Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot? - Page 48

JarodRussell · January 12 2013, 10:41 PM

Carcazoid wrote:

Greg Cox wrote:

JarodRussell wrote:

One could have easily avoided all that by not doing a TOS remake at all to begin with.

But where's the fun in that?

If people want more TOS, give it to them. Remakes do not violate the Prime Directive.

Hear, hear.

If the reboot had been a novel it would likely have been lauded as genius.

Or it would have been dissected for how silly the idea and plot was. Ya never know.

BillJ · January 12 2013, 10:58 PM

I love the people who bitch about more TOS after we've sat through six hundred plus episodes of Modern Trek. It's like the people who bitch about four or five TOS novels in a row after coming off of four or five straight 24th century novels.

M'Sharak · January 13 2013, 12:22 AM

Greg Cox wrote:

Shazam! wrote:

A true prequel would be an absolute minefield continuity wise and would likely have had to span a substantially longer period than Trek IX to facilitate the meetings of all the characters.

And would have left the "new" STAR TREK movies in the middle of the continuity minefield for every movie to come. "Wait? Why isn't Kirk serving on the Reliant now? Why isn't he dating Janice Lester . . . or Carol Marcus . . . or Ruth . . . ? What about the gas monster from 'Obsession'? Where does Kodos the Executioner fit in? Why is Chekov on the bridge already? Where is Dr. Piper? And Robert April?"

And not to forget the classic refrain:

TheRoyalFamily · January 13 2013, 02:38 AM

Was a reboot necessary?

No.

What Trek needed was to be revitalized. A reboot was not the only way to do it. However, it was the path of least resistance (I don't mean that as a fault, it's just the facts), and it most certainly worked.

Now, was the way they did it good? I'd say no - there was absolutely no need for an origin story. There was no real need for any time travel schenanagans. There was no need to destroy Vulcan. There was no real need to bother with canon, other than have the characters everyone knows - it could just be a self-contained story!

I do think it pretty much needed to be a Kirk-Spock Trek, though. The public knows Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise. They know TNG better, but the cast is old, and TNG is old. No one outside of the fans knows anything about Voyager or Enterprise, and it was far too late to do anything with DS9 (not that anyone knows about that show, either). But Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise are cultural icons. Do it right, and it's almost a license to print money, especially by 2009 when geeky retro things were OK to like.

I also think it needed to be an action film. Did it need to be brainless like Trek '09 was? No, but that obviously didn't hurt any. Plus, it's not like TOS isn't familiar with brainlessness.

Nerys Myk · January 13 2013, 02:44 AM

Oh, there was and is a lot of resistance.

They know TNG better? I don't think so. Nothing on TNG has become as iconic as Kirk and Spock.

YARN · January 13 2013, 02:48 AM

Yeah, Trek did need a reboot.

Abrams wasn't quite the reboot I hoped for - nothing is perfect - but it was better than the post-Nemesis "Search for Data" flick which we would have had instead.

Greg Cox · January 13 2013, 02:54 AM

You know, "need" may be the wrong word here, since it almost seems to imply that a reboot was only justifiable if it was absolutely necessary. As opposed to simply seeing a reboot as a good idea that did the trick.

Were there other options? Possibly. Is there anything wrong with rebooting STAR TREK? Not at all . . .

Again, reboots are not the devil. Sometimes they can be very interesting variations on a theme.

Dale Sams · January 13 2013, 04:10 AM

JarodRussell wrote:

Carcazoid wrote:

Greg Cox wrote:

But where's the fun in that?

If people want more TOS, give it to them. Remakes do not violate the Prime Directive.

Hear, hear.

If the reboot had been a novel it would likely have been lauded as genius.

Or it would have been dissected for how silly the idea and plot was. Ya never know.

IMHO, if , for whatever reason, Trek had gone straight from FC to 2009 Trek, Trek fans would have called it the stupidest thing God ever made and be clamoring for some sort of dual franchise*, ala' Thunderball/Never Say Never.

*In this alternate universe, Trek 2009 still makes bank.

BillJ · January 13 2013, 04:15 AM

Dale Sams wrote:

IMHO, if , for whatever reason, Trek had gone straight from FC to 2009 Trek, Trek fans would have called it the stupidest thing God ever made and be clamoring for some sort of dual franchise*, ala' Thunderball/Never Say Never.

I still think people would've liked the 2009 film, it had an energy that pretty much all the TNG films lacked.

Greg Cox · January 13 2013, 04:15 AM

Dale Sams wrote:

JarodRussell wrote:

Carcazoid wrote:

Hear, hear.

If the reboot had been a novel it would likely have been lauded as genius.

Or it would have been dissected for how silly the idea and plot was. Ya never know.

IMHO, if , for whatever reason, Trek had gone straight from FC to 2009 Trek, Trek fans would have called it the stupidest thing God ever made and be clamoring for some sort of dual franchise*, ala' Thunderball/Never Say Never.

*In this alternate universe, Trek 2009 still makes bank.

You know, I always thought Never Say Never Again was underrated. I remember preferring it to Thunderball.

Admiral Buzzkill · January 13 2013, 04:22 AM

The notion of a "real crew of the original Enterprise" is preposterous.

Nagisa Furukawa · January 13 2013, 11:33 AM

BillJ wrote:

I think Pine, Quinto and Urban were clearly recognizable as the characters.

Pine did an okay job as a charismatic young captain, but he didn't look, sound or act much like the Kirk of TOS. Out of all the JJ Trek characters, he's one of the ones that least resembles his counterpart IMO.

Nagisa Furukawa · January 13 2013, 11:45 AM

Carcazoid wrote:

If the reboot had been a novel it would likely have been lauded as genius.

