Everything Wrong With Hollywood

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Hey all... I'm back!



Watching an interview right now with Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the writing team behind the new Star Trek trilogy... Star Trek, Into Darkness, and Beyond...

They're also partially part of the same team of movie makers who brought the new Star Wars trilogy to cinemas... Force Awakens, Last Jedi, and Rise Of Skywalker...

And they have just said something incredibly insightful.

"The way we have always seen it... Star Trek is classic music... Star Wars is rock and roll"

That sentence alone, is exactly what is wrong with Hollywood writers and directors right now, and has been for years considering these two made Star Trek 12-14 years ago.

I'll just leave this here now... see if you guys can spot the error in that sentence



Yeah, they also brought us the Transformers films, Cowboys & Aliens, and the worst Spiderman film. Oh, and it looks like Kurtzman made the last ludicrous Mummy movie with Tom Cruise.


I think they're safe poster children for the rot in the industry over the past 15 years.



I meant more along with that line of theirs "Star Trek is classical music... Star Wars is rock and roll".

They have that completely wrong.

Trek isn't classical music. It's rock and roll.
Wars is classical.

Not just the music chosen for the movies... but the storytelling.

Trek... pushed boundaries.
It had women as equals.
Ok sure Trek pretty much had every female character basically naked... but, they were equals. They even had an interracial kiss. The first of its kind I believe.
Rock and roll, and what spawned from rock and roll, I'll use Punk as an example... was to push against the norm. To upset the established order.
To fight back and then to progress.
It lead to changes.
Trek... is rock and roll.

Star Wars... is classical music, in that it moulds itself to the established storytelling.
It follows an established path.
It had a linear screenplay and script.
The storytelling in Wars, breaks no moulds nor does it break any norms within society.
Sure, an argument behind Star Wars is that Lucas changed cinema with his refusal to place the casting sheet at the start of the movie, and he eventually broke away to become an independent movie maker who follows his own rules... but, well, didn't Mozart and Beethoven do the same when they were questioned?

Considering those two idiots in Hollywood, and the directors who support them, as in, JJ Diet Spielberg Abrams... got the entire point of the difference between Trek and Wars reversed... says this is exactly what's wrong.
Today's writers and directors, producers, don't actually know anything about the properties they own.



I meant more along with that line of theirs "Star Trek is classical music... Star Wars is rock and roll".
I honestly didn't put too much thought into it, because it sounds exactly like the kind of glib hot take that they write in their scripts - might sound cool for a split second but totally empty thought-calories - more like writing cliches for the film poster and hoping the momentum will let the script write itself.


Today's writers and directors, producers, don't actually know anything about the properties they own.
I can't disagree with that. Wasn't a major part of the Star Trek reboot's marketing based on something like "This is the Star Trek movie for people who always hated Star Trek"?



Good point. It kinda seems like they're saying it because of some vague notion of temperament: Star Trek is less action-oriented, less kinetic, more high-minded. Maybe a reasonable first blush response to the tenor of all that, but pretty wrong to anyone with a real understanding of the property, which you would certainly hope they would have.

Also, totally dissonant with what they ended up doing in some sense, since the Star Trek reboots tried really hard to be rock-and-roll, at least on a superficial level.

Sounds like it was just some cool-sounding analogy that popped into their heads that wasn't properly considered.



I honestly didn't put too much thought into it, because it sounds exactly like the kind of glib hot take that they write in their scripts - might sound cool for a split second but totally empty thought-calories - more like writing cliches for the film poster and hoping the momentum will let the script write itself.



I can't disagree with that. Wasn't a major part of the Star Trek reboot's marketing based on something like "This is the Star Trek movie for people who always hated Star Trek"?
Exactly...
Star Wars was cool... must mean it's rock and roll.
Trek had an almost cultist fanbase... must mean it's classical.

They completely got the entire ideal behind the two the wrong way round.

