role as Capt. Sulu.

Star Trek to me is kind of like Margaritaville. In idyllic place in my mind where we can all get along and everything will be OK in the end. Margaritaville adds a beach house and some rum based drinks (and some hot chicks sunbathing).

Now... Queen to queen's level three.

 

[Ghostrider]

Well, mostly it's not the actor's fault if the movie is a bomb (unless the acting is truly terrible) and often it's not even the director's. Producers are to blame, with "executive meddling" being a serious downfall cause with the screenplay being rewritten halfway through or alternative endings tacked on when the test audience reacts unfavourably.

There's an old joke in Hollywood: a director coming from the indie scene is contracted by a big studio to shoot a movie on the life of Jesus Christ. One day, the producer - big Hollywood type - comes to visit the set and take a look around. He asks the director: "who are those twelve hobos down there?"
The director answers "well, those are the Apostles."
The producer makes a displeased grunt and points at the director with his Havana cigar: "Now listen up: I'm putting the money here and I say this is not going to be one of your indie two-bits productions. I'm coming back tomorrow and I want to see no less than 5000 of your Apostles. Got it?"

And that's the way it goes. Sort of.

 

[jedidia]

Ben Affleck
Nicolas Cage

I must object quite vehemently, especially on the second count.

Never heard of the chick you mentioned, so no oppinion there.

 

[n122vu]

I honestly came into this thread thinking the HISHE vid Andy44 posted was what this was going to be about. But anyway, I watched the 2009 movie, and although it was a great action movie, it just wasn't Trek to me. I've been watching Star Trek since I was 3 (which was 36 years ago btw) and although I'm open to some reboots and new 'ideas' as it were (huge fan of both TOS and TNG), I don't think this movie was that good. I did like Chris Pine's almost "Shatner Kirk" attitude in the Kobayashi Maru test, but aside from that I just didn't like it.

I'll save my Into Darkness thoughts for another discussion, except to say that my opinion is less negative but still not great.

Yes. If the opening credits say "Michael Bay" or "J. J. Abrams", all of the above will suck.

Likewise, if the cast includes any of the following names:
Ben Affleck
Nicolas Cage
Kristin Stewart
(this list is incomplete)

There is a pretty good chance the movie will suck. All of these actors have on occassion accidentally wound up in good movies, so it's not 100%.

I agree completely.

 

[Pipcard]

I just don't get film critics.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I typically don't listen to film critics anyway. I go to a movie to be entertained.

Star Trek = movie
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon = film
Blazing Saddles = movie
The girl with the dragon tattoo = film
Sucker Punch = hmmm, movie mostly, but seriously, what's not to like?
The boy in the striped pajamas = film
etc and so on. Granted these are only my opinions, YMMV.

With the cost of going to a theater anymore I have to seriously consider how much I want to be entertained. Because I could by a lot of booze for the cost of a ticket, popcorn and coke.

 

[jedidia]

And I always thought movie and film were just a difference between american and british english :lol:

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Only with the stereotypes

 

[orb]

Nah, film is what is/was used for recording and storage of motion pictures.

 

[Andy44]

I have changed my mind. Nicolas Cage is awesome, especially as Voltron!

---------- Post added at 11:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:22 PM ----------

Also, for those who didn't know, Cage is actually a vampire and is at least a century and a half old.

 

[Unstung]

Can you tell me how to tell if a film's "script, plot, pacing, characterization and acting suck"?

It all comes down to opinion, but I will add what I think about each one.

I don't recall much about the first movie from seeing it once after it was released, but I remember leaving Into Darkness disappointed because of its simplistic plot (which I would use interchangeably with script). Into Darkness (or any other movie) can be argued to rely on tropes (or, more specifically, overused cliches which is getting into hipster territory). Feel free to lose hours browsing this website. Now, using cliches too much can be seen very negatively because it doesn't require creativity. The same goes with a simplistic plot, one that may not require thoughtful character motivations, dialogue, symbolism, or any other literary technique and characterization.

A screenplay, or a script, is not entirely the same as a plot. Although the plot follows the direction of the screenplay, the script that has been written beforehand, so it does not account for the ultimate quality of the final product. So the screenplay can be considered as the original idea, and that can be criticized separately.

Pacing is a more specific idea that takes shape during editing. While the screenplay provides some direction for the tempo of each sequence, it really depends on the final speed of each scene. During scenes of suspense or increased action, the pace can become quicker. Visual media can have a confused pace if the speed of the camera and frequency of the cuts do not match what is occurring in the story. Gravity, for example, has long takes but the erratic camera work makes up for the infrequently changing scenes.

Characterization is simply how the characters and their motivations and revealed, which is what the actors are supposed to represent. Subtle clues about the nature of each character are the best, without having to rely on dialogue explicitly describing the character's feelings, personality, or by using cliches (getting into hipster territory again). With a wide target audience, the characterization and characters in a movie may be simplified, or dumbed down, which can be the case with Star Trek and many other action movies.

All these aspects do not even include the cinematography, which the excessive lens flare would be a notable part of. In terms of composition, cinematography borrows a lot from photography, which is a massive topic. How a scene is composed can reveal relationships between things, provide symbolism, foreshadowing, etc., or just be beautiful. But I don't want to spend three hours writing about examples.

 

[Pipcard]

This is specifically why I never became a writer (or good at viewing media critically): I'm not good at deep characterization, dialogue, plot, etc. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy something with well-written characters and character development; I'm just not creative enough to notice and appreciate "deepness" and "subtle characterization", and I'm afraid the symbolism will be some pretentious "2deep4u" thing. I also can't tell good acting from bad acting, unless it's obviously bad.

"The curtains are blue."

Also, I've known about TV Tropes for several years and I love it.

A few years ago, I actually enjoyed Michael Bay's Transformers. I didn't care if it had an incoherent plot, or if the action was "dumb, shallow, and without substance", or if the characterization was too flat. I just enjoyed it. But apparently I'm not allowed to.