For Pete's sake, 3D, either get your sarcasm meter checked or go take a walk and get some fresh perspective, but stop digging through old posts looking for fights to pick and stop calling people liars before it gets you a warning.
Abrams: ST is silly and ridiculous
- Thread starter I am not Spock
- Start date
Abrams is absolutely right. Much of Trek was ridiculous, campy, and silly. The goofy suits, silly bowl-haircut, and the horrible, horrible writing. At least 2/3 of all the stories from all the series were absolutely awful, especially when weighed against science fiction literature. (Everybody likes to make fun of "Spock's Brain", but for me the most cringe-inducing moment was "I AM KIROK!!!")
There was a lot about Star Trek that was cool, though. In a very general sense, the premise was awesome. Giant space-ship on an exploration mission. It doesn't get any cooler than that! The characters were cool too, even though Kirk, Spock, McCoy (and Scotty to a lesser degree) were the only ones with any kind of identifiable personalities. They also clearly worked as hard as they were able to make the ship and accessory technology as believable as possible. (a doctrine totally abandoned by the later series, in my opinion)
It's good that he recognizes the lameness of Star Trek, better so as to isolate the lameness from the coolness, leaving us with pure, concentrated cool.
There was a lot about Star Trek that was cool, though. In a very general sense, the premise was awesome. Giant space-ship on an exploration mission. It doesn't get any cooler than that! The characters were cool too, even though Kirk, Spock, McCoy (and Scotty to a lesser degree) were the only ones with any kind of identifiable personalities. They also clearly worked as hard as they were able to make the ship and accessory technology as believable as possible. (a doctrine totally abandoned by the later series, in my opinion)
It's good that he recognizes the lameness of Star Trek, better so as to isolate the lameness from the coolness, leaving us with pure, concentrated cool.
What we're gonna get is gonna be freezing.
Some days, I think I am the only one here who hasn't seen Star Trek XI yet.
Yeah. Where were you when we had the big TrekBBS screening?
yikes! thats not silly. its frightening!
Put down the crack pipe. You've rotted your mind.
Actually, by definition, it is. Camp is a knowing and deliberate exaggeration, not simply the derision by a later generation for the art of a previous generation.
My favourite 60s "Batman" anecdote: early silver screen idol, Tallulah Bankhead, was cast as the Black Widow and the director was advising her on her performance. She said "Don't tell me about camp, darling. I invented it."
Of course you can. It's extremely easy. You watch the fantastic episodes like The Corbomite Manuever, Balance of Terror and CotEoF and you don't watch the episodes like A Piece of the Action (which I admit I loooovvveeddd when I was a kid) and Return of the Archons (which I hated even when I was a kid.)
The good of TOS is so good, it's simple to ignore the really terrible *coughSpock's Braincough*. When VOY and ENT came along, there simply was no good anymore, not even sorta, kinda, middlin' good. It was all That Which Survives. (which may the single most mind-numbingly boring hour of television ever produced.)
Nonsense. Being a fanatic means knowing a great deal about, and havnig a continuing interest in something. I know political fanatics who hate politicians, Congress and the Supreme Court, but are entirely obsessed with them all.
No, you don't undertand what campy is.
From Dictionary.com
camp (noun)
-something that provides sophisticated, knowing amusement, as by virtue of its being mannered and stylized, self-consciously artifical or extravagant...
Shatner's and Nimoy's performances were both highly stylized, and Shatner's was quite extravagant. The entire aesthetic of TOS was mannered and self-consciously artificial (Janice Rand's hairdo, Mea Three's dress). Also notice that the definition says nothing about provoking a laugh, only "knowing amusement". Granted Trek did not set out to be camp, but that was because camp was a relatively new phenomenon of the ultra-hip at the time, and Gene Roddenberry was basically a Herbert - and speaking of stylized, mannered and artificial, let us not forget:
http://img.trekmovie.com/tosrem/waytoeden/new_tosr075_extra_04.jpg
Hippiiiiieees iiiiiiiinnnnn spaaaaaacccccccee!
It's not necessarily whole episodes, but many moments from many episodes. Buff Apollo in a mindress. Kirk choking from invisible gas. The battle music in Amok Time. The above mentioned space hippies. Green-haired, silver-bikinied warrior women that Kirk gives an "empowering" speech to. If you can say with a straight face that these things are not silliness incarnate, then I say you have no sense of humor.
Being a fan of something does not mean approaching it with an uncritical (or untruthful) eye. I can acknowledge every single thing wrong wtih Star Trek, I can even sum it up into numbers and come up with that more of it was bad than was good (certainly that's true of the entire Star Trek ouevre). At the same time I can still be enchanted by it, still be amazed at how it created a universe that sparked my imagination far beyond guys in stiff green lizard suits, and that continues to capture my imagination today.
