Levar Burton aka Geordi La Forge criticizes Star Trek 2009

[Nerys Myk]

And their last name is O'Ryan.

[JarodRussell]

DalekJim wrote:

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It's treating the audience like they're stupid. Which the target audience is, but I'd like Trek to aim higher.

I like this "I am smarter than anyone else in the theater" shit. It's funny.

[Sindatur]

Captain McBain wrote:

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Personally, I wouldn't be happy if I truly believed Abrams' movie literally caused Star Trek's 'classic' timeline to vanish. Yes, as some of you have pointed out, it is fiction, but still, it would annoy me. However, I'm pretty sure that the timeline is simply an alternate reality, such as the various alternate realities/universes seen in the TNG episode, "Parallels."

I think we'd all be pissed, those DVD sets were expensive and there's 28 Season Box Sets + The animated Box Set, and 10 Movies, that's a hell of a lot of money to have simply Vanish off your shelf, even at only $50 a Season, that's still over $1500 when you add in the Movies

[Franklin]

Sindatur wrote:

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I think we'd all be pissed, those DVD sets were expensive and there's 28 Season Box Sets + The animated Box Set, and 10 Movies, that's a hell of a lot of money to have simply Vanish off your shelf, even at only $50 a Season, that's still over $1500 when you add in the Movies

Easily more than $1500 for those of us who bought VHS first, then switched over to DVD's. And all the rentals! (Although I guess in a way, the VHS's have vanished.)

[Sindatur]

Franklin wrote:

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Easily more than $1500 for those of us who bought VHS first, then switched over to DVD's. And all the rentals! (Although I guess in a way, the VHS's have vanished.)

Oh certainly, the VHSes were $20 for 2 episodes. I wasn't talking total investment though, just speaking about a full set of all episodes on DVD that many of us currently have in our collection, without consideration for Double dips (Though I suppose some people do still have their older copies of VHS alongside their DVDs and possibly the DVDs of TNG even though they double dipped with the BluRays)

[mos6507]

yousirname wrote:

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...incredibly intrusive scoring.

To me, TOS' music was probably the single biggest factor that sets it above the TNG-era shows.

I mean, with a few exceptions, TNG's music was the worst. During a phaser battle it sounded like elevator muzak. It fought against any potential drama, tension, or excitement.

[DalekJim]

TNG music was generally fine. Not especially memorable but the music is supposed to support the visuals so that is a good thing.

Plenty of times in TOS the music turns an otherwise alright scene in to a cheese fest.

[Opus]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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And their last name is O'Ryan.

Cyan

[mos6507]

DalekJim wrote:

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Though I'm sure some nice chap will be along shortly to say Orci and Kurtzman are better because Transformers 2 and Star Trek 2009 made more money.

The arguments do get repetitive. People who like JJ Trek are operating on a wholly different wavelength, so there's no way to bridge the gap, I'm afraid.

[yousirname]

Music isn't terribly important to me - I honestly couldn't hum a score from TNG or DS9. If I notice music enough to remember it at all, it's usually because it's incredibly bad or overly intrusive. I wouldn't say the TOS music is bad, but it's certainly crazy intrusive. Like there'll be some banter between McCoy and Spock and these woodwind things will come blaring on like BUM-BA-BA-BUM-BA-BUM-BA-BUMMMM just in case a deaf guy two towns over hasn't realised the scene's being played for laughs.

I assume it was standard at the time, but it really hasn't aged well.

[mos6507]

DalekJim wrote:

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Plenty of times in TOS the music turns an otherwise alright scene in to a cheese fest.

Well, cheese is subjective. What I like about TOS is the sort of innocent way that they presented those stories. It had bright colors, highly theatrical performances with a wide dynamic range between high and low, and it was delivered straight with no winking or nudging. Of course, this set it up for parody almost instantly, which is why you got Belushi nailing Shatner even in the mid 70s. But within the continuity of the TOS world, how it's presented, how it's acted, and how it's scored is just what defines the original Trek universe. And it was never quite like that ever again, even when those actors were reassembled for TMP onward.

When you get to TNG, it's very stoic, very bland, and largely dull. Over time I learned to appreciate it, if nothing else, due to its sheer volume of storytelling, but it is a monotonic sort of thing compared to TOS.

[mos6507]

BillJ wrote:

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Hell, I watched Obsession today and they left an impulse vent open because they didn't think it was important when battling a fog creature.

The point is that highlighting the flaws in prior Trek is not the best way to defend the flaws in current Trek. Flaws are flaws wherever they are. I just expressed my distaste for the wimpy music in TNG shows, and you know, I am not the only one who feels that way. Some of the creative people behind the show disagreed with Rick Berman's edict that the music be almost nonexistent. So to say that those who don't like JJ Trek look at older Trek through rose-colored-glasses is a red herring.

[BillJ]

mos6507 wrote:

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So to say that those who don't like JJ Trek look at older Trek through rose-colored-glasses is a red herring.

The point is some people are holding the 2009 film to a standard that was rarely (and I mean rarely) achieved by prior incarnations of Trek.

[The Wormhole]

In all honesty, I agree that TOS does have the best music out of all the Trek TV series, most especially The Doomsday Machine theme. But of course, the Fight Music has become an inconic part of pop culture. The music in the other Treks is pretty bland. Pretty decent opening tunes, terrible episodic music. Hell, the TNG episode with the most memorable music is The Best of Both Worlds, and that was the result of Ron Jones knowing he was leaving and not having to worry about consequences for disobeying Berman's music edict.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

mos6507 wrote:

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The point is that highlighting the flaws in prior Trek is not the best way to defend the flaws in current Trek.

Wrong. It's an apt and effective way of emphasizing that most of the fannish critics of Abrams's Trek movies maintain intellectually dishonest double standards in their attempts to make their complaints work.