Kirk In Black – My Thoughts On Why Star Trek (Dead Franchise) Needs The Changes

I’ve talked at length in the past about Star Trek and the fact that it’s a dead franchise and in serious need of changes to be resuscitated. This past week some new images from the upcoming new Star Trek came out… and the vast majority of complaints I heard from people were that (and I’m not making this up) was that Kirk’s shirt was black instead of yellow.

So during a recent “The Movie Blog: Uncut UNPLUGGED” I took some time to talk about:

– Why Star Trek is a dead franchise
– Why changes are needed
– Traditional Star Trek fans needed to accept the changes
– Why Star WARS doesn’t need changes
– Why I think this is all good news

This video is missing the first 5 minutes of my commentary, but I think you can pick it up.

Comment with Facebook

35 thoughts on “Kirk In Black – My Thoughts On Why Star Trek (Dead Franchise) Needs The Changes

  1. I don’t even like Star Trek. It sounds pathetic. I mean, they go back to save the whales?! WTF?! LAME. It’s lamer than Mary Jane’s career problems

  2. People, the black shirt is the UNDERSHIRT that all the crew are wearing under their uniforms. That means Kirk isn’t wearing his uniform at all. Hmmm……..

  3. I really don’t think the franchise is dead. ‘Nemisis’ was a fantastic movie which made up for the disgrace that was insurrection. Personally, I wouldn’t really have a problem with this ‘revamp’ if it was a new crew, it just seems like a gimmick to use the original crew so they can use all the historic catch phrases when they come round to using the trailer. If they used a new crew it would open up alot more content (and production dangers) that would force mr jj to use some creativity.

    As for the appearence, it’s down to personal taste and even the original series seem to swap colours around arbitrarily whenever it suited the producers. I just think the uniforms and bridge look a bit too flashy probably meaning that the movie will look more stylish than it is original.

  4. ugh I’m with you John. Star Trek has been mishandled by Roddenberry, with politics as an overriding theme throughout. ST IV Save the Whales?
    ST VI – The Cold War is Over?

    At least Baron Papanooida has entertainment on his mind. Albeit, in a completely horrible way, involving bouchebaggery of every sort including racial stereotyping and incredibly bad acting, from a decent actor (See Life as a House, Shattered Glass). As well as complete pandering to the profit margin, in the form of toys and video games. Although KOTOR and The Force Unleashed are awesome, perhaps because GL didn’t direct them.

  5. haha dam fanboys….funny when any one comments on any other movie star trek fans are like..dude your so lame…but when this comes out the open there giant vagina’s of hate…hey man if your so intrested in the universe of star trek become a director and try to make it better….all the stuff i hear are just plain stupid fanboy shit chat…please enough allready you guys have not seen the movie so wtf get over your selfs.

  6. Note: In changing the past, the Romulans have indirectly forced Kirk to found the Secret Police section of the Federation, Section 31. If you seen Deep Space Nine, *they* have the black starfleet uniforms…

    No seriously, folks. Get over it.
    Did everyone seem to forget that he didn’t *always* wear a yellow (actually “gold”) shirt in TOS? I don’t mean on an away mission, either. There were the occasional dress uniforms, such as the green leather in “Trouble With Tribbles”.

    (also it should be pointed out that originally, the ‘gold command’ shirts were an off color green, but the lighting on the bridge made it look gold)

    Second note:
    What’s the fuss over one still picture or two showing Kirk in a black outfit anyway when there may be a reason why he’s wearing it. How many times in TOS has his Gold shirts been torn and messed up in battles, or smell of sex from green bitches? For all we know, his shirts are being pressed and he’s got nothing else to wear. Or maybe that Gold shirt gets him loads of green sex and he switched to black because he needs green bitch repellent for this mission.

  7. It’s the same old story. People are always going to find something to complain about. Who gives a damn if his shirt is black, yellow or pink, as long as the movie is good. I could care less if they adhere strictly to canon. People seem to forget that this shit is make believe. I think the ones that complain the most are the idiots that pride themselves on knowing everything there is to know about Star Trek. Well boo hoo, someone is making changes to your little make believe world. Get world over it Poindexter

  8. One thing that bugs me about this reboot (although I’ve been optimistic about it since day one) is that with all the talk of trying to re-invent it while being faithful to the original – why the hell does the bridge look like it’s from that fish-head guy’s spaceship in Star Wars? They could have easily updated it and kept the color scheme of the original bridge.

    Having said that, I think this reboot is probably about the only way the franchise could have continued and IF EXECUTED WELL could turn out to be a brilliant idea.

    Vic

  9. Sorry John, but I think your argument that Star Trek needs to be remade is fine, except you claim it is “dead”. Star Trek is not dead to me. Recently it has collapsed, both in movies and on television. The recent movies have sucked, and the recent TV shows have sucked. This does not change the past. The Original and Next Gen are still great.

