Strange New Worlds' showrunners advise fans to write to Skydance and Paramount if they're interested in a "Year One" Kirk sequel series

[Christopher]

I was more thinking in the sense that Nemesis was the first one with direct parallels to TWOK

Yes, that was clear the first time. I was saying that it had an earlier and more pervasive influence in deeper ways than simple reiteration of its plot beats. Its entire philosophy of how Star Trek stories should be told has been overwhelmingly influential on all Star Trek movies ever since, and frequently on the shows, especially these days. The direct emulations you're talking about are just a symptom of that wider influence.

 

[Unionized Elf]

One of the most popular TOS episodes, frequently at the top of lists of favorites, is "Balance of Terror," which is little more than a thinly-disguised remake of The Enemy Below. It has nothing intellectual to offer, unless you count cat-and-mouse battle tactics. The subplot involving prejudice ends up having no bearing on the overall story. The loss of Tomlinson is a war-story cliché, it feeds melodrama and offers nothing intellectual. Kirk's final line of there having to be a reason for the loss is trite and banal, devoid of intellectual content.

It's hard to say TWOK got it wrong, when this is one of the go-to examples of a top-rated TOS episode.

For that matter, it seems everyone and their dog claims the appeal of TNG is its optimism and focus on science and exploration and that it wasn't "pew-pew action." Yet, topping the lists of fan favorite TNG episodes are Yesterday's Enterprise and TBOBW. The former set in an alternate timeline where Starfleet is legitimately military and the Enterprise is intentionally a warship where the Federation is embroiled in a war they're on the losing side of. The latter being the kind of "fate of the universe" story everyone claims they're sick of seeing today. Granted, TBOBW was one of the first of such stories and accomplishes in two episodes what modern shows milk out for ten episodes.

 

[FredH]

In a broader sense, it began right away. TMP aspired to be a thought-provoking, intellectual science fiction drama in the 2001 mold; TWOK went for crowd-pleasing action and space battles in the Star Wars mold. And nearly every subsequent Trek movie followed the latter precedent, prioritizing action and spectacle over intellect and cramming in space battles even when it weakened the story. (The battles were shoehorned in with particular blatantness in Insurrection.)

Which is why I've never understood the attitude that TWOK was the one that "got it right." To me, it got Star Trek fundamentally wrong by dumbing it down into a battle-driven action franchise, and I hate that it set a precedent that subsequent moviemakers -- and TV makers, these days -- felt obligated to follow.

I simultaneously agree and disagree. While I prefer the TMP model, I don’t feel TWOK itself dumbed anything down — it’s a pretty smart script, Roddenberry’s opinion notwithstanding. But it’s certainly true that the movie franchise as a whole was subsequently dumbed down — based, I’m sure, on drawing the wrong lessons from TWOK’s success (the same way that years later, a properly dark approach to cinematic Batman led to an improperly dark approach to DC superheroes in general).

Ironically, I thought the main space battle in Insurrection was quite well done, but then the pacing in general was one of the better aspects of a middle-of-the-road film.

 

[FredH]

The subplot involving prejudice ends up having no bearing on the overall story.

???

 

[Santa Kang]

One of the most popular TOS episodes, frequently at the top of lists of favorites, is "Balance of Terror," which is little more than a thinly-disguised remake of The Enemy Below. It has nothing intellectual to offer, unless you count cat-and-mouse battle tactics. The subplot involving prejudice ends up having no bearing on the overall story. The loss of Tomlinson is a war-story cliché, it feeds melodrama and offers nothing intellectual. Kirk's final line of there having to be a reason for the loss is trite and banal, devoid of intellectual content.

It's hard to say TWOK got it wrong, when this is one of the go-to examples of a top-rated TOS episode.

Indeed. I think TWOK took more than a little inspiration from BOT.

 

[Crisp Conditions]

???

That's not English, so I'm sorry, I don't know what it is you're trying to communicate. I assume you have an issue with what I said that you quoted, but what the issue is and with what part of it, I've no idea.

 

[Set Harth]

based, I’m sure, on drawing the wrong lessons from TWOK’s success (the same way that years later, a properly dark approach to cinematic Batman led to an improperly dark approach to DC superheroes in general).

I was thinking the same thing. The Dark Knight Returns is the TWOK of Batman.

 

[Christopher]

I simultaneously agree and disagree. While I prefer the TMP model, I don’t feel TWOK itself dumbed anything down — it’s a pretty smart script, Roddenberry’s opinion notwithstanding.

