Will the uninitiated actually see "Star Trek"?
"Star Trek" relaunches in theaters Thursday night at 7 p.m., and Paramount Pictures has a whole lot of money riding on it -- its budget is rumored to be higher than the domestic gross of any of the ten previous "Trek" films. Moviehole reported the pricetag may have topped out at $160 million. Add marketing costs, and you have a huge gamble on a largely alienating (pun totally intended) franchise that lost its luster long ago. (Anyone familiar with the franchise and its core fanbase can understand why the commercials need to make the new "Trek" look like an oversexed Michael Bay extravanganza if they have any hope of recouping their costs by bringing the uninitiated into the fold.)
Great reviews are going to help, too, and the early buzz suggests "Star Trek" is going to get them. It currently has a 100 percent score at Rotten Tomatoes, thanks to a bunch of critics you've probably never heard of, though that does include raves from Variety, New York magazine and the respected British mag Empire. If the film is as successful as the early raves say it is, word-of-mouth will go a long way toward helping this eleventh "Trek" film revitalize the franchise.
But does "Star Trek" have any hope of being a huge, $300 million hit in the summer of "Transformers 2," "Harry Potter 6," "Terminator 4" and "Up"?
You tell me.
Do you, the non-Trekkie, plan on seeing "Star Trek"? If not, could you be swayed by great reviews or word-of-mouth?
Do you, the Trekkie, plan on seeing it? Will you be hyper-critical of anything in the movie that seems to go against what you think "Star Trek" should ideally be?
As a recovering Trekkie myself -- i.e., someone who loves the original cast's flicks and "ST:TNG," but who had trouble warming up to "DS9's" Dominion storyline, "Voyager's" worship of all things Borg, and "Enterprise" as a whole -- I just want a "Star Trek" movie that actually looks, sounds and acts like a real movie. You certainly can't say that about the last few entries in the series.
I'd like to see it, but I haven't been going to the movies very often at all because there are always people talking and being rude in the audience!! I'm not a Trekkie at all, but I am a little disturbed by how Michael Bayish the commercials are making this look. I will give them the benefit of the doubt, though, and assume that they are just trying to get people to see it as a sci-fi action movie rather than a Star Trek movie.
...I've been to more movies this year (3) than all of last year (2), but I'm done until Harry Potter.
As someone who still hasn't seen Dark Knight, I'd say that even if the critics think this Trek movie is Jesus, I'm still not going.
I'm married to a trekkie and I have no deisre to see any part of that movie. I don't care about Kirk, Spock or any of the characters. To me the interest died out a loooooonnnnnnggggg time ago. She can take the kids to see it, they might enjoy it.