I finally got a chance to see Star Trek and X-Men Origins: Wolverine for the first time. I had been going off critical reviews before of people praising Star Trek and putting down Wolverine, but finally got to form my own opinion of both movies. I placed this in the TF Movie section because I make comparisons between these movies and TF. Also because Alexk/BobO wrote both TF and Star Trek so I thought it would be a nice comparison.

First off, let me say I am by no means a fan boy of either series. I am a fan to be sure and my knowledge of either far exceeds what the lay man would know of Star Trek or X-Men. However, by no means do I know that much about either if it makes sense.

My experience with Star Trek basically revolves around The Next Generation. I have maybe seen a handful of episodes outside of the TNG series. I am definitely familiar with Trilithium crystals, space time anomalies, Jordi, Data, and all the rest - but am not familiar with DS9, the original Star Trek, or any other incarnation of Star Trek.

I am also by no means a fan boy of X-men. I have watched a fair amount of the X-men cartoon that came out in the 90s and have maybe collected 10 or so comic books. Nothing that would make me an expert on X-men.

So, in short, I am more experienced in either series to be more than a simple fan but far short of being a fan boy. And think I could provide a unique look at both movies and also make some comparisons to my take on Transformers (which I will admit I am an actual fan boy of).

First, I thought that X-men was better than Star Trek. I thought the writing was better for X-men, simpler, and better thought out. It seems BobO/AlexK have a penchant for pushing sappy scenes on people. The initial scene with the baby being born on board a fleeing shuttle craft while his father is left to die is VERY cheesy. Its the type of emotional story a grade schooler would come up with. Something akin to introducing a bad guy by having the bad guy rip off a cute puppies head off. I just don't like that method - its cheap and shows no art at good story telling. Must all heros be born in a similar manner? Anakin was born almost akin to the virgin birth. Luke/Leia were born by almost the same storyline. I just wish they had gone with a more original idea.

I didn't like the destruction of Vulcan and Romulus. Its been a while since I followed TNG, but I don't remember either planet being destroyed. I don't know why the writers had to destroy two huge pivotal planets to bring gravitas to their story. As if the fact that these guys destroyed planets was enough for them to be feared. During the entire movie, I did not fear or even dislike the main antagonist. He seemed confused and incompetent. Nowhere near the level of dislike or fear I had for the Borg or for Khan. The way the introduced the main bad guy was almost the same way that the main bad guy was in 300. He had the same type mentality. It was almost too easy how Spock and Kirk so EASILY destroyed a ship FULL of Romulans with only having to have a minor fire fight. How exactly does that happen? A ship from the future should easily be able to track all intruders at all times on their ships and lock the hallway doors so that intruders become trapped. Yet Kirk and Spock moved around the ship so easily.

From the story - I could see definite similarities in plot style and writing between TF and Star Trek - and not for the better. IMHO, I would call these writers hacks. I remember back in writing class how our teachers would teach us to "show" the reader what you're talking about instead of "telling" them. Instead of saying "People were sad because a planet was destroyed" we were told to delve deeper "the unreadable expression on his face looking upon his planet being consumed was full of anguish, guilt, and helplessness". They both say the same thing - but one carries more meaning. We also were advised not to "create" an artificial situation simply to advance our story but have the situations be natural flows in our story that were easily believable.

Having Kirk land on frozen planet, being chased by TWO alien monsters who both were somehow not able to catch up to him and eat him, and then oh-so-coincidentally run into the SAME EXACT CAVE that the older Spock was in and who ALSO happened to have been there long enough to create a torch AND find firewood in a landscape barren of trees is completely ridiculous. That entire scene was completely artificial.

Again, its akin to a grade schooler telling a story.

Now, Wolverine - which was critically dubbed as bad - I actually enjoyed. Again, based on story. I remember that in the cartoon, Sabretooth and Wolverine were something like father/son, but I didn't mind as much in this movie (thought I did mind BobO/AlexK making Prime and Megatron brothers). It seems that they think FORCING two characters who previously weren't brothers to become brothers somehow adds an emotional point to the movie. I don't mind using the brother angle - but to artificially MAKE two unrelated characters brothers is a very cheap story telling. Luckily, the writers of Wolverine made that the central theme of the movie. They EXPLAINED why they made the characters brothers. And I thought it worked very well in the movie. All of the characters in the movie were well characterized I thought.