And yeah, the unofficial marketing for the new Trek movies was to get people who knew nothing about Trek, to be able to actually watch a Trek movie.



Good point. It kinda seems like they're saying it because of some vague notion of temperament: Star Trek is less action-oriented, less kinetic, more high-minded. Maybe a reasonable first blush response to the tenor of all that, but pretty wrong to anyone with a real understanding of the property, which you would certainly hope they would have.

Also, totally dissonant with what they ended up doing in some sense, since the Star Trek reboots tried really hard to be rock-and-roll, at least on a superficial level.

Sounds like it was just some cool-sounding analogy that popped into their heads that wasn't properly considered.
Just what I said in the post I just did
Star Wars is cool... so it must be AC-DC or whatever.

Trek has a loyal fanbase... must mean it's classical.

Like, the difference between CDs and Vinyl.
Orci and Kurtzman probably see "Trek as Vinyl"... but it's not. It's a CD, or even an MP3 player, compared to Star Wars' cassette player.



Well, they were both great... ...for a time. Now they're like some kind of crap vs. some kind of crap.



"The way we have always seen it... Star Trek is classic music... Star Wars is rock and roll"

I meant more along with that line of theirs "Star Trek is classical music... Star Wars is rock and roll".

They have that completely wrong.

Trek isn't classical music. It's rock and roll.
Wars is classical.

Not just the music chosen for the movies... but the storytelling.

Trek... pushed boundaries.
It had women as equals.
Ok sure Trek pretty much had every female character basically naked... but, they were equals. They even had an interracial kiss. The first of its kind I believe.
Rock and roll, and what spawned from rock and roll, I'll use Punk as an example... was to push against the norm. To upset the established order.
To fight back and then to progress.
It lead to changes.
Trek... is rock and roll.

Star Wars... is classical music, in that it moulds itself to the established storytelling.
It follows an established path.
It had a linear screenplay and script.
The storytelling in Wars, breaks no moulds nor does it break any norms within society.
Sure, an argument behind Star Wars is that Lucas changed cinema with his refusal to place the casting sheet at the start of the movie, and he eventually broke away to become an independent movie maker who follows his own rules... but, well, didn't Mozart and Beethoven do the same when they were questioned?

Considering those two idiots in Hollywood, and the directors who support them, as in, JJ Diet Spielberg Abrams... got the entire point of the difference between Trek and Wars reversed... says this is exactly what's wrong.
Today's writers and directors, producers, don't actually know anything about the properties they own.
I don't believe that quote you posted was about the style of story telling...I believe the quote refers to the style of score originally used for both Star Trek and Star Wars.

Sure both were orchestral, but Star Trek's score was more cerebral sounding, while Star Wars was more fist pumping sounding. Both scores suited the original movies and TV show well. So yeah IMO, Star Trek is a classical sounding score, Star Wars more of a rock-n-roll score but done with with an orchestra.



I remember Abrams using the same quote in a special feature from the 2009 film's DVD release.*Seemed pretty obvious he wanted to make his movie less contemplative and more action-packed, if I'm remembering correctly.*I don't have problems with the change in approach, but think the execution could have been better.



So, classical music (eternal supposedly) and rock and roll (ephemeral supposedly) fit together for Star Wars. I don't know what to do with the claim, but I do think that, more than anything, Star Wars needs to be put out to pasture. People have lived and died during its arc. Try to imagine Casablanca, The Return of Strasser or Casablanca, Ferrari Returns or Casablanca 1998, Return to Morocco. It stopped making any sense a bunch of movies ago. Time for a new franchise.



I meant more along with that line of theirs "Star Trek is classical music... Star Wars is rock and roll".

They have that completely wrong.

Trek isn't classical music. It's rock and roll.
Wars is classical.

Not just the music chosen for the movies... but the storytelling.

Trek... pushed boundaries.
It had women as equals.
Ok sure Trek pretty much had every female character basically naked... but, they were equals.
That's a pretty big "but" (no pun intended) though, if you ask me.