5 Things Star Trek Fans Must Admit About The Film Franchise
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Since most people use these incorrectly, here's a handy site for a few logical fallacies.
It's not a fallacy if it refutes the erroneous notion that fans of nuTrek aren't also fans of Prime Trek.
The fallacy comes from appealing to the opinion of a majority to validate one's own opinion as fact. And, since no quantitative evidence was ever offered in support of the statement that "the vast majority of TOS fans love both", I'm not sure that the post I referred to can be said to have "refuted" anything.
Even though Cracked is a clickbait site, unfortunately there are two things present in that article that I see in almost all Star Trek related discussions: "If you like the Reboot you dislike TOS" and "Trekkies come first when making Star Trek".
This is why I always lurked Trekbbs since there's a bunch of more reasonable people here. What I don't really understand is the necessity of some fans to keep rolling with that type of condescending behavior.
What is added to the discussion when everything these people do is to boast how they feel intellectually superior just because they like TOS ?
This is why I always lurked Trekbbs since there's a bunch of more reasonable people here. What I don't really understand is the necessity of some fans to keep rolling with that type of condescending behavior.
What is added to the discussion when everything these people do is to boast how they feel intellectually superior just because they like TOS ?
And neither are true.
Not a thing. It adds nothing of value.
Let's talk about the movies instead.
I don't see anyone thinking they're intellectually superior.
Well, Tom R., the writer of that article comes off as one who is 'intellectually superior' because he feels that Berman-Trek, particularly TNG, is the end-all/be-all of the franchise.
There are different types of fans even though many don't want to belive it.
Too, I've came across 'fans' who felt that TOS, before the reboots, was thought of as outdated...or not needed (e.g. when Enterprise was on the air, one 'fan' on Star Trek.com claimed that Enterprise didn't need TOS...yet, how would ENT exist without TOS?)
Of course, there were cracks about the female uniforms, cracks about the effects and how the entire show was cheesy. Yet, here we are and the reboot is featuring a reboot of TOS.
Indeed, there are different types of 'fans.' And this includes different races, genders, and sexual orientations. Unfortunately, not all fans realize this.
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The person in the article did. I can't bring you data from all other Star Trek discussion boards to tell exactly how many other people emulate this behavior, because that would be silly.
But we could analyze the stuff he said. He basically described the Reboot franchise as:
- A "garbage rainbow"
- Created by "Star Wars fans" which threw "out all the heady plot stuff" and replaced "it with lots of running and space explosions"
-A "9/11 truther allegory"
-Full of "generic action and hollow throwback references
-A "Guardians Of The Galaxy/Furious 7 crossover fanfiction"
Meanwhile he described real Star Trek like this:
-"known for its sci-fi innovation and optimistic space adventures."
-"very much for adults"
-"heady science fiction"
-With "unique sci-fi elements and world-building"
Also, apparently fans of the Reboot are "four-quadrant action fans" and part of an audience in which "see it one time and then leave happy enough to see a sequel, never noticing that they just watched a re-dressed Fast & Furious film with worse physics"...
Honestly, if that's not a TOS/TNG/whatever fan patronizing people that liked the Reboots... Well.
Yes. I mean, I love stuff like The Inner Light. But why would I go out there telling people I'm smarter because I like that kind of Trek ?
Some people do everything in their power to scrutinize not criticize the Reboots. The way they put it, like this guy from the article, the Reboots are just a bunch of 2 hour long movies shot with mobile phone cameras in cardboard sets. They ignore completely all the people that worked on it. Some times I see people saying horrible things even about Michael Giacchino. I mean, really ?
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As soon as you see anyone use the phrase "real Star Trek," the best thing you can do is to stop reading. That person has an agenda they want to sell.
Okay, in case my earlier hint wasn't clear, we talk about the movies here, not the fans. If a "Fan Group A vs. Fan Group B" discussion is what you're looking for, this isn't the place for it. Discussions of that sort never seem to end well, for some reason, so we don't do that.
The person in the article did. I can't bring you data from all other Star Trek discussion boards to tell exactly how many other people emulate this behavior, because that would be silly.
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Also, apparently fans of the Reboot are "four-quadrant action fans" and part of an audience in which "see it one time and then leave happy enough to see a sequel, never noticing that they just watched a re-dressed Fast & Furious film with worse physics"...
Honestly, if that's not a TOS/TNG/whatever fan patronizing people that liked the Reboots... Well.
Yes. I mean, I love stuff like The Inner Light. But why would I go out there telling people I'm smarter because I like that kind of Trek ?
Some people do everything in their power to scrutinize not criticize the Reboots. The way they put it, like this guy from the article, the Reboots are just a bunch of 2 hour long movies shot with mobile phone cameras in cardboard sets. They ignore completely all the people that worked on it. Some times I see people saying horrible things even about Michael Giacchino. I mean, really ?
The article, such as it is, is concerned with what the author thinks Star Trek fans "must admit about the film franchise".
