Beyond the Trek and the Furious

Thar be spoilers ahead.  I don't believe in spoilers, but that doesn't mean that you don't.  IDIC.

You've been warned.

I decided to invest some of my limited cash flow into paying the matinee price to see the new Star Trek movie.  I don't regret having seen it, but I'm sure that not eating just one more meal will make me regret how I used the money.  Nevertheless, I saw the movie.

Actually, this awesome tribute to TMP is totally appropriate to this film.

I have never made it a secret that I had my misgivings about this film prior to its release.  I do my best to reserve judgement because trailers can be misleading and so can statements from actors.

In my head, I went in with as clean a slate as I could.

The previews did little to impress upon me that I was wrong about my misgivings.  All of them, every single one, was a crazy action movie.  Yes, even Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is technically a crazy action movie.

I like crazy action movies.  They're fun, and so cool!

But that's not usually what I like from Star Trek.

If it's what you like from Star Trek, well, bully for you.  You've got plenty to enjoy.

Do no harm, Bones.

I was very impressed with Star Trek Beyond.  There are a lot of indications that writers Simon Pegg and Doug Jung aren't just fans of Star Trek, they did their homework.  For the most part.

The U.S.S. Franklin was supposed to be the first Warp 4 capable ship after the NX-01's Warp 5 capable engine...?

The movie started off in Kirk's headspace as he tries to figure out just what the hell happened that got him to where he was.  This isn't dissimilar to where Kirk was at the beginning of TWOK, but the important difference here is that the original Kirk was older and more experienced by that point.  He had always known he wanted to be a starship captain.

Kelvin Timeline Kirk felt shoehorned into the role of starship captain (and he kind of was, to be fair).  Even comforting words from Bones weren't enough to stop Kirk from questioning what the hell he was really doing in deep space.

Rather than simply question the validity of Starfleet as a means of getting the action going, the beginning of the movie was very slow and thoughtful.  The characters were questioning their sense of free will in a timeline in which they were pigeonholed into certain roles in order to take on specific threats.

The great comraderies that were developed naturally over the course of years working together didn't happen in the Kelvin timeline.  They were merely a product of the Prime Timeline's Spock suggesting that it was necessary.  That's all a bit deterministic.

I could not deprive you of the revelation of all that you could accomplish together, of a friendship that will define you both in ways you cannot yet realize.

One of the best developments of Star Trek Beyond is the use of Bones.  No secret, Bones has always been one of my favorite characters in Star Trek.  In the original series, Bones was sassy and opinionated to a fault.  He was the perfect foil for Spock.  It was his relationship with Spock that helped Spock stand out so well.

Kirk was always a man apart in TOS.  Yes, he was friends with Spock, and they had their moments together.  But the best moments of true friendship were defined by Spock's interactions with Bones.

This necessarily meant that Uhura take a backseat in Spock's life for the duration of this movie.  She still does some kick ass stuff, but I do feel as though they missed some opportunities with her newly liberated character.

The introduction of a new character, Jayla, is rather interesting.  She is almost entirely glossed over from the standpoint of an origin except that the Bad Guy shot down her ship and killed her parents in front of her.  Now she's a ninja whose home is an old NX-class starship.

Okay.  There have been flimsier pretexts to introduce characters that were less cool.  I liked her, a lot.

Plus she has this rad relationship with Montgomery Scott instead of fawning over James T. like a traditional Trek Girl

My favorite visual in Beyond is one that I cannot find with a Google image search.  It's the wide view of Krall's base, and I love it because it reminds me so much of the design of so many TOS era wild alien bases.  It is made of basic shapes and primary colors and a few technological-looking poles.

This is the closest I could find, and if you zoom in you can kind of see what I'm talking about.

In TOS, often the planets they visited, when they weren't carbon copies of the Earth ("What are the odds, an exact duplicate of Earth?") were rocky with tall jagged spires and these buildings made of simple architecture.  If you don't already know the story of why TOS was so colorful, it had to do with the fact that most people watching it in 1966 were doing so on black and white televisions so different colors needed to pop in order to be distinct shades of gray.

Like this image of Delta Vega (which became an ice planet where Kirk finds Scotty in the 2009 reboot)

In addition to visuals that were throwbacks to TOS, they also brought to bear the full might of 2016's visual effects capabilities in the form of the starbase Yorktown.  Yorktown is simply incredible, and even the characters are in awe of it.

This wide shot does not do the Yorktown justice.

