New Star Trek Trailer 591
roelbj writes "The full trailer to the next Star Trek movie is now available at the movie's official web site. The upcoming J.J. Abrams-helmed installment represents a changing of the guard, a reboot of the franchise, and a return to the original-series crew. It should prove interesting to see how Abrams' writing staff (Cloverfield, Lost, Alias) tackles the Star Trek universe and all the continuity and baggage that comes with it."
Sorry, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
another quicktime update (Score:5, Insightful)
Young Star Trek (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:scantily clad people (Score:4, Insightful)
Watching that trailer it seems like they've made an effort to sex-up trek
have you seen the TOS?
seriously.
star trek had scantily clad women in almost every episode, with barely veiled (for the time) bouts of kirk scoring with every single one of them. even TNG had commander "horndog" riker.
Re:Young Star Trek (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmmmm, Scotty, Kirk, McCoy, Spock, Uhuru, Sulu and Checkov all at the academy at the same time despite the differences in age. Yeah, this is gonna' suck.
Besides, I think Sci-Fi has had it in the movies for a while. It's comic book time. Let's all wear spandex.
Both franchise shared the same fate. (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't using a Star Wars quote in a Star Trek thread a hanging offense on Slashdot?
As both franchise got similarly raped by dubious quality prequels :
No.
It's just horribly deceived StarWars fan's way to share their pain with soon-to-be-wanting-to-"unsee" StarTrek fans.
Quicktime? Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the hell are almost ALL new movie trailers hosted by Apple, with each requiring Quicktime. And why does every new trailer seem to REQUIRE me to update to the latest version of that bloated, memory-gobbling, unwanted startup service inserting, file association stealing, iTunes pushing crap just to play a damned VIDEO? I'd rather have a larger filesize and get a standard-ish format like DivX than have to use this crap just to shave off some bits on the encode. I already have PROPER h.264 support on my system, so just let me download the damned trailer and watch it with something that's NOT QUICKTIME. The implementation Apple uses for that isn't even compatible with the standard, for crying out loud.
This story really needs to be tagged with "fuckquicktime"
Re:scantily clad people (Score:3, Insightful)
To my shame I've not seen every single episode of TOS, but I think I've got a good feel for it(have seen the majority of eps).
I do however know that Kirk having hot alien women falling for him is somewhat of a cliche, and I got to see that a few times. (Yeoman Rand was fairly sexualized as well)
My point was that I don't recall seeing either of them in their underwear in full-on grope on a bed.
Sex is an important part of humanity, and I don't think it should be ignored. But that trailer made me expect that this new movie is going to be 98% flash and maybe, maybe 2% substance. That car chase scene? My suspicions are that this film is largely going to consist of tits, explosions, and weirdly shaped evil aliens. That's fine for a mindless action flick for the summer, but Trek can do better. It has been a (small) force for social change in the past, and I would like to see that again. If I want to see boobs and bombs I can get those from a million other sources. This movie may indeed be immensely popular and make scads of money but I'm no longer holding out much hope for it challenging people's deeply held views about any of the issues of today.
Can they make a more useless website? (Score:1, Insightful)
Flash, javascript, quicktime, all to watch two crappy trailers?
Take a lesson from youtube. People like quick & easy video that doesn't make you install a lot of software & codecs.
Re:Uneasy (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno. Personally, I'll take "mindless summer action flick" over the complete cheese-fest everything Star Trek has been for the last decade. No offense intended to the Trek faithful out there, but I think a lot of them are blinded by their nostalgia for the series. Hold the Star Trek of today up next to something like BSG or Firefly/Serenity and the disparities in quality become pretty obvious.
This new movie may not be the return to former glory that many were hoping for, but at least it's a departure from the path towards obscurity that the series has been headed down for so many years now.
Re:Uneasy (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Because need a distraction! We need something mindless to watch that we don't have to think about because we do enough of that when we're out of the theatres. Thinking today is depressing, and we don't want to be depressed. We want to sit back and dream that the world is beautiful when it's not. We want to believe that we're just a few short technological leaps away from salvation, and we want to imagine ourselves in this "better world" -- a better world that doesn't involve us changing who we are, or sacrificing the things we want.
So we throw a bunch of cast members together, make a bunch of stereotyped caricatures out of them so that we can all find at least one to identify with, and then send them off to wreck bloody vengance on the world because we're so sick of feeling powerless that the idea of fighting some righteous battle is very appealing. And of course they'll reward us in this fantasy world with sex, power, and a grand adventure.
