Star Trek

[ShyViolet]

Only seen the first one? Then you've seen the most "fun" (and therefore best).

Well, I recall that at the time some critics called it Mission: Impossable to Follow, because the plot was so labrynthian. I liked it though. I saw it right when I graduated High School with a bunch of friends.

I liked the whole spy plot and the second movie looked just like chase scenes to me. I'm not bothering with this one, that's for sure.

Plus didn't Austin Powers rip off the beginning in Goldmember? (with a Tom Cruise cameo) And I loved Spielberg's appearance! (he could work on his acting though. )

Yet again, a M:I film fails to live up to the original series... .

I never saw the original show but it was very popular in Israel from what I understand.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

He's the only reason I'd watch it. I think he's awesome.

[Ben]

The Austin Powers thing didn't really spoof Mission Impossible...it was just your typical over the top Hollywood wham-bang action movie version of what a Powers movie would be like if Austin was real and they made one out of his adventures. Everything was hyper-real in that, and the Cruise/Paltrow casting was simply because they were the biggest celebrities at the time.

I don't think it was spoofing M:I-2 per se, but just that general genre. They did a good - and very funny - job!

--------------------------

As for the original Mission series, the basic concept was that Peter Graves was a top operative who would assemble a new team each week (though often using many of the same "trusted" faces) and they'd pull off the impossible mission.

With Brian ("I wanna be an art-house Hitchcock but need a hit movie so I'll do this for the money!") De Palma's first film, they completely ruined Graves' Jim Phelps character (after all those years of service, he's going to jack it in like that? No, siree) and turned it into essentially a James Bond franchise for Cruise to look good in.

The sequel was an insult to audiences and fans of the show (and even the first film), with a comeback for Ving Rhames character purely based on his "cool factor" popularity. The middle saaaaaaaaagged badly, and all the other action moments were literally ripped off and pulled from other movies (Cliffhanger, T2 and director John Woo's own catalog of over used cliches such as the flying doves, slow-mo, and hand-to-hand fisticuffs on a beach that just went on. For. Ever.).

As for Cruise saying he wanted each one to be different, with different directorial styles, well, that plan seems to be out the window. David Fincher was attached for a while to III (how cool would that have been!?!) but dropped out only to be replaced by the anemic Abrams, who essentially gives us a re-hash of the first film, masked with over glossed locations and explosions that try - but fail - to hide the plot holes.

Mission aborted...let this movie self destruct in five seconds!

[ShyViolet]

and the Cruise/Paltrow casting was simply because they were the biggest celebrities at the time.

Funny how things change....now Cruise is being made fun of in Scary Movie 4 (and just about everywhere else. ) Still can't believe he said that he wanted to eat the baby's plascenta! (grooooossssssss! )


AND OMG! (From TomCruiseIsNuts.com)

Cruisegate Namegate Update 2: The Cruiser to Israelis - "You don't know Hebrew. I do!"

From TV Shark:
"Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' choice of a Hebrew-flavored name for their newborn daughter has speakers of the language scratching their heads. Baby Suri's name can be traced to a Hebrew word meaning "princess" or "noblewoman," but by such a circuitous route that the connection is lost on most Israelis. Since the birth Tuesday in Los Angeles, bemused Israeli TV and radio presenters have debated the word's origins. "Nobody here has ever really heard of it," an announcer on Israel's Army Radio said during a discussion Thursday. The Yediot Ahronot newspaper agreed in its half-page splash on the celebrity birth. "We seem to have learned a new Hebrew word and from Tom Cruise, no less," said a Channel 2 TV anchorman."

So according to people who actually speak the language, Team Cruise's claims that "Suri" is Hebrew seem a bit stretched. What does this mean? That's right, we're right back to the Alpaca Theory (previously known as the Cockatoo Theory). You can't hide the truth, Tom.

As someone who knows Hebrew the only word I can connect "Suri" to is "Asur" or "forbidden."

The Incredibles definetely had a Mission: Impossible vibe throughout the film, especially with the message that Bob got at the begininning. "This message will self destruct..."

[Dacey]

Hmmmm. I wonder where we can talk about that new "Star Trek" movie...

[Ben]

Haha...right here, WJ!

But (quickly off topic) I wonder why they didn't call her a Scientology name...like Ronnie?

[Dacey]

Yeah, I know, old topic, but it looks like this project is really moving along:

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/startrek ... p?id=18367

[Dacey]

*mega-bump*

And Captain James T. Kirk is...


http://www.comingsoon.net/news/startrek ... p?id=38358

[Ben]

The casting seems to be coming on fine, and I've liked Abrams' work on M:I-III so this could be something pretty cool.

Wasn't sure about Bana and Pegg's casting, but the more I think about them, the more I likey.

This new guy isn't a ringer for Shatner, but there's a similar feel to him, and whipped into shape it looks like it'll work.

[Vernadyn]

Wait, Ben, do you like M:I-III and J. J. Abrams or not? Or have you changed your mind? I thought the first and third movies were okay and reasonably enjoyable. Not on my "desert island" list, of course, but I wasn't expecting much anyways...

I'm not really a Trekkie, but one thing that has always been interesting about the films at least is their music, from Jerry Goldsmith's classic opus to James Horner's revolutionary duo, not to mention Cliff Eidelman's surprising masterpiece. Sure, there have been a few misses with Dennis McCarthy and the usually reliable Leonard Rosenman, and Goldsmith's later scores, though good, did not have the same intangible feel as the original.

