No More Wrath of Khan Homages

That's not a fair assessment IMHO. Abrams and the writers would have more credibility with me if they developed some original material for our traditional characters. It's the alternate timeline that sticks in my craw. Pre-TOS material could've been terrific on its own. Take the characters through the academy and their initial sojourns into space. Pike could've been the vehicle to tie it all together. Instead, we have to destroy 2 fundamental cultures (and their homes), kill off Kirk's father and ruin his childhood, in essence changing all the core events that created the Kirk and crew that we know AND have come to love. As I wrote in an earlier post, all Abrams has done is to turn everything upside down and call it art. Are you telling me that all of the character destruction was necessary to make Trek accessible to newer audiences? Rubbish.

 

That's a false dichotomy. Plenty of Star Trek has had commercial appeal in spite of (1) being "heady", (2) skimping on the special effects, and (3) preferring dialogue over action. It's difficult to account for the successes of TVH or TNG without noticing those things. And even though it used military-style conflict, TWOK was weak in terms of special effects, even for its day. Conversely, Nemesis still sucked even though it was thematically lighter, had a bigger effects budget, emphasized more action, and was directed by someone who could care less for trek.

 

And yet, he nalied it in one sentence.

 

If you've read anything at all about Roddenberry, you'd know that his name and integrity never belong in the same sentence.

 

I keep telling people, Cochrane in FC is a dig at Roddenberry. The more I've read about Gene--and I'm not talking about his personal or family life, I'm talking purely professional life--the more I think they wrote Cochrane as a way of taking on the "Great Bird" and the hero worship some fans (the TNG crew) has for him.

 

Never heard that, before. It's a very valid comparison, whether it was done deliberately or purely coincidental. I'm jealous of you for not having thought of that, myself.

 

Hmmm. I'd never got onto that before! It could very well be true!

 

Note to both of you:

"Like" and "praise" are not synonyms.

 

Chalk one up to Mach5!

 

I say the Hornblower thing is more prevalent from TWOK onward. TOS and Kirk's character in that era strikes me more as Forbidden Planets meets Western. Not Wagon Train (which is what Gene allegedly sold the show as being but in space) but Kirk is more the White Hat that rides into town and kicks a little ass, woos the local girls, and rides into the sunset at the end.

If you stripped everything sci-fi out of TOS, you'd have at the end a standard issue Western.

 

As Bob Justman said about Gene Roddenberry lifting ideas from others and magically 'making' them his own:

"The Great Blotter of the Galaxy"

 

Don't you remember the time Shatner played a cowboy and an indian in the same movie? Lmao
1968's The White Comanche
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpaVdOfuC8c[/yt]

 

I had never seen that!

Thanks Seer.

 

It's actually an old theory. One which Berman, Braga, and Ron Moore have denied was their intention. But it is a valid comparison all the same.

 

Have them all assimilated, and 100 years later, nuChakotay can throw them all out the airlock and be done with the whole mess.

 

Yeppers. A lot have either forgotten about it or didn't know about. Whatever their real intention (and I don't buy it wasn't on purpose, but that's my opinion), they created something that rings true about fandom if nothing else.

 

It rings true about all hero worship.

"It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another." - Mal "Firefly, Jaynestown."

 

WORD!

 

Multiplicity is not to be asserted when it is unnecessary.

 

The novels make the parasites a dangerous Trill offshoot of some kind (I don't recall the details), but I don't recall the concept being followed up to a satisfying conclusion. I'd love to revisit the parasites.....one of TNG's few major unresolved cliffhangers.