STAR TREK the enemy of LOST IN SPACE?

[TREK_GOD_1]

Yeah... I often wondered how the second level could fit inside the Jupiter II as shown, and the third level was even harder to swallow.

Agree. The season three episode "Space Creature" revealed the Jupiter II third level Power Core which was a set way too big.

Chalk it up to Iwin Allen, who selected form (and image) over function everytime. Take all of the rooms and space in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea's Seaview; there's no way to fit the observation deck, Flying Sub hangar, large lab, torpedo room, galley, sickbay, bridge, and two dozen additional rooms into the assumed dimensions of the sub.

 

[davejames]

And it's TSFS whose dialogue I enjoy the most. There are a lot of lines there that are downright poetic -- Harve Bennett crafted a really nice script for that one. I don't remember the dialogue in TWOK standing out as much.

I agree about TSFS being severely underrated. Nimoy really expanded the Trek universe and gave it a magical and romantic quality that I just absolutely love. And that the first two movies (as good as they are) didn't really have.

It's made for a new audience -- not trying to compete with or replace the original in its fans' hearts so much as to provide an alternative and broaden the appeal of the overall franchise (...) So maybe instead of arguing over which version of a franchise is better, we should be glad that there are so many options available. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations and so forth.

Hmm, interesting. I could almost make the exact same argument about a certain Superman movie that came out recently.....

Heh, sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[plynch]

"It's made for a new audience."

Yes, tastes change. Hence my treasuring my original 79 in the clamshell DVD edition. I was a huge Superman fan as a lad. Couldn't bring myself to see the new one after reading about it. I am officially not of this age, and that's ok.

 

[Christopher]

Actually, if Man of Steel had had a different third act, I might've considered it the best Superman movie ever. Parts of it are that good, that innovative and well-handled. And Henry Cavill is the best Superman since Reeve. Unfortunately, the things that don't work about the film are, for me, so awful and offensive that on balance, I came out rather hating the film. And I'm usually not someone who hates any movie. There are ones I don't like much, but they rarely inspire genuine anger in me. That one did.

As far as Star Trek goes, to me, the series is intrinsically about seeking out the new and different in the spirit of curiosity and acceptance. So I try to be open to all its incarnations. I think it should move forward and reinvent itself. When it started, it was on the cutting edge in a lot of ways, a forward-looking, futurist show that pushed boundaries and took chances and did things that no SFTV series had ever done before. If it were to become nothing but an exercise in nostalgia for the past, that would be a terrible fate for it.

 

[Warped9]

"It's made for a new audience."

Yes, tastes change. Hence my treasuring my original 79 in the clamshell DVD edition. I was a huge Superman fan as a lad. Couldn't bring myself to see the new one after reading about it. I am officially not of this age, and that's ok.

It's the nature of things. Sometimes something new comes along that really steps forward and engages me. Other times the new can be a (very) shallow imitation of the what came before.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Other times the new can be a (very) shallow imitation of the what came before.

True...many remakes, "reimagining" or reboots have suffered from wearing the skin of the source, but being nothing more.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Knowing Irwin Allen, he never would have gotten to "but not prohibitively so" before hanging up the phone.

I wasn't trying to evaluate whether Mr. Allen himself would be willing to do it. I was just mentioning that a technique for doing so existed, because I thought it would be an interesting sidebar to the conversation.

I know, I was kiddin'. I always enjoy the information you provide, I learn a lot.

 

[davejames]

As far as Star Trek goes, to me, the series is intrinsically about seeking out the new and different in the spirit of curiosity and acceptance. So I try to be open to all its incarnations. I think it should move forward and reinvent itself. When it started, it was on the cutting edge in a lot of ways, a forward-looking, futurist show that pushed boundaries and took chances and did things that no SFTV series had ever done before. If it were to become nothing but an exercise in nostalgia for the past, that would be a terrible fate for it.

Yeah I've always looked forward to every new incarnation or interpretation of the Trek universe (and stuck with both VOY and ENT longer than I normally would have simply because of how much I loved the premises and actors behind them).

When it comes to the Abrams movies I was onboard from the start with the idea of the new timeline and new actors, and I loved the heck out of the first movie. But the second just felt a little too dark and cynical for my taste, and a little too action-obsessed (and yes I realize the irony, as that's the exact same complaint many have about MOS).

 

[Christopher]

I've found Trek movies to be too action-obsessed ever since TWOK. TMP was an attempt to make ST into thoughtful SF cinema in the vein of 2001 or Silent Running, but by that point, Star Wars had introduced a new paradigm and the pressure was on for every SF movie to be about action and space battles, and Trek succumbed to that pressure from TWOK onward. It's one of the reasons why Trek movies in general are rarely among the best examples of Trek storytelling -- the nature and expectations of SF movies in the modern era tend to work against the franchise's strengths.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

Christopher, I think you just hit the nail right on the head. Both in what happened and the reasons for it.

