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?
If you walked the streets of San Diego during Comic-Con this year, you would have spotted hundreds of banners bearing the Star Trek Federation logo and the words “Celebrating The Popular Arts” in the Trek font. However, this still in-production movie was nowhere to be found. Why would Paramount miss such a huge marketing opportunity? After all, with the film pushed back from this Christmas to a May 2009 release date, they’ll miss next year’s Comic-Con by a few months.
Well, if you read Entertainment Weekly’s “Special Comic-Con Issue,” you get a wimpy “sorry” from J.J. Abrams. Trek fans, you should seriously be up in arms over this. I’m only a moderate fan (although I’ll probably stand in line on opening day for the movie), and I’m miffed about it. I mean, J.J. himself was in town plugging for his new Fringe television series, so why not trot out even just an image of the Enterprise? Show Chris Pine in uniform? Hell, fans would have gone nuts if you’d just unveiled the four Trek posters that were given away on the big screens.
If J.J. is trying to distance himself from being just another “geek” film, then he’d better think again. Trek is alive and being remade today because of the voracious fandom it inspired. Every person who learned Klingon in their basement, practiced the Vulcan hand-signal, or quipped “Beam me up” has helped keep this franchise going. By alienating the audience, they’re sending the wrong signals. Of course, I have the feeling that Abrams could go on television for six weeks straight and call Trek fans losers, and this movie would still do a killing at the box office.
Still, it just would have been nice to have a major Trek happening at the Con. I’ll have to mothball my standard issue Starfleet uniform until next year.
Originally posted on:
SpoutBlog