Chris Pine out as Captain Kirk for new Star Trek movie. Really?

I've tolerated the three Kelvin movies but really don't care if there are no more. The casting of Pine and company was pretty good, but I hated the shaky-cam and the lens flares and the running and jumping constantly. I also really hate "impossible" spaceships - giant artistic messes that are supposed to be space vessels. I can't accept that any civilization would need to build such an unwieldy craft.

 

Indeed, I have to wonder if all of this with Harrison being Khan was added after the fact by someone on the Abrams team to add a "twist" and tie it into "Star Trek II" after the fact and then adding the conclusion. It felt forced in "Into Darkness" because the characters didn't have the depth of the relationship that we had seen in both the TV series and the movie. The conclusion felt added on and from a completely different movie frankly and undermine everything that come before.

 

You know V'Ger was a giant energy cloud with a funky-looking craft at the center, right?

 

Hey, we built the Spruce Goose, Airbus, Flying Wing, Antonov An-72 and all sorts of weird ass airplanes. That's not counting the bigger is better mentality of some military weapons. We do it all the time.

 

Any updates on the fourth film of this new Star Trek series?

 

It's dead, Jim

Paramount Has Canceled 'Star Trek 4,' And Disney's 'Star Wars' Is To Blame

 

That's unfortunate. I was looking forward to seeing the new cast travel back in time and kidnap a couple of whales.

(I actually liked the first three films and hoped they would come up with some original stories)

 

Just imagine the cast running and jumping for two hours...

 

Maybe they could meet The Tenth Doctor and his daughter. He told her there would be a lot of running.

 

I strongly agree that having "Harrison" to turn out to be Khan was a negative that overshadowed everything else in the movie. I did like Cumberbatch in the role, and that he actually showed us the physical viciousness of Khan that was only hinted at in Khan's previous appearances. However, making him Khan just set up expectations that, to me, put the entire movie on a rail (meaning that while there may be variations in the story, it basically had a set path to the ending).

 

For me, doing something so self-referential in the second film demonstrated they didn't have any new ideas for continuing the series.

 

The entire Khan thing was stupid in Into Darkness. When I saw it at theater when Cumberwhatshisname said " I am Khan" some guy really loudly and sarcastically yelled out "no ****". In the original timeline they had 79 episodes and one feature film to earn the Spock/Kirk relationship over Spock dying. We had one film where they didn't even seem to like each other in the Kelvin universe. Sorry but I just didn't care when Kirk gave his life.

Another thing that bothered me in these is films is that I am bipolar and I am less emotionally all over the place than Spock was in the three films. Also Star Fleet showed how corrupt they were in Into Darkness so I don't buy for a minute that they wouldn't have drained Khan and his crew dry of their blood once it was found to bring Kirk and the Tribbles back to life.

I say good riddance to these films. Discovery is almost as bad. I have zero faith in the new Picard series. Oh well, at least I have the orginal series and their films and TNG and films.

 

Yes, I remember thinking, everyone seems to be rather nonchalant about discovering A CURE FOR DEATH. Even in a universe where they take time travel in stride, I would think this would be a big deal.

 

too bad...I like the others. I may be solo on this...; )

 

Based on previous stories, I don't know how much of a interest there is in that. Consider the Star Trek - The Next Generation episode "Rascals" where Picard, Ensign Ro, Keiko O'Brien, and Guinan are suddenly deaged. Barring any intervention, the four would just grow up normally again but each would gain decades (likely centuries in the case of Guinan) of added life with no seeming downside. This would seem to be a great way to extend life (just repeat the process every few decades), yet it was never mentioned again.

 

Yes, it's dead, but that article is a load of nonsense!

The reason JJ Trek is dead is because of poor returns (on big budgets) and especially the total bombing of Beyond which was ridiculously expensive due to extensive reshoots. The day JJ Trek 's goose was cooked was when Paramount lost major funding from their Chinese investors due to the scale of the financial failure.

