Do fans want the prime timeline back?

Discussion in 'Future of Trek' started by Beyerstein, Aug 14, 2013.

  1. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. Those movies may have drawn inspiration from the earlier TV versions, but they weren't literally set back in the old timelines. Ed Norton wasn't playing "David Banner" and, of course, the character of Betty Ross was never part of the old HULK television series.

    Similarly, BATMAN & ROBIN may have been trying to ape the style of the Adam West series, but it was still set squarely in the then-current movie timeline . . . as demonstrated by the fact that Batgirl was depicted as Alfred's niece, NOT Commissioner Gordon's daughter as in the 1960s TV series.

    In the neither case, did the franchise restore the old continuity.
     
  2. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

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    [​IMG]
    The Incredible Hulk paid homage to the original series by giving Bruce the alias of David. Betty was added but that's the power of a reboot.
     
  3. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Exactly, it was a homage, but it was still a reboot. They didn't literally pick up where the old shows left off and restore the old continuity--like some people want Trek to do.

    Or, to put it another way, neither THE INCREDIBLE HULK or BATMAN & ROBIN were meant to be continuations of the old TV shows. They were new versions that lifted elements from previous iterations--as remakes and reboots have always done.
     
  4. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

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    Nemesis got beaten its opening weekend by a Jennifer Lopez Rom-com. Between it and "Enterprise", they slammed the door on that version of Trek's universe. No one was watching and no one cared by that point except the hardest of hardcore fans.

    Who exactly is going to spend $100-$200 million dollars and tie themselves to a continuity that hasn't been touched in nearly a decade and tying their own hands in the process?
     
  5. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

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    Have you seen Star Wars 1-3? Even the reboot of TOS can fall into that category.
     
  6. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

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    Yeah, I have and they aren't very good. But the business model is different as Lucas owned all of Star Wars and could tell whatever story he wanted. Also, there were people who wanted more Star Wars. The same can't be said about Star Trek circa 2007 when J.J. Abrams came aboard, it was dead and I've yet to see anyone provide concrete evidence that anyone outside a few die-hards want the prime timeline back.

    I can guarantee that Disney and Abrams aren't going to let minor details from episodes one thru six derail the stories they want to tell in episodes seven thru nine.

    Yes and no.

    They used time-travel to say "yes, the prime continuity is still there" but we're going to do whatever we want and it doesn't contradict anything. Hence, the reason many people refer to the films as a soft-reboot of the franchise.
     
  7. Beyerstein

    Beyerstein Captain Captain

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    When TNG first started they were worried about having too many references or mentions of the old show, because they wanted TNG to stand alone as its own show.

    Any new series or movie could be in the prime universe without really having tied or weighted down.

    It would just be something new.
     
  8. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

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    But it wouldn't really be new and no matter how hard they tried, they would invariably make a misstep in regards to background that would conflict with one of the already existing series. Then the fans would be storming the proverbial castle about how they weren't doing their research and how could they get something so simple wrong.

    All you have to do is take a gander at this very board while Enterprise was on the air.
     
  9. Galileo7

    Galileo7 Commodore Commodore

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    Agree. :vulcan:
     
  10. Tracer Bullet

    Tracer Bullet Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    CBS could give a shit if fans aren't happy because they said the Eugenics War started in 1776 if the ratings are there.
     
  11. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    I like to think of it as pulling off the bandage with one swift motion rather than dragging it out with lots of tiny little ouches.

    Better to reboot the continuity in one fell swoop than deal with years of fannish nitpicking and outrage over "canon violations."

    (At this point I could gladly go my entire life without hearing the word "canon" again!)
     
  12. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    Quoted for ever lovin' truth.

    Of the four Trek shows that followed TOS, only ENT really had to deal with the minutiae of Trek continuity by its very premise of being a prequel. The other shows didn't really reference other shows all that much and often limited it when they did to brief namedropping--little more than Easter eggs--in a small number of episodes.
     
  13. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

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    You're right of course. :techman:

    But this is my point: going back to the prime timeline offers you nothing in the way of promotion or ratings. It puts the show in a box creatively. So why cause your show-runners unnecessary trouble by putting them in that situation?

    I think that if Trek ever makes it back to TV, they'll reboot again. That way any potential show-runners will be able to cherry pick the elements that they feel are useful to the new show and dump the rest.
     
