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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on May 20, 2009 6:50:21 GMT -5
Saw it last night and it was pretty good. A lot better than "The Da Vinci Code." Liked the storyline a lot better.
Ewen MacGregor sold it well as did Tom Hanks. Saw an actor I hadn't seen since the 70's. His name is Gino Conforti and I remember seeing him on the sitcom "Three's Company."
The movie dragged in one part but it picked up quickly enough. Not a bad flick, IMO.
Anyone see "Star Trek" yet?
Cheers.
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Post by Skilly on May 20, 2009 8:10:25 GMT -5
I read the book and loved it ... I've read all Dan Brown's books actually. Will see the movie soon.
Dying to see Star Trek too ...
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Post by franko on May 20, 2009 8:58:37 GMT -5
Read the books long before Brown became popular. Mindless pap. Silly for the Catholic church to get up in arms . . . all it did with Da Vinci was make it more popular.
I'll see the movie eventually . . . quite interested in Star Trek too but whether I get to see it on the big screen or not is another matter -- busy times right now.
In a meeting right now . . . the board will probably keep me awake!
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Post by CrocRob on May 20, 2009 9:25:04 GMT -5
I saw Star Trek. It was good enough. This being their last hurrah to really attract a new generation of fans, they did okay. I'm not sure it was enough to make another few movies, but it was entertaining.
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Post by Skilly on May 20, 2009 9:26:32 GMT -5
I saw Star Trek. It was good enough. This being their last hurrah to really attract a new generation of fans, they did okay. I'm not sure it was enough to make another few movies, but it was entertaining. Did it follow along the books from the earlier years ... (did you read those books?) .... |
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Post by franko on May 20, 2009 9:40:02 GMT -5
I'm not sure it was enough to make another few movies Do you htink that would stop them from making them though? |
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Post by CrocRob on May 20, 2009 11:34:30 GMT -5
I saw Star Trek. It was good enough. This being their last hurrah to really attract a new generation of fans, they did okay. I'm not sure it was enough to make another few movies, but it was entertaining. Did it follow along the books from the earlier years ... (did you read those books?) .... Didn't read the books. A buddy of mine (who presumably has read them) said it followed along kinda sorta (much like most book-turned-movie conversions). I'm not sure it was enough to make another few movies Do you htink that would stop them from making them though? So long as someone's willing to pony up the money to make them -- this one reportedly cost upwards of $150M to make -- no. But I can't imagine that will continue to happen forever. |
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Post by Polarice on May 20, 2009 12:26:09 GMT -5
I saw Star Trek. It was good enough. This being their last hurrah to really attract a new generation of fans, they did okay. I'm not sure it was enough to make another few movies, but it was entertaining. They already started shooting the next one. |
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Post by The New Guy on May 20, 2009 13:35:45 GMT -5
Started to read "Digital Fortress" or "Deception Point" or one of Dan B.'s books and got fed up with the utter nonsense of it all (an unbreakable cryptography scheme my arse) and so swore off reading anything else by him. The wife is a fan though, so I'll probably wind up seeing the movie. Wasn't all that impressed with the "Da Vinci" movie (probably had more to do with the crap 'science'/art history or whatever you want to call it and not the actual movie itself) so I don't have high hopes for this.
As for Star Trek, it was a good summer movie. It was fun to watch, the special effects weren't overdone, the story was far better than most Star Trek movies (Khan is better, possibly Voyage Home as well). It's not going to win an Oscar, but oh well. And best of all, it paid lip-service to canon while at the same time reinventing everything. There's stuff one could pick and complain about (the Orion girl, for one) but if you sit back and enjoy and turn off the inner-Trekker (which is tough) it's pretty damn impressive.
