Nothing to see here...

Before you read further, you have to immediately go watch the Star Trek trailer.

What you are about to witness, if you choose to continue reading is not for the faint of heart. But rest assured, there is nothing to fear. You are safe to watch events transpire from any distance.

The following is what is known as a nerd debate. Sit back and enjoy a conversation between Mike, Wayne and myself:

On 11/20/08 9:22 AM, "Mike" wrote:

So here is an article dissecting the new ST Trailer.
If I had to nit pick, I liked everything I saw except two things:
The robo/cop guy was stupid, why couldn’t it be a normal guy?
That really wasn’t star trek.

More importantly the Enterprise being built on Earth.
The design of the ship just doesn’t make since that it would be built on earth.
Built in (or at least assembled) in space is very much a Star Trek idea and way more practical.
Worse, it wasn’t in the San Francisco Shipyards. But in the middle of a field for everyone to drive up and look at.
I remember when the us government was building the brand new stealth fighter. My family and I took a road trip to Iowa and tailgated in a field while we watched them assemble the prototype.
There were lots of people there to watch, including the Chinese and Middle Eastern men it was a lot of fun. We all had our pictures taken together.

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/star-trek-trailer-blog.html


On 11/20/08 11:52 AM, "Nathan" wrote:

My biggest complaint was the direct rip off of the Star Wars trailer. Our hero riding his space cycle across great expanses just made me think of Anakin riding pissed off to slaughter him some sand people... And frankly, that’s not a connection I want to make. The Star Wars Prequels are not a high point in my nerdy world of cool things and if the new star trek draws any comparison to those piles of excrement, I’m really disappointed already.

Building ships in the future isn’t likely to have the same “get it out of the earth’s gravity” issue that our current technology allows. So, there isn’t any reason to say it HAS to be built in space. Any spaceship that can propel itself as fast as it can can certainly get over a little thing like gravity. Levitation isn’t an issue in Star trek’s world as we have seen many times, so it should be safe to assume that the same technology would provide the enterprise with the ability to get itself into orbit.

I WAS under the impression that JTK was raised somewhere rural, so the grand canyon thing was a little strange. Maybe he and his fam were on vaca.

Oh, and Mike, I’m reporting you to Homeland Security.

Oh wait, they probably already know, they’ve been monitoring this email all along.

The authorities should be coming by for questioning momentarily. My advice, tell them stuff BEFORE the waterboarding.

On 11/20/08 1:28 PM, "Wayne" wrote:

Dear Nate,
So, to quote Dennis Miller, “Now, I don’t want to go off on a rant here, but...”

Simply stated. You’re just not a believer. The prequels weren’t that bad. Admit you’re no longer 5 and move on. Maybe the movie wasn’t made for you. Excrement? Really? Remove the old films from the pedestal. Let apples be apples. Embrace the now and know that Gremlins 2 was actually meant to be a parody of the original.

And OF COURSE this is another Trek reboot so OF COURSE they’re going to pull from Star Wars AND they’ll pull from all 2000 of it’s knockoffs. They’re trying to make this less of a Trek movie in the trailers to bring in people who’ve given up or even those that never cared to start with. They don’t need to sell it to the Trekkers who are, at this point, only responsible for 50 to 65 million dollars of the gross AT BEST (if they save their allowences). If they trash that demographic and started over they’d actually have a better chance of success financially. But I digress.

Personally, kirk on his motorcycle seems to be more of an homage to Tom Cruise as Maverick driving by the fighter planes and dreaming of ‘the day’ he’ll be Top Gun... Because, Kirk’s a maverick and it’s actually appropriate. I could get real picky and compare the car driving off a cliff to Thelma and Louise, Spock choking Kirk to a scene in Halloween, and the part where Pike’s sitting in his chair is obviously a direct rip off to that scene in any sci-fi movie where someone’s sitting in a chair. Don’t even get me started on

And lastly, don’t forget that the last Star Trek movie (speaking of excrement) had a dune buggy chase (Yes, a dune buggy chase) and an unidentical clone of Picard.

So regardless, it’ll never be the original series. It’ll never be the original movies. It’ll never be the next generation. Or voyager.. Or DS9. Or Enterprise. Or “How William Shatner changed the world”. Or “I AM Spock”

It won’t even be the episode of Futurama that had half of the original cast. Because, quite simply, it’s not. It’s different. It’s new. Doesn’t make it good. Doesn’t make it bad. I didn’t once see Spock curving bullets or the camera panning around McCoy in bullet time so, frankly, it isn’t that far off.

