Astronauts report it feels good

[prog]

There is a Star Trek movie teaser trailer coming out. I'm too lazy to link to it because it's basically nothing, just enough to confirm that the film's in production, and to signal the fanboys to commence the freakout. (Its audio is samples of Apollo mission radio chatter that you can hear in any dime-store trance mix, for pete's sake. OK, and Nimoy. All right, fine: http://www.paramount.com/startrek. Sheesh.)

If JJ Abrams can tell an entire SF story that has a satisfying ending in the length of a single feature film, all shall be forgiven. Until then, I'm skeptical.

Meanwhile I find myself really out of touch regarding movies. I saw a friend complaining in an IM status message that someone named Cloverfield made her feel sick, figuring it was a co-worker who should have stayed home.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

There are some interesting casting choices: Zachary "Sylar" Quinto as young Spock, and Simon Pegg as Scotty.

But even if the movie is good, to me it's a sign of creative exhaustion of the Star Trek franchise. They stopped being able to credibly pretend that this material is about our future long ago; all they've got now is nostalgia. Enterprise only really hit its stride when it became an affectionate prequel to the original series (which was after most people stopped watching it, if they'd ever started), and the appeal of that is limited to people who are already Star Trek fanboys. This movie is apparently following the same thread.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Oh barf. So it's Jim Henson's Star Trek Babies, eh?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Yep, exactly.

It's not quite the "Academy Days" proposal that was knocking around for years, which would have been even more Star Trek Babies, but that's the basic idea.

[karlvonl.livejournal.com]

I never saw Batman Begins, because I felt that we've had enough Batman already, I'm sick of Batman, and I don't care if Batman Begins is the greatest Batman movie ever, the world doesn't need any more Batman. I'll probably skip the new Star Trek movie(s) for the same reason.

...Actually, that's not true. I just remembered that the real reason that I won't see the new Star Trek movie is that I already swore off all Star Trek a long time ago, right after season 1 of Voyager.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

I dearly hope it bombs.

Every retread on an existing universe makes it that much harder for a new universe to get off the ground.

There have been 10+ Star Trek movies produced in the past 29 years, and maybe three arguably first-rate new-universe SF films (Blade Runner, The Fifth Element and Serenity). Coincidence? I don't think so...

[jtroutman.livejournal.com]

Blade Runner, The Fifth Element and Serenity

The Fifth Element? Well, I enjoyed it, but not sure about it being a "first-rate" new universe. What about Alien/(s)?

I do agree that hollywood focuses on repeats and sequels instead of funding new and daring.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

The first Alien(s) film pre-dated the first Star Trek film, if memory serves. It was certainly first rate, as was the second. Downhill from there, I think.

I was impressed with the world-building in The Fifth Element, although I agree that as a movie it isn't quite in the same class as the rest. I just thought it was a good example of good cinema that created an interesting universe from scratch, used it well, and was done. The very lack of sequels improves it.

[misuba.livejournal.com]

Maybe people just want science fiction to expand its horizons a bit. I mean, why not include Eternal Sunshine of the SPotless Mind in your list of first-rate new SF?

So many nichey subcultures respond to a perceived constriction of resources by getting more strict about what they'll accept as their own. Let's get imperialistic instead. Let's get organized around saying, Eternal Sunshine, yeah, that's ours. And Heroes, and Lost and...

(Note that this latter argument is not as much about whether the shows are any good)

[radtea.livejournal.com]

I agree that imperialism is good (not a the kind of thought I'm used to having!) Didn't much like Eternal Sunshine, but the other Carrey film with him as the guy living in the "reality" show was quite good, and certainly SF. But I don't think those films were doing "world building" in quite the way I mean it.

By "world building" I mean a substantially altered reality, either by virtue of being in the far future, or some rapid and pervasive technological change, alien contact or what-have-you. A world that is obviously other compared to ours.

This is one of the things that impressed me about The Fifth Element: it had a good new universe.

SF is frequently just a marketing term, and it doesn't always get applied to the stuff that meets a more objective definition. So we can certainly claim a lot of these other show and films, and books as well. Read any of David Mitchell's early work ("Cloud Atlas" and "Ghostwritten", for example) and you'll find pure SF packaged as "nominated for the Booker" genre literature. Likewise Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake" and "The Handmaid's Tale", although apparently she hates the SF label.

[misuba.livejournal.com]

There are two problems with world building-heavy new IPs, one on the fan/creator side and one on the corporate side. On the fan side, once a universe hits critical mass, it tends to suck in a lot of energy and activity. On the corporate (and therefore more active in this discussion) side, more people will go to see a movie that doesn't ask them to learn a lot - which means either a movie that doesn't do any world building, or a movie that leverages a world with which the mass audience is already passingly familiar.

Another powerful argument that mixing up nerdiness with corporate ownership will always lead to heartbreak.