Star Trek: The Next Threaderation

[King Postwhore]

Seriously, at least watch Shaun Of The Dead. It's dark and funny. I think you'd like it a ton.

[Kotowboy]

Edgar is known for meticulous plot details and making a small budget go a very long way.

I would love to see what he could do with a huge budget.

[JayOctavarium]

This excites me

[hefdaddy42]

He is known for slapstick comedy. He is immensely talented, but I am not at all sure he is right for something like Star Trek.

[Kotowboy]

He is known for slapstick comedy. He is immensely talented, but I am not at all sure he is right for something like Star Trek.

I'd hardly call "Spaced" slapstick comedy. He's not Adam Sandler.

Spaced is a cult sci fi sitcom which riffs on popular and nerd / geek culture.

Scott Pilgrim and World's End were both smaller budget movies and every penny is on the screen. he can certainly do good choreographed action and not just close up shaky cam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQA7HcRcLNg&spfreload=10

[rumborak]

'tis the season:

https://youtu.be/RrG4JnrN5GA

[El Barto]

He is known for slapstick comedy. He is immensely talented, but I am not at all sure he is right for something like Star Trek.

I'd hardly call "Spaced" slapstick comedy. He's not Adam Sandler.

Spaced is a cult sci fi sitcom which riffs on popular and nerd / geek culture.

Scott Pilgrim and World's End were both smaller budget movies and every penny is on the screen. he can certainly do good choreographed action and not just close up shaky cam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQA7HcRcLNg&spfreload=10

If he does it in the style of the first half of the trailer I'll be happy. If he opts for the second half action/sci-fi/laserexplosionmutantrobotbullshit I'll be gravely disappointed. Sadly, I'm not optimistic.

[Kotowboy]

Sadly, I'm not optimistic.

Well there's a surprise...

[El Barto]

Sadly, I'm not optimistic.

Well there's a surprise...

Nah, you're just being negative. 

I honestly don't know anything about this guy other than Shaun of the Dead, which was a pretty good flick if you only see it once. I think the guy's perfectly capable of directing an excellent ST film, though. Furthermore, unless they're lying about it this is going to be a deep space story, which automatically makes it far more interesting a premise than the last two. There are definite reasons to be hopeful about this. The concern is that it's still a mega-budget Hollywood blockbuster, and it's still going to have the same expectations as before, with the same target audience. As such, I doubt anybody short of Steven Spielberg would be allowed to make it as a character and suspense driven film. Action and lasers are what's expected, and sadly I suspect that's what we'll get stuck with. That trailer merely demonstrated that this guy is capable of doing either. Still, I very much hope to be wrong.

[rumborak]

https://youtu.be/4n2dGwYcp9k

Star Trek theme played on two harps by twins in uniform. Yeah.

[PowerSlave]

https://www.treknews.net/2014/12/07/jonathan-frakes-star-trek-3-bring-in-riker/

[BlobVanDam]

As much as I like the guy, I'm not convinced he'd be the best choice for a major Hollywood film, and I don't think his TNG cred would make the slightest difference.

[Kotowboy]

First Contact was decent but Inusrrrection was just bad.  I'd sooner have JJ than Frakes.

[BlobVanDam]

First Contact was decent but Inusrrrection was just bad.  I'd sooner have JJ than Frakes.

Frakes only directed those movies, he didn't produce them, so that's not all on him.
On the other hand JJ produced and directed both films, so I can squarely blame him for most of their faults.
I'll take Insurrection over Star Trek 12: The Wrath of JJ any day. It's not one of the best Trek movies, but it's not bad.

[Kotowboy]

All the TNG movies have aged really badly for me except generations which I still love.

I can watch the JJ Star Trek films again and again.

[hefdaddy42]

All the TNG movies have aged really badly for me except generations which I still love.

I can watch the JJ Star Trek films again and again.

We are opposites.  I never want to see either of them again, and I won't see this third one, either.

[BlobVanDam]

Star Trek 11 is decent, and I've watched that several times. I got Into Darkness on DVD last year for Christmas and still haven't built up the courage to watch that dog pile again. I'll watch the third one because I'm a big Trek fan, and am totally starved for scifi, but my expectations are currently pretty low. If Orci/Kurtzman were to die in some kind of horrible accident, maybe I'd have some faith.

I'd take a good classic Trek movie over either of the new ones.

[Kotowboy]

Well the 3rd one is only produced by Orci and two newcomers wrote the script. If Edsgar Wright gets the chair i'll be more excited because of how much focus he puts on his own scripts.

[BlobVanDam]

So this will have new writers? That's a good start.

[Kotowboy]

So this will have new writers? That's a good start.