Also from Paramount, we have a remake of Friday the 13th where Jason is actually running after a damsel in distress. And we’re talking about what’s wrong in the Star Trek trailer? Priorities.

“Now, that’s just my opinion and I could be wrong.”

Here is where mike starts to get nervous:

On 11/20/08 2:22 PM, "Mike" wrote:

Don’t you guys just love Nerd talk...

Should I mediate?
Points for Wayne on the prequel rebuttal and I agree it was more of a top gun reference, However, Nate’s view point I believe is more accurate to that non-trek audience The new ST movie is hoping to get.

And generally, sadly, they share Nates opinion of the prequels. These are the casual sci-fi fans who love comic movies and shows like smallville, heroes, lost, and maybe go so far as Battlestar. They grew up LOVING star wars but hadn't seen them in years. They haven't bought a toy since they were 10 and they are generally just young enough to not connect Top Gun, maybe even never seen it. I agree they are doing the right things for this movie. They are walking a thin, hard line to walk between re-inventing it for a new crowd, yet keeping the fans of ST pleased enough to not blog and chat insults to it enough that it becomes cool to hate it...exactly what happened to the Star Wars prequels. The littlest thing can make all the difference to the public, cool and exciting enough for people who would never watch a ST show to actually want to see this, yet true enough to the core sets of ST rules that the Fans don’t peck it to death. This is why, for me, the ship should have been assembled in space, even though, yes, its believable that they could build it on earth. And also why the robot cop was a BIG Mistake, nothing scares away non nerds faster that badly done robot cops, except maybe Gremlins 2.

It goes on a bit...

On 11/20/08 2:45 PM, "Nathan" wrote:

Wayne, you and I are indeed of a different stock. You sir are a purist. I have always loved you for that, highly respect anyone who can find the bright side in even the worst situation. If U2 put out it’s most disappointing album in it’s entire career, and you find a reason to love it as a dark horse.

I am not a purist. I love the reboots of Battlestar Galactica, Batman, Bond and others. Ground has been covered in the reboot department because of these wonderful works. I hold no grudges because Starbuck is a girl, or that Bond doesn’t have fancy gadgets, or Batman isn’t very comic booky. It’s an overall coolness factor I’m looking for here. In the end, Star Wars didn’t cut the mustard. On a general coolness scale, the Star Wars prequels will always lose because Lucas forgot one important thing, make sure it’s cool and entertaining. All the sound effects and visual effects in the world just can’t get me around the fact that every time I watch each of those prequels, I’m a little less enthused, a little more disappointed. I have tried several times. I want to like those movies. I even NEED to like those movies. But every time I watch them, instead of seeing something that wasn’t there before that I underappreciated, I’m slapped in the face with their bad scripts, horrible acting, and sheer stupidity. While the original trilogy has it’s faults too, no old school special effects or troop of sad ewoks will make me miss the fact that those movies are just plain fun.

Let’s take the latest installment of Indy. I didn’t like it. To say I hated it might be a stretch, but it’s effect was less than desirable. My initial reaction was as a purist and I hated that there were aliens. On a second look, I forgave the alien thing, but was so disappointed in the last act of the script overall that I was disappointed again. The last act of the script seemed more like a cheap knock off of National Treasure II to me. That’s really saying something. I hold a higher standard for Indiana Jones. The first two thirds of the movie were much better the second time around. I can even except Mutt swinging through the jungle as just plain stupid fun. But there’s something about that final act that I just can’t abide. It wasn’t cool. Never mind the aliens.

So to clarify, I’m keeping a big open mind about the new Star Trek. What I saw in the trailer was incredible. I’m even a little excited. I’m trying not to get my expectations up too high. But if the movie is ultimately “cool” that will shine through. Even if the cops look like robots.

Now Mike is really frightened:

On 11/20/08 3:15 PM, "Mike" wrote:

Um....
Just watch then let us all look in the mirrors and smile.
I wouldn’t change a single thing about any of us.






So, earlier, Mike called to try and patch things up between Wayne and I. I had to laugh. Not only was I not mad, I was ecstatic. I LOVE these type of debates, and it's exactly these sorts of discussions that make me miss Wayne and Mike and Sterling and all the nerdville gang the most.

With that I am making an announcement. I am inviting some old friends to be guest bloggers right here. Maybe we can light the fires some more. I look forward to reading someone elses opinion on this forum. Should be fun.

Let the games begin.