The love interest in Wolverine was much more well fleshed out than in TF or Star Trek. It wasn't forced or shoved into the movie. The writers took a large portion of the movie forging an emotional bond between the audience and the characters' love interest. It also provided a nice break from all the fast paced action by having slower scenes to balance out the movie. Loud has no meaning without soft. Finally, the twist at the end was perfect. Nobody would have suspected Wolverine's lover to be alive, let alone having tricked Wolverine, and THEN on top of both of those surprises - being forced to trick Wolverine to save her sistes AND still being in love with him. It brought a new found appreciation for the importance of those slow scenes and made them so much more important. Thus, there was a PURPOSE for those slow scenes beyond just breaking up the fast action scenes. The writiers could have killed her off and really did not need to do anything beyond that but they tied it in so masterfully at the end. Even with Deadpool they showed the importance of the early parts of the movie.

There was actually a purpose in every choice the writers made. The scenes felt CONNECTED and thus showed that these writers really took more time to make this a good story.

Their sad scenes actually felt sad too. Because they took the time out to flesh out a little bit more the characters. I felt I knew the old couple in the barn MUCH better than I knew Kirk's mom. I didn't feel sad at all when she died. I had no emotional connection to Captain Pike. But I WAS saddened when the old couple was killed in the barn. Because I could actually relate to them. Where was their son? Was their son dead and the appearance of Wolverine brought back memories of their son? Just those simple moments of down time in the barn, in the bathroom, eating supper, putting on a jacket - add SO much to the movie.

Eitherways, enough with my rambling. I just wanted to provide my opinions on what I thought of the writing in both movies. Have at it, Defenders of the Faith!

EDIT:

Just saw Terminator this afternoon so thought I would throw in my opinions for that as well.

I liked Terminator a lot. As far as story telling goes, there were some DEFINITE scenes that were not at all believable but overall, I liked the plot. I thought the little girl had no point in the plot, unless she becomes developed later on in the sequel (which I can almost see her playing a big role in sending Connor's father back in time. The attack on San Francisco was the most glaringly unbelievable to me. That Skynet would leave one of its main bases so utterly unguarded that humans could get within 100 miles of the city, breach the defenses, and THEN manage to escape unscathed WHILE ALSO rescuing almost all the prisoners was what was too unbelievable. I also don't remember exactly how Connor's father got free from his cell. If I was skynet and I already KNEW that his death would prevent Connor's existence I would have terminated him immediately, as soon as I got my hands on him. At least gas him in his cell. Just too unbelievable that the humans could attack at night (when it was already admitted that the machines could see better at night) without a MAJOR battle erupting and hundreds of T1000s attacking.

That was my main gripe on Terminator. But overall I really liked the movie. Kinda weird that I again liked another movie that wasn't critically acclaimed. The use of a half-man, half-machine I thought added a new wrinkle to the Terminator series. Tho, again, knowind Skynet built the half-man/half-machine, I would assume that Skynet would have built in a failsafe whereby they could terminate his life instantly if found to be a threat.

The movie had the feel of the Matrix mixed with Mad Max mixed with the Terminator series. It was done very well, I thought, save for a few glaringly improbably moments.

 

All hail michael baaaaaaaaay!

 

TL;DR.

Furman for TF3.

 

Well, you have some good points there, even though I haven't seen either movies.

Still, I think it'll be best to go into TF2 with having TF1 as starting base in mind.

TF1 had many flaws and I didn't even go to see it with high expectations. Thus, reading some of Roberto's feedback in the forums and based on previews, I don't think it'll be hard for TF2 to be an improvement over TF1 as a mere solid fun summer movie.

So, again... I'm going to see it without high expectation. I won't expect it to establish Transformers as some kind of deep sci fi saga.

 

A second generation Trekkie so I'm not sure you get more fan than that.

While I wouldn't call the new Star Trek movie the best Star Trek story ever written I was pretty darn happy with the story. I never felt like I was shoved aside as an old fan so it could be all about the new fans and at the same time there was the excitement of something new and different. A nice feeling of new and familiar like Iron Man, Batman and all the other film franchises I've been enjoying over the past few years.

