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The only way forward for Star Trek

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What was "dark and gritty" about ST09?
One of the parts I found especially "dark,' and that emphasized the differences in the two Kirks, was in the Kobayashi Maru. Kirk change the simulation so that the Klingon ships shields dropped, at the same time obviously the Klingons also stopped firing on Kirk's ship.

So on the field of battle, you have hundreds of now defenseless Klingon warriors, who are no longer any threat to Kirk's ship or the ship he's there to rescue.

At which point Kirk orders the Klingons killed.

I can see that you don't play video games...

We don't know how the original Kobayashi Maru played out.

There's that, and I think at this point (nu)Kirk wasn't taking it seriously anymore and was more about proving a point or just being a smart-ass over thinking that it was a serious test any longer.
 
TOS didn't really develop the characters all that much when you compare it to what shows do nowaday.

Exactly. I mean, I love TOS, but is anybody really arguing that Original Recipe Scotty or Chekov were complicated, fleshed-out characters? Hell, Uhura didn't even have first name, let alone any sort of onscreen backstory.

Talk about rose-colored goggles!
 
I'd like to see a more grown up Trek. When people die, they stay dead. People lie, cheat, steal, love, cry. Let's get rid of the idealistic 60's and face the future with an eye to a more realistic portrayal of humanity.

Huh?

TOS had plenty of examples of humans doing bad things. Lying, cheating, stealing, loving and crying. So did TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT.

If by "a more realistic portrayal of humanity" you mean you'd rather watch "Babylon 5" or the relaunched "Battlestar Galactica" or "V", you are quite welcome. I prefer ST to attempt to set the bar for humanity to aim just a little higher as we head towards the 23rd and 24th centuries.

Yknow what, it's inevitable that MattWallace is going to get his way. There's no place on TV where Star Trek can survive except on cable. Just compare any Trek series we've seen with Game of Thrones, True Blood or The Walking Dead - which being sf/f on cable and all ratings hits are the natural template for any new sf/f show on cable - and you'll see why even DS9 is kid stuff by comparison.

We'll never again see Star Trek on TV that is even like DS9, and TNG and TOS' templates have been entirely eclipsed. There's no place on TV friendly to expensive series in niche genres unless they cater to sophisticated grownup tastes. The sole exception is The Cartoon Network, if the show is animated, and then it's going to follow the example of The Clone Wars.

However, that said, I do think Star Trek needs to retain the idealism of TOS because that is its unique quality. And cable isn't unfriendly to shows that explore meaningful concepts such as "it's easy to be a saint in paradise." The Walking Dead in particular grapples with the issue of whether people can maintain their humanity in extremely brutal circumstances, and I think that's part of the show's appeal. But the challenges that cable would throw at Our Heroes would make anything Sisko or Kirk faced look like softballs.
 
Hell, Uhura didn't even have first name, let alone any sort of onscreen backstory.

Talk about rose-colored goggles!

We know that she could speak Swahili and that she's a quick learner!

And a nice singing voice . . . .

(Maybe they should include a scene in the next movie where Zoe Saldana serenades Zachary Quinto!)

"Holy crap, Uhura's black!" - Peter Griffen

And I think we've covered everything known about Uhura from TOS in the last half dozen posts. :lol:
 
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Breaking news, audences like romance, ST Eleven didn't make clear that anything more than a sex hook-up was happening. Again no complexity.

Huh?

Were you out in the foyer buying popcorn at the time? The film had lots of little moments building complexity between Uhura and Spock - and the promise of even more complexity in the future as we wonder if there's a T'Pring in this timeline.

Sure, it was a different unveiling of character romance than in "Avatar". In "Avatar" we watched the romance forming, then blossoming. In "Star Trek" there was a shock reveal, then the romance coloured every scene involving Spock to the end of the movie.
 
Breaking news, audences like romance, ST Eleven didn't make clear that anything more than a sex hook-up was happening. Again no complexity.

Huh?

Were you out in the foyer buying popcorn at the time? The film had lots of little moments building complexity between Uhura and Spock - and the promise of even more complexity in the future as we wonder if there's a T'Pring in this timeline.

.

Yeah, claiming that it was nothing more than "a sex hook-up" is sheer hyperbole. What about the whole tender scene where she comforts Spock after his mother's death? Or their romantic farewell before he beams over to the Narada?

They obviously had a history--just like Decker and Ilia, or Kirk and Carol Marcus, or Riker and Troi. Or Kirk and Ruth, Kirk and Areel Shaw, or Kirk and Janice Lester . . . .

But if we're talking casual sex hook-ups, there's always Kirk and Shahna, Kirk and Marlena Moreau, Kirk and Deela, Kirk and that slave girl in "Bread and Circuses" . . . need I go on?

Spock and Uhura were an epic romance by comparison!
 
The characters of TOS were intelligent and credibly flawed. The nuTrek characters are idiots and thoroughly flawed and never written as credible---they're all caricatures.
For the billionth time, you can't compare a TV series, with three full seasons with which to develop the characters, to movies, with two paltry hours every three years, and at least half the running time needs to be devoted to explosions.
Nonsense. All I have to do is compare "Where No Man Has Gone Before" or "The Corbomite Maneuver" or "Balance Of Terror" or any individual early first season TOS episode to ST09 and it's blatantly black-and-white. TOS was well thought out from the get-go to appeal on many levels while maintaining an adult sensibility throughout. ST09 is blatant sop to a juvenile mindset and it shows in every frame.

And there are plenty of films that manage to develop character within the framework of two hours. It comes done to talent in writing, direction, acting and the intent to aim for those things.

