Tagged: j.j. abrams
JJ Abrams Universe ‘Star Trek 3’: Who’s Really Got The Cred To Direct?!
A couple nights ago I finally got to see Chris Nolan’s “Interstellar” and it was an incredibly thought provoking science fiction flick, one I’d love to sit an analyze for hours with friends on it’s meaning and scientific relevance. Movies like this are what often times I truly love about Sci-Fi, a great mind bender. Don’t get me wrong I’m totally down for the laser battling, space adventuring of Star Wars but a part of me hopes NOT to get too much of that in my next Star Trek movie. The reboot/sequel JJ Abrams did was a downright awesome movie, filled with action, great fx, the perfect amount of nostalgia but by the time the second movie came around, trying to recreate the Khan storyline I’d somehow began to realize that JJ was better suited for Star Wars than Trek. Let’s face it the two franchises are indeed very different beasts and for a moment during Interstellar I delightfully pictured a Christopher Nolan helmed Star Trek film in my mind.
So today as I think about entering the theater to see a new Star Trek movie I hope for something a little different, something perhaps a little more challenging to the mind. I think back to some of the classic original series episodes which the crew face threats or situations that truly perplexed them all (The City on the Edge of Forever, The Changeling, Amok Time, Obsession, The Corbomite Manuever). I’m talking classic plot driven science fiction. That’s exactly where I’d love to see Kirk & Spock head of to. Sure giant aliens are rad, and who doesn’t love a good space battle with two opposing ships blasting the shit out of each other?! Well sometimes I like my Trek with a little more mind and that’s why of the directors being considered to helm the next movie I’m really hoping they give Duncan Jones(who is indeed in the running) for the job.
Yes, David Bowie’s son has already given us a couple great, more mind bending science fiction movies. ‘Moon’ being one of my favorite modern Sci Fi flicks and ‘Source Code’ being a totally solid twisting puzzle of movie. I feel Jones could really deliver us a great classic/modern space adventure with nods to The Twilight Zone which also had it’s influence in some of the best original Trek episodes. “Into Darkness” felt a little like Star Trek for people with ADD and the last thing I want to see is someone like Justin Lin (The Fast and the Furious movies) taking the reigns, who is indeed a contender. So I’m putting it out there, endorsing Duncan Jones as the perfect man for the job, heck I’d say he could even write the thing. However even if he didn’t write it knowing he was at the reigns would give me hope for a good script to be approved and to get a truly unique science fiction adventure beyond the stars with the USS Enterprise!
The Lucas Special Edition Teaser for Star Wars Episode VII-Best Thing Ever??!
So I haven’t weighed in on the new Star Wars “The Force Awakens” Teaser yet! I’ve gotta say when I first saw it I wasn’t particularly impressed. It didn’t look terrible and it honestly didn’t really give us a helluva lot to reeeeally get super pumped about. At first I thought it may have been too CG heavy, but perhaps what we are seeing isn’t actually all CG? Perhaps it’s utilizing the models and practical effects that it promised and it just looks damn good?! So my conclusion, thus far it seems like it’s on the right track and we won’t really be able to tell how good this could really be until the proper trailer drops. I just hope that droid rolling like ball isn’t a “Jar 2D2” type character!
But then today I saw the “Lucas Special Edition” version of the trailer, obviously a joke, but a damn funny one it is! The truth behind it is that the “Lucas” version really might have probably looked something like that if he had his hands on it for real! Seeing this actually make me appreciate the real teaser much more, because it reminds me to quit bitchin’ because if Lucas was directing it could be a heck of a LOT worse potentially! Check this shit out, it’s pretty amazing-I’ll be watching this Lucas version of the teaser more than the real thing!!
Also this totally blows my mind, that Lucas did have this shit planned since back in 1983 as you can see in this old interview clip from Hamill! Color me totally impressed George!!
Don’t Put Shatner in The Next Star Trek!
