If JJ had created Trek....

[Greg Cox]

I thought that the movie captured the spirit of TOS much better than, say, some of the latter seasons of Voyager.

As to whether it would be a "throwaway" film if it wasn't already part of a longstanding franchise, who knows?

Would the latest Broadway revival of Oklahoma succeed on its own if it wasn't already an old standard? Or, as I keep asking, would Casino Royale be just a "throwaway" spy thriller if it wasn't part of a decades-old string of Bond movies?

Heck, would The Wrath of Khan have just been a "disposable" space opera if we hadn't known the characters for decades at that point?

The fact of the matter is, the new movie was the eleventh Star Trek movie and the umpteenth Star Trek adventure. Trying to imagine its impact outside that context is just an exercise in alterate history!

It's like trying to imagine if the latest John Grisham novel would be a bestseller if he wasn't already a bestselling author . . . .

 

[Nerys Myk]

Hey Transwarp Drive, it's kind of a really odd question, and my first reaction was that it seems like a bit of a leading question; with an expectation that answers falling within an expected range will lead to a conclusion that denounces the new movie, JJ Abrams, and other aspects of the production. I'm not saying that it's true, it's just what my initial gut reaction was..

That was my suspicion, too. That the OP was just fishing for arguments that that the new version was somehow lacking . . . .

No, absolutely not.

Moreover, TOS is relevant today or else Nu Trek wouldn't have come back would it?

That just it. The 09 film cannot exist with out the previous series and film. You can't separate the two. The characters, the dynamic and the setting derive from the previous versions. Abrams and Co. are working for Paramount and off established ideas. On their own they would come up with something different. Probably more in line with their original work like Fringe, Alias or Lost.

 

[Greg Cox]

The only twist being that, in theory, the new movie was designed to reintroduce STAR TREK to new audiences who might not have necessarily seen all the previous installments.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The only twist being that, in theory, the new movie was designed to reintroduce STAR TREK to new audiences who might not have necessarily seen all the previous installments.

Even so, many would have some knowledge of Star Trek, even with out having seen a single second. Then there would be those who heard it was a good film.

 

[Greg Cox]

The only twist being that, in theory, the new movie was designed to reintroduce STAR TREK to new audiences who might not have necessarily seen all the previous installments.

Even so, many would have some knowledge of Star Trek, even with out having seen a single second. Then there would be those who heard it was a good film.

Exactly. I doubt there many people in the audience who had never seen a single episode or movie, or didn't have some vague idea of what Trek was about, but the rebooted origin story gave them a chance to climb aboard without feeling like they had missed anything . . . or had to know every detail about the Dominion War or Romulan politics.

 

[Dukhat]

I wonder if there could have been a M*A*S*H action-figure line. Colonel Potter with Kung-fu grip.

There were M*A*S*H action figures:

http://aftermash.blogspot.com/2009/12/mash-action-figures-by-tri-star-1982.html

However, I doubt Potter had the aforementioned KF grip...

 

[Desert Kris]

What I'm also hypothesizing about is have the current cast and production people captured that spirit that carried TOS?

I'm just not sure they have ergo if TOS had never existed, would nu Trek just be another throw away sci fi movie?

With respect, despite you're claim that your OP is not a leading question, this additional speculation in the quote above is not reassuring. Your hypothetical speculation is built around shifting circumstances; in the first paragraph TOS exists as a measure of the spirit of TOS to compare and critique the new ST. In your second paragraph, TOS doesn't exist as a gauge of the new version? A bit confusing.

If TOS didn't exist, some of the fundamental aspects of the 2009 movie could not exist, a construct reliant on a previous incarnation of it's own self-aware construct. This vastly different version of the movie would be successful on the merit of JJ Abrams creative team. Galaxy Quest wouldn't exist, so the 2009 movie might be fresh in a way we can't imagine. Thus, successful. OTOH, people might pick out the influence of Star Wars, and find it derivative. Yet, in capturing the spirit of something that doesn't exist? See, I can't make it work, because the variables at the foundation of this speculation make the whole thing shaky. I can't imagine how this would ever happen in any alternate universe of our own reality!

Now, I'll put TOS back in it's place as an existing starting point for a whole franchise. Does the crew capture the spirit of the original. I would say so, I like seeing them as new versions of the original characters, with a new relationship dynamics, and with core characteristics that made the original versions of the characters what they were in the first place. From this vantage, we obviously can't speculate about the success of this ST because TOS exists, so we can't look at it from the perspective of JJ Abrams inventing ST while it already exists.

???

 

[Satyrquaze]

I wonder if there could have been a M*A*S*H action-figure line. Colonel Potter with Kung-fu grip.

There were M*A*S*H action figures:

http://aftermash.blogspot.com/2009/12/mash-action-figures-by-tri-star-1982.html

However, I doubt Potter had the aforementioned KF grip...

As someone else helpfully pointed out. "Another educational day on the TBBS." Too bad about the grip though. A missed oppourtunity IMHO.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I wonder if there could have been a M*A*S*H action-figure line. Colonel Potter with Kung-fu grip.

There were M*A*S*H action figures:

http://aftermash.blogspot.com/2009/12/mash-action-figures-by-tri-star-1982.html

However, I doubt Potter had the aforementioned KF grip...

Incredible.