Star Trek Completely Reimagined

[3D Master]

Let's face it: it's not like there isn't such a huge resource available to check on these things - millions of fans, among which tens of thousands probably know the number of eyelashes Spock has in any given episode - that there's no excuse for any professional to say, "Well, how could we know that was an issue?" Hire some fans for fact checkers! Go on the Internet! Come to this board! The answers aren't particularly difficult to find. And we probably would work pretty cheaply! .

But what's up on the screen will be the truth, that's the point. The tens of million of people who have never seen before don't care that Kirk drove gears in a piece of the action. The film-makers don't care either, this is an attempt to get back to basics in terms of character and situation - it's not an attempt to score points by getting it "right" with a tiny group of fans. Rightly the film makers have incorporated what they want to incorporate and if it doesn't fit - it's tossed - which is how it should be.

:sighs:

Except that you can get it back to basics in terms of character and situation without violating continuity.

Violating continuity is then simply lazy and uncreative writing. You see, you can have it ALL. You can bring in all the new people AND please the old very knowledgeable fans. It just takes a bit more effort, a few more Memory Alpha searches, maybe rewatch TOS.

Remember that little film The Wrath of Kahn? All those tens of millions of people loved it. And the story came from watching TOS and make a sequel to an episode! All the knowleadgeable fans loved it too.

It can be done, you just need to be willing to put in the effort and creativity.

 

[RoJoHen]

Let's face it: it's not like there isn't such a huge resource available to check on these things - millions of fans, among which tens of thousands probably know the number of eyelashes Spock has in any given episode - that there's no excuse for any professional to say, "Well, how could we know that was an issue?" Hire some fans for fact checkers! Go on the Internet! Come to this board! The answers aren't particularly difficult to find. And we probably would work pretty cheaply! .

But what's up on the screen will be the truth, that's the point. The tens of million of people who have never seen before don't care that Kirk drove gears in a piece of the action. The film-makers don't care either, this is an attempt to get back to basics in terms of character and situation - it's not an attempt to score points by getting it "right" with a tiny group of fans. Rightly the film makers have incorporated what they want to incorporate and if it doesn't fit - it's tossed - which is how it should be.

:sighs:

Except that you can get it back to basics in terms of character and situation without violating continuity.

Violating continuity is then simply lazy and uncreative writing. You see, you can have it ALL. You can bring in all the new people AND please the old very knowledgeable fans. It just takes a bit more effort, a few more Memory Alpha searches, maybe rewatch TOS.

Remember that little film The Wrath of Kahn? All those tens of millions of people loved it. And the story came from watching TOS and make a sequel to an episode! All the knowleadgeable fans loved it too.

It can be done, you just need to be willing to put in the effort and creativity.

Just because you can do a thing does not mean that you must do that thing.

 

[3D Master]

The overwhelming majority of member posts that I see here that are happy with a reimagining (a majority of posting members, it appears) claim that it 'must' be done because either all of the potential stories in the original settings have been done, or because canon is so 'burdensome' that there is no way to tell stories that don't violate it - again, an excuse that there are no new stories.

OH! You mean no new stories within established continuity! Sorry, I misunderstood you.

Personally, it's not that I don't think there are no new stories within continuity. I think that the last ten years of Trek have proven that Paramount cannot hire a team who are able to do anything the slightest bit interesting if they are working within continuity. So we might as well roll with it if they want to rewrite continuity and see if that results in anything better. I'm not at all convinced that it will. But it's worth a shot 'cause god knows what they were doing was trite pablum and not even a pale shadow of the best of Trek.

:sighs:

FIRST, continuity or no continuity has nothing do with the bad Trek after DS9. This comes from 2 things; the producers (and studios) need for Trek to remain the mold of TNG (that the DS9 writers thankfully broke) which after being reused again for 15th year in a row, grew stale, predictable, bland and uninteresting. This has NOTHING to do with continuity, but the mold they forced shows to be in.

