Star Trek - Page 6

Ghoulish Delight · 05-10-2009, 10:21 AM

To me, yeah, they are now different characters...and that's kinda why I like it. As I sat and struggled with the surprising fact that I liked it in spite of my dislike (which does mirror mp's reasons) of the alternate timeline device, I tried to think of another way to accomplish the same effect of dropping the 40 years of baggage that I liked about it.

I came up with two alternates. One was in the model of Next Generation. Set it in the future, start over with new characters. But that's an obvious non starter at this point. It worked for Picard and crew, but the amount of "canon" is now so great that there's just no way to go far enough in the future to be entirely divorced of it. And while I would have been more impressed by them creating new, interesting, likeable characters than by cultivating impressions of the old characters, fans (myself included) at this point have massively high standards for what any cast of characters should be like that it's a tall order to meet those expectations with something new and original that doesn't feel derivative.

The 2nd thought was along mp's comic book reasoning. But unlike comic books, there has been a (sort of) unbroken timeline/body of canon for the last 40 years. I can't even count the number of versions of the Batman origin story I've seen, they reboot that series every 5 years in one media or another. For them to just create a parallel version out of thin air, entirely unrelated to the timeline that's been obsessively picked over, I don't think it would have been embraced.

So I understand how they came to the device they chose. It semi-plausibly DID put things in "the same universe" while explaining how things can be completely different and not just a rerun of what we already know. I just don't think Trekkers would have been accepting of the comic-book model of redoing origin stories. If there's no in-universe explanation for the differences, they'll just reject it.

That's why, for me, I'm okay with this, but not okay with Midichlorians. It claimed to be the same universe with no explanation for the massively stupid inconsistencies. Sure, in this they pulled it off a little clumsily, and yeah, I did think things like, "He's supposed to be just as good a captain having grown up without a father as he was having grown up with a father? Really?" But the relief I felt of not having to fit everything I was watching into what I knew and whether it made sense with later events outweighed all of that for me.

Alex · 05-10-2009, 10:29 AM

Yes, we're definitely not talking on the same wavelength because what you're saying doesn't make any more sense to me than what I'm saying apparently does to you.

One key difference with Bond is that, at least in the movies, there has never been any attempt to create a universal tapestry with strong interconnections between every part of the narrative. With some exceptions, James Bond movies are essentially one offs using the same character idea. Each movie, essentially, is a reboot, with vague hints at consistency and hardly any acknowledgment of what has come before.

Admittedly, if Star Trek had been left with just the original three seasons that would be true of it as well, but that has not been the form of things for nearly 30 years now. For me, part of the fun of being a Star Trek fan is in how it all tries (and frequently fails I'll make no claim that Star Trek has ever been great at internal consistency) to tell a bigger story of a proposed future than just the individual stories of a few characters.

It is fine that they've said "ok, that's played out and we just need to drop all that and start over with the same general core starting point but with the convenience of a 40-year-old short culturally embedded shorthand." It is fine that we have Riker and Troi in the form of Spock and Uhura. It is fine that the engine room looks like a power plant (because that is what is and actually that look, in my opinion, better matches the "actual" engineering described in various semi-canonical sources and even if givign Scotty the Agustus Gloop treatment was beyond idiotic). But being fine with it is not, for me the same as it not being an important development in how I've interacted with this universe for 30 years.

innerSpaceman · 05-10-2009, 11:56 AM

Hmmm, yes, in that sense of going over details, it breaks with canon even more than I thought, and yep - even in the new timeline.

Which is kinda what I like about it. It's just an obvious literary device, not even interally consistent on its own terms. It's a reboot, with a line or two thrown in for how it could possibly be slightly more like Superman Returns and slightly less like Batman Begins.

I've been with Star Trek for my entire life, for all intents and purposes, and I'm an old man. So I'm going to assume that most people are very far removed from the original series, and all that matters was a way to get new versions of Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and Sulu aboard The Enterprise. They did this in a way that cheats absolutely everything ... but avoids the blunderbuss "more realistic" re-introductions of, say, ST:The Motion Picture, and breezes through it in a more lightweight Star Treky style in a far more entertaining and enjoyable "first" film.

Cheaters, yes. But as long as it was funny, says Roger Rabbit ... and as long as it was great, says I.

blueerica · 05-10-2009, 01:57 PM

CP...

Quote:

As I said before I did feel like I was mourning the old Trek. But I don't feel that they were saying the old experiences didn't matter. I can accept that that universe remains intact, elsewhere. This is an alternate universe. The characters have slight differences, sure - you're going to have a scrappier Kirk due to daddy issues and a more live-for-today Spock, but hey, holy crap, they have something MORE to write about! A slight twist. Like iSm, I also caught the new Kirk acting Kirk-ish in those last moments of the movie. Yay.

