No doubt, it is a jarring departure and many will feel the same. But, the movies were taking in less and less box office. Changing back to the original characters wasn't enough; something radical had to happen. If that means keeping the franchise alive, I'm behind it. It worked! STAR TREK is the first movie to break 200 million (U.S. domestic), this year.sewa wrote:That recent movie on the other hand is like a techno piece; a nice, polished digital mix with tons of reverb on it but musically its just not my cup of tea.
Though I pointed out my views between Original and Next series, this is really about "boring" versus "exciting" STAR TREK. As far as I'm concerned, that started with the first movie, STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE. Great Klingon battle and Jerry Goldsmith score, but the rest of the movie was a really dragged out version of "The Changeling" episode, substituting Nomad with V'GER . As much as I like bald women with tan legs, I haven't been motivated to watch the movie, since I first saw it in a theater, over 30 years ago. Been meaning to, though.
I remember Roddenberry being mad that STAR WARS had long lines, while STAR TREK lost money. It wasn't rocket science, as one was new and exciting. It's funny how creators of certain series have a really great concept, but are sometimes best to let others handle it. This is true not just of Roddenberry, but of the X-FILES' Chris Carter, who dropped the ball on the latest X-FILES movie. He was often upstaged by partners Kim Manners and Rob Bowman.
Anyway, I really liked THE WRATH OF KHAN, as well as parts 3 and 4. UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY was good, as was FIRST CONTACT. I can actually enjoy all of them, but half of them are not that exciting for most people.
By the way, anyone liking this new film should view WRATH OF KHAN, as that movie starts out with the Kobayashi Maru exercise and later reveals that Kirk cheated on it, which is brilliantly shown in the new movie. Desptie the "techno" pace of the newest flick, I was having far too much fun with the pace, character homages and TREK references to dwell on its faults.
This is a banner year for sci-fi and there is a lot of disagreement over TERMINATOR: SALVATION and OUTLANDER or even the Raimi horror flick, DRAG ME TO HELL. I expected the worse from McG (CHARLIE'S ANGELS), so I enjoyed SALVATION. OUTLANDER seems slow for some, but I thought it was well done and had a touching end.
As a no budget filmmaker, I've made a few indie sci-fi's, so I tend to be a forgiving fan.

Looking forward to:
SURROGATES
DISTRICT 9
PANDORUM and
AVATAR.