The OFFICIAL new Enterprise - Let the critiques begin!

Personally, I think the TOS design is the least dated of the whole lot.

 

Amazingly, I find myself in total agreement with Cary, Ptrope, Dennis and last but not least, CRA. I think within the last few posts is a real wealth of astute commentary on the past and future potential of the Trek "concept". If only it could break free of the need to appeal to a bigger and bigger audience with a bigger and bigger risk involved and a smaller and smaller window of creativity available due to "expected returns"... and instead be satisfied appealing to multiple smaller audiences. There is something about the "smallness" of the original Trek, and the risk taking that its small appeal demanded of those that needed to make a splash to survive, that is essential to its original charm.

I'm afraid getting back to anything like that is never, ever going to happen. At least not with a "Trek" label on it.

 

Not so long as it has the paramount label on it. No corporate suit would ever green light such a project. Something like that is almost the exclusive preview of the fans, like yourself and Mr Cawley, who are willing to continue that form of trek and have the skill to do it.

 

That's not really true. The reason that PPC chose to go ahead with this was that Abrams (who they wanted to sign for multiple pictures) wanted one of his pictures to be a Star Trek story he'd wanted to tell since he was a youth.

The thing that sold them to go ahead and sign off on that wasn't that it was going to be a "fresh take on Star Trek" so much as that it was going to be a return to "what worked in the past." Go back and pull up the board meeting minutes from that timeframe (they're available to stockholders) and you can confirm what I'm telling you.

The entire point of greenlighting this was due to the fact that it was abandoning the more recent (less popular) stuff and getting back to the way that Trek was when it was really popular, with TOS and the first several TOS-era movies.

 

Well said Cary. My example has always been historical novels. I've read many a novel set in, for example, WWII, where fictional characters are set in real events. It's no trouble at all for these authors to write within the confines of established events that actually happened without altering the event in the least, and fit their own characters and adventures within that framework.

Nobody has ever inserted Me-262 jets into the Battle of Britain because "modern audiences might think Bf-109Es look too old fashioned, and no one ever specifically stated they DIDn't exist then!"

A good writer can use an existing history as a viable framework without needing to alter it or ignore it. Heck, in "The Buried Age," Christopher used almost everything ever mentioned on screen and didn't contradict a single thing! Hell of a feat!

Lazy writers ignore or rewrite history because it's too much mental work for them to bother or care. (and I DON'T mean the Turtledove method, which requirea an intimate knowledge of history in order to experimantally rewrite it).

 

^ Absolutely. I'm all for fleshing out background, establishing enough framework to give a fictional reality a sense of depth and plausibility, and then sticking with it. That's what I do when I write history, it's what I do when I write historical fiction, and it's natural for me to do it when I write SF. I love the challenge of creating "future history". I'm not saying everyone should do it that way, and I know most don't, but it's what I enjoy.

But then, I guess you'd know that.

 

Dude, the State Department needs you in the Middle East.

 

No... I'd do something stupid like invite 'em all to a roast pork supper and start armageddon.

 

Well, if they all turned on you at least they'd be in agreement.

 

You'd be surprised how often we wind up on the same page.

Now if we can just get MGagen in here, we could get a helluva poker game going.

 

^I don't think I even have the ante for that game.

 

MGagen posted eloquently on this very subject over at HobbyTalk.

 

Nice.

 

"Give me a bridge with the same design he created, but with all the delicate curves and ergonomic sensibilities he had to forego so Desilu's union carpenters could bring the set in on budget. Give me that upper ring of data screens dancing with live information from each department, so the captain can absorb the true state of his ship at a glance from his command chair. Give me holographic, heads-up labels that seem to hover in space over the various colorful buttons on Uhura's console, reconfiguring with each separate function overlay she selects, and fading from view as the camera trucks away from her station."

Which we are getting in Star Trek XI! :thumbsup:

Yay!

 

According to who?

Oh right, just more pointless yammering. Sorry.

 

Oh Lord... this time, Rottentomato™ DumbPost™ score.... 6.1/10

And an extra penalty of one point for spoiling that wonderful MGagen post.

 

All right, that's not necessary. If you don't have a more thoughtful response than that, don't post.

 

I apologize, though I was at a momentary loss for finding any other way to draw attention to the nonsense I keep encountering over the Tomato's signature. To paraphrase the poet, 'He speaks unskillfully: or, if his knowledge be more, it is much darkened in his malice.' I suppose I just need to get used to it.

...but not without a fight.

 

Think of him as a comic-relief bot.

 

An unfunny one.