On modern sci-fi movies
Mar. 16th, 2005 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearInspired by a post on the fact that paramount's looking at a new Star Trek movie, taking place between Enterprise and TOS.
very much "pre" production, as in a script is written and they're director-shopping. that's about it. no cast, and of course it'll suffer from having no familiar characters at all (unless they drum up the millions it'll take to get brent spiner to reprise Data's creator, and given that his appearance on Enterprise didn't so much as budge the ratings, the value of that has shrunk considerably).
really, right now the value of the franchise is nil, the media saturated. If i were a stockholder, I would be selling my stock in Paramount right now 'cause this is a sure sign that they have no real imagination or marketting at all that they can't work with a creative writer to come up with a whole new franchise. Particularly with Star Wars finally ending this year, and it'll be years before The Hobbit (if at all), there's a gap for a new sci-fi movie franchise series.
and trying to name something "star trek" will really just set too high an expectation, one which *nothing* has been able to meet. Basically, Star Trek 2 simply set the bar too high and nobody has been able to figure out what made it that way.
better to create a world with no expectations, which has its own problems, but can still be successful if done well enough for word of mouth the make it work.
yes, in the sci-fi world its hard to get original enough for fandom to take seriously, but if you're going that way, that's what it takes. the "casual" star trek fan that kept the old series alive in syndication and TNG so highly rated is gone. Fantasy is "in" (LotR, Harry Potter), and if you go sci-fi, "in" today is sci-fi comedy (Hitchhikers, Red Dwarf, though both are riding on long-established fan bases, especially from the UK) following the success of Men In Black and Galaxy Quest. Even I,Robot (good as it was), suffered from popularizing the work by using Will Smith as the lead strictly for name-brand talent (and maybe "to attract some of the black audience", although the movie and Smiths performance were done in such a way as to show that he was human first, black second, as it should be. the script as written could have let a white guy in that place with few changes).
really, the expectations in sci-fi are simply too high. as each super movie dramatically raises the bar (and sets a standard for a million clones) it gets all that much harder to raise it again. Yet movies that come after that at least hold to that standard (or give moderate improvements) in effects AND STORY don't see the returns to match. By not dramatically raising the bar, they don't attract the audience and end up hollywood flops.
I Robot was well done, but it wasn't "enough" to get even moderate fan-boy ME to get out of the house to go see it in the theaters. Hell, neither Shrek 2 nor the Incredibles managed to get me to adjust my busy schedule for them. Then again, neither did ST-X.
Which all makes me realize -- movies in theaters have to now compete not just with each other, but with home video/dvd archives AND with television. in short, a good sci-fi movie has to be incredibly good to get people to come see it instead of the incredible works they already have that are still worth re-watching. Consider The Matrix and Lord of the Rings I. Aside from their sequels, did anything made since they came out come close?
Only Star Wars 1 and 2, both riding on a long-established fanbase, and both seriously disappointing that fanbase. But at least the fanbase came out to see the Star Wars films (and will again in 2 months). The same can't be said for Trek, if you look at ST-X's numbers. There simply are too many other things casual Trekkers can do than go see a Trek film, so the Trek film has be insanely good to get them to pay up. Berman is not going to do it.
very much "pre" production, as in a script is written and they're director-shopping. that's about it. no cast, and of course it'll suffer from having no familiar characters at all (unless they drum up the millions it'll take to get brent spiner to reprise Data's creator, and given that his appearance on Enterprise didn't so much as budge the ratings, the value of that has shrunk considerably).
really, right now the value of the franchise is nil, the media saturated. If i were a stockholder, I would be selling my stock in Paramount right now 'cause this is a sure sign that they have no real imagination or marketting at all that they can't work with a creative writer to come up with a whole new franchise. Particularly with Star Wars finally ending this year, and it'll be years before The Hobbit (if at all), there's a gap for a new sci-fi movie franchise series.
and trying to name something "star trek" will really just set too high an expectation, one which *nothing* has been able to meet. Basically, Star Trek 2 simply set the bar too high and nobody has been able to figure out what made it that way.
better to create a world with no expectations, which has its own problems, but can still be successful if done well enough for word of mouth the make it work.
yes, in the sci-fi world its hard to get original enough for fandom to take seriously, but if you're going that way, that's what it takes. the "casual" star trek fan that kept the old series alive in syndication and TNG so highly rated is gone. Fantasy is "in" (LotR, Harry Potter), and if you go sci-fi, "in" today is sci-fi comedy (Hitchhikers, Red Dwarf, though both are riding on long-established fan bases, especially from the UK) following the success of Men In Black and Galaxy Quest. Even I,Robot (good as it was), suffered from popularizing the work by using Will Smith as the lead strictly for name-brand talent (and maybe "to attract some of the black audience", although the movie and Smiths performance were done in such a way as to show that he was human first, black second, as it should be. the script as written could have let a white guy in that place with few changes).
really, the expectations in sci-fi are simply too high. as each super movie dramatically raises the bar (and sets a standard for a million clones) it gets all that much harder to raise it again. Yet movies that come after that at least hold to that standard (or give moderate improvements) in effects AND STORY don't see the returns to match. By not dramatically raising the bar, they don't attract the audience and end up hollywood flops.
I Robot was well done, but it wasn't "enough" to get even moderate fan-boy ME to get out of the house to go see it in the theaters. Hell, neither Shrek 2 nor the Incredibles managed to get me to adjust my busy schedule for them. Then again, neither did ST-X.
Which all makes me realize -- movies in theaters have to now compete not just with each other, but with home video/dvd archives AND with television. in short, a good sci-fi movie has to be incredibly good to get people to come see it instead of the incredible works they already have that are still worth re-watching. Consider The Matrix and Lord of the Rings I. Aside from their sequels, did anything made since they came out come close?
Only Star Wars 1 and 2, both riding on a long-established fanbase, and both seriously disappointing that fanbase. But at least the fanbase came out to see the Star Wars films (and will again in 2 months). The same can't be said for Trek, if you look at ST-X's numbers. There simply are too many other things casual Trekkers can do than go see a Trek film, so the Trek film has be insanely good to get them to pay up. Berman is not going to do it.
