Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot?

[Greg Cox]

Jackson_Roykirk wrote:

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

Agreed. Urban was uncanny.

I thought Pegg's Scotty was the biggest departure from the original, but was entertaining on its own terms.

[Nerys Myk]

Well using an actual Scots accent will do that.

[Shazam!]

Jackson_Roykirk wrote:

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I wasn't that crazy overall with his performance.

He played a decent enough Vulcan but yeah, his performance (and look) fell way short of Nimoy, both superficially and in essence.

If they had waited a few years they could have had Benedict Cumberbatch : (

[YARN]

Shazam! wrote:

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He played a decent enough Vulcan but yeah, his performance (and look) fell way short of Nimoy, both superficially and in essence.

If they had waited a few years they could have had Benedict Cumberbatch : (

In fairness, he has been written less Spock-like too. The guy looks the part and sounds OK too. It's what he says and does that is a little off, and that's writing.

[Nerys Myk]

YARN wrote:

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In fairness, he has been written less Spock-like too. The guy looks the part and sounds OK too. It's what he says and does that is a little off, and that's writing.

Spock as written in ST09 seems consistent with what was seen in TOS. ST09 touches on many of the themes that were explored by Spock's character in TOS. If you think Spock is a cold, emotionless automaton ruled by logic, then you don't know Spock.

[Franklin]

Greg Cox wrote:

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Agreed. Urban was uncanny.

I thought Pegg's Scotty was the biggest departure from the original, but was entertaining on its own terms.

Urban admitted that his McCoy was more a tribute to how Kelley played McCoy than his own interpretation of the character. So, he essentially deliberately gave himself the least wiggle room in recreating the character.

Pegg's Scotty was the freshest interpretation of the character of all of them, so it probably will take the longest to get used to. I bet we become more and more comfortable with him as Scotty in the new movie.

Just my two cents, but of all of them, I think Pine had the hardest job and nailed it best. If he haden't been an utterly convincing Kirk, it would've dragged the rest of the movie down.

[YARN]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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If you think Spock is a cold, emotionless automaton ruled by logic, then you don't know Spock.

Didn't say that he was emotionless.

[Nerys Myk]

YARN wrote:

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Didn't say that he was emotionless.

So he's a cold automaton ruled by logic then?

I find that many people have a limited perception of Spock, often focusing on the "logic" thing, while missing the complexity of the character.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I thought that Quinto in fact captured the "essence" of the character while not doing so much of an imitation, whereas Urban's was somewhat more limited to mimicry. His "Good God, man," was almost Ackroydian.

[Nerys Myk]

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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I thought that Quinto in fact captured the "essence" of the character while not doing so much of an imitation, whereas Urban's was somewhat more limited to mimicry. His "Good God, man," was almost Ackroydian.

[BillJ]

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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I thought that Quinto in fact captured the "essence" of the character while not doing so much of an imitation, whereas Urban's was somewhat more limited to mimicry. His "Good God, man," was almost Ackroydian.

The only thing that threw me about Quinto's Spock was the softer voice. Other than that, he nailed the character.

[Jackson_Roykirk]

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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I thought that Quinto in fact captured the "essence" of the character while not doing so much of an imitation, whereas Urban's was somewhat more limited to mimicry. His "Good God, man," was almost Ackroydian.

My wife had an uncle who could play some really good polka music on his Ackroydian.

[CorporalClegg]

This thread is so full of fail that I'm literally slamming my face on my desk. Yes, my nose does hurt, and an eye isn't doing too well either.

Absolutely, Star Trek needed a reboot. The forest was dead; it was time to burn it down and start anew. Any attempt to revitalize it in any other way would have been fruitless and futile. Saplings cannot grow in the infertile soil.

The problem is some seem to cling to the idea that it's their forest like little Gollums frolicking about the bush with their preciouses--their copies of "The Man Trap" on Betamax. (Though I hear laserDisc is also accepted in some circles.) Anything that intrudes on their turf is pelted with pebbles of rancor that have little or no weight. They're just really fucking annoying.