I am a huge fan of Star Trek, always have been and always will be. No matter how many times some self-appointed authority of Trek says differently.
Besides, Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. If you're a real fan - you'd live the creed.
Reach, brother. You can do it!
3D Master
Rear Admiral
And if you ignore more than half of it, you're not a fan. I don't watch Enterprise at all, anymore, and the few episodes I did watch, doesn't make me claim I'm a fan of the show. That's because I consider it BAD.
Which is nothing like being a fan of a show, or a band, or a singer, or whatnot.
Yeah, that's what I said, and Star Trek never did it.
Shatner's performance is always stylized. Nimoy had to play an emotionless character. Nothing about it, is camp.
No, it wasn't. There was nothing artificial and self-conscious about it. Well, apart from it being a show in the future and thus they didn't want to make carbon copies of hair styles of the day; and even then, most of those hair styles weren't that much off from the real ones in the day.
If that is artificial and self-conscious, then The Dark Knight is artificial and self-conscious.
That would be the same thing.
And yet, not camp.
That would make every single depiction of a Greek god, and every period piece about the Greeks silly. I'm sure the Greeks and people who made movies about them find it good to know that everything they did is silly.
That would actually be dramatic. And seeing as most gasses, especially those that are used for poison, are invisible, there's again nothing silly about it.
Ah, so dramatic music is silly. I'm sure the producers of major block busters that used dramatic music are happy to know their music was silly.
Also, you must have really liked Berman's Star Trek.
Wow, one little silly thing; yeah, the show was soooo silly.
Exactly how is that silly?
I have plenty sense of humor. You seem to be incapable of turning off your humor and find everything silly you look at.
Oh, but I never said being a fan means you have to be uncritical. Quite the opposite. Merely that the majority of it, you have to find good.
And I can also acknowledge every single thing wrong with Star Trek; but they are in the minority, while the vast majority of it is good.
Except that Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations does not mean one isn't allowed to be critical of those combinations, and can't point out the blatantly negative ones. Hitler was evil bastard and a murderer, so were most of his henchman. According to you, I have to just go, "Hitler Halleluja! Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations!"
Hi All.
New here
------
Read below my friend.
I agree with this. Well said.
You try and replicate the 60's look the way they did on DS9 and ENT, and it really does look sill and out of place. Watching those episodes of DS9 and ENT with those 60's sets... no, it looked so out of place on those shows. Be happy that JJ actually makes them look good in what we've seen. Classic look, tweaked for good reason.
New here
------
Read below my friend.
I agree with this. Well said.
You try and replicate the 60's look the way they did on DS9 and ENT, and it really does look sill and out of place. Watching those episodes of DS9 and ENT with those 60's sets... no, it looked so out of place on those shows. Be happy that JJ actually makes them look good in what we've seen. Classic look, tweaked for good reason.
Let me paraphrase:
"I'm right because I'm right because I'm right and only my opinions are ever valid and anyone who ever disagrees with me is WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG and not a real fan."
please dont think me trying to attack anyone, but this thread worries me. Anything that may harm peoples confidence in the new trek film is bad for star trek as a whole.
I would be willing to be abrahams was purposly being controversial to stir up hype and interest in the new film. and by the looks of it, it worked. people are talking about trek again after 5 years in the Abyss.... Hallelujah!!!
I would be willing to be abrahams was purposly being controversial to stir up hype and interest in the new film. and by the looks of it, it worked. people are talking about trek again after 5 years in the Abyss.... Hallelujah!!!
It's like watching a dog chase its tail.
Is that what you're doing?
Funny how someone expressing sincere feelings strikes you that way, but you expressing yours...
Should others view you the same way?
Are you being respectful, or trying to silence someone when you just don't care for their point of view?
I'm a little unclear on what your post means.
Excuse me? YOU'RE the one telling everyone who doesn't agree with you that they should "give up" on Star Trek and go watch something else. YOU are the one claiming you know what Star Trek is "really" about and people who disagree with you don't "really love" TOS and aren't real fans.
That's respectful?
And I can't believe there is an honest-to-God Godwin in this thread as well....
I don't know where you get that; I find his Kirk to be far more naturalistic than the robotic acting style one sees from many of the later Trek actors.
As to the look of the show itself, it was a theatrical production. It had a certain aesthetic -- an artistic expression. Modern producers eschew that in favor of what they think is realism. They throw away the artistry in the process.
I have to disagree with Lapis re Return of the Archons. The lack of self-control evident in The Body, once Landru's suppressive influence is removed, chills me.
From watching him, no doubt. "Extravagant" is a polite word for his acting.
Similar threads
