JJ Abrams is getting a lot of shit for the way he lit and shot his Star Trek movie, particularly the scenes in the interior of the Enterprise, in which virtually every close-up is marred by lens flares. It was only a matter of time before some intrepid YouTube user asked and answered the question, “What if the original Star Trek TV series looked like that?” See above.

Now that Star Trek has opened, broken some records and delighted an apparent majority of critics and moviegoers, it’s time for the backlash to begin. The complaints are not tremendous, but they have popped up here and there on the web today, and it’s worth taking a look at some of them, especially for those of us who haven’t yet gotten around to watching the thing. I’ve already learned, courtesy of actor/comedian Aziz Ansari that I should be careful in choosing where I see J.J. Abrams’ reboot if I want to see it in IMAX. What else might I be wary of before I go into the movie, in general? Let’s see what negativity is coming out of the blogosphere after the jump:

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In speaking of Star Trek, JJ Abrams’ origin story prequel designed to sex up the venerable brand and relaunch it as again-viable film franchise, I can’t speak for the fans, and I probably shouldn’t risk inciting their wrath by regurgitating the plot. Suffice it to say, all the familiar characters are rendered here as 20-something and absurdly attractive; they all end up on the Enterprise, from which they fight a Romulan who blows up a planet; there’s some time travel mumbo-jumbo that complicates things just enough to allow for a cameo from Leonard Nimoy; and the sexual tension between Young Kirk (Chris Pine) and Young Spock (Zachary Quinto) is the stuff that viral video makers in the “1 + 1 = GAY = LOL” mold dream of.

Fans and critic-fans will be predisposed to liking this film more than I, because they have more invested. Though I have a working familiarity with both the original TV series and The Next Generation, I didn’t walk into the film with opinions as to how something like the Kobayashi Maru test should have been handled, and I didn’t walk out anymore convinced that it matters one way or another. I can only offer the perspective of a viewer who walked in not really giving a shit about Star Trek, and from that perspective, Abrams has done a sufficient job. After all, the reason Star Trek exists is to support the theory that more Star Trek films should exist, and in painlessly demonstrating how the motley, almost incredibly diverse crew of the Enterprise fits together, in convincing that it wouldn’t be unpleasant to watch these seven space soldiers take on further missions, and in setting up a soapy workplace love triangle that will mandate sequels to resolve, Star Trek does that job. I walked out still not giving much of a shit about Star Trek, but at least I didn’t resent the expenditure of time, and though the central mythology of the series still fails to get a rise out of me, the pretty faces assigned to mobilize that myth offer their own rewards.

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Yesterday I attended a special Star Trek event at Paramount Studios where they showed us 20 minutes of footage from J.J. Abrams’ upcoming reboot of the classic sci fi series, much like Warner Bros. did with Watchmen recently. While the footage was already screened in London and New York, this was the first time I’ve had a chance to see it, and I didn’t read any of the other reports so I could go in fresh with my somewhat jaded fanboy eyes and ears.

While it looks fairly slick and high-tech (and yes, the bridge of the Enterprise does indeed look like the inside of an Apple Store), I was more interested with how they treated the development of characters that have been around since 1966. It’s hard to judge the film based on the four scenes we saw; it’s a bit like reading four random chapters of a book and being asked to write a report about it. But, with that in mind, I definitely have some thoughts about it. One thing is for sure: it looks a lot better than the scenes we saw from The Spirit at Comic-Con.

Check out the breakdown below of the scenes from a Star Trek movie that will probably draw a line right down the middle of hardcore Trek fans, but will draw a lot of people who have never seen the TV shows or the previous films into theaters. And just as a note, Abrams sides with the Trekkers in the “Trekkies vs. Trekkers” debate.

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I didn’t want to say it on Monday, but the new trailer for Star Trek had me thinking of Muppet Babies. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one. A friend over at the ReadJunk.com forum had the same idea. And a few other internerds have made similar connections by recutting the trailer to better convey how J.J. Abrams’ reboot is basically just Star Trek Babies. Or Star Trek Jr. Or Little Star Trek. It should be titled The New Star Trek — not because it’s a new start, but because it’s kind of like The New Archies.

