The Abrams Report
J.J. Abrams – the wunderkind creator of two of my favorites shows (Lost, Alias) and one of Joe’s (Felicity) – has been tapped to direct the next Star Trek film. The film is envisioned as a relaunch for the series and will focus on a young James T. Kirk and Cornelius P. Spock on their first mission together. Paramount tossed the project to Abrahms based upon the early buzz surrounding Abrahms take on the Mission Impossible franchise – with his installment due May 5th. Also of note, Abrahms has brought Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman – his Alias Seasons 1 & 2 co-conspirators – on board to help write the script and Lost’s Damon Lindelof is in the mix as an Executive Producer. Battlestar Galactica is so frickin’ frakked.
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This post has 14 comments (now closed):
Sean
Sat Apr 22, 2006 9:47 pm
Do you think Kirk will convince Spock to go on a panty raid? Do they even wear panties in the future?
Hey, can’t wait to see Greg Grunberg as some kind of alien. You know it will happen.
Put me down for Felicity too, but not as a joke. I liked that show a lot, except for when she cut her hair. Man, that was a fatal mistake. I bet no one has mentioned that before…
JFCC
Sun Apr 23, 2006 1:16 pm
“Cornelius P. Spock?”
I wish they’d just try something new, rather than this prequel thing. Hasn’t Hollywood learned its lesson about science fiction prequels? What’s next, 2001: The Phantom Odyssey?
Why not a new movie using the established universe, and maybe characters from all the recent franchises (except Enterprise)…let’s say it starts with Riker on the Titan, and get people from TNG, DS9 and Voyager involved, and let’s make the bad guy Q this time…something really weird and creative. Put Bryan Singer on it. And keep Rick Berman far, far away.
Sean
Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:05 pm
Yeah, I think you can see with the mediocre numbers that Enterprise drew that people aren’t really into filling in any back history. What I think they should do with a new TV series, should they ever do one, is push it ahead another 100-200 years in the future from the TNG timeline. Then you are basically doing the same thing TNG did to distance itself from the original series.
As far as this new film goes, I guess we’ll see what happens, but my early feeling is it turns into Felicity/Lost mashup where Starfleet Academy is NYU and this space adventure has them stranded on a planet with some *Others.*
Ed
Sun Apr 23, 2006 6:49 pm
Sorry my bad. It’s Ernest P. Spock. I get he and Cornelius screwed up all the time.
And you nerds are missing one big factor. By hiring Abrahms, Paramount is actually doing something to this franchise that it has never done before – giving it the cash and cache to make it more mainstream.
Sean’s comments are off base. Abrahms is a creative force – sure you can try to belittle Lost or Felicty or Alias with some one liner snark – but admit it – that’s some compelling television there. I’ve seen 3 clips from MI3 that have propelled this film high on my must see list. You can see them here: (http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/missionimpossible3.html.) Check out that softball scene and tell me that this film doesn’t look like fun. And you Cruise naysayers be damned. I don’t care if he worships a twelve tusked purple elephant or the High Prophet Xenu – the guy makes some entertaining pics.
Tangent aside, Abrahms – along with Joss Whedon -are genuine television auteurs who through Alias, Lost, Buffy, Angel and Firefly have helped craft a true golden age of television. Seeing them unleashed on the silver screen with a budget equal only to their bustling imagination thrills me to no end.
The way you two are carrying on, you’re starting to sound like you’ve never kissed a girl.
Sean
Mon Apr 24, 2006 1:21 am
Well, my commentary was more on the plot and less on Abrahms’ creative ability and my snarky comment was intentionally stupid for the sake of a chuckle. I count all his shows as some of my favorites ever and I am eagerly awaiting the release of M:I-3. That said, I just think that the plot described is going to turn out lame. I don’t really want to see a young James T. Kirk and Spock chasing skirts at Starfleet Academy.
It’s great that Paramount is handing the keys of the car to some new blood, but it should do so with the directive of also infusing new blood into the series itself. Abrahms should invent a new corner of that universe rather than falling back on fleshing out its back history, whether previously written or not. I don’t think doing Kirk or Spock without Shatner and Nimoy will come off right, so why are they going to try? Remember Dumb and Dumberer? Neither do I because it’s the same concept and I don’t want to see that!
Paramount has the right idea and probably one of the right guys, they just don’t have the right story.