    Oh! But Star Wars is fine! The recent films, the prequels, were the greatest films ever made! No, sorry, Star Wars is, creativly, just as dead as Star Trek.

    Changing the cannon is not a way forward. That is what annoys people. Star Trek, in the past was great. Making a new, original series, that builds on what has come before, that would be great.

    They are doing the same thing. Using the same characters to grab attention, but changing the base of the franchise. This scares people.

  10. Not trying to sound like an asshole… but people are always going to bitch bitch and bitch over some change to the source material.

    Their’s nothing we can do about it no matter what we say… but hey that’s life, so all we can do now is wait for people’s reaction on opening weekend.

    I’m very curious on how this film makes since not a whole lot of people like Star Trek.

  11. If there was anything that has been changed from Star Trek it’s the music. Even when they kept on bringing back Jerry Goldsmith he wouldn’t always use the same old themes that he presented in the previous film. He did use some of them again such as the main Star Trek Theme he created, and the Klingon theme, but mostly each Star Trek score is different from each other.

    Star Wars had a large amount of dead time. Where as Star Trek has been in the theaters, and televion since 1979.

    Over saturation of a product since 1979 while Star Wars has barely been going through that since 1998???

    Star Trek does need some re-invention. New music even though I love the Goldsmith theme, but it never hurt the original films when they constantly brought in new composers.

    Just a whole new story line, and new characters. Plus a redesign of the Enterprise, and maybe jumping forward to Enterprise J like they showed briefly in the television show Enterprise???

  12. He’s going to inherit the yellow shirt by the end of the movie. It’s like when Casino Royale didn’t play the Bond theme until the end of the movie because that’s when he became who he is.

    So far this is shaping up to look really good. I can’t wait to see the new trailer to get a better judge of what to expect.

  13. well im one of those people that are concerned abotu the shirt xD

    hey john campea
    well, i dont think that its a big problem, im not a HUGE star treck fan. i dont think that the color of the shirt will ruin the movie itself…SOME PEOPLE do though

    but heres my point…do you think that it will be better to recognize kirk with a yellow shirt? i thought it was better to keep him in the yellow shirt so that the fans would say “oh hey- yeah thats kirk the guy with a yellow shirt”

  14. Complaining about Kirk wearing a black shirt for part of the film(and like John said, tptb have repeatedly said that there is a reason for him not having a yellow shirt yet) is like complaining about Batman not wearing gray tights and an electric blue cape and cowl.

  15. He might not even be wearing that shirt through the entire movie…

    Even still, it’s just a fucking shirt. Is the shirt color absolutely integral to who this person is? No. Would his personality change radically if the shirt color changed? No.

  16. Why John, are you wearing a black shirt?

    Seriously though I totally agree with you that Star Trek needs to wipe the slate clean and start over in order to bring in new fans. I am still trying to figure out why people are bitching about the ‘black shirt’. Were fans this vocal when they changed the uniforms for the movies? I personally thought the uniforms from Wrath of Kahn were the best in the entire franchise.

    You also didn’t mention the Star Wars re-releases that came out in 1997.

    Star Wars $138,257,865
    The Empire Strikes Back $67,597,694
    Return of the Jedi $45,470,437

    Not bad box office results for movies that were 15-20 years old and widely available on home video (I know, they did have new scenes added).

  17. Campea… what do you think is the path that star trek needs to take?

    I think Star Trek should try to make the series more human, have people talk like regular average people and make decisions, fall in love, etc..

    As for the box office numbers, Star Trek Voyage Home is the highest grossing one. It was the most human movie of all the star trek films, people talked more like regular people. It had wonderful scenes where Spock, Kirk were interacting with regular folks. I think that’s the reason why it’s so popular.

  18. I totally agree with on not fussing on the details.

    BTW this is interesting. First Kevin Smith now Edgar Wright on ST XI:

    Interesting blog post from Shaun of the Dead Director and friend of Simon Pegg:

    Quote:

    Wednesday, October 15, 2008
    I am a lucky bastard…
    Yesterday I saw a film that does not get released until next summer.

    I can’t say much more than that, except that it delivers all the goods sorely lacking from a certain trio of prequels.

    Exciting stuff.

    That is all.

    E

    p.s. I did also meet Henry Winkler in the parking lot. These two events were unrelated. Other than it being further evidence of me being a lucky bastard.

    p.p.s. Thanks to CINEMATICAL (and Joel who sent me this link) for naming SHAUN OF THE DEAD as their funniest horror movie. The competition was very stiff too, especially the films ranking second and third.

    End Quote

Leave a Reply