Do you want ongoing novels on the Kelvin Universe

[Dayton Ward]

We're not currently allowed to reference anything that originates from any of the JJ movies.

Make of that what you will.

 

[The Wormhole]

^ Much apologizings, but is something happening in 2021? What's so special about that date?

That just in reference to an earlier post I made in which through my own personal extrapolations I determined that Pocket can easily stretch the 24th century continuity out that far without addressing the destruction of Romulus.

Currently set early in the year 2386, novel continuity can easily stretch itself out to 2019 before hitting 2387, and even then there's wiggle room, we don't know, we don't know what part of 2387 the destruction of Romulus takes place in, if we assume it's towards the end of the year, they can easily go an extra year or so before addressing the issue, which hopefully means by 2021 Pocket could be allowed to handle material from the Abrams movies,

 

[Idran]

And let's not forget the two Saaviks. And, yes, the fact that Kirk recognized Saavik even though she was now played by a different actress doesn't mean that we should question whether the Genesis Planet really blew up.

Bah, I knew there was a more obvious one that I wasn't thinking of.

There's a thought. Has there ever been a case where an actor playing oneself was then replaced by a different actor playing them? The closest thing I can think of is something where an actor played a pastiche or fictionalized version of themselves that was later recast, like the Scooby-Doo character Vincent Van Ghoul, based on and originally played by Vincent Price, and later reprised by Maurice LaMarche. But someone actually playing themselves and then someone else replacing them in the role of themselves... that'd be pretty wild.

It's sort of in the same general ball park, but I know that Ernie Hudson auditioned for Winston in The Real Ghostbusters but they thought Arsenio Hall was better for the role.

And in case anyone's wondering, I'm not trying to handwave this because I hate ST09, because I don't. I like that film very much. Normally I would have no problem with the storyline of Romulus' destruction - if it weren't for the Stupid Fucking Lawyers (tm)' prohibition on mentioning any of this in the novelverse, it wouldn't really even be a problem.

Again, Laser Beam, the lawyers didn't come up with the restriction, the company leadership did. The lawyers just figure out how to take what the company wants and put it into text form. Blaming lawyers for this is like blaming your waiter when your food isn't cooked right.

 

[Christopher]

It's sort of in the same general ball park, but I know that Ernie Hudson auditioned for Winston in The Real Ghostbusters but they thought Arsenio Hall was better for the role.

That would only count if the character in question had actually been Ernie Hudson, not Winston Zeddemore. (And really, I can understand the casting change. Voice acting is a specialized discipline, and not every on-camera actor is good at it. Hudson did the voice of Cyborg on the Super Powers Team seasons of Super Friends a couple of years before this, and he wasn't nearly as good at the voice work as he was with on-camera acting -- although he's gotten better since. So I can't blame them for deciding Hall was better. And Hall was really good in the role.)

 

[WebLurker]

Sure, but it certainly drew far, far more heavily on the comics than it did on the '87 cartoon. That's my point -- that the '87 cartoon hasn't been the exclusive touchstone for everything since. Later adaptations have both drawn on other sources and introduced their own innovations. If anything, it's followed the usual pattern -- first, we get adaptations that try to distance themselves from the iconic series as much as possible and leave their own mark, and then, years later, we get adaptations that are informed by nostalgia for the iconic version and draw more on its elements. So we're getting a lot more '87 elements revived in recent TMNT adaptations than we did in the previous decade or two.

I think I follow you.

Although the original movie series was a bit schizoid about it. The first movie consciously contrasted itself with the cartoon, going for a darker and more comics-faithful tone, while still drawing on some elements like April's reporter gig. But the second movie went for a lighter, goofier tone more like the cartoon, toned down the violence, and introduced Tokka and Rahzar as a sort of surrogate Bebop and Rocksteady. The third movie was somewhere in between. So there's a blend of trying to be more like the comics and trying to be more like the show.

I only saw the the first movie and half of the second one, so I never picked up on that.

In tone, yes, they were pushed in a more juvenile direction, but that's just an aspect of kids' TV in general. They didn't draw on actual characters or ideas created for the '87 series.

Fair enough.

The latter doesn't work, though, because the '87 Krang was consistently portrayed as a formerly humanoid alien who'd had his body disintegrated as punishment for his crimes, and who was constantly pining about the loss of his body and his desire for a replacement. So he can't have been an Utrom, which are brainlike aliens to begin with.

Well, yes and no. In the original pilots, Krang was said to be a disembodied brain (which never made that much sense to me, given that the brain had eyes, mouth, vocal cords, digestive track, tentacles, etc.). Krang did clone himself in "Invasion of the Krangazoids" and the clones did grow to have non-Utrom bodies (so why not just clone a new body instead of using that robot suit?). However, in "Four Musketurtles," we're shown that Krang's species are indeed brain-like aliens. So, it wasn't consistently used.

Also, the '80s cartoon tended to have loose continuity with occasional mistakes, like that. So, in essence, the '12 show was essentially taking one of '80s Krang's two backstories and using it for their own story (maybe he lied about once being humaniod to get a replacement robot body from Shredder?). We're also supposed to see the show as the same character from the old cartoon. Finally, I recall from other discussions with you on when it's okay or not to ignore previously established material in a series, with you arguing that the authors should have the authority to make changes for new materials. In your opinion, would this instance be one of those acceptable breaks from the original intent?

I just don't put as much weight on tone as you do. Yes, as I said, this adaptation calls back the first cartoon more than its predecessor did (even using a very similar theme song), but there's so much more to it than that. I'm not interested in reductionistic attempts to reduce something multifaceted to a single sound bite. Yes, the '87 show is part of the mix, but it's wrong to single it out as the only influence worth mentioning.

Like that comment. I think I may have gotten too caught up in the details of my analogy. My wish is that there are future Star Trek projects that return to the setting of the prime universe or create new version that are more in line with that then the more action orientated movies we're getting now.

However, given the wide popularity of the new movies, I could seem them becoming the prototype of what Star Trek is supposed to be. TMNT was just the first franchise I thought of where a very different adaptation of the source material has become extremely influential of the future of its franchise, to the extent that the actual source material seems to be marginalized.

