It took me such a long time to watch nu-Trek

Finally, I have

I was gifted a box set DVD with Star Trek and Into Darkness on them. After deliberately avoiding the reboot for so long I finally gave in and watched the two films.
As a lifelong fan of TOS and characters like Kirk and Spock I had found it difficult to accept such radical reworkings of the franchise, talk of a new timeline was all the encouragement I needed not to watch the films when they came out, and in my opinion sadly I feel vindicated for not falling for the hype surrounding these reboots.
JJ Abrams for me, has destroyed Star Trek, the first film was painful to watch apart from Quinto who got good marks for his take on Spock.
The second film was much better, but the whole look of the film in Abrams Trek doesnt do it for me, its more Battlestar Galactica than Trek and I couldnt relate to it.
The actors and the characters were better portrayed in ID but my initial trepidation regarding nuTrek was valid.
I`m sorry to post in a negative way re these latest films, but I felt I had to give my opinions.
There are other nuances which need further discussion, like the English guy playing a Scotsman supposedly from Aberdeen but giving him a Glasgow accent, the incredibly young Checkov in his position of extreme importance both as a navigator and a Chief Engineer, the affair between Uhura and Spock etc, etc, etc.

Oh well.

 

I totally disagree that it's "more Battlestar Galactica than Trek" - IMO nuBSG is miserable as hell, whereas nuTrek is fun, light and exciting. Other than that, different strokes for different folks. I love the new movies.

 

I sympathize with you, Delta Vega (though I wouldn't go so far as to say the Abrams movies "destroyed Trek," I just think they're kind of a cul de sac and not part of the spirit of the franchise -- if movies with that pulp-heavy style and level of writing had been sold as Buck Rogers movies I would've been fine with them), but I daresay:

That my friend is a seriously micro-targeted nitpick. Hats off...

 

Ditto. I love the movies, and feel the characters are right at home in the Trek universe. Still, to each their own.

 

Sooooooo, that's a thumbs down then?

It's refreshing to see someone finally just tear into the Abrams films without holding back after five years of everyone being so reserved and shy about speaking out about them.

 

I'm not... I don't even...

The Star Wars comparison I can see a little bit, but I'm not sure how much farther apart Abrams Trek and BSG could get.

Unless you're talking about original BSG. Then maybe. Kinda. Sorta.

 

Don't feel bad at all. As far as I am concerned, NuTrek is a completely different franchise. I was totally willing to give it a try. In fact, first time through, I loved the first movie. It just does not hold up well for me, on repeat viewings, and gets a little more unwatchable, each additional time through. But at least I see it as a valiant attempt to take Trek into a new, fresh direction, and for the most part (even though they dumb the franchise down to do it), Abrams succeeded.

The unforgivable blasphemy is Into Darkness, as far as I am concerned. It couldn't have been more derivative of previous incarnations of Trek, or failed any worse to capture my interest. Other than FX, nothing redeems this film for me. I could barely sit through the first viewing all the way, and found myself fast forwarding through much of the movie, on the second viewing at home.

My fear is that Abrams will rape Star Wars even worse than he did Star Trek.

 

Although I shouldn't buy into this, I will.

I'm wondering which part of France Picard got his accent from? Or is TNG from an AU future where England annexed France.

Wesley crusher was an exteremely young navigator/helmsman, even younger than Chekov.

Geordi out of nowhere became an 'expert' engineer from one episode to the next.

Wasn't there a 'love' affair between Troi and Riker and Beverley and Picard, T'Pol and Trip?

 

If there's one truism about Star Trek, it's that not everyone likes all of it (many people may love one "this" but hate "that"). While there are definitely fans who do love every version of Trek, I think there are many more who don't--and that's really to be expected for any long-running franchise that has spinoffs, reboots, etc., IMO.

Personally, though, I've always felt that Star Trek movies ought to be different from Star Trek TV shows. The movies should be big-scale action-adventure flicks that do things that wouldn't or can't be done on TV. As such, I have a lot of fun with the current movies as Star Trek on steroids.

 

As opposed to TOS where we had :-

The Canadian playing the American Kirk
The Canadian playing the Brit(Scottish) Scotty
The American playing the Russian Chekov

And from TNG

The Brit playing the French Picard

But to address the point we don't know were in Scotland Scotty is from a line such as 'aberdeen ubcrawler' can mean anything. For example he could have been born and raised in Glasgow but spend a number of years in Aberdeen when he was old enough to drink. Born in Aberdeen but his parents moved to Glasgow when he was very young. An accent doesn't tell someone where you where born just where you were raised.

But back to the films, Karl Urban was very good at portraying McCoy.

But it's fine that you don't like the new films, not everyone has the same tastes. There are a few things I'm not overly keen on such as the brewery look of the Engine Room, but that's just me there'll be others that like that look.

In the end to each their own.

 

What I never understood was, when they knew that Patrick Stewart got the job and that he wasn't going to be using a French accent, why they didn't just make Picard a Brit? It was so stupid having him be a Frenchman, especially considering he almost never spoke the language in the entire series and that his passions and interests turned out being, primarily, those of a stereotypical British man, anyway. I mean, couldn't he have just been raised in England by a French father and English mother? They made France seem so corny ...

 

The original idea--according to the initial casting call--was that although Picard was born in France, he would actually speak with a "mid-Atlantic" accent and would only occasionally revert back into French when extremely frustrated or upset.

That did hold up during the early episodes of TNG, but as the series progressed, writers--either deliberately or subconsciously--changed the role to suit Patrick Stewart. It was too late to rename the character and change his nationality then.

In an age where global and even interplanetary travel is as commonplace as driving down to the local store, it's not surprising that some people may lose their original accent and pick up another one. That happens in real life today.

How so?

 

With all due respect, I was never a fan of TNG and I am even less interested in Picards accent, Crusher, La Forge or Troi.

There was never anything that nodded to a possible affair between Spock and Uhura in TOS so I feel its unnecessary in nuTrek.
T`Pol and Trip was cool for me.

 

I am a Glaswegian, for me it was always a laugh to hear the Canadian trying to play the Scotsman and sometimes sounding midway between Aberdeen / Linlithgow / Ireland or wherever, it was part of the charm of James Doohan.
But Simon Pegg bases his accent on an old Scottish relative from Glasgow, badly, and quite frankly its laughable.
I do realise I am nitpicking but hey ho.

 

Of course it is entierly possible that the 23rd Century Glasgow accent sounds different than the 21st Century one.

 

I heard it was based on the accent used by his Glaswegian wife's family.

 

They flirted in early TOS episodes. If that's not much of a stretch that in another life, they went further.

 

So, Scotty was born on the USS Scotland? I suppose that's an Iowa class starship.

 

I don't care for the new films, either, but "destroyed Star Trek?" If we can survive TFF, Insurrection, and VOY, and I think we can survive this.

Funny, I find Quinto terrible as Spock. I wish they'd cast Benedict Cumberbatch in the role someone who may look nothing like Nimoy but could at least bring a little of the mystery and wonder of Spock back, with just a little darkness. Quinto plays Spock as a passive-aggressive human.

The only thing that bothered me about Simon Pegg is that he seems to be playing not Scotty from Star Trek but the over-the-top parody of Scotty featured in every Star Trek parody ever made.