Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
- Thread starter Noeland
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Anyway, I'm tempted to also dive into the STAR WARS threads to offer both rage and criticism, but my fingers would bleed from hitting "ignore".
I say this with love, and as a big STAR WARS fan, but it seems that WARS fans are far less...discerning than TREK fans. I think the more constructive and educational criticisms and debates can be found over here.
But, man...it's tempting. Quite possibly the biggest IP disaster in the history of cinema, and that mess hits perhaps even closer to home than TREK's does.
...but SNW Kirk hasn't shown up, yet.
I say this with love, and as a big STAR WARS fan, but it seems that WARS fans are far less...discerning than TREK fans. I think the more constructive and educational criticisms and debates can be found over here.
But, man...it's tempting. Quite possibly the biggest IP disaster in the history of cinema, and that mess hits perhaps even closer to home than TREK's does.
...but SNW Kirk hasn't shown up, yet.
asalaw
Sr Member
A friend on FB just saw my Strange New Hair post and said he’d see me and raise me Obi-Wan Kenobi. I said I was almost afraid to fire it up. On the other hand, it can’t be as bad as Ms. Marvel. Can it?
Finally watched The Batman, though. To be fair, though, at this point it’s really just A Batman, right? Anyway, I thought the first two acts were so-so, I hated Pattinson’s anime hair, but the third act was quite good. I still like Nolan’s films better, but this iteration impressed me. I think the biggest surprise was it kept me engaged for the whole three hours. I didn’t much care for the Barracuda Batmobile, but that’s a quibble. My other quibble is Gotham looked a lot like Los Angeles 2019. In fact, you could say the whole film was sort of Bladerunner meets Se7en. But in a good way. I’ll watch the next one, but they really need to give Pattinson a haircut.
But BLADE RUNNER meets SE7EN isn't Batman.
As with STAR TREK, they keep trying to turn it into something it's not, and usually something derivative.
asalaw
Sr Member
I can’t speak to the fidelity to the original underlying material, since I’ve never read it. But being derivative isn’t necessarily the kiss of death, as I argued a few pages back. If it’s done badly, or worse—if they’re stealing from sources that were terrible to begin with, that’s where I start complaining. If Kurosawa turns King Lear into Ran, it’s a work of high cinematic art. When Strange New Hair turns Turnabout Intruder/Freaky Friday into… whatever the hell that was, that’s another story. In the case of Batman, I thought it worked well.
Understatement of the century, my friend.
One thing I can say about Disney Wars, it confirmed my longtime belief that a lot of Star Wars fans, too many really, either don't have high standards or they just never quite understood what the made the originals so good. Yeah, I know. I'm a Star Wars 'elitist'. It's hard not to be though. The original trilogy is a cinematic triumph (despite some short comings in ROTJ which have been grossly exaggerated over the years). Disney came in and has followed that legacy with minimal effort, bean counting committee story telling. Frankly it's insulting. But hey, as long as we get that Obi-Wan Vader "rematch" no matter how canon breaking it is.
Both these fanbases could take a lesson from the Tolkien fanbase in how not to sit idly by and let your beloved franchise fall victim to exploitative conglomerates.
I think there's a difference between trying to turn a property into something it's not and bringing fresh ideas to it and giving it a new coat of paint without wrecking the foundations.
Batman, more than most comic characters, has had some wildly varying incarnations, from the dark avenger of the 1930s to the camp of the 60s to the neo-noir of the 80s. And yet they're all still Batman, with variations and tone and style. Some are better than others, of course.
I maintain that Batman--in the movies, that is--has slowly been stripped of the elements which have been integral since 1939, and dragged down into a grim, too-realistic-to-work ghetto. The underlying fantasy and romanticism has been replaced with grim, gritty, and "realistic". Just like what happened with the comics.
And that was the IP JJ really wanted!!
Guess he's really got the Fecal Touch™
Give them time... they'll bring him in and urinate all over him as promptly as they can...
Yes, and even ROTJ's "shortcomings" still are of better quality than the Sequel Tragedy.
And that "rematch": unless Vader thought really low of himself at this point, there's no way he would say "when we last met, I was but the learner; now I am the master" in Episode 4.
Cephus
Master Member
Dream or nightmare?It was a dream all along!!
There's a certain necessity to all of this, I think. Sometimes you need a negative to understand a positive. George Lucas' legacy is now assured, thanks to Disney destroying it.
While I felt the (inevitable) disappointment of the prequels, I was (and am) by no means a hater. There are things I like about them, and things I don't like. The fact of the matter is that STAR WARS has been built on retcons from the start, when THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK began rewriting the story established in the original film. Lucas, ever the experimental filmmaker, largely tweaked and made things up as he went along, and I find that whole 30-plus year process from 1973-2005 to be fascinating.