Honestly, a lot of Trek episodes' themes are more perfunctory than we like to admit. Certainly a lot of the earlier movies' are as well.

Like the conservation moral in the whales movie?

Maybe because TMNT has been rebooted many times, while Trek fans have never had an unambiguous reboot before (although Roddenberry intended TNG to be a soft reboot before his successors brought it more back into line with TOS canon). So Trek fans aren't as used to coping with the new and different -- ironically, since that's exactly what Trek characters do for a living.

A large part of it is probably what I said before, that ST just doesn't work as well in movies as on TV. TMNT '12 has the advantage of being a TV series, one that takes full advantage of modern TV storytelling devices like serialization to tell a deeper and richer story. Movies, as a storytelling medium, are intrinsically handicapped by their brevity and narrowness of focus in comparison to modern TV arcs -- which may be why movies are starting to evolve toward "cinematic universes" that allow TV-style serialization. And, yes, they're under a lot of pressure to emphasize spectacle and action, which narrows their target audience somewhat. The TMNT movies have the same problem -- though far worse, since they're produced by Michael Bay.

Fair points.

Thought you didn't see the new TMNT movies, though? I have seen both the 2014 movie and Out of the Shadows. While I won't argue that they're the best movies ever made, I think they maintain a decent level of entertainment value and generally capture the characters well. Out of the Shadows even bothers to examine the Turtles emotional states in regards to their lives as outsiders.

(Frankly I think Paramount is missing out by not developing a Star Trek cinematic universe. It seems like a natural, given that ST has already been a successful multi-series franchise on TV.)

Wasn't Star Trek already a cinematic universe, even before Marvel popularized the idea? All the movies and TV shows fit into the same continuity (albeit in different branches of the multiverse), which is how the big cinematic universes are working today (MCU, film and TV; Star Wars, film, TV, books, and comics, etc.) Even the reboot series is kind of doing it, with the non-canon tie-in media designed to be a semi-consistent companion series that could fill in the gaps of the movies, as fans wish to use it.

Uglier than that? Wow, that I'd hate to see.

Yeah, I sometimes get the feeling that the Star Wars fanbase is defined by hate, wether it be for George Lucas making the Special Editions and/or prequels, for the decision to reboot the tie-ins (some fans were really into the complex world and book-only characters that had been developed over the years), for Jar Jar Binks, etc.

I don' blame people for not being happy by franchise changes (I have my own examples) or even making their wishes known to the Powers That Be, but when groups of fans start regularly spamming official social media sights and making an effort to spoil a new movie for other fans and moviegoers because they want the franchise directors to re-start a line of books that was ended, at that point I think the line's been crossed big time (not to mention that they've missed the entire point of those books in the first place.)

I do have a lot of problems with the final act of STID, but I don't hold them against the whole series. There's good stuff and bad stuff in the Abrams movies, and there are parts I wish had been done entirely differently, but the parts that do work are satisfying enough that I can forgive the rest.

I do like a lot of the casting decisions (even if I find most of the characterizations really questionable), the music is really good, and I won't deny that the movies have entertainment value. But I don't really feel like the movies capture the feel of Star Trek (they feel closer to Star Wars, and while I love Star Wars, too, I went to the Abramsverse movies because I wanted to watch Star Trek). I'm also not sure if they have anything new to say about the characters, which is one of the better reasons a remake is made.

For example, take the recent string of live action remakes that Disney has been producing based on some of their classic animated features; Maleficent, Cinderella, and The Jungle Book so far. Of those three, I think Cinderella was the only one that failed. This isn't because it's a bad movie itself (it's not) or because it's use of the Disney version elements were tacked on rather than organic to the story (a disappointment, but not a deal breaker). The reason I don't think it worked is because it didn't offer enough new material to give someone a reason to watch this over the original. The other two found way to make the old stories fresh, by either re-examining them from a completely different perspective or by incorporating new ideas in with the old in a novel way. In both cases, it created a new experience that we couldn't get from the originals.

So, I don't really feel that the Trek reboot has done that, yet. Most of the character stuff feels like stuff we've already seen in the old movies and TV shows. I don't really see anything yet that would make an argument that one should watch them rather than watching one of the old movies.

Maybe it's just that Lawrence Kasdan is that good a screenwriter.

I suppose it's also possible that the actors bounced off each other better. My bias. Who knows?

 

[Christopher]

Well, yes and no. In the original pilots, Krang was said to be a disembodied brain (which never made that much sense to me, given that the brain had eyes, mouth, vocal cords, digestive track, tentacles, etc.). Krang did clone himself in "Invasion of the Krangazoids" and the clones did grow to have non-Utrom bodies (so why not just clone a new body instead of using that robot suit?). However, in "Four Musketurtles," we're shown that Krang's species are indeed brain-like aliens. So, it wasn't consistently used.

Okay, whatever. I don't remember the original series all that well. (I feel its best episode was its very first one, and every continuation beyond that -- the rest of the opening 5-part miniseries, the subsequent network season, the subsequent strip-syndicated season, etc. -- got progressively weaker and dumber. I think it tried to reverse that trend in the final season, but I'd lost interest by that point.

Finally, I recall from other discussions with you on when it's okay or not to ignore previously established material in a series, with you arguing that the authors should have the authority to make changes for new materials. In your opinion, would this instance be one of those acceptable breaks from the original intent?

Well, if a different series is pretending to continue an earlier series, it can retcon things as needed for the story it has to tell. It can just be seen as an alternate version resembling but distinct from the original. I don't really take the whole "The old cartoon was an alternate universe" conceit literally, especially since both Turtles Forever and "Trans-Dimensional Turtles" have used the same conceit in mutually incompatible ways. (I would've been happier, though, if the makers of the latter had acknowledged the '03 series and maintained continuity with TF.)

However, given the wide popularity of the new movies, I could seem them becoming the prototype of what Star Trek is supposed to be. TMNT was just the first franchise I thought of where a very different adaptation of the source material has become extremely influential of the future of its franchise, to the extent that the actual source material seems to be marginalized.

