Abrams turns Star Wars because of his "loyalty" to Trek

Ummm...actually, he was offering helpful advice.

 

Well, GENERALLY if people keep YELLING random WORDS at me like THIS then it comes across as AGGRESSIVE.


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Jingoistic? You're accusing me of extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy? That I'm threatening?

Yelling?

(You know what's funny. As I type this I'm yelling at my computer screen. EVERY word. Just. Yelling it. My wife is wondering what I'm yelling about. I yelled at her explaining that I'm posting on the internet.)

It's called EMPHASIS.

Aggressive? REALLY? I AM JINGOISTIC!

 

Well, alright but according to general internet etiquette, using all capitals is akin to shouting. Which made your post look aggressive even if you didn't intend it to.

No big deal.

 

I was having a really shitty day and then I read this thread.

Holy shit! I feel better already!

 

At the risk of beating a dead sehlat, I have to ask: If Spock was always meant to be nothing but the embodiment of science and logic, and purely alien to boot, why did Roddenberry make him half-human to begin with?

Because, of course, a certain degree of internal conflict was cleverly built into his character from the beginning. Now people may dismiss that as "angst" or "touchy-feely" or whatever, but the guy who broke down in tears in "The Naked Time" because he could never tell his mother he loved her has always been a little bit "emo." It's a fundamental aspect of his character--and always has been.

And that's what makes him more intriguing than a purely cerebral thinking machine . . . . IMHO, naturally.

 

That etiquette applies, for the bulk of Internet users, when ALL of the text is in caps. Otherwise, EMPHASIS is the accepted meaning. YMMV, of course.

 

I never thought I'd have to see someone state/explain that on a Trek forum of all places. 101.

 

Mmm. BBQ sehlat....

 

This.

 

I'd rather have mine stir-fried! Thankyouverymuch!

 

The whole premise of that episode is that everybody is acting out of character. It's not logical to use it as an example of established Spock behaviour.

 

Not out of character, exposing deep-seated feelings inside the characters.

 

Remember Spock is an emotionless Vulcan, highly logical in all his dealings.

 

Bingo. "Naked Time" let us peek behind Spock's mask, and see the conflict he wrestled with everyday. Nor was it a freak abberation. This was a recurring theme throughout the series--and up through the movies.

Look at TMP, for instance. Spock was still struggling to reconcile his human and Vulcan halves in that film. And you'll note that his ultimate revelation is not that he needed to become more Vulcan and less human, and purge the last trace of his messy human emotions, but exactly the opposite. He rejects the pure logic of Kohlinar and accepts his human, more emotional half.

That was the whole point of Spock's character arc in that movie. And that's straight from Roddenberry, mind you, back when he still was in control of the movies.

 

I just think that the conflict between his alien nature and humanity could be portrayed more interestingly than his indecision whether to touch Uhura's boobs or not.

 

I never saw that. Not sure what movie you were watching.

 

The one that he made up in his own head before seeing a frame of footage. I'm guessing that, in that movie, girls have cooties.

Here's the thing about Trek 09: it was fun. It was the most fun I've had watching Star Trek since I was a little kid, sneaking out of bed late Sunday nights to catch TNG on syndication. And the details, my God the details. The light falling over Pike's face when he takes the command chair for the first time. The sound of the intra-ship intercom, the electronic whoosh of the phaser fire heard from the bridge. The uniforms, essentially unchanged from fifty years ago. Trek 09 was a labour of love, made to be a cracking summer blockbuster but with the kind of care and respect for the source material that is almost universally absent in these kinds of movies.

Seeing the Enterprise for the first time through Kirk's eyes felt like coming home. It was a return to the excited days of childhood, when grand adventures of derring-do amongst the stars captured my imagination.

That's what Abrams did: he recaptured my childhood. He's remarkably good at telling emotional stories within the structures of the action-adventure movie. So, yeah, he's the absolute right choice for Star Wars. His attachment to the new movie is pretty much the only reason that I'm excited for another Star Wars. Maybe he can make me a kid again, for a couple of hours two summers from now.

We'll see.

 

It's like you're intentionally playing up to the Nuts readership stereotype of a Top Gear fan.

I'm slightly different to you, therefore I'm less of a man and afraid of girls. Brilliant. Clarkson would be proud.

 

I don't know. I think the relationship went a bit deeper than that.

Meanwhile, STAR WARS. It seems to me that the lesson of the PT is that Jedis are best in small doses. Alec Guiness added a welcome touch of class and mysticism to the original film, but, by the time, you got to the prequels, everybody seemed to be a Jedi or a Sith or closely affiliated with them, so that everybody was solemnly going on about "destiny" and "the Dark Side" and "the balance of the Force."

To my mind, the PT needed a few more cynical, smart-aleck space smugglers to keep things a bit more down-to-earth and a little less pompous. And a snarkier heroine, who is more Leia than Amidala.