Yeah. They raped our childhood. Yeah, it jumped the shark. It's only because we're too afraid to dream of Utopia. We're too afraid to think that our neighbors aren't our enemies but could be our allies, our friends. We're scared of people who are differently colored than us, who think differently than us, and we know deep down inside that the world is not beautiful anymore and we'd better start picking sides now before everything falls apart.
That was the genius of Roddenberry; He made a futuristic utopia that was still populated by people just as flawed, just as human as we were, but we worked together because there were BIGGER differences out there. Aliens bent on world domination. Space probes gone beserk. A new challenge every week that was so much bigger than something as petty as race and sex differences to unite everyone. And now that he's dead, nobody's got the guts to dream big anymore. So we fall back on what we know... The same old conflicts, the same old prejudices... And it's so much easier to identify with feeling righteous and wanting to be violent than it is to take the high road and endure conflict and tension to create mutually empowering relationships.
Hollywood is a mirror... It shows us at our best, and at our worst. You will be missed, Gene.
It's Alive, Jim! Alive! (Score:5, Insightful)
It has run its course, move on.
Dude, have been to the theater lately? Everything is recycled. Old movies, old TV shows. foreign movies, comic books, video games... The biggest blockbuster last summer was the third installment in franchise that started out as a theme park ride. (Not a very good one, either.) Martin Scorsese not only recycled a Hong Kong action flick, he won an Oscar for doing it!
For some reason, it's much harder to get an expensive movie or TV production greenlighted if it's totally original. It has to be a copy of something else. The original doesn't even have been successful!
Look at Battlestar Galactica. The remake only caries over the barest elements of the premise and a lot of not very important details [battlestarwiki.org]. Creatively, it would have made more sense to start from scratch. But no, in order to get made, the series had to be based on a older series by one of TV's most notorious hacks and ripoff artists [wikipedia.org] that barely lasted a single season.
Like they say on the show, "It has happened before, it will happen again!"
Hard to understand the bitterness here (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm 38 and I've been watching Star Trek since I was five. The first text I remember reading and understanding were the credits to TOS. By the time I was seven I could tell you the entire plot of a TOS episode by watching the first ten seconds, max.
I thought the trailer was frikkin' awesome. I don't understand the bitterness and disappointment. And I'm not a trek fanboi, either. I stopped watching the series' about one season into Voyager and missed most of Enterprise.
All of this bitching about continuity being broken and stuff going against canon: jesus christ, who cares? It's fiction, people. It's not immutable.
Re:scantily clad people (Score:5, Insightful)
...but are tits really the answer...
Stop right there. Tits are always the answer.
Re:scantily clad people (Score:1, Insightful)
7 of 9 almost single-handedly saved Voyager from getting the axe.
Just sayin'.
Re:Both franchise shared the same fate. (Score:5, Insightful)
As both franchise got similarly raped by dubious quality prequels
I had some hopes for this movie, because I like JJ Abrams. Now that I've seen the trailer, I can't help but agree with you. Holy crap, what is so hard about making good star trek movies? They have so much background to choose from, finding the right story should be easy.
Actually, I know what the problem is. They see the fanbase as a bonus, not as the target demographic. We have these people who are going to see the movie no matter what, so might as well aim for a completely different demographic. This way we get the other people AND the trek nerds!!!
We need to start boycotting this shit. If they don't start making good trek to bring us back, at least it might cause them to stop making trek altogether. That would be an improvement.
Re:Uneasy (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing to be careful about is that there needs to be 2 captains of the Enterprise _before_ Kirk...
They've already said there's no mention of Robert April. I'm actually not very mad about that. April was never cannon (he was introduced in the animated series). A bigger continuity flaw in the trailer is the fact that Kirk can drive a stick. He had serious problems with it in "Patterns of Force."
Then again, continuity flaws are everywhere. I may not like them, but I've learned to live with them. What really pisses me off is the entire stupid scene with kirk driving and destroying a vintage automobile in that trailer just so they can show what rebel of a kid he was is uber-lame. I would be annoyed at that scene if I saw it in any movie, not just Star Trek.
Re:another quicktime update (Score:1, Insightful)
Hi! Welcome to the Internet! It doesn't always work on your terms, especially when your terms are driven by zealotry and paranoia. You lose!
new voyages (Score:3, Insightful)
I imagine everyone here knows New Voyages [startreknewvoyages.com] already. If you haven't seen it, you should watch some. James Cawley gets it.
My favorite of the TOS movies was 6 because the enemy overestimated Kirk's racism and underestimated his intelligence and dedication to duty. The turning point was when, instead of starting the war he was expected to start, he said "signal our surrender." In TOS, Kirk was never a warmonger or really prone to violence at all. Not a hothead. Maybe these people watched the old series and noticed all the fights and shit without noticing that Kirk didn't start hardly any of it. And when he did start a fight, it was more to prove a point or to keep someone else from having to fight. Kirk doesn't like losing. Anything. That's the fundamental truth of Kirk.