The first recut I saw was over at Cinematical, where a video was posted fitting the Star Trek trailer to the theme song and opening credits style of the original Beverly Hills 90210. It was fine, though it stalled a little too much on the Zoe Saldana bra shot and featured too much footage from other films like Shaun of the Dead and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. A few days later I saw the clip above, which carries out the same idea with the theme and opening style from Smallville. Due to the concept behind that show, this video seems more appropriate, though it still has its flaws. A few more characters/actors could have been given credits.

Now all we need is someone to actually do a mashup of the new Star Trek and Muppet Babies. And after that, we could also use one pegged to the newly announced X-Men: First Class.

Earlier this week a slew of images from J.J. Abrams‘ Star Trek reboot, reimagining, redo, do over, what have you hit the web, and today an accompanying article from Entertainment Weekly talks to the actors and reflects on the footage shown to the magazine. Since we weren’t able to see that same footage (why not show it to everyone, Paramount?) we’re basically left to conjecture on the images themselves, and pat our inner fanboy on the back in consolation.

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• In what is probably the only case on record of an oft-voted Sexiest Woman Alive replacing a defensively heterosexual male megastar in a Hollywood thriller, espionage film Edwin A. Salt is being rewritten to star Angelina Jolie instead of Tom Cruise.
• Does anyone else sort of wonder if this whole Tropic Thunder “retard” protest is actually just an “alternative” marketing thing, paid for by Dreamworks to make the film’s satire look “dangerous”? Although I have to admit, canceling the premiere after party would be going a little far for a campaign…
• Helen Mirren’s husband will direct a film about Tennessee Williams’ dysfunctional childhood. The Cloverfield guy will produce a movie about an earthquake. The Japanese girl from Babel will star as an undercover hit woman in the next film from Isabel Coixet.

Last year’s 2007 Comic-Con featured a massive Paramount Pictures panel, which did everything from give us a live broadcast from the set of Indiana Jones (where we found out Marion Ravenwood was in the picture), to introduce both Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto as Spock in the new Trek film. However, Paramount’s only presence this year was a Tropic Thunder screening outside the Con, and some freebie Trek posters on the show floor. Where was the most cinematic representation of the Comic-Con audience to be found?

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The official schedule for the first full day of events at ComicCon is now up at their website, so you can compare it to the draft schedule we posted earlier this week. Plus, they’ve announced a special event for Preview Night. On Wednesday nights, the Con traditionally opens to show floor to press and passholders, and then after a couple of hours everyone adjourns to dinners and hotel parties, and starts full-bore conventioning the next morning. But this year, they’re going to have two special screenings on Wednesday night of the pilot for the new FOX show Fringe, produced by JJ Abrams and starring Joshua “Pacey” Jackson. Details here.

The above trailer is a fake. The real teaser for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek should be attached to prints of Cloverfield this weekend and is scheduled to hit the interweb next Monday (it will likely be leaked earlier). Apparently some people were tricked last week into thinking this fan-made teaser was the real deal, but that just seems ludicrous. Sure, the video is put together decently enough. Sure, there have been some teasers that give us no new footage save for a new logo. However, there is nothing about this teaser that seems appropriate to how Paramount should want to market the new Trek. If the studio had actually released this, I would have believed its executives knew nothing about movie marketing whatsoever.

First of all, Paramount would never want to sell this reboot/prequel thing to the people who would most appreciate the trailer’s use of music, voice-over and footage from past Star Trek movies. Instead the studio is likely to capitalize more on the fact that the movie is fairly separate from the rest of the Trek franchise. It will want to and need to show us something fresh in order to get the attention of us non-Trekkies. After all, Abrams has said from the beginning that his movie will not necessarily be for the fans. So, expect the real teaser to show us some actual footage, preferably of the new actors portraying the characters. Then it can also show us the Enterprise and then it will want to show us the logo we’ve seen on the teaser posters.

