Star Trek vs. Star Wars (and a collection of memes)

Obi Wan Kenobi demonstrating emotional depth in Star Wars movies has never been his strong suit. Possibly my least favorite seen in the prequels was when General Grievous did a dramatic bunch of lightsaber waiving in front of Obi Wan and the actor didn't even fidget or blink. Also, he had a good twenty seconds to kill Grievous before he drew his lightsabers and didn't take the opportunity.

Warden finally bringing a dash of Star Trek.

Along those lines...

I know lots of people are worried about Star Wars future but...



Why bother making a fourth Kelvin Universe Star Trek film. I think Jar Jar Abrams is trying to destroy the very concept of sci-fi.

Kill the Kelvin Universe with fire. Create a temporal event to erase it from existance. Either go back to the universe with the Original Series, TNG, DS9, and Voyager OR do a hard reboot in a new universe and poach the creative team from the Orville.

I'd honestly want to see a sequel to DS9 but I'll take anything that doesn't have Jar Jar's fingerprints on it.

 

When they started it I would have agreed.
These days I am not sure anymore.

I have met quite some people (usually non-Trekkies) who actually liked the new ST movies, despite their shortcomings. They viewed them as more contemporary instead of the old political, moralizing Star Trek. Also more fun because more action. Like a Transformers movie.
Even I have to admit that - once I turned off the weeping Trekkie part of my brain - the movies did have some damn cool content in them.

As for the new TV shows: I cannot tell since I didn't watch any Star Trek show after Voyager. (I may have seen 2-3 episodes of Enterprise but I am not sure, I have only a very vague grasp on the characters and some story elements).

I am not sure that would be better than what we have actually.

Side note: lately I met the first Trekkie that actually likes STiscovery! Previously I thought those don't exist.

This has two interesting aspects to it.

One: why the hell does (then already Oscar winner IIRC) Alec Guinness make such weird faces?
The answer reportedly is George Lucas. He didn't tell the actors the plot or motivations of the characters. They just had some lines to say that they didn't know the meaning of. That's why he looks so robotic and utterly confused about what he is saying.

For the prequels....
As an Obi-Wan fan I hate to say it, but I think Obi-Wan in the PT was poorly written and directed (par for the course, it is even more obvious for Anakin, which caused my hate for Hayden Christensen until I saw other movies starring him and realized that he is probably not to blame). It isn't Ewan McGregor's fault.
Hell, even Christopher Lee comes across weird in the prequels.
Edit: and don't get me started about Natalie Portman...

And then all the cheesy one liners Lucas gave Obi-Wan.... they may be nice for memes but in the movie I didn't like them. They felt really out of character for Obi-Wan. Some of them don't even make sense.
Lucas probably had marketing in mind. They do great as catchphrases on action figures and all that kind of things.

 

I was torn about it.
The first movie was IMO a great idea. The only possible way to reboot the franchise, giving a fresh and modern approach to the saga (which was becoming a stagnant pool).
But alas, the good parte ended there. We started with young, immature characters, that should learn from their mistakes and so can grow into the responsible men that we knew in the original series.
Kirk knows that actions bring consequences and that people's lives rest upon his hands. McCoy and Spock are the opposite sides of the medal, and Kirk works as the meeting point between passion and rationality.
That would have been a great development to see on screen, after the first rebooted movie. The growth of young men into officiers. After all, the events were different but the men were the same of the original series.

Instead, we have a cringeful mess of hot-headed boys, with power and authority far beyond their skills, handled to them because the plot demands so, that continue to act in an irresponsible way without thinking, just because the idea is crazy and fun, and fate graces them with improbable successes, with 0 learning, 0 improvement, 0 care for the men and woman under their command.

 

They are popcorn movies. Dumb but visually appealing and you can hear cheesy one liners and see huge robots fight each other and destroy everything around them in the process.
They have their market. Hell, IIRC each of them made at least four times the money it cost.
If you think capitalist then those are good movies by definition.
We happen to not like them, but apparently millions of people do.

I always try. But yeah, I will admit that - from the few things I know about ST Discovery - I fail to understand that point of view.
I mean: sure, you can find good things in almost everything (you know that's my speciality) but until now I - quite literally - only heard bad things about the show.

