Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot?

[Cartoonist]

I'll just address your substantive points and ignore your smarmy tone, because I lost interest in trying to out-pompous people on the Internet years ago (ok, I lied. But I'll ignore it starting...... now):

UFO wrote:

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So you also believe thumbtack was in grave danger of becoming a "Star Trek universe fan" had their insidious subculture not be "exposed".

Sorry, I was imprecise, but I would never have anticipated your interpretation of my comments in a million years. Certainly they were ten years younger, that’s the problem. I meant the idea of putting the entire crew on the bridge of a capital ship, combined with the way they did it, ten years before it happened in TOS was unconvincing. Kirk himself was the most prominent example of course, but in addition, the original cast were made the ages they were for a reason.

The academy graduate shakedown cruise and Kirk's elevation to power was convincing enough given the circumstances presented in the film, especially when you consider Old Spock's observation that there are some pivotal situations the universe essentially WANTS to happen, and the makeup of the Enterprise 1701 crew was one of those situations. And if you believe Spock's observation was implausible, I'll remind you that we're talking about a series of shows and movies that depict alternate universes, time travel, a device that built a planet out of a nebula (a planet that just so happened to be perfectly suited to magically turn Spock's decaying corpse into a living body just in time to restore his soul that McCoy was carrying around in his head). A series that portrays a galaxy filled with HUMANOID aliens, and features small crystals that allow faster than light travel, crews that routinely defeat godlike opponents, and countless other motifs that demand an awful lot of suspension of disbelief. Kirk becoming Captain because Pike promoted him to First Officer before Spock lost control of his emotions was the epitome of "believable" compared to all that. And it wasn't even all that far-fetched on its own merits, either. I'll add to that that even if it WERE far-fetched, that's what fantasy, scifi and action films are supposed to contain: far-fetched moments. We don't go see movies to see business proceed as usual.

Those were Trekkies who liked the movie I take it?

That's why I wrote "consensus" instead of "unanimous opinion."

To me only Bones seem more or less the same person and I believe there was some criticism because of that (as well as praise of course). Sulu and Chekov didn’t register much one way or the other from my point of view. Spock started well enough but got "nobbled" (in more ways than one). Kirk, Uhura and Scotty were just unrecognisable, except for a glimpse of "Kirk" at the end.

I don't know what you were looking for. I was hoping to see the essence of the characters in these performances, and I saw it. Except in Scotty. I felt they took a side of Scotty that did exist but that we rarely saw (usually involving a scene with Romulan ale or a fight with Klingons to defend his ship's honor), and made it his entire character, subsuming his more hard-nosed persona from TOS.

Well I might be too restrictive when it comes to definitions but reboot to me means "To discard all previous continuity and start anew". That didn’t happen. OK, most seem to feel that "reboot" is close enough. More likely it is just the currently fashionable term and is used for everything. What I am more interested in is how your friends found out it was a "reboot" as opposed to a "prequel", which was the impression I got before I saw the movie? The official promotion came across as a prequel, though I doubt anything actually stated that. Was there anything in official publicity to say it was a reboot, or even mention the new universe? My guess is your friends found some entertainment sites that may have been speculating along those lines but I never bothered with those.

What are you talking about? Everyone was referring to it as a reboot at the time. The news, the entertainment sites, the late night talk shows… "reboot" was ubiquitous in talk of Abrams' Trek. The fact that it actually fit into the existing canon by preserving the classic timeline was an unexpected surprise. To this day, some people on this very site stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that the classic timeline still exists, probably because they went into it believing they were watching a reboot.

Heck, I’m not even the sort of fan who would immediate start worrying about how they could fit such pretty young things into the original time-line! But despite being a fan of all past Trek, I could tell from official material this was likely a major departure in substance as well as style, and almost didn’t see it. I had no idea at that point it would promote a relatively "pessimistic" version of Trek from a number of pionts of view. In any event I doubt your friends wanted to see it simply "because" it was a reboot or a prequel. More likely they just though it looked good (ie. more "mainstream").

I didn't say they "simply" wanted to see it "because" it was a reboot and NOT because it looked good. You're right, the tone looked different to them than the Treks of the past. But they also heard that they didn't have to know anything about Trek to appreciate this, because they were restarting it. That was how they sold the movie.

Hmmm. And that doesn’t tell you anything? No, I suppose not.