The most common stones are pulled from the quarry and labeled with words like "silly," "plot holes," "unintelligent" "not the real characters," et cetera.

Time to pick up the rocks and throw 'em back.

Silly: This ingenious igneous is probably my favorite. This little guy, which is often tossed about the room by the high-brow pundits who think they're careful, thinks it is primed for window piercing. But it usually just shatters mirrors. As it rolls aimlessly over the shards, we realize it really only as smart as the box it came from.

Here's the thing: Star Trek is silly! Remember that one time at band camp when the guy in the yellow pajamas was jumping around Styrofoam rocks in the desert judo-chopping the guy in the green rubber-suit?

Then there was that other time the guy in the gray pajamas started ranting about gazelles. But it's best to just forget about that one.

The silliness is what makes Star Trek so awesome. It's why people adore it. Complaining about it is only going to result in a full dose of facepalm.

Plot holes: This dunite of dunces is also a favorite of those in glass houses who selectively forget they live in one.

Star Trek movies have plot holes. All of them. Name a Trek film, and I'll name ten plot holes. Yet some like to selectively ignore the ones running rampant in the films they like and relentlessly attack the ones in the films they don't.

Unintelligent: This pumice of peugh wreaks. It is the defecation of the smug who think that if the pile gets big enough, the rest of us will get sick of the stench and come over to their side. Usually, though, it just stinks up the room and we all leave.

It's the argument that gets cited the most often, and most of us are sick of hearing it.

It's one thing to advocate for a smart Trek film. I do so myself quite often. But I realize both the current artistic environment and economic climate of the industry allow little room for such a film. And I know shitting on those that aren't the brightest bulbs would be utterly pointless because they're are so many of them. I'd have to squeeze out every last kernel only to end up constipated.

Let's face it, Star Trek films aren't exactly Shakespeare. Hell, half of them struggle to be Dr. Seuss. In fact, of the eleven films, only one dared give us a glimpse of its cerebellum, and it was censured for it.

And here, too, some selective memory surfaces. Let's take the holy trinity of Trek films for example:

TWOK: One giant contrivance.
TUC: Also one giant contrivance.
FC: Stricken by Sharks with Freakin' Lasers Syndrome.

When you get right down to it, all three are about as dumb as a box of ... well, you get the idea. And really I don't care because my compassion for something is not limited to my estimate of its intelligence. Instead, I grab my diet coke and popcorn and enjoy the show.

Granted, I do ridicule TWOK relentlessly, but that's only because it drives me bonkers that it seems to get a free pass. Most Trek fans act like it's some great work of intellectual cinema when it's really stupid as shit. But I still love it. I've seen it more than any other Trek film, and that'll probably never change because it's just so much damn fun.

But I think of ST09 as exactly the same in that regard. It too is stupid as shit. And it too is a lot of damn fun. But carrying doggy bags when in comes to TWOK and leaving a mess when with ST09 is hypocritical. And I'm sick of it.

Not the real characters™: The big fat boulder is a non-starter. It's too big for anyone to actually push anywhere. So it just sits there until gravity takes over and rolls down the hill the wrong way.

Characters, in a tangible sense, are nothing more than a few squiggles on paper. This is true for both literary and dramatic characters. Sometimes those boundaries overlap (hence my previous Hamlet example), but that doesn't change how they're perceived whether it be readers, actors, or an audience.

With literary characters, it's readers who interpret and develop the characters in their minds' eyes. However, we would never suggest one's interpretation or vision of a character is more "true" or "accurate" or "real" than another's.

It's the exact same for actors interpretation and vision for dramatic characters. I don't understand why this is such a hard concept to grasp.

[BeatleJWOL]

CorporalClegg wrote:

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Time to pick up the rocks and throw 'em back.

Oh, this thread is about to get fun.

"Man, Star Trek is pretty awful, isn't it; but it's still fun, I guess, so y'all just need to relax."

[CorporalClegg]

BeatleJWOL wrote:

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"Man, Star Trek is pretty awful, isn't it; but it's still fun, I guess, so y'all just need to relax."

You'll have to excuse me, but can you indicate where I said that?