If you don't think Nemesis is better than Star trek 2009....
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Just compare the two pilots, "The Cage" is a classical 50s/60s style sci-fi story whereas "Where No Man Has Gone Before" features the Western elements the studio demands.
Chekov's character had more to do with the popularity of The Monkees than it did the Soviets.
Do you have evidence the studio demand "Western elements". The show was pitched by GR as "Wagon Train to the stars. Wagon Train being a popular western. It was conceived as a "space western" from the start. What were the "Western elements" in WNMHGB? It seems as "cerebral" as The Cage. Both involve antagonists with mind powers. Both explore how great powers impact people. The friend goes power mad element in WNMHGB is universal and not unique to Westerns. I'd say the plot of WNMHGB would be more at home on The Twilight Zone or Outer Limits than Bonanza or Gunsmoke.
Actually had more to do with the popularity of The Beatles which is why he had the mop top and was suppose to be British originally.
NBC rejected the episode, following its production, and declared it was "too cerebral." Robert Butler found he could relate to this statement. "Apparently, the network, at its level, was feeling exactly as I did," he remarked. (Starlog issue #117, p. 55) According to Gene Roddenberry, he had a similar response to the news. "I sort of understood [NBC's verdict]," he said. "I wrote and produced what I thought was a highly imaginative idea, and I realized I had gone too far. I should actually have ended it with a fistfight between the hero and the villain if I wanted it on television [...] because that's the way shows were being made at the time. The great mass audience would say, 'Well, if you don't have a fistfight when it's ended, how do we know that's the finish?,' and things like that." (The Star Trek Interview Book, p. 10) Besides finding the episode too intellectual, NBC also cited criticisms such as the presence of a female first officer on the bridge and the character of Spock being too alien for audiences of the time. (Star Trek Monthly issue 6, pp. 14, 20, 52; et al.)
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Cage_(episode)#Reception_and_Aftermath
Western is the wrong word, action vs. thematic density (sounds not as presumptuous as cerebral) might be a better description. This conflict is present in all Trek and if you take a look at the movies the ones who balance these two elements well are usually good movies.
horatio83 is another who needs to read Inside Star Trek. It counters alot of the spin GR produced over the years.
I seem to recall quite a bit of action in The Cage. Pike fought the Kaylar, an ape like creature/Talosian illusion and threatened to blow the Keepers head off. Not to mention the cool laser scene.
Human violence is even the key to the Talosians letting them go.
I seem to recall quite a bit of action in The Cage. Pike fought the Kaylar, an ape like creature/Talosian illusion and threatened to blow the Keepers head off. Not to mention the cool laser scene.
Human violence is even the key to the Talosians letting them go.
I never claimed there is no action or violence in "The Cage", I merely repeated what the NBC folks said, that it was too cerebral for them. It has typical 50s/60s sci-fi features like an underlying psychoanalytical theme. "Where No Man has Gone Before" on the other hand leans more towards the action and less towards the sci-fi angle.
By the way, linking to Trekcore images does not work for a good reason.
By the way, linking to Trekcore images does not work for a good reason.
No, you're repeating what GR claimed NBC folks said. Justman and Solow paint a different picture. They claim that "cerebral" was networkspeak for sex not violence. Not surprising since Americans find a naked breast more offensive than an exploding head.
Sorry but many, if not most of 50s/60s scific were the Michael Bay films of the day. Some just played on Red Scare/Nuclear War paranoia.
WNMHGB is hardly action packed. Most of the action happens in the final act. Prior that it's talking heads with the crew debating what to do about Gary, while Gary grows more powerful and crazy. A fair amount of "psychoanalytical themes" too. Power corrupts. The price of friendship. A bit a "sophie's choice" as well.
Not sure what your comment about Trek Core means.
ETA: How can a guy gaining vast godlike psi-powers be "less Sci-Fi???"
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You can't directly link to images there anymore.
Do they think that's a bad thing?
Not sure of the reasoning behind it, I found out the hard way when I tried to link to some images on there a while back.