I also absolutely blame Red Letter Media and the other over-reactionaries in the mainstream media (as well as a...ahem...toxic, vocal minority of fans) for where that franchise has gone. Legitimate flaws and criticisms aside, the prequels suffered mostly from not being what people wanted or expected. For example, I once had an argument with a fan (who later turned out to be a SJW) about the goofiness of the battle droids in EPISODE I. He contended that it was just a dumb and pointless idea that Lucas threw at the wall. I countered that it was specifically a plot point that the battle droids were goofy and ineffectual, which led to the creation of the clones and stormtroopers. He may not have liked it, but the intent was there.
He wouldn't hear it. The battle droids were just dumb and made no sense, and that was the end of it, as far as he was concerned. Like a stubborn child looking for things to hate.
While I think that things like the Ring Theory go just a little too far, it's abundantly clear that Lucas made very specific storytelling choices in the prequels, especially in terms of having the two trilogies echo each other. It's not his fault that people are too dumb or too blinded by what the films were "supposed" to be in their imaginations to see it clearly. And, of course, the Disney Trilogy just used that "rhyming" style to cheaply rip-off images and moments from the Lucas films, without any actual meaning or subtext.
Anyway, watching STAR TREK, the Rolls Royce of science-fiction TV, become a rickshaw for the mentally impaired just highlights how good we had it, and it makes that original success even more precious. All things must end, otherwise we can't properly appreciate how special they are. Just like how STAR WARS used to be a very special and limited thing, before it became a soulless, corporate factory for a constant flow of terrible movies, shows, and books.
And make no mistake, this cannibalization of both TREK and WARS that we're now seeing (like KENOBI ripping off REBELS and the video games, and SNW ripping off...well...everything) is a clear sign that the end is coming.
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I think the latter of the two applies here! lol
asalaw
Sr Member
I never cared for the prequels very much. I was really put off by Jar Jar, and by the two actors who played Anakin. I heard that on Phantom Menace, the crew referred to the kid as “Mannequin Skywalker” for obvious reasons. Long before the film came out, there was a documentary showing Lucas’s process for auditioning the role. He got the process down to about six boys, then had them up to the Ranch for some period of time so they could all hang out and get to know each other. I’ve often suspected that Lucas bonded with that kid very well, and his genuine affection for the boy made it impossible to cast anyone else. If so, it may have blinded him to the fact that the kid, God bless him, was a plank of wood. I distinctly recall being shocked that Lucas would cast such an awful actor in a leading role.
Hayden Christiansen was not much better. In both cases, the terrible acting in the lead role kept me from investing in the character at all. It’s only decades later, after reading quite a bit about how Anakin was almost one of the best corruption-and-downfall arcs in the history of cinema, that I’ve come around to a more balanced view of those films. For example, I recently watched Drinker’s breakdown of the Anakin arc in response to some Twitter twit who claimed Anakin was a Mary Sue, and damn if he didn’t make a very solid case that Anakin was a well-written character whose corruption and downfall, beat by beat, is incredibly well drawn.
What hobbles Anakin’s character, IMO, is Christiansen. He was just awful in both of his films. Lucas did so well casting the first trilogy, it’s a puzzler what went wrong with the prequels.
In the case of Trek, though, it’s the opposite problem. The casting is fine. It’s the phoned-in writing that’s killing that show. With today’s episode, Strange New Hair is officially worse than STD. And it only took them eight episodes to get there. That’s gotta be some kind of dubious record.
Yes, the prequel and Disney Trilogies have opposite problems—the former has a core of compelling ideas, but flawed execution, while the latter has great surface execution, but a hollow core.
And, as you note, it’s the same with SNW, and even the Abrams films. Fine actors and production, but horrible writing. Without good writing and solid ideas to explore, it’s all for nought.
asalaw
Sr Member
Oh yeah. It’s a show business cliché that a great script can carry bad acting and directing, but even the greatest actors and directors can’t save a bad script.
I wonder if Hayden's age and George's directing had anything to do with how Anakin was portrayed? Not trying to down either, but I don't know how much experience he had before the prequels. I also imagine the role of Anakin must not have been an easy one either.
Also: I wonder if some folks thought Anakin was too young when he fell in the prequels?
Yeah; thy had a golden opportunity to save Trek, and wrecked it with stupidity after stupidity. And what's a shame is that I really like Anson Mount as Pike and Rebecca Romjin as Una; the rest are kinda give and take. Hemmer is one I kinda like, but Ortegas can just go in an airlock for the rest of the series as far as I could care (though I'm half-expecting them to kill him off and try bringing Scotty on board in season 2 at the rate they're going!).
One thing though: it seems like the bridge crew are mostly women (Ortegas, Una, Uhura, Singh). It almost seems like Pike and Spock are the only men on the bridge now!
asalaw
Sr Member
That’s putting it mildly. It‘s embarrassingly bad.
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