Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot?

[DalekJim]

I think my biggest bone of contention is that the franchise seems to have been well... set back decades. I love TOS but that was the beginning of Star Trek, not the core of it. TNG then perfected that type of storytelling and then we got DS9 which took Trek even further forward.

I'd have liked the show to have kept progressing in it's format. As it is, JJ-Trek feels regressive to me. Star Trek can achieve so much more than a cosy nostalgic popcorn blockbuster.

I do firmly believe that one day Trek will return to TV and I hope when it does it gets a creative, intelligent team behind it that want to boldly take the series forwards. Not to keep milking the same limited pool of ideas.

I accept though, that a large portion of this section seemed genuinely excited that fucking Khan was coming back so I won't be on the same page as a lot of people. Or even the same book.

[YARN]

BillJ wrote:

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Well, Serenity was a box office bomb only generating a 39 million dollar worldwide gross.

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=serenity.htm

After you factor in advertising and theater share, it lost a ton of money, much like Star Trek: Nemesis.

And I thought the whole reason they rebooted Bond was to give people a jumping on point in the franchise?

We're talking about two different things here.

Serenity was going to bomb either way. Whedon is (or rather was, since he has made strides with Avengers) primarily a TV guy (who writes chatty TV shows) and the movie shows it. It's a cute film, but it's not really summer blockbuster-type film. And Nemesis was simply terrible.

What I am talking about is how fan films are marketed. JJ has yet again taken the strategic move of speaking of the film as NOT being made for Star Trek fans. This is unfortunate since the first film did well enough that there is no longer any need (if there ever was) to qualify what audiences can expect. People saw the first film, they liked it, so there is no need to assure people.

JJ should simply say that it's a good film or that it is a film that both fans and non-fans will love. Trek fans will still see the movie so he is not losing any $$$ by saying this, but that isn't why I object to putting Trek fans in a corner and telling them that this isn't really made for them (even though they're welcome to enjoy it too). I object to it because it is needless thing to say which contributes to bad feeling and ill-will for the group of people who made it possible for JJ to exploit this known entity.

[The Mirrorball Man]

DalekJim wrote:

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I do firmly believe that one day Trek will return to TV and I hope when it does it gets a creative, intelligent team behind it that want to boldly take the series forwards. Not to keep milking the same limited pool of ideas.

I can sympathize with that point of view to some extant, but surely the best way to avoid milking the same limited pool of ideas would be to do anything else than Star Trek? If a creative, intelligent team were interested in creating a science-fiction series, wouldn't the weight of a decades-old franchise with its traditions, tropes and idioms hamper their creativity?

As far as I'm concerned, the only two options that I find interesting are going back to the core Trek formula or come up with a completely fresh concept, free of the shackles of expectations and continuity.

[King Daniel]

DalekJim wrote:

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I just see Star Trek as an evolving universe and part of the fun for me when watching TOS is to see the backstory of the Trek I grew up with. Making it a reboot rids it of that completely. I'm not invested in what's going in as it isn't really Trek.

But t doesn't rid it of that completely, as evidenced by Old Spock. Through him it's a continuation of what went before.

It's got the Star Trek name on it but if given the choice I'd rather have Trek set in the same continuity as all the Non-ENT shows and movies. It's nice to fit things in to the overall universe.

As far as I'm concerned, STXI and ENT fit into the overall universe just fine. Enterprise's unrepaired damage to the timeline actually led to the TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY history not away from it. STXI's led to another timeline in the same multiverse.

A few months ago I read Typhon Pact: Paths of Disharmony, where an Enterprise-E security officer compared the icy wastes of Andoria to her 6-months assigned to the Starfleet outpost on Delta Vega. The old continuity is adapting just fine to what the new one is adding to Trek.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

BillJ wrote:

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I knew it was really Star Trek when Spock beat the hell out of Kirk.

Damn right!

"...and you've got the gall to make love to that girl!"

"That's enough!"

The scene with Kirk baiting Spock into violence on the bridge was all the evidence I needed that these guys really were fans and knew TOS.It was nearly beat-for-beat from the old series.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

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I can sympathize with that point of view to some extant, but surely the best way to avoid milking the same limited pool of ideas would be to do anything else than Star Trek?

