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[Friday]

the things I've HEARD about Lost.  (Which make it sound a lot like X-Files -- an initially very promising, intelligent, and captivating show that made it clear, over time, that the writers were just making shit up as they went along and there was never any grand plan, which still managed to put out pretty great episodes for the duration of its run but set into diminishing returns years before the end.  Is that about right?)

wow. that's the best and most apt comparison I've ever seen.

no, seriously. I'm not being sarcastic at all. That's 100% dead on.

[Royal☭]

It's also a good description of Alias, Abrams' other show (that had much more involvement than Abrams did in Lost, actually).

[Mothra]

the things I've HEARD about Lost.  (Which make it sound a lot like X-Files -- an initially very promising, intelligent, and captivating show that made it clear, over time, that the writers were just making shit up as they went along and there was never any grand plan, which still managed to put out pretty great episodes for the duration of its run but set into diminishing returns years before the end.  Is that about right?)

wow. that's the best and most apt comparison I've ever seen.

no, seriously. I'm not being sarcastic at all. That's 100% dead on.

Yup

It was basically a phenomenal first season, followed by five more seasons of trying to live up to their concept.

[Thad]

wow. that's the best and most apt comparison I've ever seen.

no, seriously. I'm not being sarcastic at all. That's 100% dead on.

I probably came up with the parallel since Paul Dini's short-lived, not-a-cartoon Cartoon Network show Tower Prep was pretty much written by people from Lost and X-Files.

(Speaking of Dini, Joker's got a great rambling monologue at the end of Arkham City where he's talking about how things are coming to a close and sometimes endings aren't as satisfying as you expect, and then he goes into an extended rambling rant about the ending of Lost.  In the postgame a lot of the incidental dialogue is also people complaining about it.)

It's also a good description of Alias, Abrams' other show (that had much more involvement than Abrams did in Lost, actually).

I went with Lost because it's the show that people are likely to remember.  Alias was a cult hit but doesn't have the mindshare that Lost does.  I was thinking about where Abrams falls in terms of memorable works in comparison to titans like Star Wars, Jaws, Indiana Jones, ET, and Jurassic Park.  (Bay's best-remembered movie is Armageddon.  And it's best-remembered for having the exact same premise as another movie that came out at the same time.)

I heard an interview with Abrams where he explained that when he was a kid his dad tore the back pages out of all his Encyclopedia Brown books so he'd have to figure out the solutions himself.

Explains a lot, doesn't it?

[Royal☭]

I went with Lost because it's the show that people are likely to remember.  Alias was a cult hit but doesn't have the mindshare that Lost does.  I was thinking about where Abrams falls in terms of memorable works in comparison to titans like Star Wars, Jaws, Indiana Jones, ET, and Jurassic Park.  (Bay's best-remembered movie is Armageddon.  And it's best-remembered for having the exact same premise as another movie that came out at the same time.)

Oh yeah. I just mentioned Alias because its trajectory is very similar to Lost. Killer first (and second) season, then starts to go downhill and you realize how much they're making up as they go along.

Bringing up all those Spielberg films makes me wonder how Super 8 was. I'd heard good things about it, calling it a modern take on an 80s Spielberg film. But I also read reviews calling it too cynical.

[Büge]

I heard an interview with Abrams where he explained that when he was a kid his dad tore the back pages out of all his Encyclopedia Brown books so he'd have to figure out the solutions himself.

Explains a lot, doesn't it?

God, what a monster. Imagine if he did that to The Usual Suspects.

Verbal: Fuckin' Cops!
*THE END*

Daddy Abrams: So what did we learn today, son?
Li'l JJ: That... you can't trust the police?
Daddy Abrams: Eh, close enough.

[Niku]

Super 8 was good, but did not stick with me for very long.  It essentially was "Abrams does Amblin."

[Thad]

God, what a monster. Imagine if he did that to The Usual Suspects.