Well, from my perspective, the thing you fear already happened a long time ago. I always felt that TWOK changed the perception of Star Trek to reflect something more like Star Wars, driven by action and space battles, and that later movies (with a couple of exceptions) were under pressure to follow that lead. And we did get a lot more space battles and action in the later shows when they came along. And yet they were also able to tell more in-depth and thoughtful stories than the movies could manage. As I've said before, a TV series pretty much has to tell stories driven more by characters and ideas than action and spectacle, because it just doesn't have the money to pull off the latter to the same degree that movies can. Even if it uses big action and effects as a draw, it generally has to limit them to a fairly brief amount of an episode's running time and devote the rest to dialogue and character interaction. (Well, for the most part. The Berlanti DC shows have had some pretty massive, cinematic action set pieces, notably the Atom/giant robot battle in Legends of Tomorrow.)

Thought you didn't see the new TMNT movies, though? I have seen both the 2014 movie and Out of the Shadows. While I won't argue that they're the best movies ever made, I think they maintain a decent level of entertainment value and generally capture the characters well. Out of the Shadows even bothers to examine the Turtles emotional states in regards to their lives as outsiders.

I've been unsure whether I cared enough to give them a try. For one thing, I find Megan Fox rather unappealing.

Wasn't Star Trek already a cinematic universe, even before Marvel popularized the idea? All the movies and TV shows fit into the same continuity (albeit in different branches of the multiverse), which is how the big cinematic universes are working today (MCU, film and TV; Star Wars, film, TV, books, and comics, etc.)

Yes, that's my whole point -- that it's already proven its viability as a shared continuity, so it's surprising Paramount hasn't latched onto it as a natural basis for the kind of cinematic universe that every studio is trying to create these days, something with multiple parallel film series running simultaneously. Instead, Paramount is working with Hasbro to devise a shared universe incorporating GI Joe and a bunch of semi-obscure toy/cartoon lines from the '80s, MASK, Visionaries, ROM, and Micronauts. That seems like missing an obvious opportunity. Wouldn't audiences be more likely to go for a reboot of TNG or DS9 or something like that than a freaking Visionaries movie???

I don' blame people for not being happy by franchise changes (I have my own examples) or even making their wishes known to the Powers That Be, but when groups of fans start regularly spamming official social media sights and making an effort to spoil a new movie for other fans and moviegoers because they want the franchise directors to re-start a line of books that was ended, at that point I think the line's been crossed big time (not to mention that they've missed the entire point of those books in the first place.)

The problem is that many people today seem to have the mentality that only their own opinions and needs matter, and that anyone who disagrees is not only unworthy of being listened to or empathized with, but is a threat and an enemy and must be condemned and crushed. We see this in politics as much as in fandom. There's this zero-sum mentality that one's own perspective is the only one that deserves to exist and any alternative is a threat to it. Which is deeply dysfunctional and antisocial; how can a society even function if we don't respect and consider the needs of others? I feel that the rise of hate and abusive behavior in fandom is a symptom of the larger problem in society and politics.

So, I don't really feel that the Trek reboot has done that, yet. Most of the character stuff feels like stuff we've already seen in the old movies and TV shows. I don't really see anything yet that would make an argument that one should watch them rather than watching one of the old movies.

The argument is that new viewers who aren't already fans wouldn't necessarily be likely to seek out older movies, unless they saw a new movie, liked it, and decided to seek out the source material. This is what too many fans fail to understand. The purpose of creating a new version of a series is to bring in new fans, not just cater to the old ones. Sure, it's good if you can do both, but the former is more important in the long run, because old fans are inevitably going to be a shrinking demographic for one reason or another.

It's the same thing I said before -- it's important to be able to look beyond one's own interests, to recognize that different groups of people deserve to be accommodated as well. If you're a long-time fan of anything, there comes a point when you have to recognize that your age group is a diminishing percentage of the entire fanbase, and that the makers of the franchise need to appeal to the whole, not just your part. It's the people who can't accept that they're not the center of the universe anymore who tend to become the most vehement fighters against change.

 

[WebLurker]

Okay, whatever. I don't remember the original series all that well. (I feel its best episode was its very first one, and every continuation beyond that -- the rest of the opening 5-part miniseries, the subsequent network season, the subsequent strip-syndicated season, etc. -- got progressively weaker and dumber. I think it tried to reverse that trend in the final season, but I'd lost interest by that point.

I've seen a handful of episodes. I'm not the biggest fan, but of the first two series, I find it the most enjoyable because of the sense of fun it had.

Well, if a different series is pretending to continue an earlier series, it can retcon things as needed for the story it has to tell. It can just be seen as an alternate version resembling but distinct from the original. I don't really take the whole "The old cartoon was an alternate universe" conceit literally, especially since both Turtles Forever and "Trans-Dimensional Turtles" have used the same conceit in mutually incompatible ways. (I would've been happier, though, if the makers of the latter had acknowledged the '03 series and maintained continuity with TF.)

I guess I did take it literally (given that was the way that I understood we were supposed to be viewing those two shows, but I could be wrong). On the other hand, I assumed that the '03 cartoon and '12 cartoon took place in different continuities, so I was okay if their depiction of the multiverse and events didn't mesh up.

I did like both "Turtles Forever" and "Trans-Dimensional Turtles." "Forever"'s main advantage over "Trans-Dimensional" was that it was a full-length movie, so it was paced better and had more explanation on how the whole multiverse thing worked and the dangers of it (you also can't beat the '03 Shredder showing the Turtles the multiverse, represented by different iterations of the franchise). But, I think "Trans-Dimensional" is the superior effort, overall. It had the original voice cast reprise their roles, got really creative with the animation in a way the original didn't, and had a better written script (IMHO).

I'm kind of getting the impression that the '03 series was a favorite of yours. While not bad, I personally felt that the humor didn't work well and that the voice acting was flatter than in the other ones (not bad casting, but I always felt like I could tell that the actors were recording their lines separately). I'm also think that the fight scenes lacked the punch that the '12 series had. On the other hand, of the few shows I've seen, there were a few good ones, like "Same as It Never Was," that one with Donnie and the cartoonist, and that one with the gang transported to a strange jungle ("The bugs must pay!").