The interior of Yorktown is an MC Escher-like dream of advanced architecture.  Great long corridors for starships run through the bubble and underneath the station's thoroughfares in such a way that occasional water features will reveal stunning views of the passing starships within.  This is the kind of science fiction utopia that I think Gene Roddenberry would have been proud of, especially as a symbol for the unity of the United Federation of Planets.

There were some things that I was not terribly impressed with, visually.

This really weird shot of the Enterprise's torpedo launcher, for example.

Some of Justin Lin's choices for visuals fit really well into more avant-garde action flicks.  And, while there's plenty of action in Star Trek Beyond, these shots are less appropriate artistic choices and more food for the audience members that just want to hurry up and get to the 'splodey bits.

Actually, the action that was built up to in Star Trek Beyond felt very appropriately justified, even by Star Trek's non-violence preference.  The villains did most of the actual shooting and, to be fair, they started it.

STOP BLOWING HOLES IN MY SHIP!

Krall's true identity was a bit predictable, but maybe that's because I've seen the premise used in Star Trek before.

Like when Kirk stumbled across this magnificent bastard.

But the tie-in to the storyline in Enterprise was fantastic.  I loved that the villain is an ex-M.A.A.C.O. who went nuts after he was put in a peaceful position.  I loved that he referenced the Xinti invasion and the Romulan War.

I didn't care that his pretense for being alive was flimsy (reference Zefram Cochrane's excuse in TOS).  That wasn't really relevant to the story.

Oh, the Enterprise references were more than just vague mentions of "Admiral Archer's dog" in this movie.

Krall was a good villain with a good enough backstory to support his motivations.  He even seemed like he had a moment for redemption right there when Kirk was struggling with the last panel to save Yorktown from the virus he created.

This is the face of a sympathetic villain

Is he misguided?  Sure.  But a lot less than Nero was in his strange attempt to get revenge on the Federation instead of... I don't know... warning Romulus about its impending destruction.  What villain isn't misguided, though?

Krall's motivations, if not his capabilities, are similar to John DeLancie's Q character from Star Trek: The Next Generation.  This is a villain who wants humans to stop exploring space because he thinks they'll break under the pressure of a galaxy that's too large for them to handle.

Literally the first episode of TNG is about this very premise

Betwixt the action-filled parts of the movie, the drama of Kirk's and Spock's decisions to remain in their fated positions on board the Enterprise plays out as a strong B-plot.  Spock is mortally wounded early on in the movie, and so the threat of his destruction weighs heavily on him in light of the recent death of Ambassador Spock (that trouble-making scallywag!)

Should he continue in starfleet?  Or should he help rebuild Vulcan?

There's a lot less obvious wordplay around this conundrum, which allows his character to form his own opinions and demonstrate them through actions by acting.  This is something Zachary Quinto is particularly good at, so it was nice to let him do that.  By the end of the movie, Spock decides to follow his feelings rather than logic.  He prefers the company of his friends to the duty of maintaining Vulcan heritage.  This reunites him somewhat with Uhura, at least on the level of being friends, and we love him for it. *waves a flag* Yay, friends!

Kirk, however, realizes that he does actually like to do stupidly dangerous shit for a living.  I don't think Kirk would fare well in the 24th century; I think TNG would be too urbane for him.  Even the Kirk from TOS, who is often depicted as far more violence-prone than he actually was, feels this way by the time he meets up with Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Generations..

James T. Kirk is a thrill seeker.  So he remains, but he is able to use this movie as a vehicle to discover it for himself.

The movie concludes with a touching connection to the TOS crew in the form of affectations left by Ambassador Spock for his alternate self.

Almost half of these wonderful human beings are dead.  Fully half if you consider William Shatner to be dead inside.

The movie ends on an upbeat note with the crew returning to space in the NCC-1701-A Enterprise.  I feel like they weren't very ambitious with the design of the refit Enterprise in the Kelvin Timeline compared to the Prime Timeline, but it's functional enough for them to blow it up in the next movie.

Engage!

Overall Star Trek Beyond was a strong ensemble movie that was, despite Chris Pine's best attempts to convince us otherwise, a thought-provoking journey about the role of destiny in deciding our fate.  With lots of cool 'splosions.

Live long and prosper, friends!

A Star Trek Discovery

Just a warning, I'm about to go full geek in this blog.

You have been warned.

The trailer has been out for a couple days now, but just in case you haven't seen it CBS has announced the title of the new Star Trek show as well as a short clip of the titular ship (The NNC-1031 USS Discovery) leaving dry dock.

The name is so promising!