Call me crazy but the destruction of Vulcan wasn't a bad move. How many times have we been to a movie where the bad guys don't do something really shocking or big. I hadn't read any spoilers so it was a damn moment for me. Plus time travel movies tend to put everything right, this time there is no putting things right because with no Vulcan now the Star Trek universe will really be different than the one I knew before.

Skipped X-Men 3 so it wasn't a problem for me to skip the Wolverine movie as well. So I can't really commit on the writing. Just my way of protesting Hollywood doing things like putting the X-Men in black costumes when other films manage to make money with a comic book look.

 

Annnnnnd your credibility goes right out the window and kills a passing innocent.

 

Because my view differs from the general opinion, I have no credibility? Based purely on that or because my REASONS are somehow not sound? Why don't you take a look at my supporting arguments before you pigeon hole someone?

 

Good sir, Wolverine Origins had one fake moment after another, and the brother angle only worked in the first 1/3 of the movie before being dropped hard. And I can't believe that you complain about Old Spock just HAPPENING to be there when Wolverine jumps from scene to scene without any gravitas, let alone any proper explanation. It was a horribly written movie with forgettable characters, and the love interest and old folks you mentioned were FAR more cheesy and eye-roll worthy then anything Star Trek had to offer.

So no, it's not a case of your view being different from general opinion. It's a case of your opinion being complete BS and coming across as a poor attempt to troll people into going "BAY RULES STFU", not to mention to come across as 'sophisticated' by hating a movie that is written by people that you dislike purely for the way they wrote the Transformers script.

 

I don't think the writing was Origins' problem though.

As for Star Trek, I liked it quite a bit but certainly could've done without Kirk being born amidst a huge disaster; it would've felt a lot less contrived if he had already been born before. You still would've had him born in space, on a ship, his mother still would've been largely incapacitated (and thus helpless as her husband did what he did). The drastic changes (Vulcan being destroyed, for example) didn't bother me so much; then again, I'm not really a trekkie to begin with.

 

Sigh, once again with the name calling. BS, huh? I honestly liked Wolverine better. Maybe because it had the slow points to the movie that allowed you to take stock of the situation. Its just my opinion, and its also my opinion that I just generally do not like the last two movies I have seen that BobO/AlexK have written. Wolverine jumping from scene to scene? The times I remember him doing that was at the very beginning when he fought in all those wars. After that it was a pretty logical progression to Canada, to getting his adamantium, to then finding the Blob and then finding the island. Did you want them to show him driving from Canada to New Orleans?

Tell me how that is bouncing around. Honestly, I am not trying to start a fight but have a reasonable discussion with you. I like this movie a lot and would love to have a reasonable discussion about plot points, writing style, and characterization on any 3 of these movies. You're the one taking this to a whole new level of animosity. Can we please stop with the derailing of the thread.

 

As far as critiquing your reasoning. They were both cheesy, admitted. The old couple in the barn and Kirk's mother giving birth were both cheesy. BUT, I could handle the cheese better for Wolverine BECAUSE they had spent at least a few minutes forming the bond. There was no bond there for the audience to feel with Kirk's mom. It was as if the authors decided to show a pregnant lady giving birth while her husband dies JUST to get the audience to feel emotion. Kinda like how Jazz got ripped in half. Or two entire planets destroyed. They artificially created those moments. If they had spent time having the audience form a bond to Spock's childhood home and THEN showing it get destroyed or showing the billions of lives lost - then it would have been emotional. I viewed the black hole like I view space events on Nova or the Discovery Channel. With no emotional attachment.

I don't understand how you could say the brother angle was dropped in Wolverine. It was because they were brothers that Sabretooth stopped Deadpool. They fought like brothers at the end. There were 3 main story lines in Wolverine - Wolverine and his love interest, General Stryker and his quest to eradicate mutants, and Sabretooth and Wolverine. No, the entire movie wasn't about Sabretooth and Wolverine but seeing as how almost every movie has a love interest that takes up the plot, I think Wolverine did admirably well.

 

You know what I liked in Wolverine? How super-outdoorsman Logan, with a sense of smell like a bloodhound can't tell somebody just had blood splashed on them, and wasn't eviscerated.