Well, from my perspective, the thing you fear already happened a long time ago. I always felt that TWOK changed the perception of Star Trek to reflect something more like Star Wars, driven by action and space battles, and that later movies (with a couple of exceptions) were under pressure to follow that lead. And we did get a lot more space battles and action in the later shows when they came along. And yet they were also able to tell more in-depth and thoughtful stories than the movies could manage. As I've said before, a TV series pretty much has to tell stories driven more by characters and ideas than action and spectacle, because it just doesn't have the money to pull off the latter to the same degree that movies can. Even if it uses big action and effects as a draw, it generally has to limit them to a fairly brief amount of an episode's running time and devote the rest to dialogue and character interaction. (Well, for the most part. The Berlanti DC shows have had some pretty massive, cinematic action set pieces, notably the Atom/giant robot battle in Legends of Tomorrow.)

Very interesting idea. Not sure I agree (given that the movies have always been for the bigger stories and most of them seem far less action driven then the Abramsverse), but interesting idea.

I've been unsure whether I cared enough to give them a try. For one thing, I find Megan Fox rather unappealing.

I think she was okay in the movies although the other characters are more lively (wether that's because she's supposed to be the "straight man" of the cast or because of weaker acting, I don't know). But then, I'm an easy grader. I will warn you, that she is the major viewpoint character in the first film, since the movie chooses to use her as the audience surrogate to introduce us to the crazy world of mutants, ninjas, and the like.

Yes, that's my whole point -- that it's already proven its viability as a shared continuity, so it's surprising Paramount hasn't latched onto it as a natural basis for the kind of cinematic universe that every studio is trying to create these days, something with multiple parallel film series running simultaneously.

I'm not sure I'm completely onboard with the idea of the cinematic universe model. It works for Marvel (and I would assume for DC too), since the comic books they're adapting already coexist in the same world and are a serial format, so it's a natural extension of the subject. Otherwise, movies seem to be closer to novels. You can do series, but it seems like a format better suited to stand alone works (or really short series). I mean, I love the MCU, but what was their truly last stand alone movie that you didn't need to have seen the others for? Guardians of the Galaxy?

Instead, Paramount is working with Hasbro to devise a shared universe incorporating GI Joe and a bunch of semi-obscure toy/cartoon lines from the '80s, MASK, Visionaries, ROM, and Micronauts. That seems like missing an obvious opportunity. Wouldn't audiences be more likely to go for a reboot of TNG or DS9 or something like that than a freaking Visionaries movie???

I don't know, if it's well made, so what if it was based on a toy? I don't know about rebooting the rest of the Trek TV shows, esp. DS9. I really think that that has to be a TV show or no deal, given how serial that story got. If they did though, I think TNG would be their best bet; those characters are more well known than the ones in the other post TOS shows and it's format was more episodic, so it'd be easier to get a movie out of it.

The problem is that many people today seem to have the mentality that only their own opinions and needs matter, and that anyone who disagrees is not only unworthy of being listened to or empathized with, but is a threat and an enemy and must be condemned and crushed. We see this in politics as much as in fandom. There's this zero-sum mentality that one's own perspective is the only one that deserves to exist and any alternative is a threat to it. Which is deeply dysfunctional and antisocial; how can a society even function if we don't respect and consider the needs of others? I feel that the rise of hate and abusive behavior in fandom is a symptom of the larger problem in society and politics.

Wonder if the internet and instant communication have had an effect on this.

The argument is that new viewers who aren't already fans wouldn't necessarily be likely to seek out older movies, unless they saw a new movie, liked it, and decided to seek out the source material. This is what too many fans fail to understand. The purpose of creating a new version of a series is to bring in new fans, not just cater to the old ones. Sure, it's good if you can do both, but the former is more important in the long run, because old fans are inevitably going to be a shrinking demographic for one reason or another.

Interesting point. There are things that don't seem to need it, though. The Calvin and Hobbes comic strip gets new fans who only know it from the book collections, a lot of classic books are loved without retellings, and with the Jurassic Park franchise, it seems like most people come to the original movie first and then get into the sequels, instead of the other way around. Wonder why those don't seem to need rebooting or adapting to stay fresh for new people to discover?

It's the same thing I said before -- it's important to be able to look beyond one's own interests, to recognize that different groups of people deserve to be accommodated as well. If you're a long-time fan of anything, there comes a point when you have to recognize that your age group is a diminishing percentage of the entire fanbase, and that the makers of the franchise need to appeal to the whole, not just your part. It's the people who can't accept that they're not the center of the universe anymore who tend to become the most vehement fighters against change.

Yeah. Although in some cases, it seems like the changes goes beyond giving it a fresh coat of paint and turning it into something completely different. While it doesn't give you license to be a jerk, I do have sympathy for people who're basing their arguments when they're saying that the thing in question has been twisted to the extent that it's essentially a brand-new thing with superficial trappings of the original -- provided that they remain civil, make reasonable arguments, don't give people a hard time for liking the new, and are willing to know when to walk away.

 

[Christopher]

I guess I did take it literally (given that was the way that I understood we were supposed to be viewing those two shows, but I could be wrong). On the other hand, I assumed that the '03 cartoon and '12 cartoon took place in different continuities, so I was okay if their depiction of the multiverse and events didn't mesh up.

Well, sometimes one work will claim to count another in its continuity but the other won't reciprocate. Like how the MTV Spider-Man animated series from the early 2000s presented itself as a continuation of the first Sam Raimi film, but the sequel films ignored and contradicted it.

I did like both "Turtles Forever" and "Trans-Dimensional Turtles." "Forever"'s main advantage over "Trans-Dimensional" was that it was a full-length movie, so it was paced better and had more explanation on how the whole multiverse thing worked and the dangers of it (you also can't beat the '03 Shredder showing the Turtles the multiverse, represented by different iterations of the franchise). But, I think "Trans-Dimensional" is the superior effort, overall. It had the original voice cast reprise their roles, got really creative with the animation in a way the original didn't, and had a better written script (IMHO).

Yeah, the biggest weakness of TF was its failure to get the original voice cast. TDT is definitely ahead on that score. Still, both have their strengths and both have their weaknesses, so it's natural to wish we'd gotten something that had all the strengths of both.

I'm kind of getting the impression that the '03 series was a favorite of yours. While not bad, I personally felt that the humor didn't work well and that the voice acting was flatter than in the other ones (not bad casting, but I always felt like I could tell that the actors were recording their lines separately). I'm also think that the fight scenes lacked the punch that the '12 series had.