I don't expect this movie to show an old, wise, thoughtful Kirk, but let's not turn him into a stereotypic cocky youth.
Re:Both franchise shared the same fate. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, Star Wars had the problem that Lucas didn't have that much to say, and by the time he got around the to the prequels he had plenty of money to say it with.
Star Trek was simple overexposure. They didn't have enough good writing to cover two simultaneous series and the bled the well dry.
IE... (Score:3, Insightful)
And IE will support it around 2015, which means web developers will be able to use it shortly after that!
Hooray!
I love Firefox. I use it almost exclusively myself. I live by Firebug.
But until you convince the rest of the planet to use it (or Safari, Opera, or anything that's not IE), then don't keep telling me what great things it supports. Because honestly, when 70% of my clients' userbase uses IE, it doesn't matter for damn what features Firefox supports because I can't use them.
Get a grip. (Score:3, Insightful)
Numerical consistency does not exist in Star Trek.
From Stardates, to warp speeds / travel times / distances, to chronologies from series to series, they just don't add up and never have.
If you let go of that, grasshopper, and enjoy the stories (instead of the numbers), you will be happier.
Re:Both franchise shared the same fate. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that I've seen the trailer, I can't help but agree with you.
And there's never been a targeted trailer? They do this all the time, making a more action-oriented trailer for showing before an action movie ("Quantum of Solace") that makes the movie look more "summer blockbustery" than it really is. There's nothing saying this movie can't be the Star Trek we know and love and are hoping it will be. A later trailer may show the character aspect of the movie. Obviously you expect action in this movie and the trailer says, "Yep. There's action." It was being shown to a James Bond crowd (among others). It doesn't mean the whole tone of the movie is going to be like Transformers (which I liked by the way) as opposed to "Star Trek: TMP". I'm willing to give Abrams the benefit of the doubt for now. It looks cool, and it looks fun. Maybe it will be a lame piece of fluff. But at least wait until you see the movie before writing it off as crap. Ya never know. It might be good.
I'm amazed at the rigidity of trek fans (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Both franchise shared the same fate. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I mean the way the 4th series ended. Nonsensical, totally unfinished and chopped off at the knees.
Oh, we agree there.
I had really gotten into the 4th series: it had finally found itself and developed into a good story. Compulsory watching in my house. Then someone dragged it out back and shot it through the head because the fans didn't just deserted it, but threw shit pies at it every chance they got
No, that's not quite what happened. Everyone deserted it before it had become good. You can't expect people to watch crap for years while they get their stuff together. By the time they did, few people were watching to realize they had gotten better, and it was just too late to get the ratings up, so it got canceled.
Blame the whole, "let's make trek new and sexy, and very much unlike trek. In fact, let's drop the Star Trek name from the series, and just call it Enterprise, and drop the orchestral theme song...let's make it completely unlike trek!" mentality that was the beginning of Enterprise for the desertion. Like I said, if they had started the series with the type of writing they had in the fourth season, nobody would have complained.
And now here you are getting all judgmental and suggesting the same, based on a 2 min clip of a film not even released yet.
No, I was the one who was looking forward to it, despite all the bad things I kept hearing about it. Did you see the stupid car chase with young Kirk in that trailer? What is the point of that? It's a lame attempt to show what a rebel Kirk was in his childhood. Woohoo!
That type of scene is a sign of lack of story in any movie. They're trying to make a summer action flick to attract the non-trekkies, instead of making a good Star Trek movie. Same problem they had with Enterprise (in the beginning).
Reboot or Re-imagining? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Is it a reboot if the new version comes from a time traveler from the old version going back and changing the past?"
I don't know if it's a reboot, but it's certainly lame.
"Speaking of which, why did they bother to bring in J.J. Abrams if he's going to recycle all the old lame Bermanesque plot gimmicks?"
I think JJ Abrams may be ready to knock M. Knight Shymalan off his throne as the most overhyped writer in Hollywood. Shymalan and Abrams both share a similar trait... they're both one-trick ponies. Shymalan does one thing only... plot twist movies. Abrams also does one thing only... take an interesting idea that's good for maybe a single TV episode, and stretch an entire TV series or feature film out of it. Lost has stretched that small, interesting idea into 3 seasons of repetitive television, and Cloverfield was supposed to bring a revolutionary approach to the giant-monster genre. The monster wasn't even interesting. Hell, the speculative giant-whale-beast fan art was actually more interesting than the real monster in the movie.