It also explains why so many of the older fans, that grew up with TOS, were so put off by the movies in general and Mr. Abrams movies in particular.

 

[Christopher]

^Please don't generalize like that. Many of us who grew up with TOS, like me, feel that Abrams has done a great job recapturing its spirit. Yes, the new movies have the same kinds of faults that most SF/action movies today have, but they also have plenty of merits to compensate for those faults. I think they're very true to the spirit of the characters of TOS, and do a decent, if imperfect, job of exploring the same kinds of ideas. For instance, STID had some good statements about choosing peace over violence, and recaptured the classic Gene Coon Kirk-Spock dynamic in which Kirk's first impulse is an aggressive one but Spock persuades him to try a more peaceful approach.

The Abrams films are both among the most profitable Trek films ever and among the highest-rated Trek films on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb. Granted, the Trek fanbase doesn't constitute the majority of their audience, but given that their ratings are in the vicinity of 90%, on a par with films like First Contact and The Voyage Home, it's hard to believe that they're as widely unpopular among Trek fans as their harsher critics keep claiming. I think it's just that the minority who hold negative views are so vocal that they dominate the conversation, which is often the case on the Internet.

 

[Warped9]

I've found Trek movies to be too action-obsessed ever since TWOK. TMP was an attempt to make ST into thoughtful SF cinema in the vein of 2001 or Silent Running, but by that point, Star Wars had introduced a new paradigm and the pressure was on for every SF movie to be about action and space battles, and Trek succumbed to that pressure from TWOK onward. It's one of the reasons why Trek movies in general are rarely among the best examples of Trek storytelling -- the nature and expectations of SF movies in the modern era tend to work against the franchise's strengths.

Agreed. Well said.

But that's not the only reasons JJ treks are a huge fail in my estimation.

 

[BillJ]

It also explains why so many of the older fans, that grew up with TOS, were so put off by the movies in general and Mr. Abrams movies in particular.

I've been a fan since 1975 and love the Abramsverse films.

 

[Warped9]

It also explains why so many of the older fans, that grew up with TOS, were so put off by the movies in general and Mr. Abrams movies in particular.

I've been a fan since 1975 and love the Abramsverse films.

I can only speculate that people bring different expectations to films and possibly have different perceptions of the materiel, particularly of the original subject matter.

 

[Christopher]

I can only speculate that people bring different expectations to films and possibly have different perceptions of the materiel, particularly of the original subject matter.

Of course they do. Enjoyment of fiction is a personal thing. A good work of fiction is rich and multifaceted enough to convey a wide range of different meanings to different people. And audiences often read things into a creation that the creators never intended or would have imagined. I've seen fans who saw Star Trek as military SF and fans who saw it as anti-war; fans who saw it as promoting their liberal politics and others who felt it reinforced their conservative views; fans who saw it as emphatically secular and humanist and others who've read deep religious meaning into it.

This is why it's so irrational to talk about one's personal tastes toward a show or movie as if they're some universal consensus, or to speak about "fans" as a collective having a uniform reaction to anything. It's the nature of fandom that different people are fans of different things. And that's why it's good for a franchise like Star Trek to have a variety of different facets that appeal to different audiences -- that makes it more egalitarian, more inclusive. No one person is going to enjoy every facet of the whole, but just about anyone will be able to find some part of it that they enjoy.

 

[BillJ]

I can only speculate that people bring different expectations to films and possibly have different perceptions of the materiel, particularly of the original subject matter.

I watch Star Trek to have fun, first and foremost.

 

[Galileo7]

It also explains why so many of the older fans, that grew up with TOS, were so put off by the movies in general and Mr. Abrams movies in particular.

I've been a fan since 1975 and love the Abramsverse films.

Agree. I have been a fan since 1973, when as a young boy I first encountered reruns of TOS and the Saturday morning TAS. I too enjoy the Abramsverse films in which the Kirk era lives.

 

[Warped9]

I can only speculate that people bring different expectations to films and possibly have different perceptions of the materiel, particularly of the original subject matter.

I watch Star Trek to have fun, first and foremost.

Sure, but how each person defines fun will vary.

 

[Christopher]

Sure, but how each person defines fun will vary.

That goes without saying.

 

[Warped9]

Sure, but how each person defines fun will vary.

That goes without saying.

You'd think so, but often enough it doesn't come across that way. Often enough when someone says they watch something "just for fun" the implication is you shouldn't think too much about watch you're watching.

So I can say I enjoy TOS because of the fact that it's not only visually interesting but it also exhibits a good measure of intelligence in how it's put together. From that my sense of "fun" is going to have certain expectations. If I have to suspend any measure of critical thinking too far then I'm not having fun anymore.

On the face of it a show like Futurama looks like utter nonsense and yet it's often pretty damned clever in how it's put together.