With no funding in place for Trek 4, Paramount scrambled to get others' onboard, but could not get what they needed. So they needed to cut costs, to make the next film a mid-level feature instead of a big splashy blockbuster. This meant asking the major actors to take a big pay cut from what was contractually agreed to previously. This is when Hemsworth and Pine walked and the wheels fell off. In fact, Paramount is close to the edge of going bankrupt unless they can pull off some major hits in the near future.

The only similarity to Star Wars is that they tried to turn Star Trek into a Star Wars level space opera, not realizing that the two properties are quite different. Trek fandom has never been as massive as SW, but trying to appeal to the same audience (to get the same bucks), simply devalues the Trek IP.

 

"Run, you clever boy..."

 

Yeah it was dumb. It was designed to be clever but in retrospect, I think it damaged the film for many fans and undermined the film itself. It would have been fine to make hm a member of section 31 or some other superhuman. I’d also point out the relationship between Spock and Kirk for the moment when they did the twist wasn’t earned and played on things that Abrams’ hadn’t earned either. It was a clever twist but it could just as easily have been the character for Requiem for Methuselah i.e., the immortal man. The reason he was fighting or provided the technology could also have been worked with as well. I also didn’t buy that Khan could develop weapons superior to what anyone else in the era who was brilliant as well could have come up with.

 

I felt they had some new ideas but were so insecure about them that they felt they had to graft on the most successful Trek film of the original cast. It also struck me as the type of corporate thinking I really dislike sometimes from Abrams and Paramount. It would have been fine with a brand new villain that had been enhanced by section 31 who went rogue but, noooooooooo, they had to add this twist just to be so clever when in reality, it portrayed how lazy the narrative was. Abrams is all about reference pop culture moments to help “sell” something essentially “regifting”.

 

Or Hellboy’s girlfriend “you should be running....”

 

I will say this, I like Chris Pine, I think he’s a solid actor with good charisma, and a good fit for Kirk, even if the writing didn’t always serve him well.

I really dug the 09 film. Is it a good Star Trek film? Probably not, but I thought it was a good popcorn flick. Into Darkness, I still liked but I thought the ending was bullcrap, like, wow, you couldn’t even————/-/ for the rest of the movie. And also Wrath Of Khan In many ways felt unearned. Beyond I saw on redbox, it was just alright. So I could take or leave a fourth film.

 

Very well said. No studio cancels a massive franchise if it's making big money. And the reality was that the Star Trek films had become enormous expenses with vanishing returns. And the stars were due to get big raises with the next film, and word has it was that Chris Pine and guest start Chris Hemsworth were due to get north of $10 million for just their roles alone, plus I'm guessing another $40M-$50M in above-the-line costs (dozens of actors, producers, writers, and the director), and then they had to actually pay for the rest of the film.

We do live in tough times when a film like Star Trek: Into Darkness cost $185M but made "only" $467M, which was not enough to justify the investment. They were looking for Marvel/Star Wars-type money, which would be at least $600M-$800M or more. And I think that was an unrealistic goal for Star Trek.

I agree 100%: the casting of the crew on all the films was great. I was particularly sad at the loss of Anton Yelchin, who was a terrific actor with a good presence. And Pine did great work for what they needed for the role.

 

So.....
no "Taratino Trek", then?.....

 

The cast was fine. The production values were fine.

I just got tired of the lack of originality in the plots (fan service) and that each movie boiled down to a 10 minute fist fight to end it.

meh...

 

I agree, Into Darkness ruined the Trek reboot for me. When there was a brief rumor that Cumberbatch would actually be playing Gary Mitchell in the movie, I was very excited because I think that would be a Star Trek story worth re-telling, but doing the Khan thing all over again was such a desperate grab that it was shameful. And anyway, I thought the whole reason for changing the timeline in the first movie was so that they could tell new stories, not just bollix up the old ones.

I've only seen a couple of episodes of Discovery and man, does that show take itself seriously. These people forget that Star Trek was nearly half about having fun.

Re: Starfleet - Ever notice how in Star Trek movies and series, going all the way back at least to The Undiscovered Country, everyone over the rank of Captain is an evil, tyrannical scumbag? So much for that utopian future.