The breakdown of videos is normally left to YouTube commentators, and honestly I haven't looked to see if they're buzzing about this.  The new Star Trek Beyond movie just released and so it's likely that the movie's release has sort of eclipsed this glimpse at the future of Star Trek.

Again, that's conjecture.  I haven't looked.

I don't want to break down the trailer too much, there isn't much there and I don't know how representative of the show any of it will be in another five months.

No cast has been announced (or likely even picked yet) so the whole theme of the show is still likely very fluid.

What we can see is a ship!

No, not that one...

Wait...

There it is!  There, in the middle, see?  It's that flat silhouette.

The very first thing that struck me about the USS Discovery is that its design utilizes some of the elements of the late great Ralph McQuarrie's design for a shitcanned 1970's Star Trek movie (the one that was passed in favor of TMP).

This has been confirmed as intentional and I guess there's even some legal inquiry into whether or not that's okay.

Look at the shuttle bay in the back, you can see a person in there for a sense of scale.

Not a shot-for-shot match up, but what do you want to bet that door in the back is the shuttle bay?

I thought that was a neat use of the old design concepts, although it isn't clear whether it fits within the style of the Prime Universe that it is supposedly a part of.

Why not?  I don't hear you cry.

Well, I'm going to explain it to you anyway, so... settle in.

Don't worry, we're only going through some of the models of the various Enterprises here, and I won't be delving into Voyager.

Early 23rd Century Starfleet Design

In the 23rd century, Starfleet's mission was (believe it or not) about peaceful exploration of the galaxy.  Their ships, in contrast to the warlike Romulans and Klingons, were generally not shaped in a manner that suited warfare.  Note how skinny the pylons holding the nacelles are, and how far away from the main hull the saucer section is.  These are ships designed for science, not for combat.

Late 23rd Century Starfleet Design

I've skipped the NCC-1701 refit and its sequel to go to the next design for Starfleet ships in the 23rd century.  By this point in the Prime Timeline, things have been heating up between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingons.  The hull is beefier, the saucer section is far lower, and the nacelles are brought in closer to the frame on wider, stronger pylons.

Early 24th Century Starfleet Design

Moving into the 24th Century, the direct conflict with the Klingons was not entirely over.  It was, in fact, through the actions of the USS Enterprise-C that hostilities eventually came to an end.  But they didn't know that when they designed the Ambassador class vessel.  Not as war-ready as the older Excelsior class Enterprise-B, the Enterprise-C nevertheless has the same wider pylons for its nacelles and a saucer that is closer to its primary hull.

Mid 24th Century Stafleet Design

The Galaxy class USS Enterprise-D was almost the pinnacle of 24th century Starfleet tanks.  Almost.  Note that the neck is wider leading to the beefier saucer section, the wider, angled hull and the rear-set wide pylons supporting flatter, angled nacelles.  Sure, the Enterprise-D was a flying city, but it was also the Cadillac of battleships in the Federation.

Late 24th Century Stafleet Design

In response to the hugely lethal Dominion War, Starfleet pumped out a whole two Defiant-class starships.  There is no pretense of scientific exploration here, the Defiant is a Federation warship.  It's hull is the saucer section and its nacelles are attached directly to the hull without the use of extending pylons.  You're not knocking out the Defiant's warp capabilities as easily as you'd knock out any of the other starships.

The point is that the designs evolved based upon the need to keep ships from getting disabled and destroyed by the enemies of the Federation (namely the Klingons and the Romulans).

A lot of this is visible in McQuarrie's design.

It's unclear exactly what the intended purpose of Ralph McQuarrie's Enterprise would have been in the unreleased Star Trek movie it was designed for.  But in a meta context, its design is consistent with the evolving warlike designs of Starfleet.

Klingon D7 Battlecruiser

Look at the triangular shape of the above Klingon D7 Battlecruiser.  Notice its flat nacelles, and the way its pylons angle backwards.  This shot shows the D7 from underneath, signifying its dominance.  It is the controlling power in this picture.

Starfleet D[iscovery]7  Battlecrusier?

Look at the triangular shape of the above Starfleet Discovery starship.  Notice its flat nacelles, and the way its pylons angle backwards.  This shot shows the Discovery from underneath, signifying its dominance.  It is the controlling power in this picture.

Driving this fact home harder is the musical score that is playing as the USS Discovery exits the dry dock.  Instead of being curious or inspiring, or a ballad about the strength of the human spirit, the music is dark and threatening as though the Discovery is heading to war.

