One of my favorite movies is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It is arguably (meaning who really argues about this?) the BEST of the original crew films. A long-awaited Star Trek movie had been released 3 years before and was, to say the least, a TOTAL MESS! A not very engaging plot plus a lot of weird visual effects that only made one buy popcorn or use the shitter as opposed to being impressed.
The movie departs from its established roots in a few ways. For one thing, James Kirk and his arch enemy Khan share absolutely ZERO time on the same set, always talking through a video screen (Google Meet and Zoom essentially) or comlink to each other. Plus, there is an entirely new score that vaguely touches upon the old theme but is entirely different from the first film's (which was used for the Next Generation series). Kirk has been promoted to Admiral, no doubt thanks to his excellent speaking skills. All officers are dressed in maroon for some strange reason. And aside from an awesome yet suspenseful battle in an artistic nebula painting and light-enhanced warp speed shots, the film is pretty low on intense special effects! It relies on a solid plot using a villain from the TV show classic Spock/McCoy banter.
Now, here is the real kicker, and it leads to why the hell I am writing this, for it is not a typical Moore film review...I did not come out of a month writing hiatus just to write about a Shatner film! No, the point here is that we have an incredibly successful film on a money-making and quality front....on HALF the budget of the original film, which was a complete disaster!
The problem with sci fi and fantasy around this period of film history was essentially a guy named George Lucas. He had literally turned the special effects divisions of studios into a creative maelstrom of artists who essentially got paid the national budget to create visual and sound effects not yet known to your average filmgoer. What helped was that he also had a good story to go along with those effects, just in case they didn't draw in enough people to pay $3 a seat.
The effect of this man's vision led to...you know this already...WANNABES! The new influx of people from the island Wannawannawanna now wanted to be like Lucas and make extraordinary films with lots of special effects and high budgets. What they didn't do is listen to a future interview with the man himself who uttered the immortal words (cough). No, really, fans of his will listen to him cough and think it was a brilliant sequel or remake idea! Seriously, though, he said flat out that a special effect without a story is pretty fucking boring.
The problem there is that he said it after his second Star Wars film, which ended up being a bigger hit than number 1 (or number 4 if you go by episode numbers!). The Wannabes decided Shatner had been doing too many guest spot and game show appearances for too long and that they would make a Star Trek film. I can imagine the pitch went like this in 1978:
Agent: So, how was your experience in "The Bastard"?
Shatner: I WASN'T a bastard....I WAS Paul REVERE!
Agent: Still haven't sene the doctor like I suggested, I take it? Oh well. I have a new gig.
Shatner: Fine. Which PYRAMID show?
Agent: No, no, it's Star Trek! They want to make a movie of it.
Shatner: Oh SHIT! Not AGAIN!
Agent: No no, this will be easy. They already got the rest of the crew back...they were all selling timeshare anyway, well except Nimoy, he loves his documentaries.
Shatner: I'm NOT doing KIRK...AGAIN!
Agent: That was a bit off your tempo, but no. This really won't require any acting...actually none of your work does anymore...but this movie will have maybe, MAYBE, thirty minutes of actual dialogue script and 100 minutes of weird visual shots. You can probably MacMurray your scenes.
Shatner: WHY in the WORLD would I AGREE to this?
Agent: Better. Well, you remember that cop show idea you had...this could open the door for that.
Shatner (holding his forehead): Sigh....SIGH....sigh....sigh....SIGH...Fine, I'LL do it.
Agent: The Shatner sigh...all righty then!
The first Star Trek is not the only victim of blown big budget special effects in movies. Hell, you can look at any of the Star Wars prequel trilogy films...too much CGI and too little story. Armageddon is another! Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull takes a classic film series into the toilet with WAY too much in terms of effects, especially by the end! Ever see Cutthroat Island? A good idea turned shitty by an overzealous director who ended up bankrupting the production company!
So, lesson learned...but not by many. The art of good storytelling has largely gone to other countries while Hollywood continues to want to do bigger and better. But maybe.. just maybe...this pandemic can help scale it all back? All I can say to that is...
KHAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!