PS – The argument for fanboys not having kissed girls is over on my blog in the Sam & Max comments. Talk of drawing comic book women is all the proof you need that I haven’t kissed enough girls in my life…
JFCC
Mon Apr 24, 2006 11:22 am
@Ed—As Sean pointed out, we weren’t harping on Abrahms. I have no qualms with Abrahms. I probably won’t see Mission Impossible 3 in the theater, but that’s primarily because I hardly ever get out to the theater anyway, plus I wasn’t particularly enchanted with Mission: Impossible 2, and finally, I don’t like Tom Cruise much and never did, even before his recent shenanigans.
The first Mission: Impossible was pretty good, though it would be nice if they’d make a M:I film that was actually based on the television show (which was team-based) instead of these thinly-veiled Bond rip-offs, which is mostly what the second one was.
Anyway, I think you’re getting a little defensive about Abrahms there. I know it’s important to you to believe you haven’t wasted precious hours of this all-too-brief human existence watching television, but I think it’s a little cheap to resort to calling into question my snogging record.
My beef is with the prequel concept, not the director, and if Abrahms pulls it off I’ll be the first to congratulate him.
Ed
Mon Apr 24, 2006 12:13 pm
@JFCC – The whole snogging record thing is simply me paraphrasing Bill Shatner from a classic late 80’s SNL sketch. This was during the Dana Carvey – Phil Hartman years. In the sketch, Shatner is at a Trek convention being inundated with all these very detailed questions (i.e. “In Season 2, Episode 2:12, entitled The Trouble with Tribbles, what is written on the Third Ensign’s clipboard that he hands to Uhara?”) Anyway – Shatner loses it and starts telling the Trekkies to ‘get a life.’ He points at John Lovitz – a fat, balding Vulcan – and says “You there, I bet you’ve never even kissed a girl.” So relax, I’m not calling your snogging, smooching or macking record into question. I was just using this as another spot for me to drop a pop-culture reference. We all know you get mad play. It’s legendary.
As for MI-3, I’ve read a couple early reviews and the one thing they point out is that this one puts the focus on the team. In fact – the review I read said they could see them launching a series of MI-3 movies without Cruise or with Cruise serving as the team leader, etc… So – give it a try. You really should check out Lost or Alias at some point. That’s some quality television right there.
Oh – on this last part:
I have so much stress in my life – from the rigors of the nine-to-five to raising two children to maintaining a successful marriage to keeping up with the care and maintenance of owning a home and land (including keeping the foliage at bay) to trying to stay in touch with friends and family to nagging health issues that crop up from time to time to trying to find some small slice of time to exercise my creative bones and the beat goes on… that if I can sail away to another world and just escape reality for a few precious hours (be it on television, the movies, a video game or novel) – then I am glad to spend that time. Time wasted?
Nope!
Those hours keep me alive.
JFCC
Mon Apr 24, 2006 1:12 pm
Oh, don’t worry–the man who can spend hours a day on Wikipedia when he should be looking for a job wasn’t seriously mocking you for your television-watching. We all need our escapes. I was just getting back for the kissing crack…
Jen
Mon Apr 24, 2006 6:56 pm
@Spellcheck- it’s JJ Abrams, not Abrahms:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009190/
Ed
Mon Apr 24, 2006 7:33 pm
You say tomato…
Sean
Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:12 pm
@Jen – Wait a minute… after all this geek talk all you have to add is a spelling correction? Man, you need to be poking fun at the dorks behind the glass. Like I just did… and lumped myself in there… more than a few times…
@JFCC – I think everyone here is with you in the Cruise is a space cadet whack job, but as with anything he is in that could be good, you just have to grin and bear it. I think M:I had the team concept down pretty good and it was a lot like the show to me. M:I-2 got a way from that, like you said, but for me that one was all about John Woo. For M:I-3, Abrams and PSH will get me in the door and I hope it turns out well. Based on the trailer, it looks very good to me, but then I thought that about Starsky and Hutch…
Jen
Mon Apr 24, 2006 9:08 pm
Yes, I am a spelling geek- true enough.
I hate to admit it as well, but I think MI 3 looks pretty good. Actually the main reason is that Philip Seymour Hoffman will be awesome as the villain. He’s usually the best part about any movie, as far as I’m concerned.
Tim
Tue Apr 25, 2006 7:12 pm
MI 3 is going to be awful. Much like everything Tom Cruise does…..someone please run him over with a bus….
:: Mission:Impossible III :: seanobrien.org // OB1og
Sat Jun 3, 2006 2:38 am
[...] You might recall a nice commentation we had going on at The Ed Zone about his Abrams Report aside (I fixed the spelling so J.Po doesn’t have a fit) and I dropped the following quotable: For M:I-3, Abrams and PSH will get me in the door and I hope it turns out well. Based on the trailer, it looks very good to me, but then I thought that about Starsky and Hutch… [...]