Earth's Role

[Jeyl]

Damon Lindelof had this to say about Earth's role in the next movie "Star Trek Into Darkness".

I don't want to get into percentages of how much takes place on Earth and how much takes place off Earth, suffice to say I think one of the things we felt a lot of people didn't know about Star Trek was that they didn't think that Star Trek was the future. You take something like Star Wars; Star Wars is not the future. It's a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and Luke Skywalker is not a human being and isn't from the planet Earth. The idea in Star Trek, they are. They're in the 23rd century and these people are from Earth. The Earth needed to play more of a role in these movies, especially in the sense of giving the audience a degree of relatability. I think that in the same way that New York City becomes this anchor point for people in the Marvel movies; that's Spidey's stomping ground, that was the stomping ground for Tony Stark, that was the stomping ground for The Avengers, it's New York. We wanted to do the same thing with Earth in the Star Trek movies.

Now I know a lot of fans out there still feel that that Star Trek is about humanity, with Gene Roddenberry himself saying that "Earth is a paradise" when explaining how humans should act (No sad feelings over a parents death). It's no surprise that Earth has played a part in Star Trek to help explore those 'perfect' traits of our characters when they're acting besides their 'infantile' selves.

However, I have some pretty strong issues with the notion of making Earth play a much larger role in this new take of Star Trek. Bear in mind that these points simply reflect my opinion on what I think Star Trek is about and isn't meant to dissuade other fans' viewpoints.

1. Earth doesn't make Star Trek unique. Despite bringing up Star Wars, there aren't all that many science fiction franchises that don't have an Earth, let alone stories that don't follow a human protagonist. The idea of giving Earth a more centralized role I feel does more to hinder Star Trek's identity, since a lot of science fiction works have an Earth. Just compare how many science fiction works have an Earth, and how many have a planet Vulcan. Sadly, Star Trek doesn't have a Vulcan anymore.
   
2. It's a cheap gimmick. For a franchise that has spanned so much territory in regards to how much the federation has explored, there sure seems to be a lot of focus on that one tiny blue planet. That's where the gimmick part comes in because putting Earth in danger will get audiences rallied up because, hey, we all live on Earth! Damon's reasons seem to stems more from this fact than anything else in just trying to get more audiences into the seats. Imagine for instance if the Earth was destroyed instead of Vulcan. The writers would actually have to work in coming up with ways to get audiences excited about Star Trek! Impossible? Well, how many original series episodes dealt with a destructive force that wanted to destroy just the Earth in the entire series? Here's a clue. The crew never even went to their modern day Earth.
   
3. It makes Star Trek more human focused than it should. This is where my idea of what Star Trek is about clashes with a lot of "it's about humanity!" ideas. For me, Star Trek is about a massive, diverse and ever changing galaxy and how everyone fits into it. That includes humans to, and also Klingons, Romulans ect. When you look at some of the characters from TNG or even Deep Space Nine as a whole, Star Trek has given several alien cultures a huge chunk of non-human based stories. This is one of the crucial parts that separates Star Trek from any other science fiction franchise because it was willing to give the aliens and sometimes ONLY the aliens their own story that played out in a big way. However with JJ's Trek, aliens have gotten their roles reduced dramatically since the original series had all it's main character be human to a degree, and now with Earth's bigger role, there may never be a huge part for any alien based story for quite some time, and that's unfortunate.
   
4. It's been done already. Star Trek Into Darkness is the third consecutive Star Trek movie that features a bad guy who wants to attack Earth out of vengeance. I would just like to see the writers come up with a storyline that can be exciting that doesn't involve Earth. But with Lindelof's comments about making Earth more prominent in 'their' movies, I don't think Star Trek is going to leave it's comfort zone anytime soon.

So that's my view on Earth in Star Trek. I just find the planet boring and uninteresting. I'd like to see the Enterprise to be the crew's home, not that over used blue blob of grease.

One other thing. Iron Man's stomping ground is California.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Wheras I can't wait to see future-Earth in all it's glory for the first time. We've seen a few sleepy San Francisco streets in DS9, we've seen Starfleet HQ and the academy again and again, but never a busy 23rd-century metropolis. I want to explore the world that launched the USS Enterprise!

 

[DalekJim]

Hmmm. I don't like the idea of Star Trek being "anchored" on Earth at all. Reminds me of how 2005-2010 Doctor Who would always have everything focus on modern day London .