Abrams took an intriguing concept... Kirk and Spock when they were young... and turned it into a teenaged soap opera aimed at the MTV crowd more than actual Star Trek fans.
Re:Both franchise shared the same fate. (Score:3, Insightful)
They lost me at "buckle up"
Re:scantily clad people (Score:3, Insightful)
I love that your post is modded +5, Insightful. Because it truly, truly is.
Nah... boycotts are too passive... (Score:5, Insightful)
How the hell are they gonna know we are boycotting? And why should they care?
SOMEONE will pay for the tickets. SOMEONE payed to see "The Hottie & the Nottie" for fuck's sake.
And since actually gathering money to pay for more of what fans like (Remember Enterprise donation gathering?) does not work - maybe a more pro-active approach is required?
I propose packages of dead cats and live cockroaches.
Second batch should have an additional payload of microwave popcorn and small metal objects - for when they start microwaving their mail.
Re:scantily clad people (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you don't watch that many movie trailers, but sub-second flashes of scantily clad women are in every trailer. Just watch a few random big movies on apple trailers.
There is the kissing flash and the semi-naked girl flash. It's in every trailer. I think a flash of the female body somehow gives a positive view of the movie or something.
There are some things you don't ever touch. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm as old as NASA, 50 years, 1958.
And I look at the first Star Trek XI Movie preview, it makes the hair on my arms stand up. Because it's the real memories, and the real heroes.
Do these mere movie-makers know what they're playing with here? I fear not.
These are the hopes and dreams of a whole generation of engineers. We watched Star Trek. "2001: A Space Odyssey" looked downright likely from 1965. We shot Estes rockets into the sky. And all of us wanted, so badly, to experience free-fall, to see the curve of the Earth, as Burt Rutan's vehicle finally did in a Right-Stuff climb ... sort of, "What the hell, the instrument panel just lost all power and blacked out; let's just keep going and judge our angle out the window, and if the panel doesn't light back up, well, that'll be interesting..."
These movie-makers have already annoyed a bunch of us, judging from the posts on the second preview.
These ... mere movie-makers ... they're playing with oxidizers they do not understand. And people who play with oxidizers often only learn when they get their hands burned. (I will mention I was silly enough to play with a mixture potassium chlorate and sugar. As a result I do not recommend this mixture to anyone.)
No? You disagree? How far back does your memory go?
This preview starts...
(Spock welding on the Enterprise ...)
Voiceover: "30 seconds and counting, astronauts reporting fuel good. T minus 25 seconds..."
John F. Kennedy: "The eyes of the world now look into space..."
And of course Kennedy made the brash promise, and goal, that we'd go to the Moon "by the end of this decade". And we did it!
(first views of the Enterprise being assembled)
Scott Carpenter: "Godspeed, John Glenn", as Glenn went up on the Atlas rocket, which had a habit, no, more like a positive track record, of exploding. In a tiny Mercury capsule.
"The Eagle has landed." Neil Armstrong showing The Right Stuff.
(various views of the saucer section and the V from engineering to the warp drives being assembled)
"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." -- Neil Armstrong on 11, taking his first step.
And then that one quintessential, defining voice from Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy's voice: "Space ... The Final Frontier ...", which first showed up on "The Wrath of Khan" after they really did kill Spock off. And many of us left that movie in tears.
As we move up the saucer section and the word "Enterprise" comes into view...
And with the music from the original series, not that awful score from the first movie, we close that preview with a date in 2009.
I remember.
'Star Trek' came out when the Gemini missions were going, to practice rendezvous, which was necessary to go to the Moon. And we were going to the Moon! In those days anything was possible.
(Oh, there were a few jerk congressmen that wanted to stop it all and waste NASA's money for political gain, notably Walter Mondale, who tried to kill things after the Apollo 1 fire, but they didn't get their way until after Apollo 17. They did manage to kill Apollo 18, 19, and 20, and throw half a million aerospace people directly out of a job. I gotta tell you, I dislike those people most strongly. The 'Great Society' did nothing but spend a lot of money proving government doesn't work. And that money could have gone into getting us off this planet.)
Neil Armstrong saved one of those Gemini missions (with Dave Scott). Buzz Aldrin saved another when the rendezvous computer whacked out; he'd brought along a manual way of doing it (his advanced degree was on this subject). NASA picked those two because they were proven troubleshooters, and man, was Apollo 11 almost an abort. Neil overrode the computer when he saw it was bringing him down into a bunch of big rocks. Balancing training, practice, and an indefinable something, Neil hopped a crater, and touched down with seconds of