2013 appears to be the year of the sequel reboot: Evil Dead, Superman and Star Trek, to name a few. It’s not the first time a bunch of sequels have dominated the movie marketplace, after all there are a ton of Charlie Chan mystery films. When studios find something that has appeal, they milk it to death. However, the idea of the reboot has taken hold. A few decades ago, studios would, at most, recast, a change of actors like when Sean Connery left the highly recognizable and profitable James Bond franchise. Audiences came to accept the change. This later happened in television as well when Gene Roddenberry launched Star Trek: The Next Generation. It took awhile but Trekkies eventually loved the series.
A few years ago a friend asked me what I thought of the then new JJ Abrams reboot, 2009’s Star Trek. On one hand I didn’t want to like it as it seemed to dumb down Star Trek. Don’t get me wrong, Star Trek in it's long history has had plenty of dumbed down moments, but in general it was a mix of action and mind bending concepts. Trek at it's best pushed the viewer to be in engaged in the story. But if a studio is going to throw a huge budget at the franchise, you want and expect a certain level of artistic production quality. Some people loved Abrams version of Star Trek. I thought it suffered from huge story telling flaws and it was visually uneven. The now infamous“lens flares” were distracting, and some production choices like shooting at a Budweiser Brewery in Van Nuys, California and using this as the starship’s warp engine room, I thought displayed a lack of serious vision. Sticking computers and people in front of vast vats filled with brew was very B-movie. You do that when you’re making a student film, not when you are working on a multi-million dollar budgeted film about mankind’s future. Even on a limited TV budget, Gene Roddenberry and his staff did their best to create something new and interesting visually in the service of a good and well told story.
There were, however, some great production ideas in the film and it hinted at a nod to the 1950’s impressions of space travel. Most of the production design seemed to be inspired from the pages and covers of sci-fi fiction pulp magazines. Which could be really cool with today’s movie magic technology.
I liked how Abrams seemed to take in the criticisms of the first film and in the sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), he made a really good effort at creating a vast re-imaging of the future and upping the production value. The sets are interesting and look great.
There were still major plot holes in the sequel from the minor like Doctor Marcus sneaking aboard the Enterprise, to the major: why didn't Khan simply wake up his 72 Eugenic super-men army and take over the base? He apparently had enough time to stuff them in super hi-tech photon torpedo tubes. And nobody would notice those missing?
When news leaked out that Spock was to die in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Nicholas Meyer came up with the ingenious Kobyashi Maru scene at the begining of the film to distract the fans attention for when the actual Spock death scene occurs at the end of the film. Here's the lost opportunity for Abrams and creative crew: when the web was a buzz that Into Darkness featured Khan as the villain. In this alternate Abrams Trekverse it is revealed that John Harrison is actually Khan, who instead of being revived by the Enterprise crew, is revived by Admiral Marcus ( the other baddy in the film) cruising along in deep space one day and discovers the Botany Bay adrift. So originally Abrams cast Benecio Del Toro. A great actor and resembles Ricardo Motalban enough to be seen playing the role of Khan. The web is buzzing: "KHAN! " Something changes in pre-production and they re-cast Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan, presumably because he is a great actor, and who ended up stealing the movie.
Besides the obvious objection, that the character of Khan is an Indian Sikh and Cumberbatch looks nothing remotely like an Indian Sikh, here again is another lost opportunity to create something new. There were 73 super-eugenic people aboard the Botany Bay from the TV episode. Since JJ Abrams established that the timeline had been changed, why not just let John Harrison be John Harrison? It would’ve been a great reveal at the end of the film if we see John Harrison sleeping in the tube, and inside the cyro-genics tube next to him, oblivious to the events in the new time line, lay Khan.
Reboot simply means a change with the times. Which is totally fine and necessary if a story is to be relevant with other audiences. What can be tiresome for audiences is the constant re-telling of the “Origin”story, and what’s even worse is if this is done poorly, if nothing new is created or added. I used to read tons of Superman stories. Stuff from the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and on. Characters adapt to the needs of each generation and usually for the better. Man of Steel, the new Superman film retells what is probably the 100th version of the battle of General Zod VS Superman. Taking a cue from the 1970’s Superman and Superman 2 films, based on the trailers, this one promises to be a jam packed explosive “Super-duper” adventure and it doesn’t seem to be dumbed down as opposed to what seems to be happening in other reboot films like Star Trek Into Darkness, where the rules of the Movie universe are set and like the Prime Directive you’re not allowed to ever violate the rules you create just to take a short cut or as it seems taking a cookie cutter approach and just taking a selection of scenes from other films and just re-telling them.