It's hard to say what we will see in the upcoming Star Trek television show, but based upon some of the recently cancelled stuff, it seems like most of the folks that head the Trek are interested in something darker and grittier.  I mean, geeze, they keep blowing up the new Enterprise.

Stop blowing holes in my ship!

The title of the show is Discovery, though, and the theme that plays when we can see the title is much more inspiring than the grim music that plays when we first get to see Starfleet's Klingon-esque starship design.

I think it's too soon to say what we can expect from Discovery, but I don't plan to rule anything out just yet.

Anyway, here are two more stills of the new starship because, hell, why not?

The obligatory saucer reveal

The Late 23rd Century deflector design is probably the biggest indicator of when this show will take place

Live long and prosper, friends!

I Own This: The Dark Side of Fandom

It's no secret that the typical fan is very possessive of their fandom.  Traditionally this has taken the form of bitter rivalries between fandoms as fans argue between each other which is the better franchise to devote their attentions to.  Sometimes, as in the case of Star Trek and more recently Star Wars, fans will even fight about the best products of a franchise, further dividing fans into quarreling little cliques.

Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination is a fancy way of saying, "Don't sweat the small stuff"

This is an important topic to me, one that I'm passionate about and one that I will speak about over and over again in my life.  But it holds an important place in the larger scope of understanding how the United States' society in particular has developed its interpretation of 'popular' culture.

'Popular' is a very interesting word for this genre.  Its usage is sometimes... illogical.

Of course, traditionally, fans of 'popular' culture (as I'm discussing it here) are considered to be nerds.  In the 1990's and early 2000's the definition of nerds in U.S. culture has shifted to be overall more accepting where it hasn't remained downright vilified by anti-intellectuals.  This acceptance, or tolerance at least, has allowed fans to be more vocal and confident.

Nevertheless, fandoms use the power of the Internet to join together to create networks that believe they drive their franchises forward.  In some substantial cases they do.  In other notable cases, they don't.

They took the sky from you and they're damn well not giving it back.

Based on observation, it appears that these fandoms collectively believe they can sway the market.  I, myself, am guilty of this flawed kind of groupthink, as indicated in my previous post about why Chris Pine is calling you an idiot.  As I attempt to demonstrate in that article by using Netflix as my driving piece of evidence, there is a modicum of truth to this.

Pablo Hidalgo loves to taunt fans about Star Wars canon

Certainly, fans have sometimes made it believable enough that they drive the market for their product to some folks in 'the biz' to drive home their point and influence the outcome of the show.  This is extremely rare, and usually only a reaction of individual producers of a show to their fanbase rather than the corporate movers and shakers making things happen.

Haha, nice try, Supernatural fans!

In U.S. culture, there is a great deal of anxiety tied up in fandoms.  These shows are stories we enjoy because we find aspects of ourselves reflected in them.  Where the aspects of ourselves are absent, we fantasize that we possess them anyway.  They are the stuffed animals from our childhood we didn't have to give up to stay cool and relevant as we matured - not that it seems like many of the people I'm talking about in this blog are likely to have given up any stuffed animals voluntarily anyway.

And what they did give up was probably a very traumatic experience.

I call this one Squishy, he's my favorite!

In fact, for many fans our collective childhoods seem to have become nothing but Freudian nightmares of traumatic experiences which we must delve deep into our fandom to escape from.  It's okay - your fandom is therapeutic!  You don't have to confront your emotions.

Except that when you do that to your fandom you're not really supporting it at all.  You're appropriating it, and that's what causes the divisiveness among fans of even the same franchise.

That's why the creators of these franchises seem so antagonistic to you and your specific wishes.

Here's where I'm going to tell you something you may find abrasive:

No matter how much you like your franchise, it's not yours.

Those are their stories to tell, not yours.  If you have stories to tell, tell them!  Fanfiction is still a thing!  And if you like to read fanfiction then bully for you!  But you're not going to canonize it no matter how much you cry.

I'm not even going to count.

Yet, a shadow still looms over that horizon...

Haha!

Copyright laws have mutated quite a bit over the 20th century.  The laws that allowed for the creation of The Wizard of Oz and Snow White no longer exist as they did when they were created.  There were several reasons why the changing copyright laws are relevant to my argument, but the most damaging one happened in 1995 when a particular cartoon mouse was set to enter the Public Domain.

The relatively recent expansion of social networks in our history has exacerbated the problem of maintaining the Mouse's family-friendly image for the global conglomerate.  Suddenly, Walt Disney Corporation was the covetous fan - the Mouse's creator had long since passed from this world, leaving several well-meaning businessfolk in charge of the product.