Can you believe it-I’m asking for William Shatner to NOT be in the next Star Trek flick?! It’s something I thought I’d never say, but after hearing recent news that the original Captain Kirk might now be appearing in the next installment of the big screen Trek adventures I came to the conclusion that sometimes you have to just leave nostalgia alone. After an excellent reboot of the Star Trek universe that didn’t diminish or erase the original series/the movies, but rather connected them together perfectly and adding Spock Nimoy Prime to the equation successfully, somehow we still got the god awful sequel “Into Darkness”. This was a movie that somehow dumbed down the Trek mythos into a cheap action flick while totally ruining the legacy of the series number one villain Khan. Pondering what would come next in the series as a Trek fan for the first time wasn’t something that I was particularly excited about.
So now we have a Abrams-less Star Trek film and now they’re planning on putting William Shatner back into the equation. Sure this sounds like a possibly entertaining trip down memory lane, something that true fans might totally dig. I say it sounds a bit like a bit of a mess. They got lucky once adding Nimoy and for the most part pulling it off quite well. However I’d much rather just have an intriguing compelling science fiction adventure without all the corny business. Stop with the Khan, Shatner, Nimoy nostalgia while you’re ahead and just give us a solid trek through the unknown regions of the galaxy with the crew that you so carefully set in place. We don’t need William Shatner in these movies or any other original series actors. Let’s for this next movie forget about the past.
I’d love to see some new threats to the crew, hell I don’t even want to see a damn Klingon yet in this series! The reason why Star trek was “reset” was so that we could boldly go where no one has gone before. Adding Shat to the mix would be a cheesy move at this point, we already did the whole time travel thing once. Twice might not be quite as charming. They mentioned that Shatner could appear as the old version of Chris Pine’s Kirk-but really Pine’s Kirk is quite different than Shatner’s. To jam him in the movie would be just so that Shatner could be in it because they can.
There’s really no other other reason and it’s a shame for them it’s not as graceful as putting Mark Hamill in episode 7. Shatner is the real Kirk and always will be but I don’t think he needs to be on the Enterprise this time around-what do you think?
Listen Up Abrams! The FOUR Golden Rules for Star Wars Have Arrived!
Here’s a great little video that hit the web today, simply titled “4 Rules to Make Star Wars Great Again”. Meaning what? That the prequels were BAD?! Yeah…well we don’t need to get into those pesky prequels again. What we have here is a simple guide line with some great animation for Abrams to roll around in his brain from Portland Oregon’s own Sincerely Truman.
Honestly though at this point in the game it certainly doesn’t appear that JJ Abrams is gonna screw anything up, everything I have seen and heard thus far points to the next installment being the opposite of what we got served from the prequels. In fact, so far I am so certain that he’s not only going to do it right but he’s going to exceed us Star Wars fans expectations! But then again, with Hollywood THESE days you just never know! So here are 4 rules along with their official website!
Are these four rules enough? What do you think? I’d say they nailed it but Star Wars was cute back in 1983 Return of the Jedi’s the Ewoks were about as cute as it gets!
Star Trek: Less Action Please!!
I’ve been thinking about for it for quite some time now and I’ve just GOT to say it: Current Star Trek has way too much damn action! After watching the most recent “Star Trek: Into Darkness” I realized that the franchise is going in the wrong direction. No, I won’t deny that JJ nailed it on the first Star Trek he directed, it was fun, action packed and nostalgic. However the lackluster sequel where he tried to recreate the whole Khan storyline was not necessary to us Trekkers! We had two previous installments (Space Seed and The Wrath of Khan) which simply cannot be touched. It was a loud mess of story with a decent villain but who unfortunately just wasn’t seen as the legendary Khan in the eyes of Star Trek fans. I felt it was such a disappointment that I am actually glad that Abrams is leaving the franchise.