 

To be fair, she had the mutant ability to make people think and feel things when they touch her; if she can convince Stryker to keep walking till he dies, she could convince Wolverine to betray his senses and believe that she was dead.

 

But her powers don't work on Wolverine.

 

I am not exactly a big fan of Trek myself. I watched the movies and saw a couple of the TV shows but I never got too into it.

This becomes problem matic because, in order to properly critique an adaptation, you need to be familiar with the source material. Wolverine does with the source material what KFC does to chicken!

OK, enough set up, lets rock!

OUCH! Fail! While not the worse movie I have ever seen, it was pretty bad. It made me feel so bad that I almost didn't want to see any other movie this summer! It SHOULD have been this summers Iron Man, but it wasn't. It was this summers X-Men: The Last Stand.

How was it cheesy? It was establishing the characters and was important to let people know this ISN'T the same Star Trek. This is a new universe, where Kirk's father was dead. This was nothing like Star Wars, where there was NO emotional resonance in the birth scenes, Abrams shot the scenes in an amazing visual style. I don't have any children yet but I teared up at the moment when Kirk Senior heard his son crying. The scene wasn't forced at all, it was very organic and worked very well. If it was forced, it wouldn't have created such a response in me.

You are correct. During TNG, both planets were still there. But as they made sure we understood, this is a new universe, an alternate timeline altered by the arrival of the Romulans.

The bad guys weren't supposed to be scary. They were supposed to be sympathetic. They were doing what they were doing out of misdirected rage and loss. Nero didn't share anything with Xerxes, who was a power hungry wanna be god. Nero was a simple man who desired revenge for the loss of his wife and people.

And I didn't think it was too easy for them. It needed to be easy enough that, when they make sequels and up the action, that action seems even greater! And who says that a ship from the future needs to be able to track intruders and lock the doors? It was a mining ship! Why would they include that feature? Who is going to be intruding a mining ship that would be so important to stop they would include such security? And they woldn't add it because where would they get the peices and they would have thought it impossible because of their already vastly supperior tech.

There is a vast difference in screenwriting and the writing you are talking about. They didn't have their characters walk around saying "I AM SAD!" "THAT MAKES ME ANGRY!" They did it exactly as you say, but it relies more on the acting and direction. I didn't see anything artificial about the situations they created. The movie flowed organicly, kept me at the edge of my seat and made me want to see more. Was it the best movie ever? No. Did it have issues that could have been improved. Sure. But it was this summer's Iron Man. It gave me hope for the rest of the films.

Didn't feel artificial to me. The progression of the scene worked fine to me.

You keep saying this but I call nonsense, especiall based on whats coming up...

Wolverine, again, WAS HORRIBLE. It was fun, exciting, or interesting. Sabertooth and Wolverine are not related AT ALL. Like the addition of Prime and Megatron being brothers, it was not needed at all for the plot and it certainly wasn't cannon. Here is the thing though, only in the original pass of the script were Prime and Megatron brothers. Yes, the term does occur in the final movie, but only once and it is vague enough that he could have meant spiritual brother, or a reference to them being once co rulers of Cybertron. And how is it artificial? This is another buzz word you like to through around but you don't know what it means! Prime and Megatron being brothers wasn't needed but I wouldn't say it was artificial.

And they never expained JACK in Wolverine! There was no need within the context of the story for them to be brothers, even less than Prime and Megatron. They didn't explain why Sabertooth suddenly turned evil. They didn't show any sort of brotherly connection between the two of them. And none of the characters were characterized! In the first two X-Men movies, they showed the characters through the use of their powers. In this one, each action scene was done because they CLEARLY thought they were being SOOO AWESOME! And they weren't, at all.

In Trek, each action scene came from story or character. The movie could not have progressed if they did not hit these beats which they couldn't hit without the action. And they certainly didn't have three different scenes where the main character walked slowly towards the camera while there was a giant explosion behind them. Cliche and dumb. Such a jarring use of something that wasn't original the first time it was done takes people out of the story and thinking "What the crap?" And that isn't even discussing the multiple use of the main character falling to his knees and screaming to the heavens as a birds eye camera pulls back. Yes, they did that also THREE TIMES in Wolverine. Not once, but three times! THREE!