The Justman sounds plausable, they might have also have had an issue with the sexual themes of "The Cage".
Anyway, pointless to debate such background issues, you just gotta watch the two pilots to realize that the first one is not merely more cerebral and sci-fi-ish than the second one but also more memorable and popular.
Doesn't mean these qualities are always good, it is e.g. unbearable to watch a movie like TMP.
About classical sci-fi movies, if you ignore the B movies (on the big screen WNMHGB would have been a B movie) they are overall far better than contemporary sci-fi movies. It is not incidentally called the golden age of science fiction.
I've seen both many times and I can't see why "The Cage" is more cerebral, other than being told that it is so many times that we've come to believe it. Same for the "sci-fi-ish". Care to explain? Tell us what's more cerebral and sci-fi-ish about "The Cage"? At best I'd say its more cinematic.
Oh, so we have to eliminate the B-movies to find what's "typical".
You must have a different definition of "typical".
I hate that I am walking back into this (well, I hate that I actually bothered to catch up on this thread, but that's a tale for another day). The OP has obviously made up his mind on everything, and the only remaining point in this exercise is to give the OP additional opportunities to remind us that we're wrong about everything we say that's not in agreement with his thoughts, but I had to address one thing.......
"The Star Trek people made up Dilithium crystals to make their ships fly. Now, if you take their made-up plot device and combine it with my made-up hypothetical explaination, we can make theoretical science!!!!"
As someone who's read that book in the past, that book largely does nothing but spout theoretical stuff and try to come up with ways these various things might be possible. It doesn't prove that the folks on Star Trek were forward thinkers, just that they needed a device to do a job on their show, and someone was willing to invest time into coming up with ways it might be possible.
Trek 09 has plenty of issues, just like all the other movies. And if those issues are big enough that you can't enjoy the movie, that's your call. But I don't get the point of this thread other than to piss people off because you're obviously not going to be persuaded one direction or the other, and you're not going to win any allies for your cause by consistently coming out and insulting the folks who liked the new movie. Quite simply, this is not a discussion thread- this is a soapbox for you to preach to us Trek '09 loving heathens about the follies of our ways.
Did you read the excerpt you posted at all? Or better yet, did you understand what you posted? The shorter version of that excerpt translates out to be:
"The Star Trek people made up Dilithium crystals to make their ships fly. Now, if you take their made-up plot device and combine it with my made-up hypothetical explaination, we can make theoretical science!!!!"
As someone who's read that book in the past, that book largely does nothing but spout theoretical stuff and try to come up with ways these various things might be possible. It doesn't prove that the folks on Star Trek were forward thinkers, just that they needed a device to do a job on their show, and someone was willing to invest time into coming up with ways it might be possible.
Trek 09 has plenty of issues, just like all the other movies. And if those issues are big enough that you can't enjoy the movie, that's your call. But I don't get the point of this thread other than to piss people off because you're obviously not going to be persuaded one direction or the other, and you're not going to win any allies for your cause by consistently coming out and insulting the folks who liked the new movie. Quite simply, this is not a discussion thread- this is a soapbox for you to preach to us Trek '09 loving heathens about the follies of our ways.
trek_futurist
Lieutenant Commander
All that sounds like code for 'please continue showing black women as maid's and black men as servants'.
Especially all the stuff about how imperative it is to show black people in a way that is 'reflective of their role in society'. At that time, their perceived role in society was as servants and maid's.
Muhammad ali did more for black americans at that time than these TV executives did.
trek_futurist
Lieutenant Commander
Complete and utter non-sense.
It makes Uhura look like a whore and minimizes sulu's role down to virtually nothing.
TNG, DS9 and VOY exemplified racial diversity a lot better.
It's one thing to like the movie for being a special effects extravaganza, but to be snow blinded into this misconception is just ridiculous.
^As a reminder please.... outside of the "Big Three", what did any of the other TOS members really have to do in the first 6 movies that stood out compared to the new movie? In fact, what did the TOS members outside of the big 3 usually have to do in the series on a consistent basis?
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