Hm -- I find it an extremely stupid script. So much about it is just dumb. The Reliant crew not being able to count how many planets are in a system, or to tell the orbital parameters of two planets apart. (The writers of the recent Khan podcast, my friends David Mack & Kirsten Beyer, came up with a remarkably clever and plausible fix for this, but in the movie itself it's complete nonsense.) The idea that Starfleet somehow had no knowledge of the Botany Bay's presence even though "Space Seed" made it explicit that Khan's hearing was being documeted for the official record. Khan's crew somehow consisting of a bunch of blond twenty-somethings even though they'd been a multiethnic crew of adults fifteen years earlier. A simulator having live explosions going off. The absurdity of the Genesis technology, and how a device programmed to merely transform the surface layer of an existing planetoid was somehow able to create an entire planet from nebular gas, and possibly even a star. Scotty melodramatically carrying Peter Preston to the bridge instead of calling sickbay to send a medical team to engineering. Kirk saying he'd never faced death, forgetting Gary Mitchell, Sam & Aurelan Kirk, Edith Keeler, Miramanee, and his unborn child, not to mention dozens of crewmembers under his command. And so on.

I'm also not a fan of how it takes the nuanced antagonist that Khan was in "Space Seed" and reduces him to a melodramatic revenge-obsessed madman. Of all the Khan stories, TWOK is the one that portrays him the least intelligently and the least interestingly.

Ironically, I thought the main space battle in Insurrection was quite well done, but then the pacing in general was one of the better aspects of a middle-of-the-road film.

Maybe as a set piece, if you like that sort of thing, but it felt arbitrarily tacked on to a story that was more a thoughtful, low-key TNG-style exploration of ideas, but still had to be forced into the battle-driven action movie mode because that's what Trek movies have been expected to be since 1982 (with TVH being the only one that managed to avoid it).

 

[FredH]

Hm -- I find it an extremely stupid script. So much about it is just dumb. [..,.]

All fair to point out as flaws. I think most of these are either the film handwaving for the sake of drama, or Sowards, Meyer et al caring about as much about the science as Doctor Who did when a villain came from “galaxies away” but couldn’t find a habitable planet between his origin point and Earth. I think TWOK is excellent as drama; I’d never claim it was rigorous in any way as science fiction, or that it sweated the details much.

(Though I recall headcanoning Genesis as some combination of transporter technology and 300-years-from-now nanotech, which was of course a fanboy rationalization, and a few years before TNG introduced the holodeck. And it would make the “protomatter-in-the-matrix” thing from ST3 even more nonsensical.)

 

[Christopher]

I think most of these are either the film handwaving for the sake of drama, or Sowards, Meyer et al caring about as much about the science as Doctor Who did when a villain came from “galaxies away” but couldn’t find a habitable planet between his origin point and Earth.

But a lot of it isn't about science at all. You don't need a science education to realize that people stranded as adults 15 years before would not be in their 20s now. Scotty bringing Preston to the bridge isn't a science issue, it's just sacrificing credible character writing for the sake of a moment of corny melodrama and shock value. Kirk denying he'd ever faced death is a failure of character continuity. For that matter, TWOK is responsible for creating the myth of Kirk as a rule-breaking maverick who'd cheat on an Academy simulation, in contrast to TOS where he was a very duty-driven officer who obeyed orders even when he disagreed with them. (And who chose whether or how to apply the Prime Directive in a given situation because that was part of his rightful responsibility as the highest Federation authority on the scene, not because he was insubordinate.)

(Though I recall headcanoning Genesis as some combination of transporter technology and 300-years-from-now nanotech, which was of course a fanboy rationalization, and a few years before TNG introduced the holodeck. And it would make the “protomatter-in-the-matrix” thing from ST3 even more nonsensical.)

I can buy it being an elaboration of transporter technology and a cousin of the replicator. My problems are more with the logistical issues. One is that it's absurdly overpowered for such a small device. I read the novelization before seeing the film, and I assumed the Genesis Torpedo would be some enormous missile. When I finally saw it in the movie, I though it was ridiculous to ask us to believe that something so tiny could have the power to transform an entire planet.

And as I said, it doesn't make sense that something programmed to alter a planetoid's surface could somehow also magically create a new planet from gas and dust. That's a radically different physical process, so it should be completely outside its existing programming. When it was set off in the middle of a nebula instead of on the planetoid surface it was programmed to operate upon, it shouldn't have created a whole planet out of nothing, it should've just transmitted a "404 Planetoid Not Found" error message and shut down or crashed. Or just blown up the Reliant and had no significant effect beyond that, because it wasn't programmed to work on diffuse nebular matter. Maybe the Genesis Wave would've managed to convert some specks of space dust in the nebula into organic compounds, but they would've been too spread out to come together.

 

[Dar70]

And ENT doesn't feel like it belongs pre-TOS.