Let's stick to that topic, shall we?
Berman put a bunch of grumpy people on a space station and called it "Star Trek" and it was good. What's Trek and what isn't, is a debate that ended with DS9's premier, for me anyway.
The JJ stuff is Trek too. I don't like it and I agree many of the criticisms made in the OP article. But it is Trek, for better or for worse. It's part of the Star Trek village so to speak.
The JJ stuff is Trek too. I don't like it and I agree many of the criticisms made in the OP article. But it is Trek, for better or for worse. It's part of the Star Trek village so to speak.
Wow. I'm not native anglophone so maybe the stuff I said sounded a bit too harsh and I didn't expressed myself well. Sorry.
I don't want a discussion about about "Fan Group A vs Fan Group B". If I wanted that I would say "all TOS fans are this" or "all TNG fans are that". I never generalized.
Since folks were talking about fallacies and such, I pointed out how the author of the article uses condescending arguments to prove his point. Nobody is exempt from doing this, so I wasn't making reference to Trekkies only. It just happened to fit some cases where people ridicule too much what they dislike, in this case Star Trek Series/Movie X, and forget to explain better what they are trying to say.
For example: What the hell does the author even mean with "9/11 truther" ? We can only speculate. That's because he spent all his time praising what he likes instead of expanding his own arguments.
Sorry again, flamewar wasn't in my mind.
For what it's worth, I sincerely regret posting it in the first place. I don't know what I was thinking. Well, I found some humor in it, agreed with some of it (albeit in a much less dramatic way), and didn't really give it too much thought. But now I certainly see why people took offense or simply dismiss it. And obviously "fans must admit" part sort of makes it impossible to avoid the discussion of fans. So I take the blame for all of it. Very sorry guys! As Steve Harvey would say, "...still a great night!"
I disagree with him on this, for the same reason I disagree with you. It's a style of storytelling that is unique to TOS and absent from the rest of the franchise. Mainly this is because 1960s television tropes depended a lot more on traditional theatrical elements than their 1980s/90s counterparts. That is, TOS was produced like a filmed stage play; TNG was produced like a telenovel.
I appreciate the theatrical elements from TOS, especially the limited and focussed style of exposition. That is, a character is defined more by his actions and his emotions than by his words.
"Conscience of the King" is one of the best examples of this, possibly deliberately. Kodos' back story is ultimately a simple one, and even the plot of the episode is pretty linear and not overly complex. But as with Marcus, the story isn't really about who Kodos is on the inside. It's about what he represents to Kirk and Riley, and what he represents the audience.
I dare say, if there's anything wrong with Admiral Marcus' characterization, it probably has more to do with Peter Weller's acting.
Not all movies. Just ACTION movies. Film dramas and novel adaptations tell detailed and intricate stories and depend a lot on subtlety to get their point across.
Science fiction doesn't usually have room for subtlety, especially in film. In sci-fi action films, it's enough to know that the protagonist is "the good guy" and that his motivations are positive, or at least, noticeably more positive than negative. In fact, the only time you can really get the full effect is in scifi/horror, where the believability and emotional relatability of the protagonist are important for tension building (you have to care about the protagonists to be engaged in the story).
But that doesn't really apply to the villains: Ellen Ripley needs to be a compelling, interesting character; the Alien, not so much.
You could do a scifi/horror Star Trek movie too, but that would also be a pretty risky proposition IMO.
Have you watched the original Star Trek? In the two attempted rape scenes, there is nothing about them that are light-hearted or non-threatening.
True, but I thought the same thing when Atreyou almost got eaten by a wolf in "The Neverending Story."
Also, there are those among us who still remember reading Grim's fairytale as children and then grew up, read them to our own children only to think "Damn this is dark! What the fuck am I reading??"
Nightmare fuel is good for you. People are naturally a little overprotective of kids. It's ok for kids to be made uncomfortable, otherwise they're going to think that being outside their comfort zone is wrong even as adults, and adults are outside their comfort zone 99% of the time when accomplishing anything important by my experience.
That's certainly a hostile and condescending tone toward the filmmakers but not necessarily to the fans.
It's his opinion and I agree that the original movies and even TV series were much more focused on plot and themes than action while the reboot films have less and simpler plot and more focus on action (and one argument for having a reboot rather than continuation was that the old timeline had become too plot-dense/complex).
The Truther comment was especially hostile but the ID social allegory did feel pretty bland/safe to me though a lot of people felt it was very daring relevance.
I don't know about uniqueness and novelty but to me the series did often feel (with both one-off and recurring aliens) like a bigger, more complex place and highly benefited from that. The writer also argues/admits that the old franchise was perceived as a little dated/high-brow/for adults and that that was associated with it getting limited financial returns and feels (as do a lot of the fans of the reboot) that the new films attempt to appeal to wider audiences, it's just a matter of disagreeing about if that's a good thing.
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