Let's continue TOS

[fireproof78]

The OP asked about continuing TOS.

If you rredefining what TOS was then you're not continuing it--you're replacing it. No one said you cannot enjoy the replacement, but it's not a continuation of what came before.

It's a simple matter of definition. A given thing is what it is and is distinct. If you change it then it's no longer the same thing you had before.

Nothing is insulting about it, though. Nothing is being replaced. They exist side by side. Every person who works on Trek brings their own point of view. Even TMP reimagined some aspects. TWOK certainly did even more so. At no point did TOS feel replaced. Just a different point of view.

As for continuing TOS, I've stated that I would love the approach you utilize in your fan art, but even that informed partially by your current environment. Hitting the 60s style tone of TOS and technological understanding is difficult because technological growth has gone further than we expected. So, it would take a very deliberate effort to keep that 60s viewpoint and not try to be more "Star Trek, " e.g. what came after TOS.

 

[1001001]

We can’t be looking at a science fiction show set hundreds of years in the future, and be thinking:We’ve got better technology than that now.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

At least the tech that defines Trek (transporters, replicators, warp drive, starships, etc) is not outdated in comparison to ours. The things that define the era are high-tech, advanced, cutting edge. The ordinary things might not be, but you can overlook that.

 

[Warped9]

Nothing is insulting about it, though. Nothing is being replaced. They exist side by side. Every person who works on Trek brings their own point of view. Even TMP reimagined some aspects. TWOK certainly did even more so. At no point did TOS feel replaced. Just a different point of view..

If a production is asking me to park my brain at the door and accept something different as the same as what came before I find it insulting. Particularly when the new version is a pale reimagining of the original.

As for continuing TOS, I've stated that I would love the approach you utilize in your fan art, but even that informed partially by your current environment. Hitting the 60s style tone of TOS and technological understanding is difficult because technological growth has gone further than we expected. So, it would take a very deliberate effort to keep that 60s viewpoint and not try to be more "Star Trek, " e.g. what came after TOS.

Yes, it takes a very deliberate effort and I am really trying in my project. Every once in awhile I find myself pondering something I realize is post TOS. I make a point of checking myself often asking whether what I'm doing is being influenced by something more contemporary.

This is a very different approach than what was done with TOS-R where a clearly contemporary perspective was dictating the changes and additions.

 

[Lord Garth]

This is a spoiler, but I'll take my chances, especially since I'm not going into specifics. In Prodigy (which takes place after Nemesis), they touch upon the TOS Era in an episode and it still looks like TOS.

From what I've seen of Lower Decks (I stopped watching it, but it also takes place after Nemesis), whenever they refer back to or show anything of the TOS Era, it still looks like TOS.

In Picard, they refer to a few TOS episodes (and no, they were NOT throw-away references). I won't say which ones, but it doesn't matter. Someone watching has no idea what Picard is talking about unless they've seen TOS. Not SNW. TOS.

So TOS isn't being replaced. How it's visually depicted depends on the series (which is messy, I won't deny it, but that's a different kind of problem). The events are still referred to.

Knowing Star Trek, they'll probably come up with some wacky convoluted explanation for the depictions before the Kurtzman Era finishes. Maybe the 60th Anniversary. Then there would be people who'd have wished they hadn't... but that's Star Trek for you again!

 

[publiusr]

Another issue, more a quibble, was injecting terminology that simply didn’t exist when TOS was made. For example: nanotech and other TNG era technobbable.

You could infer greater miniaturization of electronics.

Oddly enough, there have been breakthroughs that seem to point more strongly to a TOS like timeline:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/04/mems-version-of-nanomechanical-computer-design-was-made.html

I can just hear that chattering…that TOS moved beyond a glassy cyberpunk future and that the more austere look was cultural. Let’s say hackers screw things up and we decide to go right to repair.

TOS is the polar opposite of READY PLAYER ONE…where folks live in A.I. and everything else decays—-our future, it seems.

In TOS’s history, we swore off computers except when necessary…shoved gain-of-function virology off world…embraced The Republic. Maybe went backwards a bit culturally… Kirk’s communicator had subspace—but was not supposed to be a smart phone…audio only…stay on task.

There are solid in-universe arguments for why Trek Tech looks simple. They took away the smartphones, like what I am typing this on…and never looked back.

Musk’s Rocketship XM type “Starship” looks like it points the way directly to the very simple sketches in THE MAKING OF STAR TREK.

In terms of rocketry—-even though the appearance of the Saturn V is canon…were I to do a TOS-aesthetic timeline…I’d have B-29, B-36, Atlas, then Elon’s Starship…except built by Hughes after a Stasis Field box was found…those TMOST craft…then Warped9’s art-ships.

It isn’t the future we got—but it would have been the future we needed.

There would be no Saturns…certainly not Energia-Buran ( )…that launcher I could see point to the NX-01. Here the Klingons invented the XB-70 with downward folding wings

Musk’s Starship just looks like it belongs to the universe of TOS.

There is still hope we can avoid a cyberpunk dystopia.

 

[Nyotarules]

Who knows? But it struck me as really going against Star Trek’s, and TOS,’ message of inclusiveness. It also meant Number One, despite having been second-in-command, could never command her own ship, which seems to go against what Roddenberry was implying in “The Cage” from the very beginning.

This essential point, in my opinion, undermined the entire STC episode “Embrace The Winds.” They set up Commander Garrett as a competent officer with something of an edgy side to her, something worth exploring, then rejected her attaining command of a Constitution-class starship simply because the Tellarites wouldn’t allow it.

I found it mind-bogglingly stupid.

Not a surprise, the official franchise has the 'no Augments or Romulans in Starfleet' nonsense because they are genetically modified or just Romulans and might turn into space Hitler or spy for Mother Russia er Romulus.