The current series is definitely the best, and the '03 series definitely had its weaknesses. I agree the voice cast wasn't as good as the current one (although oddly the '03 voices are still the ones my mind defaults to when I imagine the Turtles talking), the animation was a bit limited, the music was repetitive, and I hated its inept handling of the Japanese linguistic and cultural elements it drew on. (Like Leonardo's obsession with bushido and values more associated with samurai nobility than ninja commoners, and the consistent mispronunciation of daimyo as "damiyo" in the Battle Nexus storyline, not to mention the mispronunciations of the Usagi Yojimbo characters' names.) Still, I do prefer the '03 series to the '87 series. I like the richness and epic scope of its storylines, and I respect its fidelity to the source. Although I'm not a fan of the last two, more kiddified seasons.

...that one with Donnie and the cartoonist...

"The cartoonist" was implicitly meant to be Jack Kirby, a huge influence on countless comics creators including Eastman & Laird. That was an adaptation of a Donatello one-shot comic, I gather.

Very interesting idea. Not sure I agree (given that the movies have always been for the bigger stories and most of them seem far less action driven then the Abramsverse), but interesting idea.

Yes, they are, but they're more action-driven than the movies that preceded them. Everything people complain about today, with movies becoming too dependent on action and effects, is exactly the same stuff we complained about in the '80s. SF movies in the '70s often tended to be cerebral, adult, philosophical or satirical pieces, things like Soylent Green and Silent Running and Planet of the Apes. That's the model ST:TMP followed. But then George Lucas and Steven Spielberg came along and redefined genre film as being about big, flashy action and spectacle, and that's the template that TWOK and later Trek films tended to follow. Yes, now films have gotten even more FX-driven because the advent of CGI has been as revolutionary as the advent of motion control and the founding of ILM was back in the '70s and '80s. But it's still a repeat of a cycle we've been through before, just more so. People always assume their complaints are unique in the history of the world, but they're always just repeating the same complaints that their parents made. Every generation thinks the next generation's movies and music and entertainment are inferior and foreshadow the downfall of culture, and they've been thinking that time and time again for thousands of years. Whatever problems you have with modern entertainment, trust me, they're nothing new.

I'm not sure I'm completely onboard with the idea of the cinematic universe model.

Whether you or I approve of it is beside the point, because we're not the ones making the decisions. I'm not making any assumptions about whether it would work. I'm just saying I find it surprising that, when movie executives are so desperate to find properties that they can base cinematic universes on, Paramount hasn't latched onto Star Trek as an obvious candidate.

I don't know, if it's well made, so what if it was based on a toy?

Of course, but that's not the point. Imagine that you're a Paramount executive, and your shareholders are pressuring you to find a property that would be good source material for a Marvel-like shared movie universe. On the one hand, you have a proven science fiction franchise that you already have the rights to and that has already been proven as an effective basis for an extended, multi-series franchise. On the other hand, you have a bunch of unrelated toy properties that you have to license from Hasbro, most of which have virtually no name recognition and have had little done with them since the '80s, so you'd pretty much be starting from scratch both in terms of building a shared universe and building awareness for it. Which one of those would seem like a sure thing to you?

Sure, of course, any property can be made to work in the right hands, but it's much more of a gamble and an uphill climb trying to manufacture a Hasbro Cinematic Universe out of virtually nothing than it would be to take advantage of the shared-universe potential and proven popularity that Star Trek already has. So I have to wonder why they're settling for just doing one ST movie every few years and letting its cinematic-universe potential go undeveloped.

Interesting point. There are things that don't seem to need it, though. The Calvin and Hobbes comic strip gets new fans who only know it from the book collections, a lot of classic books are loved without retellings, and with the Jurassic Park franchise, it seems like most people come to the original movie first and then get into the sequels, instead of the other way around. Wonder why those don't seem to need rebooting or adapting to stay fresh for new people to discover?

I'm always bewildered by the attempt to cast this in terms of "need," as if there were one exclusive path that would work the same for everything. That's the same kind of narrow-minded, zero-sum thinking I criticized before, my way or the highway. That's not the way reality works. There are a lot of different paths that are equally valid. People have a right to choose to do things differently from each other, and nobody has the right to disapprove of that choice because it isn't "needed." It's not about saying everything needs to be rebooted or nothing should be rebooted. It's about saying that reboots and continuations and every other permutation under the sun are equally valid. As long as somebody is happy with a story, then it was done right, even if you're not that somebody.

 

[Idran]

Well, sometimes one work will claim to count another in its continuity but the other won't reciprocate. Like how the MTV Spider-Man animated series from the early 2000s presented itself as a continuation of the first Sam Raimi film, but the sequel films ignored and contradicted it.

HYPERTIME!

 

[WebLurker]

Well, sometimes one work will claim to count another in its continuity but the other won't reciprocate. Like how the MTV Spider-Man animated series from the early 2000s presented itself as a continuation of the first Sam Raimi film, but the sequel films ignored and contradicted it.

That's how I took the two TMNT crossover stories. (I think that the MTV Spider-Man was always kind of a very loose sequel to the movie, given that the characters had notable differences from their movie counterparts, like Peter being more outgoing and chatty, MJ is far closer to her comic book self in regards to expressing her feelings for Peter, etc.)

Yeah, the biggest weakness of TF was its failure to get the original voice cast. TDT is definitely ahead on that score. Still, both have their strengths and both have their weaknesses, so it's natural to wish we'd gotten something that had all the strengths of both.

Yeah, I really wish TDT had been a two-parter. (On the other hand, I have heard a rumor that there will be a second '80s/'12 crossover in the future, so consolation prize?

The current series is definitely the best, and the '03 series definitely had its weaknesses. I agree the voice cast wasn't as good as the current one (although oddly the '03 voices are still the ones my mind defaults to when I imagine the Turtles talking), the animation was a bit limited, the music was repetitive, and I hated its inept handling of the Japanese linguistic and cultural elements it drew on. (Like Leonardo's obsession with bushido and values more associated with samurai nobility than ninja commoners, and the consistent mispronunciation of daimyo as "damiyo" in the Battle Nexus storyline, not to mention the mispronunciations of the Usagi Yojimbo characters' names.) Still, I do prefer the '03 series to the '87 series. I like the richness and epic scope of its storylines, and I respect its fidelity to the source. Although I'm not a fan of the last two, more kiddified seasons.