(Thus, you shouldn't blame the writers, blame the studios, and the produces for not having the back bone to say to the suits: no, it needs to evolve. And if you don't like that fact, we walk.)

Second, it did NOT stay in continuity. If Enterprise HAD stayed in continuity, there wouldn't have been a problem. Enterprise in continuity would have produced a show that completely blown the TNG mold off the face of the Earth. If you didn't hear the occasional "Warp drive", "Impulse" and saw the occasional familiar alien, you wouldn't even know it was Star Trek.

But what's the advantage of working within 40 years of contradictory continuity? Other than pleasing that contigent of fans, which isn't even really very large, who put great stock in the consistency of a fictional history?

The fact that you CONTRIBUTE to franchise with a mostly NOT contradictory continuity, instead of decide to overwrite it. Hell, I'd consider it a point of pride and satisfaction not to contradict anything that can't be helped; stuff that's already been contradicted and the TOS and later Treks followed one version.

I think I agree with your general sentiment. Ultimately it doesn't matter at all whether Trek took the route of working within continuity, or rebooting - what is important is that they return to the risk-taking that was a defining characteristic of TOS.

What risk-taking? It's a big old time-travel action flick. Done twice before as the most successful both financially and critically in movies, and done to death in the shows.

But, you know what - they're not going to do that no matter what. TOS was a tiny, low budget tv show that few people watched. It could be as out there and off the wall as it wanted, because it didn't represent much of an investment for the production company. Now it's an industry unto itself and no one is going to have the balls to take a real risk with that. Such is the reason the trailer is chock full of hot rebellious barely older than teenagers and chicks taking off their shirts, mixed with 'splosions.

Huh? Didn't you say in one paragraph that finally Trek is taking risks again, and now you're saying they're not?

:sighs:

Except that you can get it back to basics in terms of character and situation without violating continuity.

Violating continuity is then simply lazy and uncreative writing. You see, you can have it ALL. You can bring in all the new people AND please the old very knowledgeable fans. It just takes a bit more effort, a few more Memory Alpha searches, maybe rewatch TOS.

Remember that little film The Wrath of Kahn? All those tens of millions of people loved it. And the story came from watching TOS and make a sequel to an episode! All the knowleadgeable fans loved it too.

It can be done, you just need to be willing to put in the effort and creativity.

Just because you can do a thing does not mean that you must do that thing.

If you think lazy and uncreative writing is not something you have to avoid, you'd be right. Otherwise; no.

 

[RoJoHen]

:sighs:

Except that you can get it back to basics in terms of character and situation without violating continuity.

Violating continuity is then simply lazy and uncreative writing. You see, you can have it ALL. You can bring in all the new people AND please the old very knowledgeable fans. It just takes a bit more effort, a few more Memory Alpha searches, maybe rewatch TOS.

Remember that little film The Wrath of Kahn? All those tens of millions of people loved it. And the story came from watching TOS and make a sequel to an episode! All the knowleadgeable fans loved it too.

It can be done, you just need to be willing to put in the effort and creativity.

Just because you can do a thing does not mean that you must do that thing.

If you think lazy and uncreative writing is not something you have to avoid, you'd be right. Otherwise; no.

I think it's pretty lazy to call something lazy and uncreative without even seeing it yet.

 

[Nardpuncher]

There should be some sort of thing on this board that only lets you use rolleyes or :: if there is real proof that you are female.
I just can't explain how juvenille those two things are.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I don't much care for ENT (only watched about half of it), but I still think that this statement is ridiculous.

Not ONE ep of ENT was better than "The Way to Eden"? Seriously?

There may have been two or three episodes of "Enterprise" that weren't better than most of the crap from the third season of TOS.

 

[SonicRanger]

There should be some sort of thing on this board that only lets you use rolleyes or :: if there is real proof that you are female.
I just can't explain how juvenille those two things are.

Wait, what? Did you just say women are immature?

