Pegg In Star Wars
1 min read
Some actors have all of the luck. Not only is Simon Pegg in Star Trek Beyond, but he’s also going to be in Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens.
A new video shows Pegg partly-costumed.
A special behind-the-scenes video was unveiled at last week’s San Diego Comic-Con at the Star Wars panel. The short video, seen below, featured Pegg in costume, or at least partly-costumed. Evidently Pegg will have a cameo role as some sort of alien.
The video also shows Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, and Mark Hamill.
Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens opens December 18.
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“It’s being done with such love.”
I wish Mr. Abrams had had that love for Star TREK, as well. He’s a competent director, and he did bring Trek a lot of new fans. But I never got the sense that the love was there, and love makes all the difference.
Let’s pretend that doesn’t matter and the best art is made by passionless robots for a paycheck.
I don’t agree. I think too much love for a franchise can be a dangerous thing. Irvin Kershner did not know anything about Star Wars when he was brought on board, and his movie stretched the characters and brought a new, mature feel to The Empire Strikes Back.
Richard Marquand was a fan, and saw the characters through a fan’s eyes to the detriment of Return of the Jedi.
Or think of Star Trek: Nemesis. This was made by self-described fans and was a disaster, while Wrath of Kahn was directed by someone who didn’t know a thing about Star Trek.
Or, shoot, think of Into Darkness. The move they made to appeal to fans (bolting the Kahn story onto their existing script) was a huge mistake that not only wasted the biggest gun in the Trek arsenal, but distracted from what could have been an exciting plot.
Love for a franchise is no guarantee of a good movie — and can often be a hindrance.
I want a director who learns the characters and background, but is willing to stretch and even bend them in order to make a great movie. Fannish sensibilities need to stay far away from a movie set. This is actually a fear I have with JJ directing Episode VII.
I never said that love GUARANTEED success; it’s entirely possible to make schlock with love, because intelligence matters, and creativity matters, and originality matters, and skill matters. But it’s hard to make something great withOUT love. In other words, I think love is necessary but not sufficient.
I wonder if he’ll ever do anything worth watching for more than 15 minutes.
But remember boys and girls, all these sci-fi and fantasy movies lately have “infantilized” us to the point where “we’re essentially all consuming very childish things” and have “taken our focus away from real-world issues”.
It goes both ways. A director that has no love for a franchise can also ruin it, as is apparent from the last two JJ Abrams “Star Trek” films. You don’t need love, but you do need respect, which is something Nicholas Myer brought to Star Trek II.
In his defense, he trusted people, fan boys who did what they wanted. There was a script written for the seond movie but fan boys thought it would be better to go with a child’s version of a wet dream. And it didn’t take off as expected.
Bullshit. You all wouldn’t know good directing if it kissed you on the cheek, and most of you are spoiled by these fan productions. Abrams revitalized the franchise, made it profitable, relatable, and relevant again. Get over yourselves and your belief in Roddenberry’s ‘vision’ Abrams & Co. supposedly violated that never was.
Kang would settle for any love for a franchise from a director. Not a “Well OK, but I really wanted Star Wars. *snif*”
Well Abrams did crap on Roddenberrys vision and made it more like Star Wars because he is a Star Wars fan. Abrams Trek has very little in common to Roddenyberry. The costumes and ships are similar but the characterization and stories are nothing like the real Trek, Gone are the smart stories and all we have left is a moronic kirk that is man child in his early 30s and a emotional love sick Spock that cant decide who he loves more Kirk or Uhura. Yeah I guess if that’s what you can relate to so be it. The original Trek wasn’t Shakespeare but it seems that the level it was at was to much for you to comprehend.
Excuse Kang. Kang’s position is that JJ Abrams both saved Star Trek and fucked it straight into the ground.
JJ did indeed revitalize the franchise and made it profitable relevant yadda yadda, with the 2009 film. Kang maintains that despite some shortcomings Trek 11/2009 is a good film and good Star Trek.
And then…
And then came Star Trek Into Aww But I Wanted To Go Into Toshi Station And Pick Up Some Power Convertors. It is an unmitigated and undeniable clusterfuck, and Kang submits that a significant portion of the blame lays with the director. JJ Abrams is a better director than that mess. The overall impression is that the director didn’t have much regard for the franchise that the film was supposed to be a part of.
Kang’s more direct and snarkier opinion is that by the time the sequel rolled around, JJ pretty clearly just didn’t want to be making a Star Trek film. Further, JJ didn’t value the future of the franchise either, since he backed a first-time director who hadn’t even made so much as a toilet paper commercial to helm the next installment.
Kang thinks JJ will make a good Star Wars film, because JJ clearly adores and respects the property. Kang just wishes that JJ had respected Trek and his own reputation as a director enough to keep making good Trek films.
Kang still holds that the 2009 film was a good film and a good Trek film. Kang also still holds that Star Trek Into Michael Bay Hearts Spock, it’s very clear that zero fucks were given.
Not quite.
In the 2009 film, the characters were very well done and the story is serviceable. By the end of the film the crew is quite clearly ready to take on stories and adventures worthy of the five-year mission.