Nice opinion piece.

Yes, they are, but they're more action-driven than the movies that preceded them. Everything people complain about today, with movies becoming too dependent on action and effects, is exactly the same stuff we complained about in the '80s. SF movies in the '70s often tended to be cerebral, adult, philosophical or satirical pieces, things like Soylent Green and Silent Running and Planet of the Apes. That's the model ST:TMP followed. But then George Lucas and Steven Spielberg came along and redefined genre film as being about big, flashy action and spectacle, and that's the template that TWOK and later Trek films tended to follow. Yes, now films have gotten even more FX-driven because the advent of CGI has been as revolutionary as the advent of motion control and the founding of ILM was back in the '70s and '80s. But it's still a repeat of a cycle we've been through before, just more so. People always assume their complaints are unique in the history of the world, but they're always just repeating the same complaints that their parents made. Every generation thinks the next generation's movies and music and entertainment are inferior and foreshadow the downfall of culture, and they've been thinking that time and time again for thousands of years. Whatever problems you have with modern entertainment, trust me, they're nothing new.

Hmm. Okay. I find amusing that TWOK is the turning point, since I aways remember how little action there was in it. There are only two ship fights and most of the drama is on the brinksmanship as the two commanders try to out-think each other. I mean, First Contact was the first one that felt like a real action movie to me. TWOK really seems nothing like a modern action movie, even the good ones that don't skimp on the characters.

Whether you or I approve of it is beside the point, because we're not the ones making the decisions. I'm not making any assumptions about whether it would work. I'm just saying I find it surprising that, when movie executives are so desperate to find properties that they can base cinematic universes on, Paramount hasn't latched onto Star Trek as an obvious candidate.

True, but we're still the ones they need to buy tickets (and other merchandise) so they make money on the venture. I'm not even against cinematic universes per say. I just feel that everyone is saying: "Hey, look! Marvel made one and it's making a heck of a lot of money. If we make our own, we'll get that same kind of money!" There's no asking why it works for Marvel and if every property needs a cinematic universe. I'm not even sure how viable the model is long-term. I've gathered that DC's cinematic universe has had a very rough start (and DC is a property that fits the bill well) and most of the other proposed ones I've heard about just mush random stuff together.

Of course, but that's not the point. Imagine that you're a Paramount executive, and your shareholders are pressuring you to find a property that would be good source material for a Marvel-like shared movie universe. On the one hand, you have a proven science fiction franchise that you already have the rights to and that has already been proven as an effective basis for an extended, multi-series franchise. On the other hand, you have a bunch of unrelated toy properties that you have to license from Hasbro, most of which have virtually no name recognition and have had little done with them since the '80s, so you'd pretty much be starting from scratch both in terms of building a shared universe and building awareness for it. Which one of those would seem like a sure thing to you?

Sure, of course, any property can be made to work in the right hands, but it's much more of a gamble and an uphill climb trying to manufacture a Hasbro Cinematic Universe out of virtually nothing than it would be to take advantage of the shared-universe potential and proven popularity that Star Trek already has. So I have to wonder why they're settling for just doing one ST movie every few years and letting its cinematic-universe potential go undeveloped.

Maybe, since they're already doing new Star Trek stuff, they want to expand their portfolio. Also, regardless of what the old fanbase thinks, the new Trek movies have been turing a profit and found their audience. Paramount may not want to mess with a good thing. Also, they are making a new TV series. While it may not be connected to the reboot continuity, they are expanding the new franchise materials.

I'm always bewildered by the attempt to cast this in terms of "need," as if there were one exclusive path that would work the same for everything. That's the same kind of narrow-minded, zero-sum thinking I criticized before, my way or the highway. That's not the way reality works. There are a lot of different paths that are equally valid. People have a right to choose to do things differently from each other, and nobody has the right to disapprove of that choice because it isn't "needed." It's not about saying everything needs to be rebooted or nothing should be rebooted. It's about saying that reboots and continuations and every other permutation under the sun are equally valid. As long as somebody is happy with a story, then it was done right, even if you're not that somebody.

Poor choice of words on my part. I was wondering why some stuff seems to lend itself well to reboots, while properties seem to go out of their way to avoid them and/or people aren't asking for them (or hate the idea). Case in point, Star Trek chose to reboot to draw in new audiences, while the Jurassic Park franchise simply chose to make a new sequel in the already existing series.

 

[Christopher]

Hmm. Okay. I find amusing that TWOK is the turning point, since I aways remember how little action there was in it. There are only two ship fights and most of the drama is on the brinksmanship as the two commanders try to out-think each other.

But it's still a story about two ships shooting at each other, rather than a story about exploration of space or the nature of humanity or something more highbrow. I agree it's slow-paced -- hell, I think it's glacially paced, and I say that as someone who's quite fond of TMP -- but it's still primarily a space-battle movie, because Star Wars had made that the default for what space movies were expected to be anymore.

I mean, First Contact was the first one that felt like a real action movie to me. TWOK really seems nothing like a modern action movie, even the good ones that don't skimp on the characters.

But I'm not comparing it to modern movies. I'm comparing it to what came before. That's the point. You're talking about how you think today's movies are more action-heavy and superficial than the movies of your youth. What I'm telling you is that people of my generation and earlier thought exactly the same thing about the movies that came out after Star Wars. The laments you're making now are essentially identical to laments I was reading thirty years ago.

True, but we're still the ones they need to buy tickets (and other merchandise) so they make money on the venture. I'm not even against cinematic universes per say. I just feel that everyone is saying: "Hey, look! Marvel made one and it's making a heck of a lot of money. If we make our own, we'll get that same kind of money!" There's no asking why it works for Marvel and if every property needs a cinematic universe. I'm not even sure how viable the model is long-term.