It makes things more accessible and relatable.... but also a lot less interesting. I love the Star Trek mythology as a means of escaping from Earth, a reminder of my real life. The less we see of it the better.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Damon Lindelof had this to say about Earth's role in the next movie "Star Trek Into Darkness".

I don't want to get into percentages of how much takes place on Earth and how much takes place off Earth, suffice to say I think one of the things we felt a lot of people didn't know about Star Trek was that they didn't think that Star Trek was the future. You take something like Star Wars; Star Wars is not the future. It's a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and Luke Skywalker is not a human being and isn't from the planet Earth. The idea in Star Trek, they are. They're in the 23rd century and these people are from Earth. The Earth needed to play more of a role in these movies, especially in the sense of giving the audience a degree of relatability. I think that in the same way that New York City becomes this anchor point for people in the Marvel movies; that's Spidey's stomping ground, that was the stomping ground for Tony Stark, that was the stomping ground for The Avengers, it's New York. We wanted to do the same thing with Earth in the Star Trek movies.

Now I know a lot of fans out there still feel that that Star Trek is about humanity, with Gene Roddenberry himself saying that "Earth is a paradise" when explaining how humans should act (No sad feelings over a parents death). It's no surprise that Earth has played a part in Star Trek to help explore those 'perfect' traits of our characters when they're acting besides their 'infantile' selves.

However, I have some pretty strong issues with the notion of making Earth play a much larger role in this new take of Star Trek. Bear in mind that these points simply reflect my opinion on what I think Star Trek is about and isn't meant to dissuade other fans' viewpoints.

1. Earth doesn't make Star Trek unique. Despite bringing up Star Wars, there aren't all that many science fiction franchises that don't have an Earth, let alone stories that don't follow a human protagonist. The idea of giving Earth a more centralized role I feel does more to hinder Star Trek's identity, since a lot of science fiction works have an Earth. Just compare how many science fiction works have an Earth, and how many have a planet Vulcan. Sadly, Star Trek doesn't have a Vulcan anymore.
   
2. It's a cheap gimmick. For a franchise that has spanned so much territory in regards to how much the federation has explored, there sure seems to be a lot of focus on that one tiny blue planet. That's where the gimmick part comes in because putting Earth in danger will get audiences rallied up because, hey, we all live on Earth! Damon's reasons seem to stems more from this fact than anything else in just trying to get more audiences into the seats. Imagine for instance if the Earth was destroyed instead of Vulcan. The writers would actually have to work in coming up with ways to get audiences excited about Star Trek! Impossible? Well, how many original series episodes dealt with a destructive force that wanted to destroy just the Earth in the entire series? Here's a clue. The crew never even went to their modern day Earth.
   
3. It makes Star Trek more human focused than it should. This is where my idea of what Star Trek is about clashes with a lot of "it's about humanity!" ideas. For me, Star Trek is about a massive, diverse and ever changing galaxy and how everyone fits into it. That includes humans to, and also Klingons, Romulans ect. When you look at some of the characters from TNG or even Deep Space Nine as a whole, Star Trek has given several alien cultures a huge chunk of non-human based stories. This is one of the crucial parts that separates Star Trek from any other science fiction franchise because it was willing to give the aliens and sometimes ONLY the aliens their own story that played out in a big way. However with JJ's Trek, aliens have gotten their roles reduced dramatically since the original series had all it's main character be human to a degree, and now with Earth's bigger role, there may never be a huge part for any alien based story for quite some time, and that's unfortunate.
   
4. It's been done already. Star Trek Into Darkness is the third consecutive Star Trek movie that features a bad guy who wants to attack Earth out of vengeance. I would just like to see the writers come up with a storyline that can be exciting that doesn't involve Earth. But with Lindelof's comments about making Earth more prominent in 'their' movies, I don't think Star Trek is going to leave it's comfort zone anytime soon.

So that's my view on Earth in Star Trek. I just find the planet boring and uninteresting. I'd like to see the Enterprise to be the crew's home, not that over used blue blob of grease.

One other thing. Iron Man's stomping ground is California.

I'm thinking Star Trek Into Darkness may not be the film for you, then. I wish you well.

 

[Talosian]

Yeah, this is my least favorite aspect of new Star Trek. It's only been one film so far and hints about the next, but this quote seems to cement the geocentric nature of this version of the Federation and Starfleet.

In a way, the destruction of Vulcan in this timeline helped ensure that Earth would play a bigger role.

I haven't seen the 9 minute preview, but I'm curious to see if there's more of the vibe of exploration only given in the very end of the last film, when Nimoy came on to intone: "to boldly go where no one has gone before."