I have worked for Disney.  Even the businessfolk love Disney - almost everyone who works there from the bottom to the top is a fan of their various product lines in one way or another.

To this guy it's about dollars and happiness.  I don't care if you believe me or not.

So, with all of their covetous might, they changed copyright laws in order to maintain control over the Mouse.  As someone who isn't interested in using the Mouse's likeness in any way shape or form that doesn't bother me too much.

But laws aren't written for mice.  They're written for intellectual properties.

Since 1995, copyright laws have become increasingly draconian.  The entertainment industry as we know it is nouveau riche in the grand scheme of trust fund babies.  Before the twentieth century, performers weren't extremely wealthy.  Even the famous ones.

Not that you can tell from this magnificently dressed bastard (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

The rise of the entertainment industry and the gentrification of generations of wealthy performers and producers created a belief in the trust fund.  It's this belief that your success should benefit generations of your family that will never even have to do anything to maintain what you created in order to live comfortably above the middle class that has created social stratification globally for as long as mercantilism and capitalism have been the dominant means of gaining power through currency.

If this is getting too political for you, that's fine.  I ask you to stick with me, though, because all of this is going to tie back into fandoms here in a moment.

Philosophy lesson: you are impermanent, and so are your assets.  Artificial means of perpetuating those assets do not, in fact, deify you or cause you to be any less impermanent.

Still too thinky?  I'll simplify: Greed bad.  Sharing good.

Obviously my thoughts on the matter are more complicated than the four-word version given above, but if those are the words you took and not the philosophy lesson then you've already lost.

(Now we come full circle) - your ability to alter the course of your favorite franchise does not shape your impact on the world.  Mostly because it's like trying to hit your head on a rock that isn't there.  You think you're getting nowhere because the rock is hard, but really you're getting nowhere because there isn't a rock to chip away.

Participate gloriously in your fandom and celebrate it.  Engage in discussions about it, disagree passionately with each other about your perspectives.  Dialogue is amazing, and it feeds the creative process.  But coercion and complaints are not dialogue, nor is obstinance against the word of the franchise's creative directors helping the creative process.

In case you didn't know, this is Adam Driver making fun of you for being a whiny baby.  Literally.

Everyone who creates things loves to have fans.  But nobody and nobody likes a crybaby.

Reboots

This post is not particularly about Star Trek, but it addresses something that a lot of fans get very upset about.  It's often because they take the fandom too personally - their fandom was "the only good thing about their childhood."  Well, I wasn't there when you were a kid so I can't verify that; I had a pretty decent childhood all things considered.  What I can say is that reboots of a franchise are normal and should be encouraged.

This topic came up for discussion over the forthcoming Ghostbusters movie which will be releasing this week.  My roommate asserted to me that, on principle, money-grabbing reboots are not qualified to be art because movies are meant to be watched again and again as symbols of their time and the stories that would come out of them.

The new, all-female Ghostbusters team, looking all badass with their proton packs on.

In the case of Ghostbusters, there was some contention over whether or not the movie should be a continuation of the previously existing story (making these women the next generation of Ghostbusters) or whether they should just start from scratch.  My roommate's assertion is that the movie will be inoffensive if it continues the story but it will be wildly offensive (to him) if it doesn't.

The existence of the new Ghostbusters movie in no way cancels out the previous Ghostbusters movies.  In fact, starting over prevents it from retconning anything in the previous movies and thereby cheapening them.

I have always believed that Tina Fey and Amy Pohler would make an excellent replacement for Dan Akroyd and Bill Murray in an all-female Ghostbusters reboot, but I understand why the casting director for this picture didn't.  Tina Fey and Amy Pohler would have had too much star power - and what director Paul Feig apparently wants to do is to tell a story.

How dare he?

It doesn't matter if it's the same story we've already been told, Paul Feig wants to tell it his way.  His way involves four ass-kicking women instead of four ass-kicking men.  It will have more contemporary jokes in it.  It will be a symbol of Ghostbusters in 2016, just as the original is still a symbol of Ghostbusters in 1984.

But about reboots in particular, the focus here is on the question of whether or not reboots are true artistic expressions or whether they're entirely driven by corporate greed.

There is no clear-cut answer.  But I will argue that, even in the most vapid of reboots, a great deal of artistic talent must be brought to bear in order for them to compete for the role of summer blockbuster.

Cowabunga, dude!

