Alternate timeline = Not the same Kirk, Spock, et al.??

[Jackson_Roykirk]

If the alternate timeline rumors are true, I can't help but think I will be cheated out of seeing the 'true' familiar characters from TOS, but rather simply the clones of those characters with different histories.

If these characters cease to have the histories that made them who they were in TOS, then they cease to be those same familiar characters. They become someone else -- perhaps someone with the same personality traits, but a different history -- and a character's history, is part of what makes that character a familiar one. The familiar 'true' histories that should be the baseline of comparison for these characters can be based on canon and even a little bit of 'fanon'.

Granted, a film with an alternate timeline could be terrific and lots of fun, but I just think that it would not feel like I was watching Kirk, Spock, et al., but rather a different group of people with similar personalities as the originals, but different histories. I liken this to a clone of an individual, or perhaps someone you know who suddenly lost the last 15 years of their memories. They would technically be the same person, but there would be something very unfamiliar about them.

For example, when I watch Yesterday's Enterprise, I don't feel as if I'm watching the Picard, Data and crew that I grew to enjoy; instead I feel like I'm watching different people, clones -- mainly because those people went through a different history to get to where they were, which is not the same history I was familiar with. Those people seemed a bit like strangers, even though they were actually Picard and the others. I couldn't wait until what I knew would be the obvious resolution of that episode, when everything was 'reset' back to normal and we got those familiar characters back.

Did anyone else get that "these people feel a bit like strangers to me" feeling while watching Yesterday's Enterprise?

If this film DOES take the alternate timeline route, I hope they hit that 'reset' button sometime before the next film. I hate to say that, due to the past overuse of the 'reset button' in BermanTrek, but I consider that idea better than the alternative.

It seems to me that if Abrams and crew wanted, they could just as easily build an exciting story around the existing history (both canon and some 'fanon') of the familiar crew. The "look" of the ship and other technology is irrelevant to me and requires no explanation as to why it looks different...I could live with a new look ship and just attribute that to the fact that this film is being made in 2008. I think most people are clever enough to ignore the look of the ship and concentrate on the familiar characters in the story.

 

[Dane_Whitman]

That's exactly how I feel about it, Jackson Roykirk. I am really looking forward to this movie, and I would be ok with it if there was no reset button at the end and the next movies will take place in this alternate timeline, but whenever someone posts something along the lines of 'it's nice that we're finally gonna see how they all come together', I think: This will be a different group of people.

No Tarsus IV, no Farragut, Chekov graduating at the same time as the other officers... All these things, and I bet there are more discrepancies, will lead to slightly different characters. Like I said, I'm okay with that, but I doubt this movie will make me feel like I've just witnessed the early years of Kirk and Spock rather than alternate-Kirk and alternate-Spock.

 

[maryh]

Ditto for me too. I thought we were going back to the TOS era because everyone liked those characters so much. So we go back to TOS and find different characters with the same names instead. Personalities even look different. We now have a bad ass rebel-without-a-cause Kirk, a logical-in-name only Spock who can't control his emotions, a somewhat silly Scotty. Not sure of we are going to get back that special chemistry they had between the characters if they alter them so much. IMO a reboot to the era right at the end of the 3rd year of the original 5 year mission would have been better.

I thought they put a lot into the casting so we would get the look and feel of the originals. Doesn't make sense to go through all that if they aren't going to use those characters.

 

[indranee]

Kirk was pretty badass. Spock was rather emotional in the Cage. Scotty was rather silly in the Lights of Zetar, not to mention some of the movies.

we can and should keep an open mind, people.

 

[seigezunt]

My sense is they will tweak with their histories, but will be basically the same characters that we knew when we didn't know all the accrued back story from spinoffs, books, comics, etc.

 

[jeff lebowski]

My sense is they will tweak with their histories, but will be basically the same characters that we knew when we didn't know all the accrued back story from spinoffs, books, comics, etc.

Actually, the whole movie looks like they want to do a What-would-Kirk-be Like-if-we-screwed-him-up-Nemesis-style.

So, I'm not sure if their premise is going to be See?-he's-still-the-same guy.

 

[seigezunt]

My sense is they will tweak with their histories, but will be basically the same characters that we knew when we didn't know all the accrued back story from spinoffs, books, comics, etc.

Actually, the whole movie looks like they want to do a What-would-Kirk-be Like-if-we-screwed-him-up-Nemesis-style.