However in the sequel we see that Kirk has regressed from someone who’s come to understand the importance of cooperation and the responsibility of command, straight back to the irresponsible douchebag he spent the entire previous film growing out of. And Spock went from someone who had to come to new terms with both sides of his nature following events that would turn most folks into the Joker, into some .. uhh… geez, well he’s still got pointy ears. Uhura turned into Stock Nagging Girlfriend #3a (career henpecker), McCoy got turned into
Ah screw it.
Let’s just say the only character who stayed in character was Scotty, who was justifiably pissed off that everyone else in the crew had turned into fucking idiots.
Apologies for the rant. The short of it is, they got it right in 2009, and screwed that pooch right into the ground in the next film.
Pegg or Abrams?
No it still made a metric shit-ton of money, and for reasons inexplicable to Kang got good reviews. Then again, Michael Bay unzips to take a whizz on filmmaking in general and it makes over a billion. Crazy world we live in, H. I.
Oh that’s right, he said that didn’t he.
Both. Although to be honest I did eventually binge-watch Lost. I liked it, but doubt I’ll ever watch it again.
On a more constructive note. Respect is more important than love in this regard. Example:
Nicholas Meyer was not a Star Trek fan when he was brought on for Star Trek II. Harve Bennett pitched it to him as a good story. Meyer, in the interest of telling a good story, went out and learned about Star Trek. He watched the original episodes with an eye on what made the characters and the stories work, he talked to the writers, directors, actors. This is the same approach he takes to things he does love, for instance Sherlock Holmes. He made the effort to make a good Star Trek movie, not only out of respect for the franchise, but out of respect for himself and his own abilities.
Kang submits that JJ respected Trek enough to make a good effort the first time around, but apparently was all out of fucks to give for the next go.
Oh for the love of Tribbles, do you not understand basic math? Yes, the Abrams films brought in a lot of money, but they also spent a lot of money for productions, advertising and apparently for focus groups in some places. You keep saying the word “profitable”, but I don’t think you know what the words means. The last film barely broke even when all was said and done, which is why the new film has to shoot with a smaller budget.
As for “relevant” again, outside of Star Trek sites and groups, I don’t actually see much in the way of talk about Star Trek. When there is talk of Star Trek, it is normally about TOS or TNG, like that piece recently on Yahoo! about the 25th Anniversary of “The Best of Both World.” Yes, when the new film comes out there will be talk about it, and then it will promptly be forgotten, just like the last two have.
I dare Star Trek 2009 to be talked about a bunch and fondly in 2034, but I also doubt it. You JJ-Trek fans keep spinning this fantasy about how the films have made such an impact, but the reality says something different…
All your comments are spot on Kang. This is what I was trying to convey in that other article. And I am on the side of ST 2009 was good, but it got screwed in STID. Respect is important for a franchise to be good. Well done, great discussion.
I’d like to know what everyone thinks about Pegg, a Star Wars fan, writing the script for Trek. Good, Bad, no difference? Let the discussion begin.
It may have made a shit ton of money, but unfortunately it didn’t make the profit they wanted (needed) it to make. It cost around $230m to make and promote. Out of the $467m in ticket sales worldwide ($228m in U.S.) about 45% is returned in the U.S. and less than 40% worldwide. Essentially, the studio a broke little more than even. That’s why we didn’t see the same people back on board for this next installment. And Orci just threw in the towel so something’s up.
Many people like both.
The comments thread of a Star Trek site is a very ironic place to complain about such a thing.
Do YOU know what “profitable” means?
ST09 grosses:
Domestic: $257,730,019 66.8%
Foreign: $127,950,427 33.2%
Worldwide: $385,680,446
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=startrek11.htm
STID grosses:
Domestic: $228,778,661 48.9%
Foreign: $238,602,923 51.1%
Worldwide: $467,381,584
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=startrek12.htm
The “smaller budget” is just screencrush.com misunderstanding a story in the Hollywood Reporter from more than two years ago, in which a “studio source” said they would save $20 mil by filming in Vancouver – which they had actually wanted to do with the previous ones except JJ said no. The planned budget for STB is not known, and of course the actual spend won’t be known until some time after production is finished.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/summer-box-office-bombs-studios-619389
What these numbers do not reflect is the fact that studios receive a much lower percentage of the box office take in foreign markets so it’s even more significant that the domestic take was down for STID, considering the increase in ticket prices with four years between releases. Also, nearly a quarter of the additional foreign total for STID was from China alone where it was given a much wider release than ST09. FYI, none of the pre-reboot films were ever distributed there. Bottom line: STID was much less profitable than ST09, especially when you take into account that its production budget was nearly 27% greater than that of ST09. I’m certain that Paramount’s execs felt that the performance of STID fell far short of their expectations.
I for one never got the appeal of a franchise which features adults prancing around with magic swords, seeking wisdom from a muppet. May the farce be with you.
Orci should never have had the damn towel to begin with. JJ should never have thrown him the towel, Paramount should have never even let him sniff the towel. It’s a stupid idea to let someone who has never even directed so much as a student film helm a 150+ million production. It’s just idiotic. Either JJ has a ridiculous amount of pull or Paramount is just that bloody moronic.
I’d go with both.
Orci was only a part of Abrams’ writing and producing team. And he was the only real Trek fan among them. So I can’t help feeling sorry for him. Maybe one day there will be a tell-all book that will explain who was responsible for what exactly.