I could not heart you more right now.

These events don't change a timeline - they create a new timeline, and I'm pretty damn okay with that. I like a Kirk that didn't have the ideal childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. And I'm thrilled to see a Spock that shows his deep emotions that he'll need to continue balancing. I don't mind the inconsistencies because I have been starved for something great out of Star Trek.

No, I didn't watch the original series when it first came out - I did watch it as a I few up on re-runs... so maybe the magic wasn't there for me in the same way that it would have been had I watched TOS as it unfolded on the small screen. Perhaps because of that, the slapstick didn't bother me. I pretty much saw TOS as camp, anyway. It just took it to another level. No sense in arguing personal taste... it's almost as impossible as arguing religion.

I think I need to go see this movie, oh, about 30 more times.

Alex · 05-10-2009, 03:04 PM

When GC sees it (if he hasn't) I am wondering how much the Nokia product placement (can we agree that this was truly unnecessary and really belong?) will annoy him?

I guess we're just lucky they didn't put Uhura in one of those Motorola headsets that NFL coaches wear.

Melonballer · 05-10-2009, 03:22 PM

Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine on SNL

Cadaverous Pallor · 05-11-2009, 08:12 AM

Yup, that's a huge list Alex posted, and I can't quibble with any of those quibbles. But I still loved it, and will continue to use the word "loved".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melonballer

Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine on SNL

It's funny, but it wasn't until we saw this that it actually occurred to me that Chris Pine really is attractive. He never really caught my eye during the film.

Alex · 05-10-2009, 04:01 PM

Watched the Romulan episode again just for fun. Yep on them all being completely surprised to learn that Vulcans and Romulans are the same species (something that bothered no one in the movie though I guess not that many people actually saw the Romulans). Though this movie really de-emphasized that physical similarity.

I had forgotten that the Romulan in question was played by Mark Lenard, who of course, starting with an appearance the following season and then through Star Trek VI, played Sarek, Spocks father.

innerSpaceman · 05-10-2009, 05:59 PM

There were lots of laughable improbales in this movie. But I accept the conceipt that going from zero to TOS-minus-4-days in the space of 2 weeks rather than 8 years is going to lead to several improbables.

If we simply posit that in an altered timeline, for some reason, events and people reach their fated points with far less resistance and far quicker, "problem" solved.

Any problem that can be explained away with 2 lines of dialogue and thus remain no less implausible than any standard Star Trek gibberish is plausible enough for me in Star Trek.

If you took the name Star Trek off this movie, I would not like it either. Since my enjoyment came completely from the relationships between Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Checkov, it's a pretty moot point to fathom this as just another movie not about Star Trek. Certainly a movie with the same dumb plot featuring characters I didn't give a hoot about would not be one I'd enjoy.

JWBear · 05-10-2009, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

If you took the name Star Trek off this movie, I would not like it either. Since my enjoyment came completely from the relationships between Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Checkov, it's a pretty moot point to fathom this as just another movie not about Star Trek. Certainly a movie with the same dumb plot featuring characters I didn't give a hoot about would not be one I'd enjoy.

Not even having the characters up there could save it for me (and perhaps, it was a failure for me especially because it was Kirk, Spock, etc up there being dragged through the mud of execrable screenwriting).

