GRIM RUMOURS ABOUT NEW STAR TREK:DISCOVERY SERIES

[Theblazeuk]

The last two Trek movies were major bombs?

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=startrek12.htm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=startrek2016.htm

Not runaway successes but pretty consistent for the average movie of this type. Not a Fantastic Four by any means (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fantasticfour15.htm)

[Jim_Campbell]

Not runaway successes but pretty consistent for the average movie of this type.

General rule of thumb is that a movie needs to double its production budget to break even. That leaves Beyond a way short of the $370M it needed to take, which is a shame, because I really enjoyed it.

[dweezil2]

Not runaway successes but pretty consistent for the average movie of this type.

General rule of thumb is that a movie needs to double its production budget to break even. That leaves Beyond a way short of the $370M it needed to take, which is a shame, because I really enjoyed it.

As a generic sci-fi movie Beyond was ok-it wasn't really Star Trek though, in my opinion.

[Professor Bear]

The last two Trek movies were major bombs?

They made plenty, but Into Darkness didn't do as well as projected, while Beyond didn't break even, so it works out as a loss based on the price of production and marketing (half a billion across two movies), especially when you factor in that the usually-lucrative merchandising numbers have been appalling.

[TordelBack]

Not runaway successes but pretty consistent for the average movie of this type.

General rule of thumb is that a movie needs to double its production budget to break even. That leaves Beyond a way short of the $370M it needed to take, which is a shame, because I really enjoyed it.

As a generic sci-fi movie Beyond was ok-it wasn't really Star Trek though, in my opinion.

I thought it was very Star Trekky - at least as far as the movies go. A nice feel of being the missing installment between TOS and TMP, and indeed Enterprise and TOS, but as it would be in this other ever-diverging universe, and accepting and referencing its own (different) past rather than the derivative stylings of Into Darkness. It really should have been the 'Voyage Home' success the new series needed.

[dweezil2]

Not runaway successes but pretty consistent for the average movie of this type.

General rule of thumb is that a movie needs to double its production budget to break even. That leaves Beyond a way short of the $370M it needed to take, which is a shame, because I really enjoyed it.

As a generic sci-fi movie Beyond was ok-it wasn't really Star Trek though, in my opinion.

I thought it was very Star Trekky - at least as far as the movies go. A nice feel of being the missing installment between TOS and TMP, and indeed Enterprise and TOS, but as it would be in this other ever-diverging universe, and accepting and referencing its own (different) past rather than the derivative stylings of Into Darkness. It really should have been the 'Voyage Home' success the new series needed.

For me Star Trek, at its best, is about big themes and existential questions about humanity and our place in the universe. Beyond didn't really go beyond (harg!) a bog standard revenge plotline and a villain with poorly defined and rather muddled motivation-the film fell well short of the potential the Star Trek mythos offers.
Some proper seasoned science fiction writers on the series wouldn't go amis, like they had on TOS.

[TordelBack]

Agreed, but none of the movies deal with themes much beyond the empty destructiveness of revenge, and the personal growth/interrelationships of the characters. This one at least was also about being lost in the vastness of the unknown, confronting strange aliens (albeit with a rug-pull), and the value of the whole business. Beats yet more Kilngons, Romulan offshoots, Federation conspiracies and time-wimey stuff.

Plus it was fun!

[Professor Bear]

For me, Beyond is the first of these reboots that actually felt like Star Trek.  Kirk was a revenge-driven manchild in the first two films, but Beyond was a riposte to the idea that this could sustain a character forever, as without revenge he's not just adrift, but a pretty shit captain.  The script moves him towards being the idealist the original character was, a product of more optimistic times confronting and defeating the failed reactionary philosophies of militarism that spawned the rewengay-driven cypher of Trek and Into Darkness, and all the more surprising that it comes from a guy renowned for making boy racer movies that portray women and cars with an equal pornographic glee.

[JLC]

The new show looks shit

[Professor Bear]

Nowadays it's more polite to expand on what you perceive as objective flaws and/or why something's creative value is not what it could be.
But yes.

[JLC]

Nowadays it's more polite to expand on what you perceive as objective flaws and/or why something's creative value is not what it could be.
But yes.

Lazy to set it before Kirk & co. Klingon redesign is awful. Looks like the whole thing is being made for commercial rather than creative reasons.

Happy now?

[Professor Bear]

Never.  Just ask anyone.

It is being made for commercial reasons, tho - and I don't just mean that in a "they make tv shows for profit" way, I mean the movies and merchandise aren't bringing in the Benjis and the only Trek revenue is from selling older Trek shows to other networks.  What's baffling to everyone is why it doesn't look like Trek when the whole point is that it was supposed to look like what went before as a honey trap for merchandising and licensing deals, because it's going out via digital platforms so there won't be any advertising revenue, just sponsorship.
Star Trek: Discovery is a "You Had One Job" meme: all it had to do was look like Star Trek.  It doesn't.

[dweezil2]

For me, Beyond is the first of these reboots that actually felt like Star Trek.  Kirk was a revenge-driven manchild in the first two films, but Beyond was a riposte to the idea that this could sustain a character forever, as without revenge he's not just adrift, but a pretty shit captain.  The script moves him towards being the idealist the original character was, a product of more optimistic times confronting and defeating the failed reactionary philosophies of militarism that spawned the rewengay-driven cypher of Trek and Into Darkness, and all the more surprising that it comes from a guy renowned for making boy racer movies that portray women and cars with an equal pornographic glee.

Fun and frivolous it may of been (that nearly sounds like fast and furious) but it still fell was short of what Trek can and should be-it certainly shouldn't be forgettable.
As superior it arguably was to the two previous entries-especially the turgid and shameless rehash, Into Darkness, the fact remains it should of been better.
You obviously spotted far more nuances in the workmanlike film than I did.

[Professor Bear]

It's not really a matter of "nuance", Kirk straight-up stops during the fight with the big baddie and says that killing isn't how you solve your problems and Starfleet is about saving lives.  Objectively, it's a callback to the man-chat with Bones earlier in the film, but relative to the series, it's a paraphrasing of what Pike tried and failed to communicate to Kirk in the first reboot movie.
Beyond is essentially the movie about Kirk's midlife crisis that Wrath Of Khan was.  It's a film that understands Trek and what makes it work, but more importantly, it understands what makes NuTrek obnoxious and shallow and tries to correct it.

[Tiplodocus]

Nowadays it's more polite to expand on what you perceive as objective flaws and/or why something's creative value is not what it could be.
But yes.

Don't you mean "Star Trek: Discovery? More like Shit Trek: Discovery!"