No it wasn't! It wasn't fleshed out at all. And the love story was MORE important in Wolverine because it was supposed to be what drove him to do what he did. Instead, we just meet her one day, then she dies. Oh, but not before, without any sort of build up, she tells James about the magic space Wolverine. There was no context for the story, it just happened before they had mutant sex.

Oh and I saw that ending come a mile away. They also tried to surprise us with the "oh, she is a mutant too" but they failed at that. Bringing her back added nothing to the story except to make Wolverine walk away for a minute, just to come running back when she was in danger. I felt no emotional connection to the character and didn't care if she lived or died. That isn't a fleshed out love story.

No, there wasn't. Like I said, everything was done to be AWESOME!!! And it wasn't. This wasn't a story, it was a disjointed series of montages that tried to be a cohesive hole.

There wasn't any character fleshed out. Tell me about Gambit. What was his motivation? Why was he the way he was? Oh, that's right, we don't know. What little we did know was because he came right out and TOLD US! Something you looked down on Star Trek for doing...which IT didn't!

You were saddened by Ma and Pa Kent's death? Why? We knew them for 3 minutes and never learned a thing about them. For all you know, they were racists, ate babies and raped the women of the village. How you could have been saddened by thier deaths is beyond me. They were sterotypes brought it to, that's right, ARTIFICIALLY make us feel sad, but since there was no emotional resonance in the sequence (they went and blew their barn to holy hell three seconds later), they failed.

I agree with an above poster. They second you said you thought Wolverine was better, you lost all credibility. I know I didn't do a particularly great job at destroying your argument, but I don't care. I know people have the right to their own opinions but man, that was just bad. If you didn't like Star Trek, that is fine. But to say Wolverine was a better picture, ESPECIALLY story wise, is the craziest thing I have ever heard.

To make this clear, I AM A WRITER!!!! I write stories! I have seen some get published. I know what it takes to make a good movie. And Wolverine was NOT it!

 

To be honest, I think that you have a critical view of Bob and Alex, and because of your dislike of the their work, you are intensely more critical of it. Seriously, Wolverine better than Star Trek?

Wolverine has the most bland generic script ever. The love interest, the "noone kills you but me brother" sudden appearance of Sabretooth... It had zero character development. The only characters you wind up really knowing anything about are Wolverine and Sabretooth. Who was the movies villian? Deadpool? Sabretooth? Stryker? It's production, story and effects could have passed for a TV movie.

Star Trek gives you character. You seriously believe Kirk, Spock, even Bones weren't more fleshed out than any character in Wolverine? The script was not the greatest of all time, but at THE LEAST, it respected the source material, while explaining that it was an alternate timeline. Wolverine tossed the source material aside and decided to take the names and characters, throw them in a bag, and pull them out at random.

In short, I can understand you liking Wolverine more, but the reasons you give are pretty laughable. Wolverine was a hot mess, which most people admit. The majority enjoyed Star Trek. While being in the miniority doesn't make you wrong, it does stand to reason that if you are fan of both genres, and a most people who are fans as well, disagree with you, you probably have some beef with the film that doesn't actually involve the film.

 

Ceasar and Rog hit the nails on the head here and I agree with their assessments of your assessment, Superion.

 

"Boohoohooh, I hate the TF movie so much and I keep coming back to attack every aspect of it!"


Superion33, I think by now you've already heavily critizized the director, the writers, the plot, the art style, the car branding...what's left? The inbetween shoots CATERING?

Give it a break already. You keep posting this shit up under the disguise of stating your opinion, or forming a discussion, while pretty much every of your critism topics turn out to be nothing more than sad trolling, and that you could somehow do a better job than all 500+ people involved, completely ignoring any hardships that are present when making movies (especially of this scale).

I'm not going to defend the plot of Transformers as if it's a masterpiece, because it isn't. I had alot of fun watching it, along with alot of other people, but it's definitely not 'great'. Star Trek, however, for alot of reasons (different/more free director, more freedom for writing, different genre/franchise, etc.) is much better and coherent, and in my opinion, you've become so blind from your anti-Bayformers campaign that the names Kurtzman and Orci alone on the Star Trek posters immediately tick you off or something..