And I don't disagree with you about that. I'm not talking about whether it can work. I'm not endorsing or advocating the way studio executives think, because that way lies madness. I'm simply evaluating it as an observer. Whether we like it or not, this is what studio executives do. As foolish as it probably is, they are trying to turn anything they can get their hands on into a cinematic universe. I can observe that as an objective reality just as I can observe, say, that Hollywood movies have a problem with racism and sexism. Describing a behavior does not equate to endorsing it.

I'm just saying it's surprising that, given studios' desire to find fodder for cinematic universes, Paramount hasn't latched onto Star Trek as a candidate, because it seems like such a natural choice.

Maybe, since they're already doing new Star Trek stuff, they want to expand their portfolio. Also, regardless of what the old fanbase thinks, the new Trek movies have been turing a profit and found their audience. Paramount may not want to mess with a good thing.

But Paramount has already made a couple of GI Joe movies that were fairly successful, and now they're trying to expand that into a multi-property franchise.

Also, they are making a new TV series. While it may not be connected to the reboot continuity, they are expanding the new franchise materials.

No, CBS is making a new TV series. Paramount Pictures has nothing to do with that. CBS owns ST; Paramount just retains the movie rights because they used to be parts of the same corporation. Paramount licenses ST from CBS in much the same way it licenses G.I. Joe and the rest from Hasbro.

Granted, maybe that means Paramount doesn't have a license to all of the Trek franchise. Maybe they just have TOS and TNG rights, since those are the only series they made movies of before. That could be why they don't try to recreate the multi-series 24th century. And really, the only 23rd-century spinoff they could probably do based on the previous movies is Excelsior, and I doubt Hollywood is ready to make a blockbuster movie with an Asian-American lead, let alone playing a gay character (as John Cho's Sulu has just been revealed to be).

Poor choice of words on my part. I was wondering why some stuff seems to lend itself well to reboots, while properties seem to go out of their way to avoid them and/or people aren't asking for them (or hate the idea). Case in point, Star Trek chose to reboot to draw in new audiences, while the Jurassic Park franchise simply chose to make a new sequel in the already existing series.

Are you sure? I read yesterday that Jurassic World ignored the events of the previous two sequels.

 

[JD]

I don't remember there being any direct references to them, but I don't think anything that I noticed really rule them out. I've never seen Lost World, and only saw JPIII once when it first came to theaters, so I don't know the real well, but I don't see why they couldn't have happened in it's universe based on what I do know.
It's almost kind of a soft reboot, there are references and call backs to the first movie, but other than that it doesn't really tie back to much to the earlier movies.

 

[Greg Cox]

HALLOWEEN: H20 did something similar. They pretty much ignored every HALLOWEEN movie since HALLOWEEN 2 (which was the last one with Jamie Lee Curtis), but didn't actually repudiate all the sequels without her. We're free to assume that Michael Meyers has been off killing other people in the other movies until he finally gets around to coming after Laurie Strode again.And Laurie has no way of knowing what he's been up to all those disposable straight-to-VHS sequels, which only the hardcore fans would be familiar with..

I think they did address the fact that Laurie had supposedly died offstage by explaining that she faked her death years ago, but that didn't require explicitly acknowledging one or more of the sequels. Probably the best way to handle things, since it mean that the average viewer could enjoy the big 20th Anniversary reunion movie without having to have watched HALLOWEENS 3 through 6 . . ..

Just because a sequel doesn't mention every previous sequel doesn't mean they've been "officially" stricken from the continuity or whatever, as long as they're not explicitly contradicted by the new movie.

 

[borgboy]

Laurie faking her death requires that she left her small daughter Jamie behind to occupy Michael's attention. That resolves the continuity conflict adequately but it makes Laurie an awful person.

 

[Greg Cox]

Laurie faking her death requires that she left her small daughter Jamie behind to occupy Michael's attention. That resolves the continuity conflict adequately but it makes Laurie an awful person.

Good point! And I think H20 did acknowledge that Doctor Loomis survived his apparent death in HALLOWEEN 2, and had been obsessively chasing Michael for years, even if Donald Pleasance was sadly deceased by the time they made H20.

Although H20 was sneaky in that it didn't get into the particulars of Loomis's "crazy" theories that Michael was still alive and killing people, so the events of the sequels are kinda implied but not spelled out.

 

[borgboy]

For what it's worth, Carpenter was from Bowling Green, KY, where I lived for seven years, and a lot of the location names and roads, such as the Smith's Grove Sanitarium, are real locations, Carpenter just transplanting them to Haddonfield. It makes the movie just a little more creepy to recognize all the location names somehow, since it seems like Carpenter had those familiar locations in mind.

 

[David cgc]

Well, from my perspective, the thing you fear already happened a long time ago. I always felt that TWOK changed the perception of Star Trek to reflect something more like Star Wars, driven by action and space battles, and that later movies (with a couple of exceptions) were under pressure to follow that lead.

The way I like to describe it is, "There have been twelve Star Trek movies, and ten of them desperately wish they were 'The Wrath of Khan.' Which is bad, because only one of them actually is."

Someday, somebody should go through all the old interviews with the Trek and Sci-Fi magazines and make a textural supercut of the writers and directors and producers comparing each antagonist in turn to Khan (the damn Whale Probe was probably described as being "as relentless as Khan"), until we finally reached the apotheosis of the trend, when they just said the newest bad guy was Khan.

 

[WebLurker]

But it's still a story about two ships shooting at each other, rather than a story about exploration of space or the nature of humanity or something more highbrow. I agree it's slow-paced -- hell, I think it's glacially paced, and I say that as someone who's quite fond of TMP -- but it's still primarily a space-battle movie, because Star Wars had made that the default for what space movies were expected to be anymore.

I actually like TWOK's pacing overall, esp. over ST-TMP's, but your mileage may vary (I think TMP isn't as bad as it's rep, but it's a little too sterile in the visuals, story, and acting for me).

I'd actually argue that TWOK does discuss the the nature of humanity. Beyond the villain's revenge story, the themes of the passage of time, death (and how one approaches it) and self-sacrifice are strung throughout the movie. To me, that's very much in line with the Star Trek stuff we got before, both in the TV show and in TMP.