 

[superstring01]

I'd actually love to seem more Science fiction in the films but I doubt we are going to get that as it doesn't seem to play well with the mainstream audiences.

I've always thought this. With genetic manipulation and nano-technology, it's impossible to believe that things aren't unimaginably different in the future. For instance, there's no way I believe that humans will be of today's weakness of strength and mind 250 years into the future. Why would we be? The technology almost exists now to enhance our abilities, there is no way people would resist such temptations.

~String

 

[Jerikka Dawn]

See, I have a problem with the word "facts". It's all fiction. So how can you get hung up on the idea of established facts?

When someone says "established facts" when referring to a work of fiction, they are obviously referring to established continuity, not facts as in "this is true in real life." The reason people get hung up on it is because writing a story which contradicts previously established continuity is simply bad writing in that it does not really advance a story. You effectively don't have a story if "facts" can be ignored when it's convenient for a particular episode or movie.

You can't, for example, start off season 5 of Deep Space Nine with Kira being a crossdressing Cardassian male and expect to call it Deep Space Nine. Yes, Kira being a Bajoran Female isn't really a "fact" because it's a fictional story, but it violates the entire premise of a large portion of the episodes, making the overall story meaningless and without substance.

The problem with most people who get hung up on Star Trek canon, is that they place too much stock in throwaway lines like "that Romulan ship's power is simple Impulse", and examples of bad writing like Picard saying "Starfleet is not a military organization" and will not accept Star Trek stories that don't fit within the narrowly defined criteria of this "hyper-canon."

When it comes to story continuity, I firmly believe that after the TNG episode "Unnatural Selection", that everyone in the Federation has access to the ability to keep from aging and death is almost eliminted throughout the Alpha Quadrant except for accidents and wars -- because the crew of the Enterprise figured out how to do this and was the pivotal resolution to this story. This is "established fact" within the continuity.

You can't, a few episodes later, claim you can't keep people from aging.

The number of phaser emplacements on a Galaxy Class starship, or whether Chekov had an intimate moment off camera with Khan in "Space Seed", on the other hand, I don't care what butt the writers wipe those "facts" with.

 

[Nardpuncher]

There should be some sort of thing on this board that only lets you use rolleyes or :: if there is real proof that you are female.
I just can't explain how juvenille those two things are.

Wait, what? Did you just say women are immature?

I'm sorry about that...I meant more like pre-teen girls when I said female.

 

[3D Master]

When someone says "established facts" when referring to a work of fiction, they are obviously referring to established continuity, not facts as in "this is true in real life." The reason people get hung up on it is because writing a story which contradicts previously established continuity is simply bad writing in that it does not really advance a story. You effectively don't have a story if "facts" can be ignored when it's convenient for a particular episode or movie.

You can't, for example, start off season 5 of Deep Space Nine with Kira being a crossdressing Cardassian male and expect to call it Deep Space Nine. Yes, Kira being a Bajoran Female isn't really a "fact" because it's a fictional story, but it violates the entire premise of a large portion of the episodes, making the overall story meaningless and without substance.

And how exactly is a "walking stack of books" versus "James Dean Kirk" not "a cross dressing Cardassian male"?

The problem with most people who get hung up on Star Trek canon, is that they place too much stock in throwaway lines like "that Romulan ship's power is simple Impulse", and examples of bad writing like Picard saying "Starfleet is not a military organization" and will not accept Star Trek stories that don't fit within the narrowly defined criteria of this "hyper-canon."

"Romulan ship's power is simple Impulse", is not a throwaway line, it's a major plot point of a pivotal TOS episode. If the Romulan ship is not "simple impulse" instead of a ship that is clearly outmatched by the Enterprise (and can thus win and prevent a war from starting), you have a ship that can kick the Enterprise's ass without too much trouble (and thus start a war).

It's a devastatingly pivotal fact that is the difference between continued relative peace in Alpha/Beta quadrants versus a Federation/Romulan War.

