April 26 2024

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Abrams’ Star Trek Mistake

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During an interview about Star Wars, J.J. Abrams spoke about learning from past mistakes made in other films, including Super 8 and Star Trek into Darkness.

“I drew on personal experiences as cautionary tales, things that I didn’t want to do again,” he said. “For example, I didn’t want to enter into making a movie where we didn’t really own our story. I feel like I’ve done that a couple of times in my career.

“That’s not to say I’m not proud of my work, but the fact is I remember starting to shoot Super 8 and Star Trek Into Darkness and feeling like I hadn’t really solved some fundamental story problems.”

Star Trek into Darkness took some heat from fans when it was consistently denied during production that the villain would be Khan, and then the villain did turn out to be Khan. Other story elements were taken from The Wrath of Khan, which didn’t quite work, such as the death scene between Spock and Kirk.

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25 thoughts on “Abrams’ Star Trek Mistake

  1. To say some of the scenes in ST:ID “didn’t work” is being extremely diplomatic in my view. Let’s leave it at that.

  2. Thought he kirk death scene was brilliant. It was Spock discovering that the man dying was his best friend when it was too late rather than then end of a long friendship… Different emotions a play. Hit me far harder than Spock dying in ST II WoK.

  3. ofcourse the film was a mistake. the film felt as if it was written by dumb fanboys and slash fan girls.

  4. Especially as this Spock was a character that never had recovered from the loss of his mother, let alone the loss of his planet, something so far beyond anything that Spock from Wrath of Khan had ever experienced.nnnAnd i am actually surprised so many people bitch about having some dialogue and some similar elements to Wrath of Khan, and yet many a fan haas loved things like TNG’s cause and Effect, Yesterday’s Enterprise and Parallels. One which features events,dialogue just marginally different from time travel. One that feature a wide variety of smilier and dissimilar events, dialogues and characterizations, to one that shows a federation in a vastly more militaristic situation then it’s “normal” time. A lot of fans love those episodes. And a lot off the things that people bitch about Into darkness have similarity to parts of those episodes.

  5. It’s not like every previous Star Trek movie wasn’t also an F’d up failure . Every trek movie can easily be nit picked into pure hogwash. From V’ger, genesis device, 70 year old Montalbon with a 25 year old crew, Bringing Spock back to life, You cant move whales to the future they will DIE! God being doesnt live in the center of the galaxy and you cant get there in a daynALL A BUNCH OF RAVING RETARDS IN A GIANT PILE OF SHIT COMPLAINING THAT ONE TURD STINKS MORE THAN THE OTHERS, GET A LIFE! Either enjoy the movies or don’t Trekkies are hypocrites end of story

  6. LOL! Relax,breathe,and life goes on. But I do agree about Trek fans,a LOT of times they can be just that.

  7. the writers said before filming that they were not going to rehash old elements of the franchise but that is exactly what they did to the detriment of the film.nas far as I am concerned that was not khan.

  8. It’s just a movie, for gawds sake. I liked it; it re-hashed Khan, true, and he was a lot more evil than Montalban, though I loved Montalban’s Khan. Not too many movies in the ST franchise follow precisely the ‘canon’, but that shouldn’t matter, either, it’s just a movie. i love ALL of Star Trek, flaws and all. Stop taking it so seriously.

  9. blah blah inevitable bitching blah blahnWhat story problems is JJ referring to in STID? I’d point to two things:n1. Kronos, strange forbidding alien planet, seems to be right next to Earth. They get there in a couple of hours, and get back in a couple of minutes. Should have had more sense of scale, more sense of strangeness.n2. Kirk’s journey. His story in STID should be about him learning responsibility after squandering his command at the beginning of the film. Unfortunately this gets lost amongst the plot noise, so the story seems to be just him reacting to events as they happen.

  10. It’s not about what happens in the scene per se or how it’s done, it’s the total lack of originality. After a ‘mere’ 2 movies in the new timeline, they are already rehashing parts from the previous series, taking a classic scene and forcing it to happen much sooner in the new line and trying to get away with that by simply switching around the characters (how novel). It stank because it really propelled me out of the story at warp speed. It was a huge billboard saying ‘HEY, YOU ARE NOT OUR TARGET AUDIENCE SO STOP CARING’

  11. Really? Everyone around me moaned at that scene as it lacked any emotional impact, came off mawkish, and was cringe-inducing in embarrassment.

  12. Seriously, yet did you have issue with them using characters called, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, sulu, Chekov, scotty, Sarek, Amanda? Or that they used things like Enterprise, Starlet, vulcan, Romulus. Or that the fact that we have original Spock referring to the bond he had with original Kirk. nnnSeriously if that was what annoyed you then please, please give it up. a reboot is always going to feature elements of the franchise. Period!

  13. I didn’t much care for Nu Trek to begin with. STID was just the final nail in the coffin as far as I’m concerned. IMO real Trek died with Enterprise and I doubt that’s going to change any time soon. Even with the new series coming out in ’17, it will most likely just be more Nu Trek and that doesn’t interest me in the slightest.

  14. The most impactful thing that Star Trek TOS taught me is that the right friends are very often better than family. I have made several brotherly like best friendships over the years. nnnThis is why that scene impacted me so strongly.

  15. It is kinda odd when Star Trek’s philosophy is mostly about exploration, acceptance, & tolerance yet there is a vocal part of the fan base that does not share these behaviors.

  16. You didn’t understand the comment. Elements were taken from the source material word for word. That is what rehash means. They could have taken Khan and did a unique story with him, which they started out doing and then cut the WoK ending and taped it to the end of STiD. Seriously.

  17. I love Trek so much that ill enjoy the new movies just as much as the old ones. However, you missed the point entirely. The whole reason to create an alternate timeline was to free themselves to do something original that may have gone against the canon or contradicted previous history. Instead they rehashed a previous movie word for word just slightly changed. Also, why should people stop taking it seriously? This is a passion for many people and they want to see something they believe in. If everyone just gave up, all we would get is garbage in space. I think it is unfair to tell everyone to just accept what hollywood spoon feeds you.

  18. ya know, I can’t argue with that, either, and I won’t. however, i will point out, that in an ‘alternate’ universe, or timeline, the same people would likely exist, whether it’s star trek or real life. whether the …events would transpire the same way, no one knows…but it is safe to assume, that a Khan would exist in an alternate universe of Trek, but would Kirk & crew meet them as in the original universe? That is hard to say, which stretches ‘canon’ of Trek about as far as it can go. nnnAs for Hollywood, they do eventually come around. with enough prodding, and public or government pushing, of course….but even then, a lot of their movies still stink with stereotypes; they like to use actors, etc., that perpetuate stereotypes and type-casting, etc…but with the new generation of directors, film moguls, etc., that will slowly change…we hope, anyway….

  19. By the way, “The Rehash of Khan” is a brilliant title. Before this, my favorite fan-given title was “Into Dumbness,” but yours is even better. 😉

  20. Thanks, it was sad/frustrating to see so much potential wasted just to make cheap plot links to the original. I won tickets to a free sneak preview after having purchased IMAX tickets.The rehashed death scene, complete with “Khannn!!!” yell sealed my decision to get refunds for those tickets. This remains the only Trek movie I have never paid to see in the theater or purchased on DVD/Blu-ray. Galaxy Quest showed more respect for the original material. I hope a new director and writing team will do better but I won’t be there opening night. To coin a phrase: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

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