 

I know you weren't being literal with mentally ill. I will say that about 2% of the people I run across are really positive people. I don't know if they are eternal optimists who see the bright side about everything or they are merely very polite.

Every idea is brilliant, every piece of food is good. Everyone is handsome, cute or beautiful. These people are wonderful to hang out with, but not good to ask for advice or candid opinions from.

I would say 4-5% of people are movie or TV junkies. They love this media. In most cases they make informed observations and critiques of the things they watch but they enjoy bad movies almost as much they like good movies. I have a dash of this. I like horrible movies as much as I like good movies. Average movies bore me though. It takes a real film junky to enjoy a mediocre or slightly subpar movie.

I don't know what percentage of the population fits in the next category. I certainly don't know what percentage of this applies to Trekkies, but there are some people who take brand loyalty too far.

The memable guy who screamed "IT'S THE MILLENIUM FALCON!!!!!!!!!" comes to mind but maybe even he gave up on Disney Star Wars. I'm sure there is a segment of Trekkies who will love anything with a com badge on.



This type of fan is becoming more scarce because the Internet makes attacking the things you love easier. But blind fandom still exists.

I'm betting 10% of the Star Trek at least will watch anything with the Star Trek logo on it and about 1-2% of the fan base will buy almost any merchandise with the Star Trek logo on it that they can afford.

Marketers of franchises depend on the hyper fan base for initial word of mouth marketing. That's what Comic Con and Gen Con are about. Hypothetically if the hard core fan base is offended, they probably won't stop watching the franchise, but they will stop marketing it for free.

George Lucas is a brilliant storyteller. He is a mediocre cinematogripher (Camera A, Camera B, Camera A, Camera B Always sitting down or walking slowly regardless of the stakes). GL is abysmal at humaning. Empire Strikes Back had the best cinematography and emotion of the George Lucas because he had other people to help him out. By the time he got to the Star Wars prequels, everyone was afraid to say "no" to George.

A skilled director can get a decent performance out of a crappy actor. A very skilled actor can still shine with a crappy director. Liam Neeson was the only very skilled actor in the prequels, but Qui Gon died early. Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor are good, but they are not good enough to overpower poor direction.

Disney Star Wars kicked Lucas out. These movies have great cinematography, mediocre humaning, and abysmal storytelling.

I often wondered how Michael Bay keeps finding work. The Chinese market. If you take off nostalgia colored glasses. The 1980s had a bunch of low brow explosion heavy action movies. At this point in film history, special effects in color movies became economical for the first time and audiences weren't sick of it yet. China's movie industry is younger so they are still in the explosions stage.

I don't mind popcorn movies. I enjoy popcorn movies. I had a big ol' smile on my face watching Pacific Rim. Probably is, I rarely want to watch popcorn movies twice. I am rarely willing to pay to watch them when the tickets or DVDs are not on sale. I rarely tell my friends "You got to see this!"

I have seen a few reviews of Star Trek Discovery by reviewers I trust and respect. STD breaks established canon. It breaks the theme of classic Star Trek; gone is the cautious optimism and impeccable honor and courage of Star Trek. The characterization is weak. Gone is the subtly when addressing social issues. The pacing doesn't feel like Star Trek.

One thing that most reviewers begrudgingly admit is good is the special effects. Especially the space suit scenes which is something the original Trek didn't do much.

That said, special effects, in my opinion is the cherry on top of the sundae. I like the cherry. But I don't want to eat a bottle of merashino cherries...brought to you by Michael Bay.

 

I agree with most of your post, but I am not sure about that part, after what I've read about how Star Wars was made.
I'd say he is (or rather was) pretty good at it most of the time, but he needed skilled people (like Lawrence Kasdan, many people say) to give him that last little nudge into the right direction.

IMO what he really excelled in was having this vision that just perfectly fit the zeitgeist. I think others (like Zahn) told better stories in his universe, but he created the universe, and he did so at the right time and with the right main elements to it, in a similar way Roddenberry did with Star Trek.

Oh and I fear you might be wrong with the "Transformers success = because China" theory.
It seems all of them except one did pretty well or at least OK in North America as well...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers_(film_series)