This again. Let me repeat what I've said about this bullshit:
WRONG! Those who are against this movie, you'll find, invariably have been clamoring fro a change for ages. We're the ones who rolled our eyes at Voyager, and totally derided Enterprise for being even more of the same.
However, we've been clamoring for a GOOD change. Just because there is a change doesn't mean it's a good change.
In fact; there is no change to Star Trek at all with this new movie - not the things that needed changing that is. All the things that needed changing and even outright removal, were kept and made worse, while all the things that needed no change, were changed to closer to the bad stuff, or outright removed.
A good change we would have applauded and welcomed with open arms.
Again I point you to Rotten Tomatoes website. Most everyone DID welcome the movie with open arms. And not just Star Trek fans , heck even a lot of people who were dead set against the movie have come to love it. Your a tiny tiny tiny tiny segment of the population who thinks the movie stinks. Your entitled to your opinion though so have at it.
I wonder how long that lasts. There are plenty of movies out there, that upon first viewing one goes, "Great!" And then several years down the line, having grown older and wiser, you go, "I thought this was good!? What the hell was I thinking!?"
In your opinion what things in Star Trek needed changing? Besides someone firing Bermaga? Just wondering is all. I loved the movie but that doesn't mean there are things about it that I wouldn't change. But overall it was a great first step with respect to reinvigorating the franchise. IMHO..
1. Forget time travel for a long while - it's been done to death.
2. Stop pulling even more particles and materials out of writer's asses. To do this, one would require a gentle restructuring, and more comprehensive frame work of "subspace / hyperspace / Star Trek physics" and how and what all these exotic particles really are in that framework. Personally I would use the lesser known Hyper-dimensional physics as a basis, because a. Star Trek's subspace physics seems to conform to that physics for the most already, and b. it opens up lots of possibilities - for one thing, planets can explode by natural subspace stress causes. (In HD physics model the asteroid belt in our solar system is not material that couldn't form into a planet, it's a planet or pair of planets that exploded some 65 million years ago.)
The above helps with consistent writing and gives one many openings for that writing - it would also help one create a new exotic effect without having to pull a new particle out of one's ass, you can simply combine particles and HD/Subspace effects.
This is one of the classic things that was wrong in Trek that the new movie made worse. Once again they pull a particle/material out of their asses; but at least before they seemed to try for something that at least rang plausible somehow. "Red Matter", kept in a red bag-like contraption? (JJ - "How can you take Star Trek seriously after seeing Galaxy Queest?" Way to go making GQII then, JJ, not to mention that if there will ever be a GQII, and soon probably in the GQ comics, there'll be a whole slew of matters; Yellow Matter, Blue Matter, Indigo Matter, Green with Pink Polka Dots Matter, just to show everyone how ridiculous it is. There probably will be running jokes where they mistake the color and its effects, (Nesmith: "Wait, I thought that was Blue Matter?" Fleegman: "No, Blue Matter is..." Nesmith: "Shit, couldn't they have come up with something more distinctive that colors!?") and how in the end they can and have to combine them all to make "rainbow matter" (Nesmith: :sighs: "Of course. Seriously?") or some such.)
3. Any action scenes needed some beefing up, some more excitement, and show that a ship is in a fight by taking damage. "Shields/polarized plating down to 81%." Oh, really? Yawn. Leave the damn dialogue out and just show the shields flickering and weakening and see some weapons fire getting through and hurting the ship; and it would be much better. Also; fights, how come they are all stilted and boring? Not to mention what happened to the Academy's security martial arts training. I remember Tasha Yar in one episode, and Kirk saying he was grateful for the Academies karate training. There's no reason why you can't have a full blown martial arts sequence once phasers have been rendered inoperatable also with Humans being the fighters. We've got a martial arts and warrior history that dates back millennia, where the hell did it go? We go in space and meet some actual aliens, there's a good chance they'll look upon as we look upon Klingons: "violent, honor-driven, fighting-driven warriors and bladed-weapons glorifying nutcases" (both in positive and negative light). So how come all humans are essentially portrayed as a bunch of weaklings who don't how to fight :sniff:.
(Do notice, that the above does NOT mean to reduce a movie to action sequence after action sequence strung together by juvenile jokes and empty bullshit.)
4. More exploration of the criminally neglected part of the core and heart of Star Trek. (The core being a combination of secular humanism, adventure, a little humor, drama, and Science Fiction.) The criminally neglected one of those being Science Fiction. That means exploration of today's relevant topics through a technological or future lens. They pretty much kept TOS settings and left everyone else in the dust. Nothing really new has been explored; the setting is really only used to do some flinter thin preaching and that's it, written by writers who wouldn't know good Science Fiction if it smacked them in the ass. Personally, I would hire actual Science Fiction writers to come up with a story and once greenlit write the script. Like Julie E. Czerneda or Peter F. Hamilton and others.
5. Extremely closely related to 4. Drama (and thus depth) needs to be seriously improved. TOS was hampered in its depth by it being a. on tv, b. limited by a network, c. in the 60s and its audience - and was all but forced to to hammer things in even with what you and I think is obvious and flinter thin. However, TOS was still bloody good drama, which has been lacking in the last two films and series; and it is now the 21st century and this a movie.
(These last two closer related points, are once again where the JJ Trek Wars went into the exact opposite direction than where it should have gone. Instead of finally (not counting DS9) going deeper, it went even thinner than ever. It took one of the weaknesses of Trek and made it worse.)