No way. If anything, it'd have been much more harshly reviewed. People accept mindless action and paper-thin plot in big-budget action blockbusters precisely in a way they don't on the printed page (garbage like the Da Vinci Code excepted). Unless the prose was insanely gangbusters or something, if Trek '09 had been released as a novel relaunch of TOS, it would've been heavily criticized in comparison to the really well-written Trek novels of the past; if it has been released as a standalone SF now, it wouldn't have even been a blip in the history of SF literature, much less "genius."

Nerys Myk · January 13 2013, 05:53 PM

Nagisa Furukawa wrote:

BillJ wrote:

I think Pine, Quinto and Urban were clearly recognizable as the characters.

Pine did an okay job as a charismatic young captain, but he didn't look, sound or act much like the Kirk of TOS. Out of all the JJ Trek characters, he's one of the ones that least resembles his counterpart IMO.

Other than Quinto and Urban to some degree, none of the actors looked or sounded like the originals. Frankly, that's a good thing, because I'm not interested in seeing a bunch of celebrity impersonators. Pine did a great job of capturing Kirk's swagger and brashness without doing a full on Shatner impression, but did subtly use some of Shatner's body language.

Jackson_Roykirk · January 13 2013, 06:22 PM

^
^^ Yes. Quinto did a good job imitating Spock, although I wasn't that crazy overall with his performance. He was uncannily Spock-like, but I think overall Quinto was just "OK".

Pine didn't "act like Shatner's Kirk", but I think he captured the essence what captain Kirk is supposed to be. People looking for an imitation of TOS Kirk may have been disappointed, but I wasn't.

Urban did the best job of BOTH capturing the essence of the character AND imitating the character.

January 12 2013, 10:58 PM	#707
BillJ Vice Admiral Location: Greater Cincinnati	Re: Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot? I love the people who bitch about more TOS after we've sat through six hundred plus episodes of Modern Trek. It's like the people who bitch about four or five TOS novels in a row after coming off of four or five straight 24th century novels. __________________ J.J. Abrams didn't change Star Trek, audience expectations did.

January 13 2013, 02:38 AM	#709
TheRoyalFamily Fleet Captain Location: Mentone	Re: Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot? Was a reboot necessary? No. What Trek needed was to be revitalized. A reboot was not the only way to do it. However, it was the path of least resistance (I don't mean that as a fault, it's just the facts), and it most certainly worked. Now, was the way they did it good? I'd say no - there was absolutely no need for an origin story. There was no real need for any time travel schenanagans. There was no need to destroy Vulcan. There was no real need to bother with canon, other than have the characters everyone knows - it could just be a self-contained story! I do think it pretty much needed to be a Kirk-Spock Trek, though. The public knows Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise. They know TNG better, but the cast is old, and TNG is old. No one outside of the fans knows anything about Voyager or Enterprise, and it was far too late to do anything with DS9 (not that anyone knows about that show, either). But Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise are cultural icons. Do it right, and it's almost a license to print money, especially by 2009 when geeky retro things were OK to like. I also think it needed to be an action film. Did it need to be brainless like Trek '09 was? No, but that obviously didn't hurt any. Plus, it's not like TOS isn't familiar with brainlessness. __________________ You perceive wrongly. I feel unimaginable happiness wasting time talking with women. I'm that type of human.

January 13 2013, 02:44 AM	#710
Nerys Myk Admiral Location: House of Kang, now with ridges	Re: Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot? Oh, there was and is a lot of resistance. They know TNG better? I don't think so. Nothing on TNG has become as iconic as Kirk and Spock. __________________ Nerys Myk's Midnight In Never Land A novel of Dark Fantasy @ Amazon.com

January 13 2013, 02:48 AM	#711
YARN Fleet Captain	Re: Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot? Yeah, Trek did need a reboot. Abrams wasn't quite the reboot I hoped for - nothing is perfect - but it was better than the post-Nemesis "Search for Data" flick which we would have had instead.

January 13 2013, 02:54 AM	#712
Greg Cox Vice Admiral Location: Oxford, PA	Re: Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot? You know, "need" may be the wrong word here, since it almost seems to imply that a reboot was only justifiable if it was absolutely necessary. As opposed to simply seeing a reboot as a good idea that did the trick. Were there other options? Possibly. Is there anything wrong with rebooting STAR TREK? Not at all . . . Again, reboots are not the devil. Sometimes they can be very interesting variations on a theme. __________________ www.gregcox-author.com Last edited by Greg Cox; January 13 2013 at 03:16 AM.

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January 13 2013, 04:22 AM	#716
Admiral Buzzkill The Man Location: Defying Gravity	Re: Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot? The notion of a "real crew of the original Enterprise" is preposterous. __________________ I had steak and a loaded baked potato for dinner on Sunday. As a steak I enjoyed it a lot, but as macaroni and cheese I thought it was disappointing.

January 13 2013, 06:22 PM	#720
Jackson_Roykirk Commodore Location: Pennsylvania, USA	Re: Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot? ^ ^^ Yes. Quinto did a good job imitating Spock, although I wasn't that crazy overall with his performance. He was uncannily Spock-like, but I think overall Quinto was just "OK". Pine didn't "act like Shatner's Kirk", but I think he captured the essence what captain Kirk is supposed to be. People looking for an imitation of TOS Kirk may have been disappointed, but I wasn't. Urban did the best job of BOTH capturing the essence of the character AND imitating the character. __________________ ...With shoes that cut, and eyes that burn like cigarettes With fingernails that shine like justice and a voice that is dark like tinted glass...