So, I'm not sure if their premise is going to be See?-he's-still-the-same guy.

Where do you get that? (not belligerent here, I just don't see the evidence). I don't see why he couldn't be an angry young man before the timeline of the series. Though it might be cool if they did something loike the novel Killing Time, without the slashy stuff.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

...Personalities even look different. We now have a bad ass rebel-without-a-cause Kirk, a logical-in-name only Spock who can't control his emotions, a somewhat silly Scotty....

That's not really the exact problem I'm looking to point out here. The writers/director/actors can just as easily screw up the characters' personalities whether they are working within an alternate timeline, or sticking to the familiar timeline exactly (by the way, that's not to say I think the characters' personalities have been necessarily screwed up -- I'll have to wait and see the film for that.)

Even if I ignore what I saw in the trailer, I think I will still have an issue with the altered timeline idea. For me the problem is more the 'mindset' I think I will have when watching this film. If the timeline is altered, I can't help but think these characters will seem a bit like strangers -- no matter how similar their personilities are relative to the original way they were portrayed -- because their journey to that point in time was different.

Maybe when I see this film, they will execute the story in such a manner that my mindset won't matter, and I'll come to accept these characters as the originals, even if they come from an altered timeline. We'll see in May.

 

[maryh]

Kirk was pretty badass. Spock was rather emotional in the Cage. Scotty was rather silly in the Lights of Zetar, not to mention some of the movies.

we can and should keep an open mind, people.

I have to disagree because my main impression of TOS Kirk was his idealism. The Spock we see in The Cage was written as a different character than the one that was sold to us in TOS. If Kirk is action, Spock is rational thought/logic and McCoy is (com)passion and emotion, how can the dynamics of the Big 3 work? It will take the "fun" out of it. Looks like the idealism that was the foremost defining characteristic of TOS Trek has taken a back seat to action and sex. Not that TOS didn't have lots of these, but the ideals came first, then came lots of fighting, action, sex and humor.

Already I'm worried about the humor. Some quote said this new movie had humor that was more slapstick than the dry kind of humor we saw in TOS. Spock had a dry wit, McCoy had dry cynicism. The other characters had witty and sarcastic lines. Change the dynamics and personalities of the characters and the vehicle for humor isn't going to be there. I'll try to keep an open mind but I can't help but wonder if JJ in fact never did "get" Trek.

 

[MisterPL]

I, for one, am glad that Batman does not share the same history he had with the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher incarnations.

Alternate timeline. Reboot. Galaxy Quest. Whatever. I just want entertaining Star Trek.

 

[SGCSG1]

I will be TERRIBLY disappointed if the movie does not end with a giant reset switch. Yes, I want the future to be 'unwritten' and to have a new, young James Kirk and crew to have lots of adventures WE HAVEN'T ALREADY SEEN A HUNDRED TIMES.

That's kind of the point of doing the 'reboot in place'. Yes? Let's face it, Trek got pretty messed up a LONG time ago. How many of the movies pretty much sucked? Almost all of them.

Let's have a new Trek, where Kirk does NOT have to get killed in fairly-land (excuse me, the 'nexus') and then get killed AGAIN falling off a golram bridge. Stupid, stupid, stupid.....

 

[Franklin]

I understand and agree with the OP. Also, it seems like a bit of a cheat to not push the reset, but simply bump things to another timeline (then perhaps back again). I'm not talking about the stylistic changes. They don't need to be explained. It's a fictional story, after all. But the characters are the characters. Maybe not at ages in which we knew them before, but we should still feel we're seeing them. That we're watching what shaped them as we knew them. That we can see glimmers of their future selves in what they're doing.
If instead, they are the same people, but rewriting their futures, then there will always be something about them that never quite makes them as familiar as they were. We run into Kirk at age 53 and give him an old copy of A Tale of Two Cities and an antique pair of glasses. He says, "Thank you," but obviously doesn't appreciate them. That's kinda what I mean. I really don't know if that's bad or not. Probably not. Just different. Just a different feeling.

 

[maryh]

I will be TERRIBLY disappointed if the movie does not end with a giant reset switch. Yes, I want the future to be 'unwritten' and to have a new, young James Kirk and crew to have lots of adventures WE HAVEN'T ALREADY SEEN A HUNDRED TIMES.

That's kind of the point of doing the 'reboot in place'. Yes? Let's face it, Trek got pretty messed up a LONG time ago. How many of the movies pretty much sucked? Almost all of them.