Yep, I realized that this current “Star Trek” doesn’t really represent real spirit of Star Trek. It’s so jam packed with wild explosions, glitter and insane action sequences that it is missing what really made Trek so intriguing in the first place. A good solid story. Nope we didn’t get crazy effects heavy action, we got good sci-fi about traveling the universe looking for new alien civilizations, beaming down to unknown planets, exploration and strong bonds that slowly grew within the crew in the process. it wasn’t about being flashy, it was the perfect blend of action, story and adventure. I’d like to see the next movie be a more intelligent plot driven adventure of discovering new worlds and the the unknown threats or challenges that are waiting on the planet’s surface.You know like a star trek should be…
Let’s not try and modernize an old story or try to redesign an old villain with a “cool factor”. Give us a good story without all the pointless hyperactive action- this is Star Trek not The Fast and the Furious! “Into Darkness” really made me miss the spirit of the old shows and movies. I think Abrams did a great job of kick starting a franchise and making it “cool again” for the kids but as we continue this journey let’s remember that all that glitters is not necessarily gold, let’s remember what made Star Trek great in the first place. Star Trek was never broken, its crew just got old and eventually retired, let’s remember even in their younger days they were never concerned about being hip and cool for the kids, they were there to explore the final frontier! Give us some good ol’ fashioned science fiction dammit! You remember episodes like “City on the Edge of Forever”? “Mirror Mirror”? “Arena”? “The Naked Time”?! The Savage Curtain”? Well if not maybe all you Trek fans should go back and revisit the classics, the foundation of it all. Who do you think would be a good choice to helm the next movie?! Do you think Star Trek is on the right path?
Spock Prime Returning to the Next Star Trek Movie!? Likely!
Word on the street is that Nimoy who officially retired from acting just can’t resist his call of duty on the USS Enterprise! It seems we hear it right from the Vulcan’s mouth here in this CNN interview that they are indeed in talks! Obviously he was one of the BEST things about the reboot as his appearance in the movie solidified the new and old timeline as one and made all of the old movies and TOS still relevant. I say two Spock’s are easily better than one.
I wonder however how good ol’ Shatner feels about this? What do you all think is there room or want for Kirk prime to star in an upcoming Star Trek movie?
Let’s Search for Spock!
Here’s a little video clip for anyone interested in Spock. It’s a dancehall track I wrote in honor of the legendary Vulcan and I recently put it up on Youtube for the whole galaxy to enjoy!
I also put up a Mister Saturday Bandcamp page so you can download some hardcore nerdcore for free….
Anyway check it out if you haven’t already!
Khan Gets Down in the Dancehall!
The time has come once again to shamelessly self promote myself! Hey somebody has got to do it – anyway I just posted my youtube slide show for the “Wrath of Khan” a song by Mister Saturday. It’s a reggae dancehall retelling of the history of Khan Noonien Singh, the greatest Star Trek foe of all time.
For a while this was the theme song for the Official Star Trek convention’s Myspace page. Remember that website? Me neither really…anyway sit back light one up, pour yourself a glass of ice cold Andorian ale and check out this track from the world first and only nerdcore dancehall artist…
The Top 10 “Stranded on an Island” Movies!
I find myself thinking a lot about getting stranded on a deserted island quite alot! Perhaps it’s because of my love of the show “Lost” or maybe it’s just because life here in the USA can get a little too stressful! Well either way the dream of being stuck on one sounds quite nice most of the time but in actuality it’d probably drive me just as crazy as city life does in the end. Well here’s my top 10 stranded on an island movies (Check out part two right here!) -some of them make the idea pretty appealing as others turn the idea into a total nightmare.
Even though after watching the worst case scenarios go down I still think it’d be pretty damn fun to try and restart civilization-but it seems in the movies no matter how hard they try someone always ends up fuckin’ up the program. Good or bad these flicks are definitely worth a watch if you’re hoping to get the hell outta’ dodge! Check it out… Continue reading
Norwegian Trolls: Back in a BIG way!!
I just heard about an amazing looking upcoming movie today called The Troll Hunter! It’s a Norwegian mockumentary in the vein of Cloverfield about a group of researchers set off to uncover an age old conspiracy that the government has been withholding the truth on the existence of trolls. Now that’s an original idea I say for a movie! Perhaps it just may be my personal fascination with trolls as you can see by my recent blog post about the NyForm trolls I collect. The funny thing is that so far the images I have seen of the trolls in this movie very closely resemble the NyForm!! So far this movie is looking amazing and the trolls are larger than life.
I know the whole false documentary thing is a little over played nowdays but I think this movie has enough originality going for it with it’s subject matter so far to make it stand out on it’s own. As you know I’m a sucker for a good monster movie and though this one seems to bare alot in common with Cloverfield and maybe that 90’s movie Twister, these newly released clips have got me pretty dang excited!! Make sure to check out the other clips after the trailer-you’ll get a little more Troll in those…
Universal Dork 