Was the Abramsverse already an alternate universe?

It probably wasn't intended as such, going by statements made by the writer of the comic.

 

Or according to IDW's website timeline, which has a big sideways Y on it: http://www.idwpublishing.com/startrek/timelines.php

Those comics have some pretty big continuity issues. Admittedly, the biggest problems are caused by late changes to the movies (like Countdown's version of the supernova, where Romulus was destroyed even before Spock launched, or Kirk having zero crew deaths prior to ID, or the one-year gap at the end being ignored in the early post-ID comics) but the many many art problems, like the Enterprise shifting between it's new and old movie incarnations at random (and for one frame, becoming the Enterprise-D), or TNG computer graphics being used (sometimes on alien ships), or background characters having randomly changing skin tones, are avoidable. They very much need someone a little more familiar with the source material vetting the art at an early stage.

They do occasionally do something completely awesome, like using the old Star Trek Maps system layouts in the Nero comic, or a Botany Bay cutaway from the USS Enterprise Officer's Manual on the cover of Khan.

 

I'd like to know who was the genius who decided that in The Return of the Archons "Cornelius Landru" was the creator of Landru, that human descendants of the Archon crew populated Beta III, and that the Archon had mid-23rd century Abramsverse nacelles. Cause the first 2 things can definitely not be chalked up to simple art errors/license.

 

Well, Return of the Archons was one of IDW's first attempts at diverging from the original episode in a significant way. Obviously they took things too far.

 

I liked the idea that the USS Archon set up Landru, and the visual of the NX-class saucer sticking up out of the ground at the end was excellent.

Reconciling it with the original, though... maybe Spock Prime just... uhhh... didn't notice the big cave with the wreckage of the Archon. Walked right past it.

 

I prefer the novelverse's interpretation that the Archon was a Daedalus class vessel and that the Betans are native to Beta III and not humans because as far as I can tell, it actually fits the episode.

 

The destruction of Praxis was a significant event in ST:VI, much later than the JJ timeline. Yet Praxis is destroyed in ST:JJ2 The ReWrath of Khan.

After the first movie I was happy to accept the so called rift in the timeline, which would propel the Trek canon in an entirely different direction. Then they go on to remake Wrath of Khan. I nearly cried leaving the theatre that day. Upset and angry that they would 'borrow' the best parts of Roddenberry's canon and discarding the rest.

I felt the same way about the remake of Clash Of Titans when Harryhausens Bibo was relegated to the trash bin. Such irreverence!

 

*yawn*

 

STID is no more a remake of The Wrath of Khan than The Wolverine is a remake of Diamonds are Forever.

 

Seconded.

 

+2

 

Whatever the filmmakers intentions, I personally regard these two films as having nothing to do with any of the previous incarnations of Trek, except for Voyager. Honestly though, I do wish the filmmakers had done a simple hard reboot. It might have upset fans, but I think it would have been for the better to let this incarnation truly stand on its own rather than go with all this alternate timeline business and Nimoy's fan-service appearance.

 

Only in that universe/timeline could there be such a collection of bland and insufferable characters. Doc and Seven excepted, Prophets rest their souls.

 

Damn, I was hoping it was a quantum slipstream reference.

 

I like both of the JJ-films, but yeah I do kind of agree that the incorporation of the 'alternative universe' subplot feels like a tacky way for them to try and have their cake and eat it too. Perhaps feeling like it was skating on pretty thin ice to try and reboot Star Trek so thoroughly, they came up with a compromise that still allowed them to fit it into the established canon (however haphazardly).

On some level I do feel Nimoy's cameo is on a level with Shatner's cameo in Generations (let's be honest: Shatner's role in Generations *is* still basically a cameo). It's there to reassure the bean-counters at Paramount that all the exits have been covered, that people will be eased gently into accepting that these new guys are taking over the franchise from here out, so even if a member of the audience has never seen an episode of The Next Generation before they feel reassured that the "baton has been passed". So too does Nimoy's cameo feel like a sop to the fanbase: "Don't worry guys, Leonard's totally on-board with this and is okay with the changes, so all of you in the fanbase can all rest easy that the future of Star Trek is in safe hands".

(Yeah I know. It's a cynical viewpoint. )

Doing a 'hard reboot' (as you put it) would have been far more of a risk. And movie studios don't like risk. It might have borne greater fruits had it paid off, but it could equally have alienated people. Which is probably why somebody stepped in and forced the 2009 movie to take the path of least resistance: a reboot which leaps through hoops to explain why it's a reboot within the main structure of its own plot.

 

Personally, I think it would have been a total reboot if there was still a "prime universe" TV series on the air or one that was in development at the time CBS and Viacom (owner of Paramount Pictures) went their separate ways. IMO, starting over with TOS was done more to revitalize Trek just as a movie franchise by Paramount than anything else.

 

I'm unsure how you draw that conclusion since ST:II the villain as Khan and ST:JJII the villain is Khan (it could have been anyone else in the universe, but they chose Khan).

I fully expect that Kirk will be shacking with Dr Marcus in the next film and we might even see a Genesis device. It's so complicated now by the time shifting that they felt the need for Spock to sort it out for everyone involved.

I liked the movies, I just think they could be more original since there is a huge base of untapped stories to tell on screen.

How much you wanna bet the Star Tours cruisers will be in Star Wars Episode VII, I think it's 100% likely.

 

Hmm, I actually suspect there is some truth to the idea that Paramount seems to look at the Trek features and the Trek TV shows as being quite different things. The reality is that the Trek movies have got a much bigger mass-market appeal than the TV series, because more people around the world are likely to have bought a movie ticket or hired them out from the video store than they are to have sat down for the TV shows. So in terms of revitalizing the overall 'brand', looking to doing so in the movies would always IMO be the way to go, because they'd have more chance of reaching the biggest audience possible.

As you say, because of the lack of a regular TV series at the time, JJTrek maybe felt compelled to throw a bone to the prime universe somehow, whereas I think there would probably have been some larger degree of major league differentiation if there were still TV shows going on at the time.