See, I had the ending of Usual Suspects pegged from the minute Spacey first appeared onscreen.

Course, that could be because nobody tore the pages out of my Encyclopedia Brown books and I have a pretty good grasp on the mystery formula.

Don't get me wrong, I still think it's an exceptionally well-crafted film.  I just thought it telegraphed its ending by making Spacey SO craven and helpless.

On the other hand, I've heard stories that the stars themselves didn't know the ending.  But of course they wouldn't have been in the room when the framing device was filmed.

[Joxam]

Also, you have to take into consideration that The Usual Suspects came out pretty much smack in the middle of a period in his carrier wherein Spacey was ALWAYS the bad guy.

[Thad]

I didn't see it until about 2008, but I'll take your word for it.

[Mongrel]

This is a story about a guy named Al
And he lived in a rock mine with his tribble pal
But the horta mothers really didn't approve
so he packed up his singer stones and had to move
to a planet near romulus where he lived in a tree
and he worked in a jeffrey's tube ladder factory
and he played on the company mok'bara team
and every single night he had a time looped crazy dream
where he was wearing a bright red shirt on an exploration team
but that's really not important to the story

well the very next year he met a energy being
with a tricorder tattooed on her arm
But he didn't keep in contact and he lost her planet
then he got himself a job on a kalo root farm
and he spent his life savings on a split level cube
twenty light years past the neutral zone
and he really makes a might fine jelly bean and blood worm sandwich
so watch your tone

Then one day al was in a wormhole trying to get a tan
and he heard the tortured monologing of a funny little man
he was caught in a targ trap and al set him free
and the guy that he rescued was quite improbably
The leader of the Q continuum and so he gratefully
gave Al a starship and what do you know
Now he's got his very own weird al star trek show

[Brentai]

The circle is complete.

[Büge]

[Esperath]

[Büge]

Posted by Smiler on TT:

[Bal]

Search for Spock is better than Voyage Home, and Undiscovered Country is better than First Contact, and, in my mind, actually vies with Wrath of Khan for best Star Trek film ever. Basically, Wrath of Khan is the best for action, but Undiscovered Country is more compelling thematically, and really brings especially the Kirk character full circle. First Contact is another action flick, and is easily the best of the TNG movies. I haven't seen Into Darkness, but the idea of a worst Trek film than Final Frontier is dizzying.

[Mothra]

It is just flat-out impossible that any movie, from now until the end of time, could possibly be worse than Star Trek Nemesis.

[Bal]

I don't know, man, Final frontier is pretty unwatchable. Maybe there should be some kind of showdown of the shittiest to determine once and for all the worst Trek film. I guess, ultimately, Nemesis has to win because, while Shatner was mortally afraid that he had killed Star Trek with Final frontier, Nemesis actually did.

[Friday]

I looked at that graphic and laughed pretty hard. While taste is subjective and any serious discussion about the quality/order of the movies would go on for 100 pages of hardcore trek nerd jerking off about how blah blah blah Spock > Data, putting anything below Final Frontier is extremely questionable.

And Into Darkness wasn't that bad. I think the guy who made that graphic just had a hate-on for it, because like imagine if he was saying it was worse than The Last Airbender: The Movie.

That is essentially what he is saying.

[Mothra]

I don't know, man, Final frontier is pretty unwatchable. Maybe there should be some kind of showdown of the shittiest to determine once and for all the worst Trek film. I guess, ultimately, Nemesis has to win because, while Shatner was mortally afraid that he had killed Star Trek with Final frontier, Nemesis actually did.

I feel like Nemesis takes the cake, because, aside from the story and the writing and the way every character acts wholly and completely unlike themselves, Nemesis feels like a shitty space action movie, whereas Final Frontier feels like a shitty Star Trek movie. That alone makes it a slightly better Star Trek movie than Nemesis.

Also, real quick: I still cannot fucking believe that, in Insurrection, they didn't even bother to replace the bluescren in that final sequence. Just... holy shit.