posted
Thank god I am not 17... Otherwise I might have been offended by that remark.
Nevertheless, you are correct. Intellectal movies really don't sell movies especially if it's a intellectual sci-fi movie. People nowadays expect big sci-fi movies with big explosions, with blood, gore, space battles, naked women everywhere, fights, sex, blood, gore, space battles, naked women everwhere, fights and then more sex. But not a movie where you have to think.
I remember when Matrix came out, alot of people hated it because it involved too much thinking.
-------------------- Matrix If you say so If you want so Then do so
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
I say people should look at the fact that Paramount devoted $80 million or so to the movie with the full knowlege that a Trek movie will never bring the Batman & Robin crowd to the box office to recoup that investment like, erm, Batman & Robin could. That strongly implies to me anyway that they're confident that this project will appeal to the hordes of reasonable and friendly and pleasant-smelling non-fanboys who watched TNG and went to First Contact.
Then again, Hollywood suits make mistakes, too. But generally speaking, it's well understood that the sci-fi hardcore fanboy geek demographic isn't lucrative enough to spend dozens of millions of dollars at luring. That's the reason Starship Troopers was turned into a satire rather than a straight regurgitation of Heinlein. It's also the reason Enterprise isn't a series about a modified Galaxxy-callss drednaught blwoing pu the Jemhaddar in teh Gamma Quadrant wiht 19-episode arcs devotid to explaning how Trill look different. It's also the reason, among others, that JMS is a cold and bitter man.
Anyway understanding the business side of Hollywood has never come too easily to the fanboy-sympathetic media. TrekWeb would probably have you believe that Enterprise's lower ratings than TNG stem from people abandoning the show en masse when they saw a D7-class Klingon battlecruiser 120 years too early. (And they'd then proceed to plug The Dead Zone at every opportunity while the USA Network lined their pockets with banner ad payments. But that's another matter.)
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Your babies are mine, Thomas. Your babies are mine.
Registered: Oct 1999
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
quote:Thank god I am not 17... Otherwise I might have been offended by that remark.
quote:Hey... I'm 17.
well, unless you fit the other characteristics (mild retardation and attention deficit disorder), you have no reason to take offence just because you are 17.
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quote:What happened to the tea-sipping, tunic-pulling, brains-before- brawn captain I knew and loved in the series?
he disappeared after paramount decided that he wouldn't sell tickets to mildly retarded, 17 year old, ADD afflicted males.
I am really trying to resist mentioning a certain few of my fellow Flare members (not that I am, by any means, God's gift to science fiction forums. However, I can usually write in complete and correctly spelled sentences).
I also agree with a lot of what The_Tom says, though I do think Paramount counts on Star Trek fans, in general, and not just hard-core fanboys, to see any Star Trek movie at least once. That number of people would probably payback a good portion of a Star Trek movie's budget, so Paramount might be figuring they can try to make the movie more appealing to the general public, knowing that the fan base will see it anyway (and, again, cover a good portion of their costs, which is helpful if the general public chooses not to see the movie). Now, that does not mean Paramount decided to make a movie fanboys will be jerking off to in the front row, but even making a Star Trek movie more "Star Wars-ish" could cost some of the essential elements of Star Trek, and its movies, which tend to be, in my humble opinion, a bit deeper and more intellectual than its Saturday serial inspired cousin.*
Also, I believe I have read Rick Berman saying "Star Trek: Nemesis" was only budgeted $65,000,000 instead of the $75,000,000-$80,000,000 the last two movies received. Did it end up getting more?
*I realize some people, like Joseph Cambell (sp?), believe Star Wars to be the "new myth," filled with deep philisophical meaning, but the general public seems to view it as light-hearted fluff, which is why I implied making a Star Trek movie more "Star Wars-ish" would make it seem less intellectual to that public.
[ June 21, 2002, 23:08: Message edited by: Raw Cadet ]
Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Always keep in mind, the late, great Hugo Gernsback once said "90% of everything is crap."
My corollary of which is: "90% of pre-release movie opinions are crap. But 99.999999999% of online pre-release movie opinions are crap."
Remember, EVERY new incarnation of Star Trek, be it series or movie or book, has had its raving detractors. Just tune them out, like the buzzing of a mentally-impared globfly, and you'll be fine. It's called "reserving judgement." It's also a good way to inoculate yourself against other forms of prejudice.
[ June 22, 2002, 08:02: Message edited by: First of Two ]
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Whatever the principle, the fact remains that movies in general now show a tendency to overly rely on SFX. Not just in the SciFi genre, but everywhere. Ever since Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump etc. showed us what CGI could do, moviemakers seemed to be getting ever more crazy to include "THE LATEST IN DIGITAL IMAGERY" everywhere. The more CGI the better.
Now I don't think that SFX and CGI are bad, I just feel that we are getting an overdose. Think of Episode 2 for example. Almost everything there is CGI, even Yoda (ok, I know - for obvious reasons in this case).
And with that seems to come the "bigger-is-better" theory. The bigger the budget, the more explosions, the higher the stakes in the plot (yes, there used to be something called a plot in the old days!!!), the more violence, sex, action... the better.
THAT is what I find sad. That "normal" low or standard budget films with an interesting plot, good actors and the right amount of the aforementioned ingredients don't seem to sell as well as they used to.
We are all getting too spoiled. Even in Trek. Think back, when did they show a space battle during TNG? Now look at DS9 etc. Just because you CAN show big dogfight spacebattles doesn't mean you HAVE TO. Sure, they tend to look "cool", but I sometimes get the feeling "Hey, this isn't really Star Trek any more".
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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Big Dumb Epics have been with Hollywood since the beginning. It's arguable that the very first feature films were BDEs, and that the supposed "higher" stuff owes its existence to them.
Registered: Mar 1999
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![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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