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It's anything but a "cheap gimmick" and Star Trek TOS was virtually always "human focused" - we saw, at most, a couple of aliens serving in Starfleet during the entire run of the series, and not even that many human beings who were directly identified as having been born anywhere other than Earth.

Vulcan was talked about in TOS, but how many Vulcans did we meet? How many were important in Starfleet or the Federation?

For all the hindsight fans like to bring to this, aliens were "the other guys" in TOS, not Starfleet or the Federation.

 

[DalekJim]

I'd just like a movie about a crew of space explorers to take place away from Earth. Maybe my demands are too out there?

 

[SalvorHardin]

We already know for a fact that action in STID takes place in 2 planets besides Earth. Nibiru and Qo'nos.
That's 3 planets visited and there might be others we don't know about yet.

How many more do you folks want them to visit in a 2 hour movie?

 

[The Doctor]

The very first moments of the film concern the crew of the Enterprise on a distant world, performing the kind of mission that we saw on the original show. It's as if the complainers in the this thread are being willfully blind.

But that's crazy, right?

 

[DalekJim]

Uh, OK but when we've got the screenwriter saying he wants to make Earth the anchor of nu-Trek and we have a trailer with zero space shots you can at least understand why we're concerned?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Uh, OK but when we've got the screenwriter saying he wants to make Earth the anchor of nu-Trek and we have a trailer with zero space shots you can at least understand why we're concerned?

Showing "concern" over a film that's not even been released yet does not strike me as understandable or sensible, no, and especially not when the person expressing that concern has no financial stake in the film's success (I assume.)

 

[SalvorHardin]

and we have a trailer with zero space shots you can at least relate to why we're concerned?

No I can't.
We are still 5 months from the premiere. That means post production is still happening and the end is months away.
That also means the majority of special effects, including whatever space shots there are will, in all likelihood, not be ready for some time yet.

 

[DalekJim]

Showing "concern" over a film that's not even been released yet does not strike me as understandable or sensible, no.

Why would I show concern about possibly not enjoying a film I've already seen?

That also means that the majority of special effects including whatever space shots there are will, in all likelihood, not be ready for some time yet.

Hell, maybe you're right. Maybe all this Earth Trek II: Wrath of Cumberbatch nonsense is a smoke-screen and we'll get an ideas driven film set in lush sci-fi landscapes.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Showing "concern" over a film that's not even been released yet does not strike me as understandable or sensible, no.

Why would I show concern about pssibly not enjoying a film I've already seen?

Could you try restating that question in a way that makes sense?

 

[Enterprise is Great]

There were brief space shots in the second trailer...jeez. SalvorHardin is right about the post production aspect. We'll probably see some more space shots in the third trailer in a few months.

 

[DalekJim]

Could you try restating that question in a way that makes sense?

You said it makes no sense for me to show concern over a film's content when I haven't seen it. This baffled me as if I had seen it then why would I worry about what was in the film?

 

[EnsignRicky]

Sheesh. So this guy is saying they're going to have lots of Earth in it, because every recent Hollywood blockbuster (by name) has had lots of Earth in them. Coming from a movie that demands two writers, (who apparently can't accomplish much individually), it kinda actually makes a whole lot of sense.

And I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about with people not knowing Star Trek takes place in the future. if there's any confusion, it more than likely arose out of their own Old Spock, Nu Spock, red matter, exploding Vulcan, time travel, dead parents, lens flare, fan-fist of '09.

 

[marksound]

Earth is the home of Starfleet Command and the Federation Council. There's no way that Earth could not be an important part of the story.

TOS episodes were conceived as, if not written as, a metaphor for the human condition. Regardless of storylines and characters, to change that now would be to abandon entirely GR's vision.

I can't spend a lot of time writing responses to these threads but I've seen a bunch of "fans" over my 40 year history with Trek that don't seem to get it.

 

[DalekJim]

And I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about with people not knowing Star Trek takes place in the future.

I find it hilarious that this film's target audience is the type of person that wouldn't be able to tell that Star Trek is set in the future .

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Could you try restating that question in a way that makes sense?

You said it makes no sense for me to show concern over a film's content when I haven't seen it. This baffled me as if I had seen it then why would I worry about what was in the film?

You are implying there is an appropriate time to be "concerned" about a film you have no financial stake in.

There isn't.

Whether or not you will see it is a binary decision. Either you will, or you won't. See it if you think you will enjoy it. If you see it and don't enjoy it, skip the next one, if that suits you. Or don't. What's it to me?