Um… it actually does. That's why I wrote it. It tells me Abrams may have saved Trek with his "soft reboot" (as it was described at the time) by creating a Trek universe that even people who hated Trek can enjoy. That does not mean it's not Star Trek, as evidenced by the fact that it also appealed to - and struck the right chords with- most long-time Trek fans (including myself). No, I'm not going by a scientific study for that claim, I'm going by the box office take and the rabid anticipation of the sequel you can find in all the Trek forums.

I think I managed to respond with a minimum of smartass-itude.

[DalekJim]

Kevin W. wrote:

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Well, yeah, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks TWOK isn't one of the best and/or Nemesis isn't one of the worst.

Nemesis is crap but it had potential, Shinzon was actually a pretty good villain (Unlike a certain recent Romulan gimp!). It gets the hate that Generations justly deserves.

To this day nobody has adequately explained to me what the fuck the Nexus is.

[Greg Cox]

Kevin W. wrote:

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Well, yeah, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks TWOK isn't one of the best and/or Nemesis isn't one of the worst.

And The Search for Spock is planted squarely in the middle!

I remember seeing every of these movies in the theaters on the opening weekend, if not the opening night!

[Nerys Myk]

DalekJim wrote:

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Nemesis is crap but it had potential, Shinzon was actually a pretty good villain (Unlike a certain recent Romulan gimp!). It gets the hate that Generations justly deserves.

To this day nobody has adequately explained to me what the fuck the Nexus is.

It was a way to get Kirk into the TNG era.

[DalekJim]

Greg Cox wrote:

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I remember seeing every of these movies in the theaters on the opening weekend, if not the opening night!

I wasn't born until 1988. The first Trek film I saw at the cinema was Nemesis .

[Greg Cox]

DalekJim wrote:

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I wasn't born until 1988. The first Trek film I saw at the cinema was Nemesis .

Okay, now I really feel old.

I saw TMP during my sophomore year in college. The movie wasn't playing in Bellingham, WA, so our entire college science fiction club took a road trip to Everett (about a hundred miles away) to catch the movie on opening night.

Good times . . . .

[Nerys Myk]

I saw most of them either opening day or as a sneak preview the night before. (Usually through tickets from my Pocket Books rep)

[Awesome Possum]

I've only seen the latest one in theaters. I was a combination of being too young and having parents who didn't like seeing movies in theaters.

[YARN]

Cartoonist wrote:

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The academy graduate shakedown cruise and Kirk's elevation to power was convincing enough given the circumstances presented in the film,

No it does not. He was a cadet, not an officer. He was not supposed to be on the ship. There were plenty of more qualified people, some of them were already on the bridge. No one goes from stowaway to XO in a day.

This could have and should have been handled better.

Doesn't make it a bad film. Doesn't ruin Star Trek. Isn't the worst thing ever. It's just a flaw.

Cartoonist wrote:

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especially when you consider Old Spock's observation that there are some pivotal situations the universe essentially WANTS to happen,

Deus ex Machina much? The universe simply wants it to happen, so it will? So much for tension or stakes. Just relax and let the universe work it out for you.

Why would the universe even care about who is in command of a tiny ship, belonging to a tiny species, in a little blip of the universe? How would the universe even know who is in command?

Cartoonist wrote:

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I'll remind you that we're talking about a series of shows and movies that depict alternate universes, time travel, a device that built a planet out of a nebula (a planet that just so happened to be perfectly suited to magically turn Spock's decaying corpse into a living body just in time to restore his soul that McCoy was carrying around in his head). A series that portrays a galaxy filled with HUMANOID aliens, and features small crystals that allow faster than light travel, crews that routinely defeat godlike opponents, and countless other motifs that demand an awful lot of suspension of disbelief. Kirk becoming Captain because Pike promoted him to First Officer before Spock lost control of his emotions was the epitome of "believable" compared to all that.

Tu Quoque? Well, OK, but this line of response does nothing to repudiate the claim that it is a narrative flaw.

EX: A drunk driver can point out that everyone else on the road is drunk too, but that does not make her any less guilty herself.

Again, this could have and should have been handled better.

Doesn't make it a bad film. Doesn't ruin Star Trek. Isn't the worst thing ever. It's just a flaw.

Cartoonist wrote:

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I'll add to that that even if it WERE far-fetched, that's what fantasy, scifi and action films are supposed to contain: far-fetched moments. We don't go see movies to see business proceed as usual.

This is the part where I write a really long paragraph and talk about suspension of disbelief and how you have to carefully earn those far-fetched moments. But I won't, because any reasonable person of goodwill will admit that there are limits and not just anything goes in a genre picture, merely because its in a genre (on the contrary, genres are highly conventionalized too).

