this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
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People are taking this interview out of context.
He said, as a kid, he never liked Star Trek. But as an adult, after rewatching TOS to prepare for the 2009 film, he grew to appreciate Star Trek.
he grew to appreciate the money he was going to make from Star Trek.
Fixed.
You wouldn't guess that from the movies.
Right, so he should not have been hired to do the job. He didn't rewatch it until money, and he likes money. He liked it because of money.
I don't think it's inherently bad for Abrams himself to not have seen the show until asked to do it, but there's absolutely a good question of why the people that commissioned Abrams chose him, when he had no familiarity with Star Trek beforehand.
Thats my main point - Abrams was the wrong choice from the start imo.
There is a weird thing that i think was hinted upon in a ds9 interview that for some reason “they” do not like to have star trek fans working on the set and those that where where supposed to act low profile about it.
I can kinda see how it can be both distracting to get work done and irritating or to have crew argue canon all the time (Henry Cavill in the wincher)
But i also can’t not see how political this might all be.
Henry Cavill plays a tow truck driver who repossesses the realms most powerful monsters cars.
I'd watch that.
i mean just for our boy Hank. But also because i gotta sing
When a humble bard graced a ride along
With Hank of Newark, along came this song
Oh god, Gravity Falls Spinoff...
I think arguing canon on set is one thing, I think enjoying the work and understanding it from the start is another.
He wasn't into Star Trek, he said he was after being paid to be into it. Thats it - and honestly I don't believe he liked it in his rewatch either - and that is the issue. He wasn't interested in making a Star Trek movie. He got brought on because "BIG NAME MEAN BIG $$$" and not because it would be good for Star Trek. imo of course.
Indeed. Nicolas Meyer was the same, and most fans seem to love his contributions to the franchise. Being a newcomer isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes a fresh perspective can be a great thing.
Not to say I love Abrams’ work, but in the end he did more harm to Star Wars than to Trek, and by all accounts he’s a life long Star Wars fan.
Nicholas Meyer had never seen Star Trek before he did Wrath of Khan.
People are just crybabies.
....but he clearly came to understand it, and coaxed great performances from the stars. WoK is one of the best films.
Eeh. Most of the complaints I see in this thread about Trek 2009 would apply as well to TWoK if people were being even handed. It's a pew pew action film. There are no deep philosophical questions being tackled. It's not utopian -- Starfleet is portrayed as a straight forward space navy that works with real scientists only begrudgingly.
There's kick ass high drama and a decent character study of an ageing Kirk, but the character work on Kirk and Spock in 2009 wasn't all that bad, either.
I did not like it as a kid either. My most used to watch Voyager when I was a wee lad
And what did your most think of it?
That Janeway has a bloodlust that can never be sated.
In the text here yes he does say as a kid he didn’t like it. He also describes later how he was in a mix of people, some writers who loved it, one who never saw it, and him, who “was not a fan.”
That’s at the time they were making the movie. The “as a kid” part was just a lame ass excuse for an opinion he seemed to know on some level shouldn’t be uttered without one.
So yeah, no. He said he didn’t like Star Trek, AND moreover that he thinks that was an important opinion to have in the room while making a Star Trek movie!!!!
Fuck this guy!!!!!!!!
kinda doesn't count, he accepted the job, and was given the job, despite not liking the source material,
him doing basic research later and changing his mind is irrelevant.
Why accept a job making media you don't care about. besides the money
Because its his job.
With art it is a bit more complex than that. Think of a photographer. Many people love photography, not all people love wedding photography, for example. It is not a great idea to have someone who loathes wedding photography as the photographer at your wedding. But, there's no shortage of photographers who don't like weddings working it because it is the most predictable and lucrative income source for a professional photographer. The results will depend on the level of professionalism of the party involved, sure they are doing it for money. But it is not hard to imagine that a photographer who actively enjoys the subject matter will turn out a more satisfying result than someone who, however professional, is only going through the motions. This is how many a couple end up with boring cookie cutter photos of the most important ceremony of their romantic relationship and quickly end up burying it in a basement or closet somewhere, never to be seen again.
First, you're assuming you have to love the story or the universe to make a good movie set in that universe.
Second, if you could get paid several tens of millions of dollars to make a movie I'm pretty sure you would, and you'd probably do a hell of a good job catching yourself up.
I'm not sure why you'd say it "doesn't count".
I also assuming that there are countless talented people who love the source material, and better to give them a chance than giving it to someone who just makes content.
I am not going with "hire fans" bullshit, just that there are so many actual directors in the industry who already have a passion for it, so it is just a marketing choice to hire someone for the name.
Art is art, not content, when it is turned to content we get slop like those movies.
i mean, i'm a musician. there's music i love and music i hate. from my perspective, about a quarter of the music i make, i don't really like that much. but you know, i get to make music with people i love, and that is the real point from my perspective. and in my region, there are maybe three or four musicians who can match me technically and none who can match the mental work i put into it. so like, they want me to play even if i dislike the music. and i want to play even if i dislike the music, because i'm still making art.
does hearing the mental process from another field about similar decisions help explain it?
Are you saying he's not an actual director? What makes someone an "actual director"?
Why do you think it was a marketing choice to pick him? He wasn't exactly a major director at the time. He was far from unknown but he didn't have a lot of movies.
Which Star Trek to you is art and not content? I assume you mean made as a passion and not for commercial purposes?
I feel like that's just ignorant of how movies are actually made.
Is it content because it's popular and you don't like it?
Meant directors who actually like the subject.
The Abraham Star Trek movies were just forgettable. he tried to turn star trek into star wars. They are content made in meeting rooms by executives, not really creative decisions or story telling.
To a lesser degree that happens to every major movie,
You had a director who actually liked the subject. It's right there in the interview. Wasn't a fan as a child, liked it as an adult.
It sounds like you didn't like the movie, so you're saying it was because the director lacked something or the writers lacked something relating to "art", instead of just saying you didn't like the movie.
All but the most niche movies are about making money. That's what they are. People can make good movies, but they're all still fundamentally about money. The entire star trek franchise exists to make money.
The early movies were made as a cash grab to chase after Star wars money. You've got the movie director saying the series is boring and being selected because he can make it for cheaper.
It's fine to not like the movie, but acting like the movie can't be good because those making it have financial incentives? C'mon.