Two new writers, no Kurtzman producing/writing and a new director.

[BlobVanDam]

Having Orci producing would still make me incredibly wary though, so I'm hoping for the other guy. Or anyone else. Or even nobody would be better.

[El Barto]

I'll watch condensed versions of both of them. ST 11 is 45 minutes of pretty entertaining ST and 45 minutes of chases, fights, explosions, and jumbled messes of starship battles. While I haven't tried to condense TWoJJ down, I suspect it'd work out exactly the same way.

And if any of the TNG people were to direct the thing, I'd go with Kunte Kinte. He directed some excellent episodes, including some important ones for DS9 and Timless and Similitude which are among the tops in VOY/ENT.



edit: I thought Orci was still writing? I'm with Blob. If he's completely gone my faith goes up a bit. It's purpose for the studio still concerns me, but whoever they bring on board might find a way to turn the thing around.

[rumborak]

First Contact is one of the best ST movies there is. Insurrection wasn't stellar (oh, the pun!), but still good.
At the very least Frakes knows what Star Trek is about. I don't think Abrams does. I'm all for reimagining ST, and Abrams successfully did that, but I also think they drifted away too much from that vision Roddenberry had.
In fact, if I may make that comment, it seems hip these days to portray a dystopic future. Let's you do a ton of fights, which keeps the CGI servers nice and toasty. I wish someone had the balls of going back to Roddenberry's vision of a positive future.

[hefdaddy42]

I would argue that almost anyone who makes a Star Trek film is drifting away too far from Roddenberry, because Star Trek has always worked best as an episodic TV series, not a movie.

[King Postwhore]

Agreed Hef.  I also think that Star Trek was loosing steam with the newer generation that needs all the bells and whistles of today's movies.  The hardcore fans like EB, Rumbo and Blob do not like the newer franchise but is has brought in new fans and revived a stumbling franchise.

[BlobVanDam]

Agreed Hef.  I also think that Star Trek was loosing steam with the newer generation that needs all the bells and whistles of today's movies.  The hardcore fans like EB, Rumbo and Blob do not like the newer franchise but is has brought in new fans and revived a stumbling franchise.

I wouldn't say I don't like the new franchise, as I do like the first movie, and don't mind the new universe and casting in general. I would say I don't like the modern school of scifi films that are nothing but mindless action strung together with some flimsy plot.
You'd think after two successful movies, they'd have a bit of freedom to do something a bit more intelligent, but I think it will likely be more of the same.

[King Postwhore]

I get that for sure but in this day and age, it works for the mindless drones out there looking for action films.

[rumborak]

Yeah, it's rather sad that a SciFi movie with a proper plot generates a major uproar (e.g. Interstellar), since the default is "mindless blowups". And it's particularly sad that Star Trek is more and more becoming one of those. The first movie was OK, but the second one ... eh. That copying TWOK wasn't going to work that well, particularly with a guy who doesn't look or sound like the original, should have been rather obvious.

[Kotowboy]

Jonathan Frakes has said he'd love to direct Star Trek (1)3 . He's reportedly been in touch with Paramount to offer his services and there is a trend on twitter to

"BringInRiker"

Do we think that with a mega budget - he'd be able to bring some of that First Contact style ? he can definitely "do dark". Just keep away from all the silly stuff of

Insurrection. Obviously he knows Trek and has directed many times before but Edgar Wright or Joseph Kosinski would be my top 2 choices.

[BlobVanDam]

If I had a dollar for every ex Trek actor who has contacted Paramount/CBS for something Star Trek related and been turned down, I could fund this next movie myself.

Of course he'd love to direct a big budget movie like that. The last and only cinematic releases he's ever directed are the two Star Trek movies. The rest is all television. While he has a lot of directing experience on television, I don't think he has the cred for them to let him direct this.
I think it's just a fanboy pipedream because they think it will somehow save this movie, but that's misunderstanding what a director actually does.

[Kotowboy]

Actually he has a few other big screen directors credits but nothing noteworthy.

[BlobVanDam]

Ah so he does. I totally missed those while skimming his IMDB page. If anything those would work against him anyway, given how poorly received they were critically and commercially. It doesn't look like the kind of person you'd be jumping to direct your 150 million dollar blockbuster movie.

[hefdaddy42]

Probably would have less lens flare though.

[Kotowboy]

 

[rumborak]

I don't really get the hate for Insurrection. Sure, it felt like a long TNG episode, but I'm not sure I see the problem with that. Nemesis on the other hand deserves all the hate it gets. Shinzon didn't look like Picard at all so I never bought into the premise, and the B-4 subplot was just stupid.