Let's have a new Trek, where Kirk does NOT have to get killed in fairly-land (excuse me, the 'nexus') and then get killed AGAIN falling off a golram bridge. Stupid, stupid, stupid.....

I agree with everything you have said and yes, I very much, do want a reboot where our favorite young and dashing crew can take on new adventures on a clean, unwritten slate. But I want them to be the characters we knew and loved from TOS. It does not look like they put much emphasis on trying to achieve this.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

If these characters cease to have the histories that made them who they were in TOS, then they cease to be those same familiar characters.

No. The characters faux "histories" didn't make them who they were (other than perhaps, to some degree, Spock). Kirk was Kirk the first time he appeared, and if every reference to his past life were cut out of TOS it would not make him someone different.

It's certainly not like the writers or actors based the characterization on established "biographies" of the characters; the bios were cobbled together based on what writers decided they needed as backstory on a given week.

 

[USS Mariner]

I don't understand the logic of Spock expecting help from a crew that was already altered by Nero's actions. That seems incredibly stupid.

"Yesterday's Enterprise" touched upon this briefly, with Picard asking why Guinan's timeline was "right" and his timeline was "wrong." Other than trillions of people dying in his timeline, there wasn't anything bad about it (especially from the Klingons' standpoint. )

This question is even more relevant when you take into account Star Trek's use of alternate timelines, which implies that time traveling doesn't do anything to a timeline; it simply places the time-traveler into another timeline.

Now, if Spock meant to stop the destruction of the Kelvin, and somehow ended up in the "current" time of the story, the question becomes "Now what?" What does he expect to accomplish now, now that the damage has been done?

 

[Jon1701]

If this film DOES take the alternate timeline route, I hope they hit that 'reset' button sometime before the next film. I hate to say that, due to the past overuse of the 'reset button' in BermanTrek, but I consider that idea better than the alternative.

I just can't see that happening, dude.

Joe public moviegoer won't understand the reset button. He didn't watch TOS. He might have caught one or two of the movies and watched a few episodes of TNG and for the most part this looks and sounds like a Star Trek movie to him.

A reset button at the end would just confuse him.

I think its highly likely this movie will be in an alternate timeline of sorts, but given that our Spock will probably instigate or at least be part of these changes - I'm ok with it. The original timeline did happen.

Just ask the guardian of forever..

 

[USS Mariner]

If they did that, it would only prove that they are the stupidest motherfuckers on the planet. I'd also ask for my money back.

If they're going to change it back, then why the hell did they bother?

 

[Jon1701]

If they did that, it would only prove that they are the stupidest motherfuckers on the planet. I'd also ask for my money back.

If they're going to change it back, then why the hell did they bother?

I know.

I find it odd that people think the design of the enterprise will somehow change at the end of the movie or something

Yup, we spent all that production design money and we are going to change everything back at the end.

 

[USS Mariner]

"But...but they never told us it wasn't gonna come back!?"

It's also self-defeating to the work of all the people involved, who want the "die-hards" to "give it a chance."

How am I (even though I'm not a "die-hard," just someone who doesn't' care for anything other than TOS) supposed to give your vision a chance if we barely get a full movie out of it?

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

If this film DOES take the alternate timeline route, I hope they hit that 'reset' button sometime before the next film. I hate to say that, due to the past overuse of the 'reset button' in BermanTrek, but I consider that idea better than the alternative.

I just can't see that happening, dude.

Joe public moviegoer won't understand the reset button. He didn't watch TOS. He might have caught one or two of the movies and watched a few episodes of TNG and for the most part this looks and sounds like a Star Trek movie to him.

A reset button at the end would just confuse him.

I think its highly likely this movie will be in an alternate timeline of sorts, but given that our Spock will probably instigate or at least be part of these changes - I'm ok with it. The original timeline did happen.

Just ask the guardian of forever..

That's why I'm torn...Like I said, I would hate for them to use the reset button, but at the same time I would hate to see an altered timeline go forward in this new version of the movie franchise. To paraphrase Guinan in Yesterday's Enterprise, it would just feel "wrong" to me.

I may love this film, but it may never feel like I'm watching the same characters if they are part of an alternate timeline.

And for the record, I said in my OP that I don't expect the "look" of things to change. I have no problem accepting that the visuals of this film are different because it is a film made in 2008/2009, NOT because it is an "alternate timeline".