I panned the last Star Trek movie, the reboot of the original series. Heck, during that panning, I panned every Star Trek movie that's ever been made. They all sucked. While I was at it, I panned four of the six Star Wars movies, too. And I'm not that hard to please. Really.
But the people in charge of those movies just plain dropped the ball. Like Lucas after the Empire Strikes Back, they just seemed to lose sight of what the movies should be, or what the original series was all about -- a great show with great writing. Instead, Star Trek and Star Wars seemed to choose the bubble gum crowd as their audience. And in doing so, chose comedy and goofiness as a means of story telling. And when they did that, for me, at least, the magic was gone.
Star Trek the original series and the first two Star Wars were serious stories, gritty stories, even realistic, although that may be argued, but to me they were. You had a great character and a great hero in Capt. Kirk, and one in Spock, too. In Star Wars, Luke and Han Solo were great characters.
But they became adolescents, and thrown to the kiddy crowd. The stories and new supporting characters were cartoon-like, and comedic. I never cared much for comedies. Those are hard to do. Sure it's pulled off sometimes, and I agree that even serious movies should have some comedic elements in them, but turning a hard core dramatic genre into a tongue in cheek fiasco is just plain wrong. They did that with the James Bond franchise. Sure they made their money, but the films were far inferior. At least, with the Daniel Craig versions, the serious and gritty Bond flicks are back. Maybe it can happen with Star Trek and Star Wars, too. But I won't hold my breath.
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