New ST:XI trailer

[Gep Malakai]

Starship Polaris wrote:

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Hey, every dog has his day.

True. I guess you did have four seasons to be totally wrong about Enterprise.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Gep Malakai wrote:

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True. I guess you did have four seasons to be totally wrong about Enterprise. )

And enjoyed every one. Other people seemed to be unhappy, but that was their look-out.

[Anticitizen]

sturmde wrote:

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The moment where I saw the light is the brief frames... where Pine as Kirk raises his arm in exactly the same manner as Shatner as Kirk would... and says "Buckle up!"

That seals it for me. Pine *is* Kirk, for he has aptly demonstrated a move we often saw Shatner use for Kirk. And it's great to see Pine in the gold shirt, and with two thick bars with a thin-line bar between at the cuff.

You got all that from a main raising his arm? Will you read my palm?

[RyanKCR]

Ptrope wrote:

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I agree with a lot of that, davejames, except for Trek being about the friendship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy. True, the friendship was there - it was what made us care about the characters, for sure. But I've never believed that TOS, at least, was about those characters - it was about the adventures of the Starship Enterprise, what those characters did, not really who they were, less a very few exceptions. At the time Trek was made, anthologies were a big thing on TV, and that's really what Trek was - it was a science fiction anthology, just as The Outer Limits, but instead of a new cast of characters and a new setting every week, Roddenberry took the ability to go to other worlds as a way to seek out new stories and frame them in the experience of running characters. TOS saw no growth in its characters whatsoever - Spock was exactly the same at the end as at the beginning, if you ignore "The Cage", and so was Kirk and so was McCoy. Uhura was the same, and Sulu and Chekov and Scotty - we didn't see how over the course of three years, Scotty's alcoholism had affected his professional relationship with his captain, nor how the alcoholism had grown out of the traumatic death of a woman he loved. If Spock struggled with his human half, it was only for the needs of this week's story and not as a continuing character arc in which we saw him struggle week after week, gaining ground, losing it, slipping into madness and eventually, with the love and support and bromance of Jim Kirk, he managed to either heal himself and accept his duality, or he became a bitter shell who had to go back to Vulcan to have the humanity beaten out of him (they saved that for TMP, obviously ). Even the death of Edith Keeler only affected Kirk until the last credit rolled, and then he was back the next week, strong and resilient as he learned of his brother's death. Star Trek wasn't about who these people were, it was about what they did, but that didn't make the great stories any less great (nor the bad ones any worse, for that matter).

Many, many fans fell in love with those characters, those frankly two-dimensional characters, and the fans filled in the blanks and gave them personalities beyond the screen, and cooked up back stories to make them seem more human (somehow, especially Spock ). We romanticized the characters, and thus our memories of them, but each and every one of those stories can stand on its own, and the characters never changed. Maybe the expectations of the audience have changed over the years as more and more TV shows have become soap operas, even Star Trek, but even as Trek embraced character arcs, it still pushed most times to tell distinct stories about life, the universe and everything, and not simply the day-to-day lives, loves and heartbreaks of the characters. That seemed to become the thrust of the movies. And like most people, I love a movie that tells a good character story - Wall*E told a damn fine character story about a character who isn't even alive! - but to me, at least, what made Trek "Trek" was when it told of bigger things than the characters, who were really only there as surrogates for me and all the others watching. That was what made Trek different, but now it seems like people don't want it to be different. They want it to be like every other franchise, a character drama that happens to be set in space, instead of a sci-fi story that happens to have familiar characters in it. Worse, since ENT, it's been nothing but self-referential drivel, the sort of stuff we find in all of the "Making of Star Trek" books, all the stuff made up by fans, by the Okudas, by people trying to explain everything about the Trek universe and missing the point that you can't just talk about the universe, you have to explore it. I want to explore Star Trek again, not watch a documentary about it.

If I'm understanding you correctly then I think you might agree with me. "Character driven" stories are killing genre shows. TNG was more soap opera then Sci-Fi. ER is more soap opera then about medicine. It seems that today there is more focus on charecter development then what the genre it is written in is about. I've started to watch a few House episodes and it seems to be a perfect example of what a medical drama should be about. CSI works (the few I've seen) because the stories are driven by the "solving of the crime" via research, etc. Character and character developements are secondary and neat if they occur but are not required.
This is why I couldn't get into Stargate SG1, Enterprise, a lot of TNG, the new Battlestar Galactica....etc.

[I Grok Spock]

T'Bonz wrote:

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Understood. However, most don't lust after vehicles that are over 300 years old. That is what I'm having trouble buying, not that people like antique stuff or are obsessive over hobbies.

I just can't buy that part of the teaser. It really would be akin to guys from our time frame tooling around in curricles or phaetons or the like.

Well, uh, they do.

George A. "Frolic" Weymouth smiled as he looked over the sun-drenched, people-packed hills of Winterthur Museum & Country Estate on Sunday, recalling the start of Point-to-Point 30 years ago.