  14. Hober Mallow

    Hober Mallow Commodore Commodore

    I didn't say anything about nuTrek. Berman-era Trek is going to be mostly forgotten by the general public simply because it's derivative work created by other people.

    Did you hate nuBSG and nuTrek simply because they were reboots? So you'd hate a reboot no matter what? Or is there a chance you'd like a reboot done well? I can't tell your position based on the above quote.

    I don't like the Abrams Trek movies, but it's not because it's a reboot. I'm all for someone doing a really good reboot.
     
  15. The Emissary

    The Emissary Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    This is one of those times where Star Trek is...whatever the viewer says it is. To you that is all Star Trek is about. To me, it's about a lot more.

    DS9 and ENT were the only ones to really have multi-episode stories. TNG and VOY didn't really. They had two parters or they'd RARELY revisit old plot threads (the Klingons), but that's not what I'm talking about at all.

    I'm for how BSG did it. An overarching story, but with some stand alones every now and again.

    Not really. There was nothing unique about the Delta Quadrant that couldn't be found in the Alpha. Same bumpy headed aliens with the same looking ships (which also had cloaks). Random anomaly. etc. The only "unique" thing was maybe Species 8472 and they weren't even from the Delta Quadrant. How was it unique and alien?

    I don't mean Alpha Quadrant as in Klingons or Starfleet Academy or something. I meant, the area of space looked generic like anything else you'd find in the Alpha Quadrant.

    That isn't their society. It's just other ships and planets. When I said society, I mean actually showing us life on Earth. To show us where our heroes came from. Not just showing them docking with Earth Space dock.

    "frequently"? Not really. From time to time. Yeah.

    Exactly!
     
  16. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

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    Huh? :confused: Doctor Who has been around since 1963. Even during the long hiatus between Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann, then McGann and Christopher Eccleston, there were still many books and audio adventures being published.

    So you're saying that any author who can't tell a good Star Trek story, also can't tell a good story, period? :rolleyes:

    That's ridiculous.

    Hey, I was in high school when Battlestar Galactica came along. Richard Hatch... Dirk Benedict... I watched Bonanza as a child, so was also a Lorne Greene fan.

    I think it's not nice to call someone a liar. I don't watch much TV these days, so a show has to give me a damn good reason early on to invest my time and mental energy. I was looking forward to seeing what a new generation might do with Galactica, but when the characters show up in 20th-century clothes, with basically 20th-21st century-sounding names, pointless sex changes for the character names they kept from the original series... :rolleyes:

    And it's not like that's the only exposure I ever had to it. It's impossible to frequent SF, Trek, and gaming forums and not be exposed to discussions, photos, clips, and so on. I even tried on and off to watch a bit, to see if there was anything of interest. It still looked ridiculous. So don't tell me I didn't try. And tell me you haven't made up your mind about a TV show in even less time... I bet you can't.

    Why rip off the old name and pretend it's the same when it's clearly not? That's what angers me about nuGalactica, and nuTrek. They butchered the originals for no good reason other than laziness and greed (to rake in $$$$ from the fans desperate for anything, even ripoffs)... so why not call it by a different name?
     
  17. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    But when you strip it down, it's basically an adventure drama set in space. You can attach all sorts of other attributes and window dressing to it, but at it's core, that's what it is.
    It's actually exactly what I'm talking about--a mix of standalone and multi-episode stories.
    That's how nuBSG did it, and with a difference being that the mix of standalone and multi-episode stories favored the latter. Otherwise, though, TNG, DS9, VOY, & even ENT all had an overarching story with a beginning and an ending (although in the case of TNG, it's overarching story--the Trial of the Human Race--was something that didn't become clear until its finale; with ENT, it was about Earth's first Warp 5 starship).
    If that's the criteria you're basing on, then you're going to find that aplenty in every Star Trek series regardless of its setting or premise.

