Click through and enjoy “Should You See It? A Curious Consumer’s Decision-Making Guide to Star Trek Into Darkness” by Mark Lisanti for Grantland. As good as this introduction is, the rest of his article is even funnier —
And so we fast-forward to stardate 05.16.2013 (note: not a valid stardate), four summers hence, and Abrams has returned to deliver the inevitable sequel, in fulfillment of the contractual prophecy etched into the wall of a Spock-sheltering ice cave by an advanced race of business-affairs aliens. Can Abrams once again pull off the massively profitable trick of satisfying both the core and summer audiences before tearing off his loosely affixed latex Vulcan ears, slipping into a Jedi robe, and taking stewardship of his childhood obsession? And, most important of all, should you support this latest Trek adventure with your ticket purchase? We’re here to answer some questions and help you make the best-informed decision possible.
While you’re deciding whether to see the movie another factor unmentioned in the article but reported by John King Tarpinian is that the film includes a reference to a starship named Bradbury. (And by attaching that factoid here I can keep up File 770’s tradition of being “all Bradbury all the time.”)
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I’ll probably see this Star Trek film the same way that I saw the last one, but if I miss it when it gets to network television, then I may get around to borrowing the DVD from the library some day.
Network television? A DVD from the library? The Summer Blockbuster Industry was hoping for a more tangible show of support. Can I at least tell Orville Reddenbacher you’ll be popping his brand of corn in your microwave?
It is okay to wait for MUD to come out on DVD or on TV, but Star Trek must be seen on a big screen…and I do not mean that 72″ flat screen in the game room.
I’m afraid I’m in the same boat as Mr. Keesan in that I no longer see anything in theaters. I don’t have the urge to see something the moment it appears anymore, which I guess is part of being an Old Fan And Tired.
It bothers me that midlist authors are going broke, small studio films are disappearing, and everything, book or movie, must be a blockbuster or it’s a loss. Given that Mr. Abrams is reportedly upset that he can’t take complete control over the Star Trek franchise and become even more rich off the legacy of others’ originality than he already is, while the lack of construction of an Engineering set and the use of a brewery and then the LLRL facility in its place is based on “not enough money,” believe it or not, I’m not willing to be any more of a wealth source to this system than I have to be.
I waited eighteen years for the return of Doctor Who and nineteen years for ST:TMP. I can wait until next year (if I’m still alive then) to see STID.
Mike: First, irradiated popcorn doesn’t have the same thrill as watching the foil expand above a pan of Jiffy Pop. Second, when popping corn in microwave, I usually just put bulk popcorn into a plastic device which lets it pop without all of the oils, hydrogenated or otherwise, and when I do use prepackaged microwave popcorn-in-a-bag, it’s the cheapest generic unsalted unflavored that I can find, which is sometimes Newman’s Own, for which I can at least feel mildly self-congratulatory because they promise to give their profits to Good Causes (and I try not to probe too deeply to find out how much of what I spend is profits, compared to things like the salaries of company executives).
John K. T.: Clearly, we disagree about whether “Star Trek must be seen”. My feeling is that if the writing and acting need large-screen special effects to make them worthwhile, then they’re probably not worth seeing. Science fiction, for me, is about ideas, not about things that go “whoosh” and big sparkly explosions in space.
I do summer film viewing in theaters. But I do sit in front of a DVD player and screen older films that wouldn’t show up on cable. And in going deaf, I try to find material with subtitles.
I pop corn with olive oil and sprinkle it with romano cheese. Not every day, but every other week.
There are times I can do without STAR TREK. Too much adulation for stale ideas and recycled stories pales on me. I’m glad there’s a RED DWARF X out, and I can watch that as a bromo to Spock and Kirk over exposure.
I don’t know why, but I foozled the time I waited for Star Trek to return after network cancellation: it was *nine* years from the time NBC-TV was stupid,a week before Apollo 11 in July 1969 to the time of the Paramount Pictures surprise attack on Starfleet Headquarters on December 7th, 1978, not nineteen years.
My point is not invalidated, though. I can still wait for the second complete misunderstanding of what Star Trek is about from the Abramsverse, just as I will wait a year for the slander of the spirit of Jonathan Kent premiering next month.
Let’s not forget the quiet burial of Peter Parker, nerd and superhero, and how his place was taken by a gorgeous teenage hunk … exactly the sort of guy who would actually be on the school football team and would be making the real Peter Parker’s life hell. We seem to have entered an age where icons are being destroyed and replaced by one, homogenized phoney with heavy eyebrows and drop-deal looks, ala Twilight.
While I don’t go to the movies as often as I use to, let me just say that seeing the new release of “Lawrence of Arabia” in a theater on a big screen was well worth it. There are some films that were meant to be on a big theater screen.
I once made a joke about Lawrence of Arabia to someone who had gotten a two inch screen TV. “How do you read the subtitles? How can you tell if they’re using widescreen?….
Taral: let’s not recall too much in the time Clark Kent worse a small pony tail…
I meant “wore” but it fits…
Superman has had no creds with me since George Reeves, back in the early 1950s. The big Superman movie with Christopher Reeves has a lot to answer for, in my opinion. It was the first superhero movie to realize that it didn’t have to appeal to teenage boys … it could make more money by appealing to teenage girls, and brought to the screen the world’s first superhero heart throb. The movie, of course, sucked rust from the bottom of the Titanic’s broken hull … as every Superman movie has, and for the same reasons. They have never been “guy’s” action movies, but the template for a weird hybrid of “action” and “romance.” They’re not even “feminist” in their attempt to cross gender boundaries — instead, they appeal to a stereotyped understanding of what women should be interested in. Maybe that’s only fair, since the “guy” movies appeal to an equally stereotyped understanding of what guy’s want. The horror of it is that Hollywood might be right.