Also, funny that ENTERPRISE is now vaunted when when it aired it was derided as ruining canon

Fans need new complaints. Or just stop watching if these newer Treks are ruining, destroying, disrespecting, insulting, etc. to the Trek franchise. Because if something is actually destroying things then it's a problem, as in the old shows are no longer available to watch. That's actual destruction.

I enjoyed Enterprise. I think it's a better prequel than SNW for sure. Did it have some canon issues...sure. As I said before every TV series in history does.

 

[fireproof78]

I enjoyed Enterprise. I think it's a better prequel than SNW for sure. Did it have some canon issues...sure. As I said before every TV series in history does.

Which is why continuity issues don't make something not canon.

Also, I'm just applying the same standard at fans here to past Trek. Changes made, characters feeling different, etc. are why I don't hold TOS and the rest of the franchise as exact same characters. Too different.

 

[Noname Given]

After TMP the consensus was "Now that's more like it!"

Yeah, that's how I remember it too at the time; and the continuity and logic gaps like:

- The Reliant's Sensors and crew not realizing a planet in the Ceti Alpha system exploded and mistaking Ceti Alpha V for Ceti Alpha VI.

- Pavel Chekov not being a crewmember on the 1701 at the time TOS S1 Space Seed occured. (And spare me the YATI rationalizations as I probably helped create them at the time. )

- The whole "200 years' vs '300 years'...

Yeah, all that didn't matter in 1982.

 

[Dar70]

Yeah, that's how I remember it too at the time; and the continuity and logic gaps like:

- The Reliant's Sensors and crew not realizing a planet in the Ceti Alpha system exploded and mistaking Ceti Alpha V for Ceti Alpha VI.

- Pavel Chekov not being a crewmember on the 1701 at the time TOS S1 Space Seed occured. (And spare me the YATI rationalizations as I probably helped create them at the time. )

- The whole "200 years' vs '300 years'...

Yeah, all that didn't matter in 1982.

Well it did matter because it was being talked about at the time. The Chekov thing was a complete blunder by the writers. It's easily explained away of course. But still something that was not intentional and should have been avoided.

All this talk though just goes to show that Trek as a whole is probably the worst Franchise in scifi history when it comes to overall continuity consistency. Highlander sucks also.

 

[Christopher]

All this talk though just goes to show that Trek as a whole is probably the worst Franchise in scifi history when it comes to overall continuity consistency.

Oh, hardly. By 1960s-70s standards, it was better than most. At the time, we didn't have home video and box sets and wikis to let us experience series as unified wholes, and without VCRs and with broadcast interference from storms and breakable rooftop TV antennas, there was no guarantee you'd get to see every episode. So the focus was on making each individual episode stand alone without dependence on anything else. Also, the classy TV shows in early TV were the anthologies, while serialization was seen as the stuff of cheesy soap operas and kids' adventure series. So even dramas with continuing casts aspired to be anthology-like. And that meant they paid little attention to overall continuity and didn't hesitate to change things for the sake of the current story.

This persisted into the 1980s. In the pilot movie of the 1989 Alien Nation series, the big secret that drove the whole story and was revealed in the climax was that the alien refugees who'd crashed on Earth had been ruled by Overseers whose existence they'd forgotten because they'd been kept drugged and docile aboard the slave ship. But as the show's single season went on, it was retconned that the slaves had been fully aware of the Overseers aboard the ship, and the American authorities had known about them all along but hadn't been able to prosecute them for crimes not committed on Earth. Yet in the revival movies a few years later (which also altered the show's chronology), it was revealed that many Overseers had been tried for war crimes and channeled into an Operation Paperclip-like program to provide alien technology to the military. I could list other major continuity changes, all in one season and five revival movies.

The finale of the original Battlestar Galactica had the fleet pick up a transmission of Neil Armstrong landing on the Moon while it was supposedly on the edge of our galaxy, which would mean it was at least several centuries to a millennium in the future, but Galactica 1980 retconned it so that the fleet reached Earth in, guess what, 1980, which would've put the previous series in roughly the 1950s. Similarly, Buck Rogers retconned the date of the 20th-century nuclear war in its second season, and its first season promptly abandoned the pilot's portrayal of a mostly barren post-apocalyptic Earth with a single remaining city dependent on alien handouts for survival and replaced it with a prosperous Earth at the head of a Federation-like interstellar alliance.

So no, Star Trek is nowhere near the most inconsistent SF franchise. I mean, don't even get me started on Doctor Who.

 

[Mudd]

In a broader sense, it began right away. TMP aspired to be a thought-provoking, intellectual science fiction drama in the 2001 mold;

Which TOS never was.

You know, if you aspire to be thought-provoking it's a good idea to have a thought. TMP had only the conceit that it was intellectual.