    Otherwise, I can't disagree with that more that they were identical.
    I would think not being Human would be sufficient.
    :confused:
    I don't get this. Were you expecting the space in the Delta Quadrant to be a different color than that in the Alpha Quadrant? Otherwise what makes different territories in space different are the civilizations who live there and what policies they dictate.
    Sure it is. It's the society they come from.
    It's not "just." It's showing other aspects of that fictional universe, to see other Starfleet crews and Federation worlds.
    And they've done that on occasion when it was feasible for them to do so. But in a show set in space rather than on Earth, it's kind of hard to have many stories about ordinary people who get up, go to work, and then come back home.
    See above response.
    No, not from time to time--TOS and TNG indeed frequently did so. Many stories weren't about exploring space and meeting new aliens, but rather dealt with routine domestic operations within the Federation, attending diplomatic conferences, going after bad guys, participating in fleet exercises, etc. TNG probably did this more than TOS even.
     
  18. DFScott

    DFScott Captain Captain

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    Timewalker, let me clarify: What I mean by the Doctor Who reference is that those folks manage to do really good storytelling, and a few decent effects where appropriate, on a very tight budget. Certainly not as tight today as it was through the '60s. But that franchise is proof enough for me that a half-century-old backstory can be freshened up for not too much monetary investment, and presented very, very well. Modern Doctor Who blows away anything the Trek franchise has produced in this century.

    No, that's not what I'm saying, and indeed, it would be ridiculous if I did. But I am saying there's no good excuse for a good writer (or these days, writing team) not to tell a good Star Trek story if she puts her mind to it.

    Case in point: You have a main character who has become one of the more beloved in the world's popular folklore. And one of the reasons is because he never gives up hope. "There are always possibilities" is one of his taglines. Someone tells a story with that character in which his home planet blows up and his mother, among others, is killed. And in the same story, the man actually sits in and operates a time machine, which supposedly he himself has built in the future. And at no point does he consider, "Hmm, fascinating, suppose I ask my own ship how to engineer a time warp, either back to warn my home planet, or forward to stop the future guy from warping back." Instead, it's decided he'll bottle up his emotions and bury his feelings.

    But then later, his boss whom he's only known for a year gets fried in an engine chamber, and he goes all Pon Farr on everyone, does a Shatner impression, and does a fist fight to the death for revenge. If the fellow who does "Star Trek Imponderables" hasn't considered this one, he should. It's easily the largest continuity crap-on since the 22nd century Romulan cloaking device.

    Spock is a gold-mine of a character. So much of him has yet to be explored. And now there's a fairly good actor portraying him. So there's no excuse.

    This is why folks say they want the Prime Universe back. What they want is the effort to tell as complete and contiguous a story as possible. I'd be happy seeing someone do that officially for the franchise, even as an animation. For heaven's sake, "Star Trek: Final Frontier" tells better stories on black-and-white storyboards than what I'm paying $15 to see in 3D.

    DF "Imagining Peter Capaldi in His Previous Major Role Appearing in the JJA Universe to Tell Spock to Get an F-ing Clue" Scott
     
  19. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

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    Okay, peace... I just wanted to clarify what you meant. I'm a Classic Who fan - to me the definitive Doctor is Tom Baker. I co-admin a whole forum dedicated to Tom Baker's Doctor.

    While there are elements of modern Who I don't care for, I am thankful that the new production people haven't deliberately crapped all over the show's history (except for the nonsense of the Eighth Doctor being half-human; please tell me they retconned that shit at some point), blatantly ripped the names and locations, and essentially made it into a travesty with the same name and thought to fool people.

    That's what Abrams has done with nuTrek. He can call his characters by the Star Trek names, but the character Quinto is playing is NOT Spock. Whatsisname is NOT playing real Kirk. That ridiculous child-man is not Chekov, that clown is not McCoy, and while real Uhura initially flirted with real Spock, that's as far as it ever went.

    But there are some very good authors who are quite content not ever writing a Star Trek story - not because they couldn't do it, but because they just aren't interested. I'm pretty sure C.J. Cherryh would fall into this category. This woman is a genius at world and universe-building; her characters and worlds are incredibly rich and complex, and her stories are extremely compelling. IF she ever wanted to write a Star Trek story, I'm sure she'd blow at least 90% of the Trek authors out of the water. But to the best of my knowledge, she's never done so, nor does she have any interest in doing so.

    I'll happily lead the parade of people wanting the Prime Universe back. Anyone who says there's nowhere else to go outside of the Abramsverse for good stories is just lacking imagination.
     
  20. Beyerstein

    Beyerstein Captain Captain

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    I was here when enterprise was on and i remeber it being pretty split between "gushers and bashers"