I'll make it perfectly clear that I am not a big fan of senseless reboots.  Movies like Total Recall (2012) and Transformers (2007) had little substance as far as story.  They were neat-o burrito romps in sci-fi action, but, especially in the case of Total Recall, made me wonder why they even bothered using the name.

But reboots are as old as film making itself.  There are some great examples of films you love you probably never knew were reboots.

Oh, no, Mr. Scarecrow!  Really?

The above still is from a 1910 production of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, produced by its creator L. Frank Baum and directed by Otis Turner.  By 1939, The Wizard of Oz had passed into the public domain and MGM picked it up and made it into the classic motion picture that has become the most watched movie in the world.

That's right, the most watched movie in the world is a reboot.

So why do we hate it when a franchise reboots with the same name but whole new characters/story?

We hate to see the names of our franchises attached to different stories because we're afraid it'll confuse the memories in our heads.  But it usually doesn't - I can absolutely tell Doom (2005) from the 1993 video game in my head; and even those two from the Doom video game that was just released earlier this year.

Man, they didn't even add the Jaws theme when it was chasing the heroes around...

It's genuinely most often the artistic reinterpretation of stories that we enjoy.  Nobody makes good movies every time, and if you stomp on reboots on principle then your franchise will die.

I can't stress this enough: if you boycott reboots on principle, your franchise will die.

Staying relevant is hard, kiddo!

For us young 'uns that might not recognize the picture above, that's Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.  That's the show that originated as a series of stories in the Golden Age of Science Fiction and fell into obscurity when its spiritual successors - Star Wars and Flash Gordon - outlived it.

When franchises are rebooted, their old material resurfaces by popular demand as old fans return to their beloved classics to enjoy them for what they represented upon release.

Just ask these chaps

When nobody pays to see the reboot, demand for products from the franchise tapers off as its fans grow older and die until that franchise falls into obscurity and it exists only as a reference in some kid's blog about reboots (Sorry, Buck!)

Most often, the failure of a reboot can mean the wholesale end of a franchise.

Like this 2004 reboot of Lost in Space, which was a victim of the earlier 1998 movie flop of the same title

But it doesn't always.  Dumb things keep our franchises relevant - for television was historically reruns in syndication (like for Star Trek), but has transitioned largely to availability on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.  For example, Lost in Space is looking at a 2017 reboot on Netflix due to the popularity of watching the original series which is hosted there.

Sometimes things that keep a franchise alive are really dumb...

But if there's something common you can see in all these reboots it's production value.  To the consumer, production value sounds just like money being thrown at the picture, but artistically it translates to more than that.

Reboots typically get more production value because a studio is banking off the popularity of the original content.  That means the new artist can take the story in different directions - express themselves differently - than the previous artists did.  They have less limitations.

To restrict the new artists based on the old content is a perverse form of censorship.

Clever things make people feel stupid, and unexpected things make them feel scared!

In no other art form would you tie an artist's hands in this way.  Why would you?

The reason why the Transformers movies are cool is because ILM poured a lot of talent into making realistic-looking twenty-foot-tall robots.  They're certainly not Gone with the Wind, but they're not void of artwork.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn...

We can see the transition from heavily restricted budgets to unrestricted budgets in Star Wars films.  Star Wars was, in 1979, practically an independent film.  By 1988, when Return of the Jedi was released, Lucas practically had free reign of the production process.  And if Return of the Jedi meant freedom for Lucas, then The Phantom Menace was just the logical evolution of that freedom.

Mesa evolution!

The interesting thing about studying film is that it is very subjective.  Fans of anything anywhere must be honor bound to never forget this.  What The Wrath of Khan means to so many people it does not mean to me.  A widely accepted belief about films is that they must tell a story (a good one!) in order to be a good movie.

Well, that's a pretty narrow view of the craft.  I've seen plenty of shit artwork that's hailed as amazing (I'm looking at you, Campbell's Soup Cans) because pretentious people can't admit that they're blindly following each other into stupidity.

Movies can be good pieces of artwork simply by being visually impressive.

One of the most impressive tracking shots I've ever seen.

Or having good acting despite having shit dialogue.

"Only a master of evil, Darth!" ...nice comeback, Obi-Wan.

Or having a good story despite having a low budget.

The original cut of Star Wars had a bunch of these wolf-headed aliens in the Mos Eisley cantina...

So the next time you're thinking of shitting on a reboot, evaluate how much your franchise means to you.  Figure out if you'd like it to be around in 40 years.

Then go show some artists your support because not every artist is starving.  Some artists have already made it to the big time and there's no need to be bitter about it.

(I'm not one of them, by the way.)