The reverse of that post I’ve made a week ago…
Rules: pick one movie or series and explain why you actually enjoyed it despite the criticism.
For me: The JJ Abrams Star Trek movies, by far the best ST stuff ever made, I couldn’t take seriously the original universe with the dated effects and stiff acting, same goes for NG… These movies did ST actually great looking and much more believable, not just the effects.
I enjoy both. The original series is so dated (buttons, knobs, switches, and lights on the control panels? Pffff) that even as a fan I find it hard to look at.
No one seemed to take the show that seriously. I don’t think anyone had a clue it would turn into a whole franchise, and the acting is so hammy I can’t stand looking at a lot of the scenes.
All that said that even old start tell movies were more action oriented than a typical episode plot. (Except for maybe the first movie, which unless I’m remembering wrong literally was almost a carbon copy of an episode)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, aka “The film where nothing happens”
For me, what becomes even more dated than the old tech are the cultural attitudes. The original series is supposed to be an egalitarian, utopian society, but they men treat the women like it’s an episode of Mad Men. TGN, on the other hand, is trying so hard not to be sexist that the romance scenes sound like they were written by a virgin who only learned about sex from HR meetings.
I didn’t mind the first Abrams movie. I thought the story was pretty mediocre, but it looked good visually, and they captured the characters nicely. The second movie went off the rails, though. They invented interplanetary transporters and cured death. It feels like that would have had massive, status quo changing consequences for the entire franchise, but I guess not.
The original movies certainly have more action in them than the series (though they’re definitely not as action-packed as the Abrams movies), and they’re also not as interested in exploring sci-fi concepts as the show, but to me, they’re defined by fan-service more than anything else. They found an excuse to put the characters in modern times, let Kirk create peace with the Klingons, and literally met God.
Yeah that was a bit crazy. But I didn’t really think about it too long because almost everything else is supposedly a whole other timeline now, so it’s a not point.
Also I’ve seen “Beyond” twice now, but got distracted both times so I still don’t know much about it.