 

[Australis]

I'm sorry. All this continuity shit is making my head hurt. Build a bridge and get over it.

Look at Batman Begins. Did that work, yes or no?

All you need to remember: 21st Century Trek.

 

[Danoz]

It's been over 40 years since we first saw Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise flash across the screen. Now, we see a completely new Star Trek, reimagined for the 21st Century. I want everyones opinion on this one, please. Do you think after 40 years of Star Trek, it's time to shed the old look, idea and feel of Star Trek, and start over from scratch and completely reimagine everything?...The New Star Trek

I think so.

At least to get people to shut up about "canon."

Let's remember there's nothing simple about Trek anymore. Spend a few days on memory-alpha and you'll see what a cluster of ideas it is. I, for one, enjoy the DS9 relaunch novels very much-- and would much prefer a good relaunch book than any attempts to get the old cast and crew together... because I understand that such a thing wouldn't have broad appeal.

This new movie, or "reimagining," very well might. And I suspect the Memory-Alpha community will integrate it as canon, anyway.

 

[Ptrope]

I don't much care for ENT (only watched about half of it), but I still think that this statement is ridiculous.

Not ONE ep of ENT was better than "The Way to Eden"? Seriously?

Seriously. I'd be very hard-pressed to name an episode of ENT that maintained enough internal or external consistency, or in which the progression of the plot followed any storytelling logic, to surpass even "The Way to Eden." (Now, I'm not saying that "Spock's Brain" was better written than any ENT episodes, but that's not the ep I was using for comparison ) Even the "best" episodes of ENT (like, for example, "The Andorian Incident" or "Dear Doctor" - eps I name only because I was amazed by how positively, and uncritically, they were received) are so shot through with holes, illogic and forced conclusions as to make them laughable. IMO, ENT served one greater purpose: it was a living example to writers of how not to 'craft' a story, especially those that were presented as its 'gems.' So, I'll get off the off-topic posts, but I just wanted to respond that, no, what I stated was not simply hyperbole.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

It's been over 40 years since we first saw Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise flash across the screen. Now, we see a completely new Star Trek, reimagined for the 21st Century. I want everyones opinion on this one, please. Do you think after 40 years of Star Trek, it's time to shed the old look, idea and feel of Star Trek, and start over from scratch and completely reimagine everything?...The New Star Trek

No.

That doesn't mean I only want to see the same old thing over and over. I don't.

I just don't like the idea of someone pushing an entirely new concept, with entirely new characters and an entirely new style, with entirely different writing, that has nothing in common with the original, as though it's "the original."

If you want to do that... if you have better, more interesting, more "modern" ideas... call it something new. Don't pull the "bait and switch" routine, trying to fool your audience into thinking it's something they're familiar with, if it's not.

I LOVE new shows, and new takes. But, say, "Stargate Atlantis" isn't "Star Trek" or "Space 1999" or anything else... it's a new show with new characters set in a new situation... and it just happens to be non-contradictory (though almost entirely unrelated) to a movie from a few years back called "Stargate."

Now... if they called that "Stargate Atlantis" and intentionally contradicted the stuff from the original movie... that would be objectionable. But they don't do that, do they? They don't address much from the original movie, but they've never gone out of their way to say "forget the original movie, it never happened in this reality," do they?

That's how you do something DIFFERENT, yet keep it consistent with the original. You grow, you expand... you don't "redo" and "contradict."

(FYI, I'm not saying that's some sort of perfect TV show... only that it's a good example of growth without contradiction.)

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I'm sorry. All this continuity shit is making my head hurt. Build a bridge and get over it.

Look at Batman Begins. Did that work, yes or no?

All you need to remember: 21st Century Trek.

Batman Begins didn't "reinvent" anything, though.

Rather, it abandoned the horrific prior attempts to "reinvent" and took the story and characterization back to their roots.

Sometimes the most progressive man is the one who recognizes that he's on the wrong road, and goes back to the right one, the soonest.