Anyway, I am extremely interested in what Michael Giacchino will cook up for this one--I love just about all of his work.

[Meg]

Ooh, Michael Giacchino's scoring this? I'm a fan of his - looking foword to the soundtrack, then!

[Ben]

Not sure where you got that I don't "like" JJ or M:I-III. I went off Lost a long time ago, yes, but thought that M:I-III was pretty darn good entertainment. I little mixed up and trying to be too clever in some instances, but pretty good for, as you say, what we were expecting.

(cue ressurection of old thread where I tear JJ and M:I-III apart!)


Giacchino's not a surprise though...I think he's scored all of JJ's stuff, right? The only thing I haven't thought was very inspired from him was that Tom & Jerry short, which he over played the plinky plonky Mickey Mouse music. I sure hope he "gets" the Goofy short right rather than going for those obvious cartoon moves again.

Doing a Trek should give him room to do bold and large space opera, and it will be interesting to hear the results. I think he may well score big here - no pun intended.

Yep, this is looking and sounding like it may be just the thing Trek needs.

[GeorgeC]

[quote="Ben"]The Austin Powers thing didn't really spoof Mission Impossible...it was just your typical over the top Hollywood wham-bang action movie version of what a Powers movie would be like if Austin was real and they made one out of his adventures. Everything was hyper-real in that, and the Cruise/Paltrow casting was simply because they were the biggest celebrities at the time.

/quote]


I dunno.

I always thought Austin Powers was more of a spoof of the James Bond films with a winking nod to the Emma Peel era of "The Avengers" thrown in for good measure.

Thank goodness Mike Meyers had the good sense to end the Austin Powers series after Goldmember! The series didn't get better film after film... That's always been the problem with parody film series. They run out of the good jokes fairly quickly.

***********************************

Listen as much as I like the original Star Trek, it's time to let it go. Let it die.

I don't have the good vibe about JJ Abrams that so many other people do. At best, I feel his TV shows have been mediocre and have captured a cultural sensibility that makes them popular for the moment, but they won't age any better than shows like The Man From Uncle and The Defenders. Yeah, those are shows that are so well-remembered and played endlessly on TV today!

The original Star Trek -- like many other enduriing pop cultural icons -- was a product of circumstances, egos, personalities, talent, and times that just can't be recreated with the current cultural mentality and corporate bean-counting. Paramount has tried this revisioning tactic a half-dozen times already and the only time it's really reconnnected with an audience is in the first half-dozen features with the original TV series' cast when they were still young enough not to need walkers. Even then, most people that give a darn about story structure, acting, and themes acknowledge that NONE of those first half-dozen Trek features were really as good as the original series' first two seasons...

So, what are we getting? Reinterpretations of characters that really aren't the characters most people fell in love with. Yet another action feature with a scene-chewing villain (Eric Bana? WT&*(&!) who won't be as memorable as Montalban was in The Wrath of Khan. Another good-looking actor in the main seat who won't come across as charismatic as the guy who originally played the role of Kirk. For all the criticisms of William Shatner's personality and acting quirks, people forget that he is naturally charismatic and acts pretty darn well when he's given material he cares about. I can't say the same about most leading actors in Hollywood today -- including most of the same pretty boys on the tabloids that you see at check-out counter every time you go to buy food.

Nimoy, Shatner, Kelly, Nichols, Takei, Doohan, Koenig, Mark Lenard, the original writers and directors are what made the original Star Trek work. Again, that was a once in a lifetime confluence of personalities and talent that just can't be recreated. Redesign the Enterprise, give the bridge a new paint job and better visual effects, you just won't get a better Star Trek or one that emotionally connects with people the same way the original series did.

The original series, at its heart, was a positive vision of a future with limitless possibilities. The last thing that can be said about the original show was that it was cynical and nihilistic even if its creator was a cynic at heart. That is so much of the problem with current popular entertainment and the world culture at large. And yet so many people don't understand it because they can't remember a time when things weren't cynical and they don't understand the definition of "nihilistic," either!

Already, this reimagined Star Trek is cynical and cloying. It's a shallow attempt to cash in on a good memory. Cast away with all the pretty people you want, but it's still at heart another corporate hack job run by cynical nihilists who want you to give up your cash. It's the same mentality that's driven Star Trek into the ground for the past 20 years. Shoulda been obvious that the jig was up when Paramount got too interested in its "franchise" and started paying too much attention to the fan cons and websites.

That's definitely not the Star Trek I grew up with, nor care to remember...

[Ben]

My Austin Powers remark was merely talking about the opening three minutes of Goldmember. That's all. The rest of the movies are actually spoofing the Flint films more than anything, though of course Bond was a big element of those too.

Rumors of a fourth Powers film have been around since Goldmember, with the working title "Four Eyes Only" or something like that, and he's been talking about it again while promoting Shrek 3.

I'm happy to wait and see what happens with Trek. This isn't going to be The Original Series, obviously. But it could be a genuinely fair Trek for today.

[cmoon]

I started reading this thread thinking 'oh god, how much more can star trek be ruined', but I agree that the casting looks surprisingly good--and for a film like this, casting is everything. Assuming the film is directed & scripted well, they could actually use it to get a new series going.

[Dacey]

Plus, we should be seeing plenty of great action sequences, since Abrams is involved.