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on May 20, 2009 14:08:53 GMT -5
As for Star Trek, it was a good summer movie. It was fun to watch, the special effects weren't overdone, the story was far better than most Star Trek movies (Khan is better, possibly Voyage Home as well). It's not going to win an Oscar, but oh well. And best of all, it paid lip-service to canon while at the same time reinventing everything. There's stuff one could pick and complain about (the Orion girl, for one) but if you sit back and enjoy and turn off the inner-Trekker (which is tough) it's pretty damn impressive. I'm going to take Dis Jr out to see it when I get back from Alberta. Turning off the old Trekker in me will be hard for sure, TNG. One thing about "The Next Generation" though. It came out when we were living overseas (I think). I remember talking about it to friends and we all thought that the series would probably have done better had they not taken "Star Trek" in it's series name. Man, were we wrong. I haven't seen a lot of Star Trek TNG, but the episodes I have seen were pretty darn good. I guess I'd describe it as, more about giving a new approach to an old concept and it worked very well. In some ways it won't replace the old Star Trek, but in a lot of other ways it was a better series. The concept of the Borg was brilliant. I remember Data describing it the way you'd describe a UNIX system. By chance would you describe the new Star Trek move as a new approach as well, TNG? Cheers. |
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Post by CrocRob on May 20, 2009 14:31:22 GMT -5
Started to read "Digital Fortress" or "Deception Point" or one of Dan B.'s books and got fed up with the utter nonsense of it all (an unbreakable cryptography scheme my arse) and so swore off reading anything else by him. The wife is a fan though, so I'll probably wind up seeing the movie. Wasn't all that impressed with the "Da Vinci" movie (probably had more to do with the crap 'science'/art history or whatever you want to call it and not the actual movie itself) so I don't have high hopes for this. Both of those books were laughable for anyone with the slightest bit of IT experience. Encryption schemes that are effectively unbreakable do exist, but they sure weren't in that book. The computation power required to break some codes is so immense that it would take years upon centuries upon millenia to (hard) crack them using even the most powerful of current computers. And these aren't even complicated ones. Ordinary PC software implements such codes routinely. I guess RSA (though this is now becoming subject to cracking due to a hardware bug) is probably a bit less interesting than the crap he made up in the book. In fact, most "breakthroughs" in cryptography have to to with the perverting of the hardware used to create the codes, not the codes themselves. In that sense it's not just a software problem as most people assume, but a hardware problem as well. Crypto was really fun to learn about in school. |
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Post by The New Guy on May 20, 2009 15:51:06 GMT -5
As for Star Trek, it was a good summer movie. It was fun to watch, the special effects weren't overdone, the story was far better than most Star Trek movies (Khan is better, possibly Voyage Home as well). It's not going to win an Oscar, but oh well. And best of all, it paid lip-service to canon while at the same time reinventing everything. There's stuff one could pick and complain about (the Orion girl, for one) but if you sit back and enjoy and turn off the inner-Trekker (which is tough) it's pretty damn impressive. I'm going to take Dis Jr out to see it when I get back from Alberta. Turning off the old Trekker in me will be hard for sure, TNG. One thing about "The Next Generation" though. It came out when we were living overseas (I think). I remember talking about it to friends and we all thought that the series would probably have done better had they not taken "Star Trek" in it's series name. Man, were we wrong. I haven't seen a lot of Star Trek TNG, but the episodes I have seen were pretty darn good. I guess I'd describe it as, more about giving a new approach to an old concept and it worked very well. In some ways it won't replace the old Star Trek, but in a lot of other ways it was a better series. The concept of the Borg was brilliant. I remember Data describing it the way you'd describe a UNIX system. By chance would you describe the new Star Trek move as a new approach as well, TNG? Cheers. The difference between TOS and TNG, at least from my PoV, is the era that it was written in. TOS was written in the late sixties, wheras TNG was late eighties/early nineties. Both were interesting commentaries on society - TNG was a little more polished I think, but that's more likely a result of the reality of doing something twenty years later. It also avoided many of the mistakes that TOS made. TOS was virtually limited to Spock and Kirk (and occasionally Bones). Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Nurse Chapel et al were there in a secondary role only. TNG examined every character - from Picard right down to that annoying git Wesley. To me (and to be fair, I started with TNG and worked out from there) TNG was TOS done the way it should've been - with twenty years of television and filmmaking in the rear view mirror. Is it better? No - I won't go so far as to say that. It doesn't quite have the energy the original one had, but if it has less energy it is more efficent at using it. The movie, OTOH, is not so much as a "do over" as it is a completely different take. Action is more strongly emphasized. TOS and TNG often made strong comments about current events (Khan talked about revenge, as did First Contact and Nemesis; Insurrection talked about taking what is not ours; a TOS epidsode whose name I forget warned about the dangers of putting our faith in technology alone; Voyage Home urged us to save the whales). The movie does not do that. It gazes more at the iconic characters - Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura - and how they came to be (Bones and Uhura get a more glossed over treatment - as you might expect - but there's still development there). There's nothing wrong with that - and it fact it makes for a good movie. Especially if you like the characters. All I can say is that it's very good. You have to be willing to turn off your geek-nature to watch it, but J.J. did an amazing job with the tanged mess of history he had to work with. Like I said - it won't win an Oscar (well, maybe for effects) - but it is quite the masterpiece and a dandy little story. A lot of the other summemr blockbuster re-imaginings (Transformers 2, Astro Boy et al) should hope to be as good. |
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Post by CrocRob on May 20, 2009 16:58:12 GMT -5
Interestingly, my brother in law pointed out to me that Star Trek is one of, if not the only, takes on future man that epitomizes a near-utopian society. That Man rallied together for peace and common good as allies, instead of devolving into an overcrowded wartorn species.
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Post by Skilly on May 20, 2009 19:29:36 GMT -5
but if you sit back and enjoy and turn off the inner-Trekker (which is tough) it's pretty damn impressive. Bah ... impossible to do, especially when the director finds a way to give R2D2 a cameo in the movie. Did you spot him? |
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