The Trekkies all know there’s a new Star Trek coming out this Christmas. So there’s no need to make a teaser trailer that appeals to them, especially if it isn’t going to have anything new. Yet at the same time, there’s no need to make a fake teaser trailer that’s marketed to the Trekkies when those fans are going to be the first to realize it’s a fake (which is what happened). I guess some hardcore fans actually appreciated the thing, but really the only people who could have bought it are those minor Trekkies who are just on the outskirts of real fandom. Seems like a wasted effort to me.

Harry Knowles has seen Cloverfield, and he’s not only declared it a safe target for the sploogery of his army of fanboys––he’s got a surprisingly evocative take on how the much-hyped hybrid of Godzilla and Blair Witch breaks the monster movie mold:

The movie is fucking brilliant. It’s what we were told it was going to be. An intimate perspective on an impossibly grand scale human disaster beyond most human levels of comprehension…

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Dear WGA,

I’m sorry for your troubles. I really, really am. But strike beards are sexy. Even the New Yorker says so. And you saw those paparazzi shots of Conan O’Brien, walking around town like a high-fashion lumberjack, right? If a strike beard can do that for Conan, just imagine what it could do for a piece of ass like JJ Abrams. I know it’s wrong, but strike beards kind of make me hope that the AMPTP finds a way to drag this thing out a little bit longer. I mean, not indefinitely––give me, like, a week to get the unshaven screenwriter fantasies out of my system, and then you can go back to the bargaining table. Okay? New episodes of 30 Rock for Valentine’s Day, perhaps?

Love,

Karina

• Netflix will partner with LG to create a set-top box that will stream movies directly to a television without a disc or computer intermediary.  Netflix has been rumored to be working on such a thing for a loooong time, but was it worth the wait? According to the Hollywood Reporter story, the first iteration will be aimed at HD-TV owners, and may be prohibitively expensive for the average consumer.
• The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has yet to hammer out a deal with the Writers’ Guild to allow writers to work on the Golden Globes telecast, which is still tentatively scheduled for January 13. According to Dave McNary at Variety, the WGA looks so unlikely to budge that party planners and studio execs are proceding with plans on the assumption that the show will not be televised–and thus, the WGA won’t have reason to picket, and nominees and presenters will actually show up.
• Sean Penn will chair the jury of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
• THR is confirming rumors, which first hit the web last week, that Tyler Perry has been cast as the head of the Starfleet Academy in J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. Since there doesn’t seem to be any call for  Perry’s usual makeup-aided, multi-role schtick, the casting seems like a clear ploy at broadening the remake/sequel/whatever’s built-in audience. Which makes me wonder: is this thing already so over-budget that Paramount is worried they won’t be able to manufacture a blockbuster on the shoulders of Trekkie love alone?

• J.J. Abrams says he will “honor his contractual obligation to work as a director” on his upcoming Star Trek reinvention, but will also serve some time in the picket lines outside Paramount, where writers are apparently chanting things like “Who’s got more money than they can count? Paramount!” (There’s no indication as to who raised their pencil to write that one.) Also seen on picket lines yesterday: James L. Brooks, Tina Fey, and the writers of Lost.
• Meanwhile, Hollywood’s two most beloved presidential candidates both issued statements yesterday in support of the writers. Barack Obama characterized the fight as “a test of whether media corporations are going to give writers a fair share of the wealth their work creates or continue concentrating profits in the hands of their executives.” Hillary Clinton was, predictably, a little less acerbic in her criticism of those executives. “I support the Writers Guild’s pursuit of a fair contract that pay them for their work in all mediums,” Clinton said. “I hope the producers and writers will return to the bargaining table.”
• American Film Market is the last event where indie producers can close projects that will be wrapped before the SAG and Directors Guild reach their own pre-strike deadline in March, and so far it looks like slow going. Said Mark Urman of ThinkFilm: “Actors normally on a one on/one off indie/studio film schedule now are looking for big paydays in big, stupid Hollywood movies.”