I enjoyed Star Trek Into Darkness, but it lacked inspiration and a new and original twist, so it’ll be sad to see it collecting dust one day. Maybe instead of terming these types of films re-boots they should call them re-prints.
A few years ago a friend asked me what I thought of the then new JJ Abrams reboot, 2009’s Star Trek. On one hand I didn’t want to like it as it seemed to dumb down Star Trek. Don’t get me wrong, Star Trek in it's long history has had plenty of dumbed down moments, but in general it was a mix of action and mind bending concepts. Trek at it's best pushed the viewer to be in engaged in the story. But if a studio is going to throw a huge budget at the franchise, you want and expect a certain level of artistic production quality. Some people loved Abrams version of Star Trek. I thought it suffered from huge story telling flaws and it was visually uneven. The now infamous“lens flares” were distracting, and some production choices like shooting at a Budweiser Brewery in Van Nuys, California and using this as the starship’s warp engine room, I thought displayed a lack of serious vision. Sticking computers and people in front of vast vats filled with brew was very B-movie. You do that when you’re making a student film, not when you are working on a multi-million dollar budgeted film about mankind’s future. Even on a limited TV budget, Gene Roddenberry and his staff did their best to create something new and interesting visually in the service of a good and well told story.
There were, however, some great production ideas in the film and it hinted at a nod to the 1950’s impressions of space travel. Most of the production design seemed to be inspired from the pages and covers of sci-fi fiction pulp magazines. Which could be really cool with today’s movie magic technology.
I liked how Abrams seemed to take in the criticisms of the first film and in the sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), he made a really good effort at creating a vast re-imaging of the future and upping the production value. The sets are interesting and look great.
There were still major plot holes in the sequel from the minor like Doctor Marcus sneaking aboard the Enterprise, to the major: why didn't Khan simply wake up his 72 Eugenic super-men army and take over the base? He apparently had enough time to stuff them in super hi-tech photon torpedo tubes. And nobody would notice those missing?
When news leaked out that Spock was to die in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Nicholas Meyer came up with the ingenious Kobyashi Maru scene at the begining of the film to distract the fans attention for when the actual Spock death scene occurs at the end of the film. Here's the lost opportunity for Abrams and creative crew: when the web was a buzz that Into Darkness featured Khan as the villain. In this alternate Abrams Trekverse it is revealed that John Harrison is actually Khan, who instead of being revived by the Enterprise crew, is revived by Admiral Marcus ( the other baddy in the film) cruising along in deep space one day and discovers the Botany Bay adrift. So originally Abrams cast Benecio Del Toro. A great actor and resembles Ricardo Motalban enough to be seen playing the role of Khan. The web is buzzing: "KHAN! " Something changes in pre-production and they re-cast Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan, presumably because he is a great actor, and who ended up stealing the movie.
Besides the obvious objection, that the character of Khan is an Indian Sikh and Cumberbatch looks nothing remotely like an Indian Sikh, here again is another lost opportunity to create something new. There were 73 super-eugenic people aboard the Botany Bay from the TV episode. Since JJ Abrams established that the timeline had been changed, why not just let John Harrison be John Harrison? It would’ve been a great reveal at the end of the film if we see John Harrison sleeping in the tube, and inside the cyro-genics tube next to him, oblivious to the events in the new time line, lay Khan.
Reboot simply means a change with the times. Which is totally fine and necessary if a story is to be relevant with other audiences. What can be tiresome for audiences is the constant re-telling of the “Origin”story, and what’s even worse is if this is done poorly, if nothing new is created or added. I used to read tons of Superman stories. Stuff from the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and on. Characters adapt to the needs of each generation and usually for the better. Man of Steel, the new Superman film retells what is probably the 100th version of the battle of General Zod VS Superman. Taking a cue from the 1970’s Superman and Superman 2 films, based on the trailers, this one promises to be a jam packed explosive “Super-duper” adventure and it doesn’t seem to be dumbed down as opposed to what seems to be happening in other reboot films like Star Trek Into Darkness, where the rules of the Movie universe are set and like the Prime Directive you’re not allowed to ever violate the rules you create just to take a short cut or as it seems taking a cookie cutter approach and just taking a selection of scenes from other films and just re-telling them.
I enjoyed Star Trek Into Darkness, but it lacked inspiration and a new and original twist, so it’ll be sad to see it collecting dust one day. Maybe instead of terming these types of films re-boots they should call them re-prints.
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