TOS may have been targeted at mainstream television audiences, but it was done in a generally smart way. The creators cared about they were doing. They banked on the idea of offering the audience something a cut above conventional "sci-fi." ST09 has no such intent. It's intent was to pander to a juvenile mindset and every tired cliche in the book---it's apparent in every frame and in that regard it was dead-on-target.
 
All I have to do is compare "Where No Man Has Gone Before" or "The Corbomite Maneuver" or "Balance Of Terror" or any individual early first season TOS episode to ST09 and it's blatantly black-and-white.
I agree completely. It's black-and-white that one format caters to TV whilst the other to summer blockbusters. It's black-and-white that one was made in the 60s whilst the other was made in the 00s.

And there are plenty of films that manage to develop character within the framework of two hours. It comes done to talent in writing, direction, acting and the intent to aim for those things.
And ST09 was one of them. Both Kirk and Spock had clear, and deliberate, character arcs. Both characters clearly changed over the course of the film (aka character development).

If it's the style you object, I completely understand. ST09 was stylistically quite different from TOS. But considering the constraints and expectations between TV and cinema (not to mention the separation of four decades), those stylistic differences are hardly unexpected or unwarranted.
 
If it's the style you object, I completely understand. ST09 was stylistically quite different from TOS. But considering the constraints and expectations between TV and cinema (not to mention the separation of four decades), those stylistic differences are hardly unexpected or unwarranted.
It isn't "just style." Boiled down down to the core ST09 was a thoroughly dumb piece of crap hashed together to appeal to the lowest denominator. And any polished production values can't obscure that.
 
If it's the style you object, I completely understand. ST09 was stylistically quite different from TOS. But considering the constraints and expectations between TV and cinema (not to mention the separation of four decades), those stylistic differences are hardly unexpected or unwarranted.
It isn't "just style." Boiled down down to the core ST09 was a thoroughly dumb piece of crap hashed together to appeal to the lowest denominator. And any polished production values can't obscure that.

FRIEND! :D

It's like the old saying, "Polish a turd, it's still a turd".
 
It isn't "just style." Boiled down down to the core ST09 was a thoroughly dumb piece of crap hashed together to appeal to the lowest denominator. And any polished production values can't obscure that.
:guffaw:

Needless to say, I disagree. And your response completely ignores the fact that comparing TOS to ST09 is irrelevant considering the different expectations of medium and time frame. In fact, your response seems so fixated on style that it completely ignores the content of the film. And, yes, there was content in the film.
 
But I still think "fun" trumps "respectable" where STAR TREK is concerned. Nobody ever got hooked on STAR TREK as a kid because it was really, really respectable . . . .

I know when I was five, I was watching because of the cool spaceships and fist-fights. :shrug:

Don't forget the aliens and monsters! I know I was watching it for the Gorn and the Horta and the Doomsday Machine . . .

As silly as they could be, things like the Horta, Doomsday Machine, Amoeba etc made TOS all the more fun, because they didn't mind having "fun" stuff in the show and worrying about some percieved reputation.
 
It isn't "just style." Boiled down down to the core ST09 was a thoroughly dumb piece of crap hashed together to appeal to the lowest denominator. And any polished production values can't obscure that.
:guffaw:

Needless to say, I disagree. And your response completely ignores the fact that comparing TOS to ST09 is irrelevant considering the different expectations of medium and time frame. In fact, your response seems so fixated on style that it completely ignores the content of the film. And, yes, there was content in the film.
It's not irrelevant. If you base your film on a pre-existing and established and familiar subject matter then you're going to draw inevitable comparisons regardless of medium.

And Star Trek has been treated with some decency on film and managed to evoke some of the same sensibilities as TOS. Whatever issues I may have with TMP-TUC there were times they evoked TOS sensibilities and elements. And as flawed as I may find it I think TWOK managed best to evoke the high adventure of TOS as well as the drama and humour. TWOK feels like a film made by an adult rather than a collage of sequences cut-and-pasted together by an adolescent with ADD.
 
Even more complexity in the future as we wonder if there's a T'Pring in this timeline.

Assuming she survived Vulcan's destruction I think all of the arrange marriages would be even more important than ever, the Vulcan High Command may well try and force Spock to leave the Enterprise over it.
 
I call it as I see it.

Almost never. In fact, only a few times each year do you accidentally blurt out the real reason you don't like nuTrek.

One of the most critically acclaimed films of 2010 was the science fiction movie Inception

Except that any future Star Trek movies written and directed by Christopher Nolan are automatically horrible unless they fit within the old canon.
 
nuTrek is currently a flavour much like the previous Batman films before Nolan. It'll pass (like all indigestion and diarrhea) and hopefully someone will make Trek respectable again. The Bond franchise has also had its highs and lows.

Er.... You realize the at the very least half of the previous Batman films are heavily maligned -the latest one considered one of the worst main-stream movies ever- and killed the movie franchise for nearly a decade, right?
 
nuTrek is currently a flavour much like the previous Batman films before Nolan. It'll pass (like all indigestion and diarrhea) and hopefully someone will make Trek respectable again. The Bond franchise has also had its highs and lows.

Er.... You realize the at the very least half of the previous Batman films are heavily maligned -the latest one considered one of the worst main-stream movies ever- and killed the movie franchise for nearly a decade, right?
That was the essential point of what I said. After a decent start in '89 and then a weird sequel the next two films were crap.

And just because something is a commercial success that doesn't automatically make it good. Lots of things get embraced by the public at large while others shake their head over it.
 
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