Replies

>> Once Scotty’s actor died they gave up making Star Trek movies with the old geezers and then cast the new Star Trek movies with young actors who could really play those action roles. <<

It's a little more complex than that. The idea of having the original characters played by younger actors was first proposed in 1991, when the actors were pushing 60 (Nimoy and Shatner are now in their 80s). They wanted to do a "Starfleet Academy" movie where the original actors would have cameo apperances talking to a group of graduating cadets, and then it would flashback to young Kirk, young Spock, etc., and pass the torch to the new actors. The idea was vetoed and we got Star Trek VI instead. Then, the Next Generation ended its run on TV and the idea was THEY would succeed the original cast, thus we got the disappointing "crossover" movie Star Trek Generations (which basically gave older Scotty and Chekov nothing more than glorified cameos), and there was expected to be a long line of Next Generation movies but they kept declining in revenue so it came to a screeching halt after 4 movies. Then they finally fired Rick Berman, and the result was they decided to an "in universe reboot" in 2009 and come up with "Evil Romulan from the future goes back in time and alters the past" premise, so they could hire younger actors but not have to stick to the established chronology of their back stories. I think it was a good idea given that they were basically painted into a corner, but unfortunately they squandered the opportunity they had to come up with some really interesting new stories.

>> First Contact, okay, best TNG movie by default <<

I agree with you (only because the other TNG movies were worse, although I thought Nemesis was OKAY and not the worthless garbage people made it out to be). Still, Field hates FC with a passion so he's not gonna like that comment. ;-)

>>> Back to Star Wars, the Ewoks may have been stupid (that Stormtrooper Armor is sure useless!) but ROJ is piece of gold compared to the prequels. It’s amazing how Lucas tried so hard to destroy what he created. <<<

It's true, I grew up on the original Star Wars trilogy and ROJ was considered the weakest of the three (especially pandering to kids with the goofy Ewoks), but it looks like a masterpiece next to the prequel films. The weird thing is even the most ardent Star Wars fanboy will now admits the prequels sucked, but Lucas KEEPS making money with them anyway. He re-released "The Phantom Menance" in 3D a few years back and the fanboys flocked to see it in theaters, as if 3D would somehow magically make Jar Jar Binks into a good character. It sickens me that people continue to reward Hollywood for films they know are lousy. I bet the Blu-Ray editions of those movies made lots of $$$ too. No wonder they have no motivation to do better.

>>> I have no idea what’s up with the new ones, I wish I could say I’m optimistic. <<<

J.J. Abrams has basically turned Star Trek INTO Star Wars (the most recent Star Trek film was certainly the most "Star Warsish" of the 12, and mostly reliabed on one-liners, fist fights, and shoot 'em chase scenes, so I'm actually glad he's defected to Star Wars and can go mess with that universe instead of screwing with Star Trek anymore. I imagine anything would be better than the Star Wars prequels, but given what Abrams has done lately, I'm not so sure anymore.

Star Trek also has new writers that have been hired for the 50th anniversary movie in 2016, so there's hope. I read the other day that the guy who wrote the last movie (Bob Orci, an insane liberal 9/11 truther) wants to DIRECT the next Star Trek movie now. My response would be HELL NO. The sad thing is Hollywood will continue to promote people who gives us mediocre crap as long as it makes money. Certainly Orci isn't entirely to blame for Star Trek Into Darkness, but he shares a big chunk of the blame for giving us a generic action movie and Khan In Name Only after having four years to come up with a good story. He shouldn't be rewarded after what happened.

>> Me too, but I’m not. I can smell the poop from here. <<

A similar situtation is going on with DC comics now. They're struggling to keep up with Marvel's endless Superhero movies. DC's "rebooted" Superman movie from summer 2013 got lousy reviews. It was basically a lazy remake of Superman II turned into a Transformers type movie with fake video-game like fighting sequences. So what does Warner Bros. do? Keep the same writer and directing team, and give them the go-ahead to make a "Batman vs. Superman" movie. I can already smell the cr@p from here. I got bored with the Nolan Batman movies, but I fear these new films will be so bad than the Nolan films will honestly look the masterpieces that their deluded fanboys claim they are.

“NOMAD” from the TOS episode that “The Motion Picture” rips off was a lot more interesting than “V’ger”, it was a little probe that came on the ship and vaporized redshirts, that was at least fun.

The tragic story of Willard “Mitt” Decker (weird that both of the parents from the crap show “7th Heaven” have had major roles in Star Trek movies) is the only thing about TMP I found interesting. Kirk comes in, demotes him and steals his ship (and it becomes clear he’s never gonna give it back), the ex-girlfriend he still loves dies and is replaced with a robot clone that he’s forced to interact with, so he kills himself just like his father did (it wasn’t stated but he was supposed to be the son of Commodore Decker who killed himself on a TOS episode).

5 is the worst Star Trek Movie/episode ever. Worse even than the TNG clip show episode and even dumber than the Voyager episode where Janeway turns into a lizard and has tadpoles which can fall into “so bad it’s good” territory. There is nothing redeeming about it at all, there may have not even been a single good scene in it.