YOUR leters
SFX readers on 50 years of Star Trek – and the next 50 too.
Simon Kalje, Facebook If they take a leaf out of Abrams’ book and take everything people love about the older shows and build on it in a new way then it will find a fan base. If they try to reinvent the wheel like Enterprise then it will fail miserably.
Emmet O’Brien, Facebook It needs to explore some stuff it used to shy away from – how homosexuality is represented in the 23rd/ 24th century, for example. DS9 had some interesting political stuff and that should be expanded on. I want to know how things in this universe work outside of people joining up to Starfleet.
Luggie MacFlufferty, Twitter I hope it does last another 50 years but I feel the next generation won’t be as into it as my generation and the one before me.
Christopher Drewett, Facebook I’d like to see a show that followed the starship that had to try and correct all the time travel foul- ups caused by Kirk, Picard and Janeway etc…
SFX Love this idea. Star Trek: Quantum Cock- up Control. Pitch it to Paramount, Chris!
Thomas Heiberg Nøhr, Facebook No new crinkly forehead aliens. No time travel. No technobabble. No dragging out the usual “will they, won’t they” milking of sexual tension between main characters. They’re adults and can bloody flirt, like in real life.
Craig Hayman, email Forget the starship stuff. Let’s have a Game Of Thrones style saga charting the rise of the Klingon empire, full of bloodshed, intrigue and betrayal. Quapla!
SFX Why would you need this when you’ve got the Conservative party?
Matt Boardman, Facebook Let it die gracefully. Dan Thorpe, Facebook Star Trek needs to evolve for our modern era. The concept is fine – it’s the execution of the shows that needs fine- tuning. Needless to say Star Trek will always live on through the spirit of human endeavour and our desire to face the unknown.
Linden Lyons, Twitter Empires rise and fall so perhaps a series on the decline of the Federation a century after Voyager?
John Isles, Facebook Keep exploring the final frontier – the sense of adventure, wonder and showing the best and worst of humanity.
Andrew Gilbertson, email As a fan I would love to see new Star Trek set in Gene Roddenberry’s original universe, pushing forward in the 24th
It needs to explore some stuff it used to shy away from
century. But honestly, the year and universe are just set dressing. As long as the writing is there, any universe can produce great Trek – it’s all in what kind of stories you’re trying to tell. My hope is that it returns strongly to TV, focused first on strong characters and second on moral messages that can reach and challenge both sides of the political aisle equally. That kind of timelessness and universality are the only way Star Trek can successfully survive the next 50 years; by returning to what it had when Star Trek was at it’s best.
Keith Tudor, Romsey My hope for the future of Star Trek is to see DS9 released on HD, and for the new series to capture the feel, the adventure, the action, the moral dilemmas and the fun of the original series where the crew get on and support each other and the majority of the conflict comes from the weekly encounters.
Leonardo Ceccarello, Twitter Any future with Star Trek in it is a good one.
SFX A most logical response, Leonardo.
Look out for the next SFX Hot Topic at bit. ly/ SFXHotTopic
# Disco vering Mars
James Kinsley, Norwich I was perusing a back issue of your fine magazine recently and I came across a short piece that piqued my interest about a film that was in production back then called Mars, directed by Geoff Marslett. Figuring it might have been released by now, I tracked down a copy on DVD ( not easy to come by in this country, although I tweeted Marslett himself and he swiftly came back to me with a few ideas). Long story short, I finally got to sit down and watch it, and what an amazing slice of weird hipster animated science fiction it is. The cast alone is a treat, the likes of Kinky Friedman, James Kolchalka, Howe Gelb and Don Hertzfeldt all popping up alongside the ever watchable Mark Duplass. Laugh- out loud funny, extremely sweet and beautiful to look at, I’d have never discovered this gem without, SFX. It’s a crying shame it doesn’t appear to have a release in this country ( yet).
Your coverage of the big stuff ( MCU, Who etc) is always reliable, but thanks for the weirder stuff you slip in there too.
SFX Glad we could be of service, James. We’re always here for the weirder stuff in life. Just look into our eyes. The things we’ve seen… the things we’ve reviewed.
# Pesky Web- slinger
Stephen McAfee, Co Antrim Loved the new Civil War trailer but should they have shown SpiderMan like that? I think not. It seems like it’s his first meeting with Cap’s side – presumably not the audience’s first sight of him as I can only assume we’ll see him and Tony meet at some point beforehand. On the other hand I understand the reason for it from a marketing point of view, and here I shall ask my question. Do Marvel even need to advertise? If they dropped an unannounced Spider- Man movie a week later the internet buzz would send it through the roof. We’d all watch it and, I’m guessing, we’d enjoy it more because we weren’t expecting it and hadn’t seen a single scene from it. Should Marvel try the JJ approach and just drop a movie with no trailers or posters? Yes, please!
SFX Great idea, Stephen. Even better: Marvel perfect time travel technology, erase Fox’s Fantastic Four films from the timeline and substitute their own. Hey, everyone check their DVD shelves – maybe they’ve already pulled this stunt…
Shouldn’t there be more arrows actually being fired?
# All a- quiver
Paul Weatherhead, Hungerford Am I the only one who feels Oliver Queen is getting sidelined in his own show? Whenever there’s a need to go after a bad guy they decide that all four of Team Arrow needs to take down one man. Then when they get there, they seem to always end up in a situation where one at a time they fight the bad guy, leaving you questioning what the other three are doing. Then when that one gets in trouble another magically turns up just in time to save the day.
Furthermore shouldn’t there be more arrows actually being fired? SFX Cutbacks, man. We’ve already seen a 10% reduction in the show’s leather hoodies quota. They’ll be slashing the budget for gratuitous abs shots next, just you wait.
# reader VS reader
Mike Poole, Bexhill My family and I went to our local multiplex on 25 March and saw a film no one appears to have seen. It was thoroughly excellent, thoughtprovoking, difficult to predict, well- acted and highly exciting.
It was called Batman Vs Superman.
I think there must have been another film of that name out the same week, because I have seen a large number of ranting, raving comments decrying this other film as, amongst other things, “A stink bucket of disappointment”.
Unless these reviewers are sadly deluded, or rabid Marvel fans unwilling for there to be two major franchises in the superhero market, then they must have been watching some other film.
Was it too long? Yes – by about 10 minutes. Did it have a different tone to Marvel? Yes – and surely that’s a good thing?
What I found fascinating was that it made it entirely believable that Batman would think Superman was a menace that he needed to put down. It was also clever how the playing field was levelled. This is perhaps the best Bruce Wayne we have seen, plus a brilliant Superman and a fascinating new Wonder Woman. All in all, we came out smiling and happy, having had a thrilling cinematic ride, with an intelligent plot, to which you had to pay attention to follow the film.
Wait a minute, perhaps I see now why a lot of reviewers didn’t get it…
Mike Garner, Moorends What a complete waste of two hours. That film missed the point by a mile. It looked at what Marvel was doing and tried to be something different. Unfortunately it tried to be serious and grown up, like hipsters “try” to be different. The entire film seemed forced and nothing felt organic. The best thing was the one thing everyone thought would ruin it – Batfleck. He played grizzled protector very well and acted his ass off to try and make the film make sense. It had no soul, no humour and no intelligent storytelling. Daredevil vs Punisher treated the “what is good, what is bad?” question so much better in Daredevil and Arrow and Flash have done team- ups so much better. They need better writers if they want to keep the franchise afloat. They need MUCH better writers if they want to challenge Marvel. SFX You can see what I made of it on page 92. It’s not pretty, I’m afraid. I console myself that on one of DC’s multiple Earths we got a masterpiece.