The later even presented a character looking for its god, with commentary on how people seem to instinctively look to other things -- including religion -- to make sense and find meaning in the world. Although it was created by an avowed atheist who hated religion, as a religious person myself, I found those ideas interesting to think about, esp. as the idea of people instinctively knowing on some level that there's more to the world than the material and that the material alone is an empty existence has a lot of parallels to the theological teachings I subscribe to.

Tangent aside, I don't honestly feel that the Abrams' movies really have anything that tried to go deep with stuff, which is something I liked about old Star Trek.

But I'm not comparing it to modern movies. I'm comparing it to what came before. That's the point. You're talking about how you think today's movies are more action-heavy and superficial than the movies of your youth. What I'm telling you is that people of my generation and earlier thought exactly the same thing about the movies that came out after Star Wars. The laments you're making now are essentially identical to laments I was reading thirty years ago.

Two things here. I love most modern-day blockbusters I see. I'm a big fan of the MCU, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings/Hobbit, etc. I like this stuff that I'm ostensibly "lamenting." Secondly, being in my early twenties, my youth would've been childhood, and my movies during that time were Disney animation (the old classics thanks to VHS and the '90s Renaissance) plus Pixar. And I can honestly say that both studios are making really good stuff today that matches, the quality of stuff I remember re-watching all the time as a kid.

My thing is that I feel that the new Trek movies have lost the identity of the franchise. They honestly feel like generic blockbusters with Star Trek trappings, instead of stuff that has it in the DNA, if that makes any sense, and I think that the attempt to fit Trek into the blockbuster forumla was where that loss happened. (Your mileage may vary, of course.)

And I don't disagree with you about that. I'm not talking about whether it can work. I'm not endorsing or advocating the way studio executives think, because that way lies madness. I'm simply evaluating it as an observer. Whether we like it or not, this is what studio executives do. As foolish as it probably is, they are trying to turn anything they can get their hands on into a cinematic universe. I can observe that as an objective reality just as I can observe, say, that Hollywood movies have a problem with racism and sexism. Describing a behavior does not equate to endorsing it.

Okay.

I'm just saying it's surprising that, given studios' desire to find fodder for cinematic universes, Paramount hasn't latched onto Star Trek as a candidate, because it seems like such a natural choice.

I suppose a good question is what their future plans are, like how may more TOS movies do they want to make and if they would still want to use the Abramsverse as a setting for stories after this movie series is over, or create a new iteration of Star Trek? Maybe they haven't done a cinematic universe yet because it doesn't fit with their current plans, or they still don't know what Trek is going to be long term?

But Paramount has already made a couple of GI Joe movies that were fairly successful, and now they're trying to expand that into a multi-property franchise.

Weren't they not that well received by critics and killed off most of the major characters? I never saw them, but I got the impression that by the end, for various reason, a lot of the major G.I. Joe characters were either dead, or the actors didn't want to come back. Maybe they wanted a fresh start, hence the decision to try again?

No, CBS is making a new TV series. Paramount Pictures has nothing to do with that. CBS owns ST; Paramount just retains the movie rights because they used to be parts of the same corporation. Paramount licenses ST from CBS in much the same way it licenses G.I. Joe and the rest from Hasbro.

Forgot about that.

Granted, maybe that means Paramount doesn't have a license to all of the Trek franchise. Maybe they just have TOS and TNG rights, since those are the only series they made movies of before. That could be why they don't try to recreate the multi-series 24th century.

Interesting thoughts.

And really, the only 23rd-century spinoff they could probably do based on the previous movies is Excelsior, and I doubt Hollywood is ready to make a blockbuster movie with an Asian-American lead, let alone playing a gay character (as John Cho's Sulu has just been revealed to be).

How does that work? Prime universe Sulu wasn't gay (George Takei was, but that's got nothing to do with the character's orientations). I understand it, changing history by a branching off timeline wouldn't affect someone's sexuality, as that's basically hard-wired to a person. Also, as I understand it, Beyond was planning to bring his daughter, Demora from Generations in (albeit a decade too early, but that's another problem). While adoption could work, Generations was pretty explicit that Sulu had had a family. So, what gives?

Are you sure? I read yesterday that Jurassic World ignored the events of the previous two sequels.[/QUOTE]

Not exactly. First of all, the raptor's advanced communication, as established in JP III, is the basis of the scene where the I. Rex "talks" to the raptor squad and becomes the new Alpha. The discovery in JP III that InGen had been cloning dinosaurs off the books nicely foreshadows Hoskins and Wu's secret projects in JW. The viral marketing campaign also incorporated the sequels into JW's backstory.

Secondly, although I can't find the exact quote, director Colin Trevorrow stated on record that the sequels were still in canon, they are a side story that doesn't factor into the main JW story. (They way I've heard it described is that JP I and JW are the saga of the park, while JP II and III are the saga of Site B; it's just that the second story chronologically fits in the middle of the first). I have marathoned the movies together and can coniform that everything holds together.

 

[Jinn]

How does that work? Prime universe Sulu wasn't gay (George Takei was, but that's got nothing to do with the character's orientations). I understand it, changing history by a branching off timeline wouldn't affect someone's sexuality, as that's basically hard-wired to a person. Also, as I understand it, Beyond was planning to bring his daughter, Demora from Generations in (albeit a decade too early, but that's another problem). While adoption could work, Generations was pretty explicit that Sulu had had a family. So, what gives?

It could be that Sulu's bisexual. Then again, according to Memory Beta, Sulu was born in 2237, four years after the timelines split. So perhaps the hormonal or other epigenetic conditions affecting his natal development were different and resulted in a different orientation (i.e. the same reason that the various Leda clones on Orphan Black have various different sexual orientations and identities — Alison is hetero, Cosima is lesbian, Sarah is at least situationally bisexual, Tony is transgender, etc.). So it’s possible that Prime Sulu and Kelvin Sulu could have different orientations. (Oh, it’s nice to have an official label for that timeline at last.) Still, there's certainly room to establish that Prime Sulu is bi, if someone wanted to do that.

 

[The Wormhole]

"There have been twelve Star Trek movies, and ten of them desperately wish they were 'The Wrath of Khan.' Which is bad, because only one of them actually is."

Personally, I find the TWOK imitating didn't really begin until First Contact, but then every movie since then has drawn on TWOK in some manner, to the point STID was essentially a remake of TWOK.