[UFO]

Cartoonist wrote:

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I'll just address your substantive points and ignore your smarmy tone, because I lost interest in trying to out-pompous people on the Internet years ago (ok, I lied. But I'll ignore it starting...... now):

That's telling me!

OK, I can think of one place (maybe two) where I was at least a bit condescending so my apologies.

The academy graduate shakedown cruise and Kirk's elevation to power was convincing enough given the circumstances presented in the film, especially when you consider Old Spock's observation that there are some pivotal situations the universe essentially WANTS to happen, and the makeup of the Enterprise 1701 crew was one of those situations. And if you believe Spock's observation was implausible, I'll remind you that we're talking about a series of shows and movies that depict alternate universes, time travel, a device that built a planet out of a nebula (a planet that just so happened to be perfectly suited to magically turn Spock's decaying corpse into a living body just in time to restore his soul that McCoy was carrying around in his head). …

I would be sincerely grateful if you could let me know where Old Spock made that observation because I thought he said something like that too, but I can’t locate it (he refers to destiny around 1:22:28 but that’s as close as I have gotten). However it would make no difference because I have never seen any reason to believed the Star Trek universe (except maybe this one) is intended to be a pantheist's paradise. ST is science fiction not fantasy even if it sometimes appears to be otherwise. As for your reminders, look at it this way: Most SF stories postulate certain scientific breakthroughs, many of them standard things like FTL drives, which allow their plots to take place. But in a respectable SF work, that is definitely not the same as saying all science as we know it goes out the window whenever the plot demands it. It's certainly is no excuse for people or organisations behaving irrationally.

I mean, can you imagine what it would do to a plot if the very universe was helping the writers achieve their ends? Actually we don’t need to imagine that do we? You end up with something like ST09, full of ridiculous coincidences and the feeling the characters are just being railroaded at every turn in to their inevitable final positions. As you point out, other ST works have their share implausibilities but ST09 out does them all both in quantity and er, "quality", in my view.

I'll add to that that even if it WERE far-fetched, that's what fantasy, scifi and action films are supposed to contain: far-fetched moments. We don't go see movies to see business proceed as usual.

Well, that’s a novel argument. To me there is far-fetched, and then there is absurd to the point of believing that any crazy thing could happen whenever the plot demands it. Moreover, I would say there is a difference between star fleet doing something as stupid as promoting Kirk based solely of a rush of euphoria (actually the plot poking through the surface on one of its numerous visitations) and something that is just unexplained to us. But at least the latter are supposed to be posited on scientific principles, not metaphysical mumbo jumbo, however unlikely they may seem. Anyway, Starfleet itself should act reasonably, and we should have some confidence in the neutrality of the very universe they live in! In other words if you have to have that level of crazy, don’t do it all the time and don’t do it when it will make the organisation the characters work for look like a joke.

That's why I wrote "consensus" instead of "unanimous opinion."

We may be on the wrong wavelength again. I just meant if you like something you might be more willing to overlook "imperfections". It works the other way as well of course, except with me. My judgment is completely objective.

I don't know what you were looking for. I was hoping to see the essence of the characters in these performances, and I saw it. Except in Scotty. I felt they took a side of Scotty that did exist but that we rarely saw (usually involving a scene with Romulan ale or a fight with Klingons to defend his ship's honor), and made it his entire character, subsuming his more hard-nosed persona from TOS.

I was going on their personalities and behaviour. Anyway, I guess we will mostly have to disagree, except for Scotty of course (he had something of the court jester about him too I thought).

What are you talking about? Everyone was referring to it as a reboot at the time. The news, the entertainment sites, the late night talk shows… "reboot" was ubiquitous in talk of Abrams' Trek. The fact that it actually fit into the existing canon by preserving the classic timeline was an unexpected surprise. To this day, some people on this very site stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that the classic timeline still exists, probably because they went into it believing they were watching a reboot.

See, I missed most of that, all I saw were a few trailers on TV and maybe an advert or two in the paper. But it could still be that "reboot" is simply a more fashionable phrase than prequel, which itself may have been my assumption given the youth of the characters.

… But they also heard that they didn't have to know anything about Trek to appreciate this, because they were restarting it. That was how they sold the movie.

That is understandable, but that could still have made it a prequel. The idea of a reboot just never occurred to me for some reason. Of course I didn’t hear any of the business about not being your father’s Trek either.

