Star Trek

DVD sales for Trek are over $100M (domestic) in the 6 weeks it's been released, dunno about the features on it, I have not seen it on dvd. It is the most pirated dvd of 2009 which doesn't surprise me considering the audience for it, I did find out that was determined by torrent dowload searches for movies.

EDIT: TV and cable rights so far are over $100M in presales with lots of territories left to sell. FX channel's deal was $24M if it grossed $200M domestic, it grossed $257M domestic so it might be closer to $30M now. It financialy smoked all previous Trek movies by a huge margin in b.o., dvd and tv/cable sales.
 
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I rented Star Trek on blu-ray the other night. I didn't notice any weirdness with the picture.

I still think that all the major flaws I complained about after seeing it in the theater are there, but it was much a more enjoyable experience the second time around at home on blu. I think they got a lot of things right with this movie, and I like it more than I did back when it came out. I don't know, but the fact that I knew that there were going to be some elements I didn't like on the second viewing, maybe made it possible for me to not worry about them and focus on the positive aspects?

Still though, I hope they really nail the story on the next one, while also making it a little more scientifically plausible. The cast was great though, and I dig J.J. Abrams directing style for Trek. Hopefully no more cameos in the sequel(s) besides Nimoy. Since they set up the Spock Prime character in the new timeline they might as well use him again if need be.
 
Schatner is supposed to have a cameo in the next one but the movie is on hold until 2012 while Abrams does some other projects first.
 
They don't know yet, I also hope so, the studio wanted this last one to be shot in 3D but Abrams didn't want to do it, it took the former production prez at Paramount 1 year to talk Abrams into directing it in 2D. I hope Avatar makes him change his mind. I'd think Trekkies would go wild over a 3D Trek. He's pretty secretive though, not many people know Cloverfield 2 has been in the can for a while. Things are just starting to leak out now about Cloverfield 2, lots of clues on the net like the first one that drove it's viral campaign.
 
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ChipG said:
Schatner is supposed to have a cameo in the next one but the movie is on hold until 2012 while Abrams does some other projects first.
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Ugh. I hope they don't. They need to stop approaching the series in such a fan-fic way and just tell a story that stands on its own, without gimmicks.
 
Batutta said:
Ugh. I hope they don't. They need to stop approaching the series in such a fan-fic way and just tell a story that stands on its own, without gimmicks.
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That's funny, about every Trekkie in the world blasted Abrams for not having him do a cameo in the last one, it even made national news fans were so pissed.
 
ChipG said:
That's funny, about every Trekkie in the world blasted Abrams for not having him do a cameo in the last one, it even made national news fans were so pissed.
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I'm all for some Shatness, but only if it fits the plot properly. The Nimoy cameo felt a bit shoehorned in for my tastes. I just don't see how they'll do a Shatner cameo without resorting to something like time travel again, which could make the next film feel too much like a retread of the newest one.

Plus they've done time travel in two Trek films already, The Voyage Home and First Contact. Since this is a new timeline, why not do something bold like having Kirk and crew run into the Borg , thus forcing the Federation to ally themselves with the Klingons and the Romulans to stand up to those pesky cybernetic conquerers? How's that for pleasing the fans with a hearty dose of classic elements? It would be somewhat new in the sense that Kirk and crew have never faced off agains the Borg. Also, a redesign of the Borg with today's FX tech could be truly awesome and would give them the chance for an epic scope.
 
I'm not a big Trek guy but has there ever been a Trek movie or episode that didn't have time travel? Isn't it time travel everytime the Enterprise goes into hyperwarp?
 
ChipG said:
Isn't it time travel everytime the Enterprise goes into hyperwarp?
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Yes, and this is something no science-fiction movie has ever addressed. Anytime you travel faster than light, you're time traveling and potentially violating causality. Charles Stross wrote a novel called Singularity Sky where the starships abused this time traveling aspect to military advantage.
 
Maybe the writers should add a gravity device to the Enterprise so they can use gravity to bend the universe and jump from place to place without hyperwarping.

I watch the science channel :)
 
William_Robinette said:
Counterpoint:

I would think Spock of all people would be aware of a star fleet base on a planet within practically spitting distance from his own (as we can tell from his witnessing Vulcan's destruction).
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I highly doubt that. It's a small outpost in the middle of nowhere. There could be hundreds for all we know.
Besides, with the alternate universe bit going on who's to say that it was even there in Ambassador Spock's universe. :)

MAH
 
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ChipG said:
Maybe the writers should add a gravity device to the Enterprise so they can use gravity to bend the universe and jump from place to place without hyperwarping.

I watch the science channel :)
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That is supposedly what warp drive is, at least as (over-) explained in the TNG era. Romulan ships supposedly had a "singularity" in them to do exactly that.

But it's a mistake to bother with the technical details. It's enough that it works and gets them from place to place. No more is needed.

Trying to come up with "scientific"-sounding explanations of things is what leads to the constant onslaught of technobabble, and silly premises such as what this film had.
 
Batutta said:
Yes, and this is something no science-fiction movie has ever addressed.
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That is what will be really interesting about The Forever War. That is if Ridley Scott gets around to making the darn thing.

Avatar hinted at it in the beginning, but then it was only a small detail as the rest of the film took place on Pandora. So it really didn't matter to the overall story.

I've got an interesting story idea that would fall under the military sci-fi banner that uses time dilation as a major plot point as well. I think that if a writer can make the time dilation aspect a major component of the story, then it could work really well in cinema. Basically, there needs to be a narrative reason to have to explain it to the audience in the first place, and then they need to see a character going through the strange experience of time dilation/time travel on an emotional or visceral level for it to be engaging.

Anytime you travel faster than light, you're time traveling and potentially violating causality. Charles Stross wrote a novel called Singularity Sky where the starships abused this time traveling aspect to military advantage.
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I really need to read Singularity Sky. That military time tactic sounds like a great idea.

One thing about Trek's transporters and warp drive is that it gives them the opportunity to explore the galaxy with a great deal of freedom. Sure it's magic technology, but it's cool and it's fun. These things are so iconic that I can't see changing them too much or removing them from Trek.

David Jimerson said:
Trying to come up with "scientific"-sounding explanations of things is what leads to the constant onslaught of technobabble, and silly premises such as what this film had.
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That was so refreshing with Battlestar. Their ships can "jump". The Cylons could "download" their minds into new bodies. It was everyday technology to the characters. There is no need to have someone come in and explain every piece of tech to the audience. If they did, it comes off as not just technobabble, but story killing exposition.

It may not be "hard sci-fi", but even hard science fiction needs to narratively justify the need to go off on a big tangent on how stuff works in the story's universe.
 
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