You sure we have been watching the same movies? Where Star Trek was a very decent and much needed reboot/sequel/prequel, revitalizing the franchise , Wolverine was pretty much a burning trainwreck on the rails to a canyon cliff. Super cheesy dialogue? Check. Horrible fight scenes? Check. Horrible CGI? Check. A totally incoherent plot? Super-check. One-dimensional characters? Check.

Not knowing much about X-Men is probably what made the movie more enjoyable to you, in the same way people that didn't know Transformers probably enjoyed the movie much more. Pretty much anything that was interested in the Wolverine comics was stripped and degraded. Weapon X was a joke. The adamantium bullets? Laughable. Deadpool? Don't even get me started on that one.

If Transformers was a pile of turd, Wolverine was AIDS. It's laughable you critizize Transformers for its bad writing while Wolverine is at least twice as bad, with even weaker characters and even more superconvenient plot advancements.

I can guess what your reply will be. You will probably say that if I don't like what you write, I should keep away, and shouldn't attack you. Personally, I think by now pretty much any attack that is made on you is because of yourself, and I encourage you to just give it up already or get out alltogether.

I'm guilty of being an ass, but seriously, you leave me scratching my head...you start to look more like a troll making a clown out of himself with every topic you start.  

 

Haha, you know exactly how the OP works by now, I think everyone does.

I had to put him on ignore about a year ago due to the repetitive attempts at trouble making. It's impossible trying to debate something with someone like that because they always twist what you say or claim you are attacking them.

It's like talking to a very angry, attention seeking brick wall.

 

Warning: Spoilers





I'm sorry, but I cannot agree that Star Trek was an inferior film to Wolverine. I have seen both, and Star Trek is far superior. Better action sequences, for starters: the scene at the start probably trumped anything that Wolverine had in its full running time. CGI ties into this as well: Star Trek has incredible CGI, whereas Wolverine's CGI bordered on offensively bad at points, ie. the scene in which Logan is looking at his claws in the mirror (although it did have some very nice moments later on to give it credit).

Obviously action and CGI can be seen as rather shallow points, so the story and characterisation: the characters in Star Trek felt well-defined, and Spock and Kirk in particular have backstories that make sense in how they perform their actions. The secondary and supporting characters each have their little quirks and they all work very well, even if they do seem rather silly at points. As for the Nero and Future Spock plot thread, I actually wasn't convinced when I heard about it, but when you actually see the film it seems to make a bit more sense: Nero is clearly a very angry and obsessed individual hurt bitterly by Spock, whose actions were out of his control. Spock seems to harbour regrets for letting the Romulan planet explode, and I think Nimoy portrays this rather well.

Wolverine has its moments, in particular Logan and Sabretooth are pretty decent characters, but all the other characters don't seem overly interesting: Kestrel/John Wraith was actually a rather boring character and didn't really add much at all to the plot, Agent Zero had no real character other than "nasty gunman", and Gambit was most upsetting, as he could've been really cool but simply wasn't in it long enough. The appearance of Cyclops felt very forced and didn't add a hell of a lot, and let's not even get into Deadpool.

Story-wise, Star Trek's wasn't overly complex but was interesting enough to keep you waiting, and it also served as a reasoning for a franchise reboot, thus killing 2 birds with one stone. It did a good job in introducing the crew and tieing in enough to the original series so that older casual fans will at least have some idea what's going on. Admittedly it didn't really advance things forward, but it's intended as an introductory film, both the beginning of a new series and an introduction for new fans.

Wolverine was definitely trying to do something interesting story-wise, and it succeeded in a few points, but Logan seemed to flit very easily from scene to scene, character interaction seemed rather arbitrary (especially in the case of Kestrel and the Blob), and the double-cross involving his love interest seemed kinda silly. Making Wade Weapon XI and then calling him Deadpool was also really incredibly silly; surely they must've known that'd piss off the fans?

But I digress, that's my personal view of both the films. Wolverine is ok at best, definitely not a good film, but watchable I suppose. Star Trek is many, many times better and a far more engaging watch. I don't see why you've got such a beef with Kurtzman and Orci, Superion33. Sure, Transformers' story was kinda silly, but Star Trek really shows they can handle an old franchise and inject new life into it.