… It tells me Abrams may have saved Trek with his "soft reboot" (as it was described at the time) by creating a Trek universe that even people who hated Trek can enjoy. That does not mean it's not Star Trek, as evidenced by the fact that it also appealed to - and struck the right chords with- most long-time Trek fans (including myself). No, I'm not going by a scientific study for that claim, I'm going by the box office take and the rabid anticipation of the sequel you find in all the Trek forums.

Well as you can imagine I am left with mixed feelings about that. Not that I begrudge anyone their enjoyment, but in my view there are one or two essential parts of previous Trek that wouldn’t have taken a lot of effort to put back in. Naturally I would also question your assumption that something even old fans of Trek like has to be "Star Trek" or at least a "complete Star Trek". Another possibility is that religion isn’t the only "opium" of the masses.

By the way, why was it called a "soft reboot" if no-one knew about the alt universe? Even if it wasn’t anticipated to be too different from the original, that’s still a reboot isn’t it?

[Dukhat]

DalekJim wrote:

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Shinzon was actually a pretty good villain...

Let's see...

- Shinzon is a clone of Picard created 20 year before, but there's no indication why the Romulans would have considered Picard to be an important figure twenty years ago.

- Shinzon wears a ridiculous costume straight out of a Tim Burton Batman movie.

- Shinzon claims to be acting for the good of the Reman people, who he considers to be "brothers." However, every action he takes is completely self-centered and not in the interest of anyone but himself. Even the Viceroy gets angry with him about this.

- Shinzon needs Picard's blood to survive, so instead of simply telling Picard the truth about this, he has Picard go on some wild goose-chase to find android parts on a hostile planet where Picard could easily have been killed.

- Continuing the above idiocy, Shinzon wastes valuable time waiting aboard the Scimitar for hours before contacting the Enterprise, then mind-raping Troi when he should have been getting a blood transfusion from Picard ASAP.

- When the going gets tough for Shinzon, he decides to attack Earth for no reason whatsoever (He had no beef against Earth; it was the Romulans he hated. True, the Romulans who sided with him wanted to attack Earth, but Shinzon was under no obligation to them...he was the one in charge, not them!)

Yeah, he's a great villain.

To this day nobody has adequately explained to me what the fuck the Nexus is.

It was a plot device to get Picard and Kirk together so that Kirk could die.

[Awesome Possum]

I blame Shinzon for the dunebuggy chase, the dumbest scene in Trek history.

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

DalekJim wrote:

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VOY and DS9 have over double the amount of seasons that TOS has.

There's just no way anybody will be able to convince me that 25 seasons is the sign of failure. It's a bloody miracle in television for a sci-fi show to get this much. Look how long Firefly lasted! And I never see people saying that show got cancelled because it was crap either.

The Original Series spawned a massive fandom, which pretty much defined everything about being a sci-fi/fantasy fan today - from the entire concept of conventions to popularizing fan fiction, that's because of Star Trek. Read this ebook for a firsthand account of the era: www.ftlpublications.com/bwebook.pdf

The later shows popularized technical manuals full of pretty diagrams and meaningless technobabble, and the concept of "right" (canon) and "wrong" (animated series, novels, every manual published prior to 1993) Star Trek.

The former captured the imagination, the former ultimately constrained it.

[UFO]

Dukhat wrote:

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It was a plot device to get Picard and Kirk together so that Kirk could die.

Kirk was supposed to die alone dammit.

[The Mirrorball Man]

Dukhat wrote:

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Let's see...

- Shinzon is a clone of Picard created 20 year before, but there's no indication why the Romulans would have considered Picard to be an important figure twenty years ago.

- Shinzon wears a ridiculous costume straight out of a Tim Burton Batman movie.

- Shinzon claims to be acting for the good of the Reman people, who he considers to be "brothers." However, every action he takes is completely self-centered and not in the interest of anyone but himself. Even the Viceroy gets angry with him about this.

- Shinzon needs Picard's blood to survive, so instead of simply telling Picard the truth about this, he has Picard go on some wild goose-chase to find android parts on a hostile planet where Picard could easily have been killed.

- Continuing the above idiocy, Shinzon wastes valuable time waiting aboard the Scimitar for hours before contacting the Enterprise, then mind-raping Troi when he should have been getting a blood transfusion from Picard ASAP.

- When the going gets tough for Shinzon, he decides to attack Earth for no reason whatsoever (He had no beef against Earth; it was the Romulans he hated. True, the Romulans who sided with him wanted to attack Earth, but Shinzon was under no obligation to them...he was the one in charge, not them!)

Yeah, he's a great villain.

Plus it was a waste of Tom Hardy, who could have done a great job in different circumstances.