Yes.

Paramount spent 1982-2005 milking the same "limited pool of ideas." There's no reason to think that the next revival would be any different in that respect; no reason whatsoever.

[jpch]

It never needed a reboot...
form TOS to TNG there was a minor change that was accepted very well
form TNG to VOY another minor change that was accepted but criticized
From VOY to ENT we started going backward,series cancelled,fans no very interested...
from ENT to JJTREK it was crap for me its not star trek at all its just another scifi action movie to watch,the girl characters are eye candy and stupid so sexist just like TOS i dont care that much about it.
TNG DS9 VOY era was simply the best and the most influencing.

[jpch]

DalekJim wrote:

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I think my biggest bone of contention is that the franchise seems to have been well... set back decades. I love TOS but that was the beginning of Star Trek, not the core of it. TNG then perfected that type of storytelling and then we got DS9 which took Trek even further forward.

I'd have liked the show to have kept progressing in it's format. As it is, JJ-Trek feels regressive to me. Star Trek can achieve so much more than a cosy nostalgic popcorn blockbuster.

I do firmly believe that one day Trek will return to TV and I hope when it does it gets a creative, intelligent team behind it that want to boldly take the series forwards. Not to keep milking the same limited pool of ideas.

I accept though, that a large portion of this section seemed genuinely excited that fucking Khan was coming back so I won't be on the same page as a lot of people. Or even the same book.

I must agree with you

[BillJ]

jpch wrote:

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TNG DS9 VOY era was simply the best and the most influencing.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. There's a reason people still talk about TOS nearly fifty years after its launch. The characters still resonate with people. That cannot be said about Modern Trek.

[jpch]

BillJ wrote:

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You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. There's a reason people still talk about TOS nearly fifty years after its launch. The characters still resonate with people. That cannot be said about Modern Trek.

If JJ did reboot TNG era everyone would be talking about Picard Worf Riker Data etc...people in 2009 most likely have started to forget about TOS and most new Gen viewers don't even know TNG now.yes TOS is very popular we all know that.

[BillJ]

jpch wrote:

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If JJ did reboot TNG era everyone would be talking about Picard Worf Riker Data etc...people in 2009 most likely have started to forget about TOS and most new Gen viewers don't even know TNG now.yes TOS is very popular we all know that.

TOS was already being remastered for HD when the 2009 film was announced. TOS is a pop-culture phenomenon. Even people who never watched it know about things from TOS.

It doesn't mean that TNG and the other series didn't have their moments. They just didn't leave the same long-term impression on the general population that the original did.

[Dale Sams]

Better 6-10 hours of a changed timeline than nothing.

[Dale Sams]

BillJ wrote:

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TOS was already being remastered for HD when the 2009 film was announced. TOS is a pop-culture phenomenon. Even people who never watched it know about things from TOS.

It doesn't mean that TNG and the other series didn't have their moments. They just didn't leave the same long-term impression on the general population that the original did.

I find TNG to be the least rewatchable of the series right now. Not because it wasn't good, but the actors do very little to surprise me, a lot of the eps are just Braga Mind-*****, and there are more than a few 'hard-headed aliens of the week'.

Or maybe I've seen them too many times.

[BillJ]

Dale Sams wrote:

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I find TNG to be the least rewatchable of the series right now. Not because it wasn't good, but the actors do very little to surprise me, a lot of the eps are just Braga Mind-*****, and there are more than a few 'hard-headed aliens of the week'.

Or maybe I've seen them too many times.

I love TNG and am currently repurchasing the series on Blu-ray (just like I did TOS). But I think TOS simply translates better on the big screen and one of the reasons is because, as I stated earlier, Kirk is a big risk, big reward character. Those types of characters flourish on the big-screen.

[Greg Cox]

DalekJim wrote:

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I accept though, that a large portion of this section seemed genuinely excited that fucking Khan was coming back so I won't be on the same page as a lot of people. Or even the same book.

Well, it's probably safe to say that, where TOS is concerned, I'm definitely on a different book . . .