"I never imagined it would grow like this," said Weymouth, founder of Point-to-Point's popular Parade of Carriages. "It's great to see so many families and children enjoying the day. When we started, there were only a handful of carriages and maybe a hundred people."
After an early chill, the clouds lifted, and Sunday's attendance topped 20,000, with a record 40 carriages, more family activities than ever and more than 200 horses.

Granted they tend to be ridiculously rich and have nicknames like "Frolic" but they do. There are lots of horse people in southeast PA, and northern VA who like to go fox hunting and ride their carriages in their full-on Dickens garb (PDF).


Edit: Found some additional pix.

[The Mirrorball Man]

RyanKCR wrote:

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If I'm understanding you correctly then I think you might agree with me. "Character driven" stories are killing genre shows. TNG was more soap opera then Sci-Fi. ER is more soap opera then about medicine.

"Character driven" doesn't mean "soap opera", though. These days, soap operas are very plot-driven (and even event-driven) affairs, while there are many excellent character-driven shows that have nothing to do with the traditional trappings of soap operas.

[RyanKCR]

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

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"Character driven" doesn't mean "soap opera", though. These days, soap operas are very plot-driven (and even event-driven) affairs, while there are many excellent character-driven shows that have nothing to do with the traditional trappings of soap operas.

The point is that if you are doing a Sci-Fi story or a medical drama or whatever it should be driven by that not be character driven. It make it character reactive as that is the point.

Example what would you like to see or read:
1 a person lives their life and they just happen to have a severe heart defect. The person works, plays, has relationships, like everyone else and that is what you're driving at.

2. a person with a severe heart defect is trying to live as normal a life as possible. How does he do it? How does the defect affect how he works, plays and has relationships. How does he compensate? What does he sacrifice and what rewards in life does he get that someone else my not get?

[Ovation]

Character development makes for much more interesting stories than pure plot-driven ones where characters are merely props. While I may have initially been drawn to TOS episodes for the plot/ideas, I watched them again because I found the characters interesting. While little to no character developed during the show, the actors developed a sufficient level of chemistry to suggest greater depth to the characters.

My favourite films, plays, TV shows, novels and other forms of fiction are overwhelmingly character, rather than plot, driven.

[RyanKCR]

Ovation wrote:

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Character development makes for much more interesting stories than pure plot-driven ones where characters are merely props. While I may have initially been drawn to TOS episodes for the plot/ideas, I watched them again because I found the characters interesting. While little to no character developed during the show, the actors developed a sufficient level of chemistry to suggest greater depth to the characters.

My favourite films, plays, TV shows, novels and other forms of fiction are overwhelmingly character, rather than plot, driven.

But don't you get bored seeing the same dynamic played out over and over? That's the idea behind genre. It throws something new and unexpected into the mix and should affect that dynamic.

[JoeZhang]

I don't see how TNG was Soap opera or like ER - in ER we saw character progress and develop - can we really say that about TNG? the characters are pretty much unchanged by their adventures and life changing events are never mentioned again - comparing that to the trajectory of say Mark Green, who we saw divorce, fall in love again, struggle with being a father and then.. die.

TNG isn't really in the same league.

[Ovation]

RyanKCR wrote:

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But don't you get bored seeing the same dynamic played out over and over? That's the idea behind genre. It throws something new and unexpected into the mix and should affect that dynamic.

Not if it is well executed. Genre is window-dressing. Besides, one of the problems with TOS, to me, was that the dynamic WAS played out over and over precisely because there was so little character development. The actors were able to overcome this limitation, to some degree (and I came to TOS as a child--I'm not sure I'd find it as interesting if I came to it today).

If I don't care about the characters, my interest in a story wanes rather quickly. One can have both character development and interesting plot-driven elements to a story, just as one can focus almost exclusively on one or the other. In my experience, those that focus too much on plot are easily forgotten, even when interesting at the time whereas good character development stays with me for a long time.

[RyanKCR]

Ovation wrote:

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Not if it is well executed. Genre is window-dressing. Besides, one of the problems with TOS, to me, was that the dynamic WAS played out over and over precisely because there was so little character development. The actors were able to overcome this limitation, to some degree (and I came to TOS as a child--I'm not sure I'd find it as interesting if I came to it today).

If I don't care about the characters, my interest in a story wanes rather quickly. One can have both character development and interesting plot-driven elements to a story, just as one can focus almost exclusively on one or the other. In my experience, those that focus too much on plot are easily forgotten, even when interesting at the time whereas good character development stays with me for a long time.

I know what you are saying but I prefer that the genre element be behind the character development (as is the point as I see it) then character development for the sake of character development. Why have the genre element or "window dressing" as you put it, if it is not needed? See my question above.

[CaptainDonovin]

One of the complaints I heard about DS9 was it was like a soap. I never saw it that way but then again it is my favorite of the 5 series.

[MisterPL]

MisterPL wrote:

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I think this is exactly the kind of hook the FRANCHISE needs to replace all the fans bolting because Ford Mustangs are still as cool in the future as they were when they were first offered.

Hey, numb nuts. Check out the high-definition trailer. It's obviously a Corvette.

Dipshit.

[BolianAuthor]

Please tell me these are NOT what JJ is gonna pass off as Klingons...