And asserting that “this is the way it really looks like” is insulting to a lot of long time fans.

Have you seen the TMP Klingons?

We can’t be looking at a science fiction show set hundreds of years in the future, and be thinking:We’ve got better technology than that now.

And would we really create a semi military organisation that banned women from being captains, when we have them as Generals, Admirals now? Talk about a huge social backward step.
The next Trek show better get rid of the 'desk filled with many PADDS' scene, I can hear small children laughing while watching.

 

[ChallengerHK]

I doubt it could have been replicated even if someone tried.

Someone who cared to do it could do it. The current crop of HMFICs doesn't care to do it, so it wouldn't be done.

 

[Warped9]

Have you seen the TMP Klingons?.

TMP was quite something when it debuted. It brought a level detail to the Trek universe we had never seen before. A lot of it was very cool and some of it left us wondering.

In TOS we had seen the modification/expansion of sets, such as Main Engineering and Sickbay, and we learned to accept it was really supposed to be like that from the beginning. Or we rationalized we simply were seeing parts of the ship we had not seen before.

In TMP we were told the new Enterprise was a drastic refit of the original, so it was still acknowledged that the TOS E was still part of this more detailed continuity. To that end fans rationalized that maybe we didn’t get to see all the detail the original ship had (ain’t that the truth given how much has been learned about the original over the past fifty years).

Even so accepting the TMP E as a refit could be a head scratcher because the refit looks more like the original had been near completely disassembled before being put back together in its new form—what the hell was left of the original? Initially Matt Jefferies updated his original design for Phase II. But later when it was decided there would be a feature film they revised/updated the design. Note that early on there had been the idea of having a totally new ship, with a new registration number, but then they elected to go with the idea of the original ship being refit. Nonetheless we kind of turn a blind eye to it and accept it as explained.

The new uniforms are a point of debate, but they’re pretty easy to accept as an evolutionary change in Starfleet’s look.

The new Klingons raised all kinds of questions. More than anything else how could you rationalize how different they looked from TOS? This was something you couldn’t really just gloss over. The only reasonable explanation was that just as there are variations in human appearance then there must be great variations in Klingon appearance. And early novels kinda went with that.

One key point is that TMP, beyond its visuals, did not blatantly contradict TOS’ continuity. And, for the most part, the subsequent five films didn’t greatly contradict the original continuity either (although there is room for debate).

The advent of TNG is we started seeing greater drifts in continuity. The distinction between World War III and the Eugenics Wars being a prime example whereas in TOS they were considered the same thing. But a real firestorm around continuity was ignited when ENT was introduced along with the TNG film FC. Lots of argument about continuity.

So it’s certainly not a new issue, but over time it gets increasingly tiresome to be told what you thought was true isn’t really true, over and over again. Eventually you have enough.

 

[1001001]

The next Trek show better get rid of the 'desk filled with many PADDS' scene, I can hear small children laughing while watching.

And the ensigns who bring the PADD to the Captain for their signature, like it's a clipboard.



The kids would love the switches and dials too.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If the powers-that-be owned Superman would they be asserting that the Kirk Alyn, George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, Dean Cain, Brandon Routh, Tom Welling, Henry Cavill and Tyler Hoechlin versions were really all the same continuity? Or how about Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck and Robert Pattinson are really all the same Batman?

Probably not. But if they chose to, their word would be law, and there wouldn't be a damn thing anyone could do about it.

If a production is asking me to park my brain at the door and accept something different as the same as what came before I find it insulting.

You'll get over it.

 

[Forbin]

I'm still disappointed that not a single creative mind behind the shows thought of the simplest explanation for the varied Klingon looks: they have a vast empire made up of many disparate planets, and their military is composed of peoples from a variety of planets, species, races and ethnicities. IIRC, some of the early novels used this idea. But no, in canon, we get the stupid augment virus.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Perhaps they are ALL true.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Considering that the fan films who have recreated the sets down the last detail still can't get them to look right tells me that should leave the original series alone. The lighting is colorful but it never looks like a professional production. Even Enterprise had a hard time getting it right. The combination of film stock and lighting makes all the difference and digital video doesn't capture it. Even adding "grain." There's something about that era you can't recreate on the budgets they have.

At least when they reimagine the sets, it's their own look.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

What do you think of these? https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_New_Visions

 

[Nyotarules]

So it’s certainly not a new issue, but over time it gets increasingly tiresome to be told what you thought was true isn’t really true, over and over again. Eventually you have enough.

None if its true, its fiction, there is no 'true'

I'm still disappointed that not a single creative mind behind the shows thought of the simplest explanation for the varied Klingon looks: they have a vast empire made up of many disparate planets, and their military is composed of peoples from a variety of planets, species, races and ethnicities. IIRC, some of the early novels used this idea. But no, in canon, we get the stupid augment virus.

Yeah, Trek's philosophy that humans are diverse, but aliens all look the same (from TNG era onwards) is pretty silly and lacks imagination. (or Everyone on Vulcan uses the same barber since the 2300's.)

 

[Dukhat]

We can’t be looking at a science fiction show set hundreds of years in the future, and be thinking:We’ve got better technology than that now.

Then don’t make the claim that your show is a prequel to another show whose tech is out of date in real life.

 

[1001001]

Then don’t make the claim that your show is a prequel to another show whose tech is out of date in real life.

Lucky for me, I don’t care about stuff like that.

 

[Dukhat]

Lucky for me, I don’t care about stuff like that.

That’s nice that you don’t care. Other people do.

^ Perhaps they are ALL true.

But Kor, Kang, and Koloth went from TOS Klingons to TMP Klingons. So that doesn’t work.

 

[1001001]

That’s nice that you don’t care. Other people do.

Really?

I hadn’t heard that.