What's Everybody Mad About This Week?!: Star Trek movies, Black Christmas goes soft, and the Snyder Cut

Welcome to What's Everybody Mad About This Week?!, a SYFY WIRE series that rounds up the biggest geek culture uproars of the week and adds a little bit of context for those who missed out.

There's no denying that the internet, no matter how you feel about it, is a breeding ground for debate in all forms. Not all of it is healthy, but we're looking to fill you in on all the latest, best debates so you can pretend to know what your friends are talking about.

This week, we're exploring the Kelvin Timeline, catching up on some belated horror movie news, and diving into #ReleaseTheSnyderCut. Buckle up, y'all!

Photo: Paramount Pictures

Gang. Confirmation of a fourth Star Trek reboot movie seemed lost 'til this week. And there are many fans who would have rathered it stayed that way.

(Now, just to clarify, Star Trek 4, which will be directed by Noah Hawley (Legion, Fargo), is a different project from the Quentin Tarantino Star Trek movie that's been in the works for a couple of years.)

While all that many details are known right now, we do have confirmation that Chris Pine will be returning as Captain James T. Kirk; and it seems like he'll be joined by Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), and the rest of the crew from the first three reboot films.

A fourth reboot movie was in the works after 2016's Star Trek Beyond before contract negotiations fell apart between Pine and the studio in 2018. So with that seemingly resolved, we move on to Trek 4.

But wait! This wouldn't be the Star Trek fandom without controversy.

Long-time haters of J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek reboot and its sequels have a lot of problems with these movies, but the most common complaint has to do with the "Kelvin Timeline."

The Kelvin Timeline is the reality in which all of the Trek reboot movies take place, one in which the USS Kelvin, the ship on which Kirk's father was momentarily captain, is destroyed by a bunch of angry, vengeful Romulans — Kirk's dad dies and a bunch of other bad things happen because of it (watch Star Trek 2009 if you need more details).

From that moment, the timeline butterfly effects out and changes everything about how the officers aboard the USS Enterprise meet and come to inhabit their ultimate fates onboard Starfleet's flagship.

Essentially, the Kelvin Timeline rewrites Trek canon. And that is something a lot of dedicated Trek fans do not vibe with. Some miss the hokey, down-home effects that were Trek's bread and butter for years; others are just purely angry.

Still! Some fans are happy to be seeing Trek returning to the big screen. And, of course, the Original Series canon still exists. As does the canon in every other Trek movies and television series throughout time. Not that that'll stop people from being mad.

Credit: Universal Pictures

This one's a little old (meaning it's from last week, so in internet time it's basically ancient), but I'd be remiss if I didn't give it a little shoutout, mainly because there were so many feelings about it.

Black Christmas is an upcoming Christmas horror movie (one of the greatest genres of all time, in my humble opinion) about a group of sorority girls who team up to defend themselves and take on a killer who's going after — you guessed it — sorority girls.

It's very much a play on final girl stereotypes and also so happens to be not the first but the second remake of a cult-favorite 1974 Canadian slasher flick of the same name (the first remake was in 2006 and starred Mary Elizabeth Winstead).

Here's the thing. The original film is rated R. The first remake was rated R. This new remake is rated… PG-13.

A lot of horror fans were very unhappy with that. Some pointed out that without the R rating, they feared the film would be holding back on what it could really deliver. Defenders, though, pointed out that there are plenty of good PG-13-rated horror movies out there, and still others were psyched about the PG-13 rating, saying that a higher rating doesn't mean a movie is scarier.

Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

Finally, I'd be remiss if we didn't take a moment to talk about all things Snyder Cut.

Woo boy. Where to start?

Okay, without getting too much into this, here's the long and short of #ReleaseTheSnyderCut: When Zack Snyder, the original director of 2017's Justice League, had to step down due to a family emergency after having already shot a significant portion of the movie, Warner Bros. tapped Joss Whedon to step in and fill Snyder's shoes, finish shooting, and handle some reshoots. The resulting movie is commonly thought of to this day as an odd mish-mash of styles and visions, and has gotten a lot of flack for… just about everything.

Snyder fans, some of whom still defend the original movie, for what its worth, have long perpetuated a conspiracy theory that a "Snyder Cut" of the movie exists — meaning, Snyder's original vision for the movie is out there in some form. They really, really, really want to see that supposed original vision.

The latest fervor over the Snyder Cut came about when the film's stars and even Snyder himself started tweeting about the Snyder Cut, which many have seen as a sign of things to come.

Why, then, if there's nothing but enthusiasm around this thing, is #ReleaseTheSnyderCut a part of this roundup?

Well, friends, that enthusiasm is sometimes a bit vicious and others who have no interest in the Snyder Cut have been a bit mad about hearing so much about it.

So everyone's just... mad.