"Batman Begins" is the DUMBEST POSSIBLE example of "reinvention" because it's NOT REINVENTION. Half of the movie is lifted, almost frame-by-frame, from comic book stories published years or even decades earlier. (See "Batman - Year One," "The Long Halloween," and "The Man Who Falls.")

It didn't "reinvent." It tossed aside disastrous prior attempts at reinvention and went back to the original source material.

If this movie is what it seems it may be... a Trek equivalent of "Ang Lee's HULK"... then the only way out will be to do what the latest "Hulk" movie did, and ignore the last one totally (it did, however, pay homage to the old TV show in several significant ways).

Abandon the changes and go back to the source material.

 

[JoeZhang]

I'm sorry. All this continuity shit is making my head hurt. Build a bridge and get over it.

Look at Batman Begins. Did that work, yes or no?

All you need to remember: 21st Century Trek.

Batman Begins didn't "reinvent" anything, though.

Rather, it abandoned the horrific prior attempts to "reinvent" and took the story and characterization back to their roots.

Sometimes the most progressive man is the one who recognizes that he's on the wrong road, and goes back to the right one, the soonest.

"Batman Begins" is the DUMBEST POSSIBLE example of "reinvention" because it's NOT REINVENTION. Half of the movie is lifted, almost frame-by-frame, from comic book stories published years or even decades earlier. (See "Batman - Year One," "The Long Halloween," and "The Man Who Falls.")

It didn't "reinvent." It tossed aside disastrous prior attempts at reinvention and went back to the original source material.

If this movie is what it seems it may be... a Trek equivalent of "Ang Lee's HULK"... then the only way out will be to do what the latest "Hulk" movie did, and ignore the last one totally (it did, however, pay homage to the old TV show in several significant ways).

Abandon the changes and go back to the source material.

I like how "Year one" is held up as "the original source material" which of course it's not. It was a revisionist take on the character when they rebooted the universe! and many fans still kick that it took the character down the wrong road.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

I'm sorry. All this continuity shit is making my head hurt. Build a bridge and get over it.

Look at Batman Begins. Did that work, yes or no?

All you need to remember: 21st Century Trek.

Batman Begins didn't "reinvent" anything, though.

Rather, it abandoned the horrific prior attempts to "reinvent" and took the story and characterization back to their roots.

Sometimes the most progressive man is the one who recognizes that he's on the wrong road, and goes back to the right one, the soonest.

"Batman Begins" is the DUMBEST POSSIBLE example of "reinvention" because it's NOT REINVENTION. Half of the movie is lifted, almost frame-by-frame, from comic book stories published years or even decades earlier. (See "Batman - Year One," "The Long Halloween," and "The Man Who Falls.")

It didn't "reinvent." It tossed aside disastrous prior attempts at reinvention and went back to the original source material.

If this movie is what it seems it may be... a Trek equivalent of "Ang Lee's HULK"... then the only way out will be to do what the latest "Hulk" movie did, and ignore the last one totally (it did, however, pay homage to the old TV show in several significant ways).

Abandon the changes and go back to the source material.

I like how "Year one" is held up as "the original source material" which of course it's not. It was a revisionist take on the character when they rebooted the universe! and many fans still kick that it took the character down the wrong road.

The revisions in Year One are minor and mostly affect Selina Kyle, a side character who has next to no effect on the story, and it's those changes that are still controversial in fandom as far as I know. There are numerous quotes from that era where DC editors discuss that while most of the heroes needed major revisions to update them to contemporary times, Bruce Wayne's origin still worked perfectly. Which is why the story largely follow Jim Gordon, because you could do something "new" with him, meaning, explore the implied back story that had never been explicitly told. You'd have a better argument with saying "The Man Who Falls" is revisionist, because it explores the late Silver Age additions to Bruce Wayne's past of his travels in the East learning martial arts disciplines, which were not a part of the Batman story until the 1970s.