I have mentioned several thousand times that I am more than a teensy bit excited about J.J. Abrams reinterpretation of Star Trek. When the tickets finally went on sale this week, I clicked over to confirm a midnight showing the night before the release. Well, there’s an early release all right. It is at 7 p.m. the night before because apparently, Star Trek fans can’t stay up past 10 p.m. That’s just not right! I went to the midnight release of Watchmen and I stayed awake for the entire thing. I stayed up for a few hours AFTERWARDS too. I have been to more than one Harry Potter midnight movie. Okay, that was with my teenage children, so it probably doesn’t count. Still, this is a little bit insulting. What else are they going to do? Will the local cafeteria be providing Star Trek audiences creamed corn and jello instead of popcorn and M&M’s? How about an intermission halfway thru the movie? Two hours is a long time to go without a potty break. Mr. Abrams, I am the same age as you. Could you at least pretend that we are not geezers?
The issue is that Abrams is going after a younger audience with Trek. Not us old geezers who grew up on the original 79 and have most of them memorized and will be watching for EVERY SINGLE CONTINUITY ERROR that is sure to be in there…
So, having a 7 p.m. preview is nothing new. In fact, it may encourage more to come to it. And what we all want (if the movie is as good as I’ve heard) is to get some buzz going and get a huge opening weekend. If crowds go at 7 p.m. Thursday odds are they will go to work the next day and talk up the film…hence more people go and it makes a ton of cash.
I am planning to see it twice opening weekend–once alone and then once on the IMAX with friends. The once alone was mandated by the crowd of friends who don’t worship Trek as I do saying I’d need to see it first and get the “what the heck are they doing to canon?!?” out of my system….which is a valid argument.