05-10-2009, 10:21 AM	#1
Ghoulish Delight I Floop the Pig Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Alternative Swankstyle Posts: 19,348	To me, yeah, they are now different characters...and that's kinda why I like it. As I sat and struggled with the surprising fact that I liked it in spite of my dislike (which does mirror mp's reasons) of the alternate timeline device, I tried to think of another way to accomplish the same effect of dropping the 40 years of baggage that I liked about it. I came up with two alternates. One was in the model of Next Generation. Set it in the future, start over with new characters. But that's an obvious non starter at this point. It worked for Picard and crew, but the amount of "canon" is now so great that there's just no way to go far enough in the future to be entirely divorced of it. And while I would have been more impressed by them creating new, interesting, likeable characters than by cultivating impressions of the old characters, fans (myself included) at this point have massively high standards for what any cast of characters should be like that it's a tall order to meet those expectations with something new and original that doesn't feel derivative. The 2nd thought was along mp's comic book reasoning. But unlike comic books, there has been a (sort of) unbroken timeline/body of canon for the last 40 years. I can't even count the number of versions of the Batman origin story I've seen, they reboot that series every 5 years in one media or another. For them to just create a parallel version out of thin air, entirely unrelated to the timeline that's been obsessively picked over, I don't think it would have been embraced. So I understand how they came to the device they chose. It semi-plausibly DID put things in "the same universe" while explaining how things can be completely different and not just a rerun of what we already know. I just don't think Trekkers would have been accepting of the comic-book model of redoing origin stories. If there's no in-universe explanation for the differences, they'll just reject it. That's why, for me, I'm okay with this, but not okay with Midichlorians. It claimed to be the same universe with no explanation for the massively stupid inconsistencies. Sure, in this they pulled it off a little clumsily, and yeah, I did think things like, "He's supposed to be just as good a captain having grown up without a father as he was having grown up with a father? Really?" But the relief I felt of not having to fit everything I was watching into what I knew and whether it made sense with later events outweighed all of that for me. __________________ 'He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.' -TJ
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05-10-2009, 10:29 AM	#2
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	Yes, we're definitely not talking on the same wavelength because what you're saying doesn't make any more sense to me than what I'm saying apparently does to you. One key difference with Bond is that, at least in the movies, there has never been any attempt to create a universal tapestry with strong interconnections between every part of the narrative. With some exceptions, James Bond movies are essentially one offs using the same character idea. Each movie, essentially, is a reboot, with vague hints at consistency and hardly any acknowledgment of what has come before. Admittedly, if Star Trek had been left with just the original three seasons that would be true of it as well, but that has not been the form of things for nearly 30 years now. For me, part of the fun of being a Star Trek fan is in how it all tries (and frequently fails I'll make no claim that Star Trek has ever been great at internal consistency) to tell a bigger story of a proposed future than just the individual stories of a few characters. It is fine that they've said "ok, that's played out and we just need to drop all that and start over with the same general core starting point but with the convenience of a 40-year-old short culturally embedded shorthand." It is fine that we have Riker and Troi in the form of Spock and Uhura. It is fine that the engine room looks like a power plant (because that is what is and actually that look, in my opinion, better matches the "actual" engineering described in various semi-canonical sources and even if givign Scotty the Agustus Gloop treatment was beyond idiotic). But being fine with it is not, for me the same as it not being an important development in how I've interacted with this universe for 30 years. Last edited by Alex : 05-10-2009 at 10:43 AM.
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05-10-2009, 11:56 AM	#3
innerSpaceman Kink of Swank Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Inner Space Posts: 13,075	Hmmm, yes, in that sense of going over details, it breaks with canon even more than I thought, and yep - even in the new timeline. Which is kinda what I like about it. It's just an obvious literary device, not even interally consistent on its own terms. It's a reboot, with a line or two thrown in for how it could possibly be slightly more like Superman Returns and slightly less like Batman Begins. I've been with Star Trek for my entire life, for all intents and purposes, and I'm an old man. So I'm going to assume that most people are very far removed from the original series, and all that matters was a way to get new versions of Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and Sulu aboard The Enterprise. They did this in a way that cheats absolutely everything ... but avoids the blunderbuss "more realistic" re-introductions of, say, ST:The Motion Picture, and breezes through it in a more lightweight Star Treky style in a far more entertaining and enjoyable "first" film. Cheaters, yes. But as long as it was funny, says Roger Rabbit ... and as long as it was great, says I.
	Submit to Quotes

05-10-2009, 03:04 PM	#5
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	When GC sees it (if he hasn't) I am wondering how much the Nokia product placement (can we agree that this was truly unnecessary and really belong?) will annoy him? I guess we're just lucky they didn't put Uhura in one of those Motorola headsets that NFL coaches wear.
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05-10-2009, 03:22 PM	#6
Melonballer Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Bremerton, WA Posts: 222	Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine on SNL
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05-10-2009, 04:01 PM	#8
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	Watched the Romulan episode again just for fun. Yep on them all being completely surprised to learn that Vulcans and Romulans are the same species (something that bothered no one in the movie though I guess not that many people actually saw the Romulans). Though this movie really de-emphasized that physical similarity. I had forgotten that the Romulan in question was played by Mark Lenard, who of course, starting with an appearance the following season and then through Star Trek VI, played Sarek, Spocks father.
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05-10-2009, 05:59 PM	#9
innerSpaceman Kink of Swank Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Inner Space Posts: 13,075	There were lots of laughable improbales in this movie. But I accept the conceipt that going from zero to TOS-minus-4-days in the space of 2 weeks rather than 8 years is going to lead to several improbables. If we simply posit that in an altered timeline, for some reason, events and people reach their fated points with far less resistance and far quicker, "problem" solved. Any problem that can be explained away with 2 lines of dialogue and thus remain no less implausible than any standard Star Trek gibberish is plausible enough for me in Star Trek. If you took the name Star Trek off this movie, I would not like it either. Since my enjoyment came completely from the relationships between Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Checkov, it's a pretty moot point to fathom this as just another movie not about Star Trek. Certainly a movie with the same dumb plot featuring characters I didn't give a hoot about would not be one I'd enjoy.
	Submit to Quotes