Do You Believe the Official Chronology?

[Greylock Crescent]

Honestly ... I see nuTrek as a natural progression from TOS. Both are clearly products of their times, steeped in a contemporary aesthetic, aimed at broad appeal, and containing a deeper subtext that allows viewers to contemplate the story beyond the confines of the original presentation (if they so choose).

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well certainly nuTrek's a good deal more like TOS in most respects than ST:TMP was.

This emperor has no clothes and I'm not shy to say it.

You're not shy. You're wrong.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

pfft no. I hate the idea of "Chronology and Canon" in fictional mediums. 1. Because it's not real, and 2. and because everything is going to change in the future and mix up the details and make things contradictory. "James R. Kirk rather than James T. Kirk" for example. I care about and believe what "I" See. For example When I watch various star trek shows, what I don't like get's stricken from my personal belief of what the Star Trek canon is. I don't like TMP, Generations and Nemesis so I remove them from the canon, they don't exist to "me". It's stuff like Canon/Continuity that starts the infinite fan rage arguments and frankly it's irritating.

 

[Warped9]

This emperor has no clothes and I'm not shy to say it.

You're not shy. You're wrong.

In your opinion.

Well certainly nuTrek's a good deal more like TOS in most respects than ST-TMP.

This keeps getting repeated and simply convinces me those who say it weren't watching the same show others were watching.

Why do I have such a strong reaction against this film? Because it offends me. Star Trek TOS is my all-time favourite series. In the '70s I like many others wished the series more respect than it often got. It was a long road before it was brought back (setting aside that when it returned it wasn't always what we'd hoped for).

Now along comes JJ with his offensively shallow and juvenile take on it to perpetuate the misconception that it was always shallow and juvenile. What an ignorant asshole.

I've seen lots of bad films and some of them reboots of things I didn't really care about. I could criticize those without being offended because I didn't really care about the originals. But rebooting TOS in such an insultingly shallow manner really burns my ass.

Yeah, JJ will still make a bundle on it. And I hope he chokes on it.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Well certainly nuTrek's a good deal more like TOS in most respects than ST-TMP.

This keeps getting repeated and simply convinces me those who say it weren't watching the same show others were watching.

Oh please. At best, TMP was derivative. They tried to do a Trek version of 2001, all while recycling the glacial plotting of "The Changeling."

I liked TMP just fine, for what it was (an attempt to present Trek in a different, more cerebral and ponderous light), but for it be held as some pinnacle of Trek? Or as representative of what Trek had been in TOS? Folks must have a pretty low standard for Trek to begin with (not to mention a short memory for what the majority of TOS actually was in comparison to TMP).

 

[Nerys Myk]

Well certainly nuTrek's a good deal more like TOS in most respects than ST-TMP.

This keeps getting repeated and simply convinces me those who say it weren't watching the same show others were watching.

Oh please. At best, TMP was derivative. They tried to do a Trek version of 2001, all while recycling the glacial plotting of "The Changeling."

I liked TMP just fine, for what it was (an attempt to present Trek in a different, more cerebral and ponderous light), but for it be held as some pinnacle of Trek? Or as representative of what Trek had been in TOS? Folks must have a pretty low standard for Trek to begin with (not to mention a short memory for what the majority of TOS actually was in comparison to TMP).

Yep. Anyone who thinks TMP represents what TOS is are the ones who must have been watch a different show.

 

[Warped9]

TMP is more alike TOS than nuTrek will ever be. For one thing it was adult oriented. It also had some thought behind its ideas. NuTrek...not so much. NuTrek is a shallow reboot and a shallow film. Hell, JJ basically ripped of his beloved Star Wars: A New Hope for the story.

If some insist on dragging JJ-trek into the TOS forum then don't be surprised if somebody gets pissed about it.

 

[Harvey]

Well, all you have to take away is the action-adventure, the color, the humor, the pacing, and the emphasis of character over visual effects, and it is exactly like the original!

(I don't even think it is a bad movie; just a mediocre one.)

 

[Nerys Myk]

TMP is more alike TOS than nuTrek will ever be. For one thing it was adult oriented. It also had some thought behind its ideas. NuTrek...not so much. NuTrek is a shallow reboot and a shallow film. Hell, JJ basically ripped of his beloved Star Wars: A New Hope for the story.

If some insist on dragging JJ-trek into the TOS forum then don't be surprised if somebody gets pissed about it.

Trust me, no is surprised.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Look, guys, ST-2009 had its problems:

- The style was superficial (lens flare etc.) and hyperkinetic.

- Spock marooning Kirk on an ice planet was something you might see in a freewheeling Star Wars "rebellion," not a formal and disciplined service like Starfleet.

- Spock/Uhura gave me the creeps. Outside of ponn farr, Spock was never supposed to be a horndog.

- It was the third Trek film in a row (!) to have an absurdly gigantic enemy ship hover over a planet and deploy a devastating weapon.

That said, we Classic fans should make the best of it. Some good music, some good dramatic scenes here and there, some good ship fx, action set pieces... We should just take what we can from this new version because it does have some things to offer.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Look, guys, ST-2009 had its problems:

- The style was superficial (lens flare etc.) and hyperkinetic.

Dont see how either stylistic choice is superficial.

- Spock marooning Kirk on an ice planet was something you might see in a freewheeling Star Wars "rebellion," not a formal and disciplined service like Starfleet.

Neither is kidnapping your former commander and hijacking your current commander's ship.

- Spock/Uhura gave me the creeps. Outside of ponn farr, Spock was never supposed to be a horndog.

How does Spock being involved with Uhura turn him into a "horndog"? Is there a definition of "horndog" that I'm unaware of?

- It was the third Trek film in a row (!) to have an absurdly gigantic enemy ship hover over a planet and deploy a devastating weapon.

So?

That said, we Classic fans should make the best of it. Some good music, some good dramatic scenes here and there, some good ship fx, action set pieces... We should just take what we can from this new version because it does have some things to offer.

As a Classic fan I agree with this.

 

[Saito S]

^ As someone who's not much of a classic fan, I do too, to a degree.

I agree with some of your criticisms - the lens flare was over the top, and Spock ejecting Kirk from the ship was hardly the only moment. In fact, my overall assessment of the movie is that it's maybe a 6.5 out of 10 (which would put it at the higher end of the middle of the pack among all 11 films) - an enjoyable romp, that basically succeeds by being just very fun to watch, despite having a storyline that is, for the most part, dumber than a bag of rocks. Though I have to side with Nerys on a couple things, as well - there was nothing "horndog" about Spock's behavior (or Uhura's, for that matter), and I've never been able to understand why some people are so up in arms over the very existence of that romance. And the "big ship deploys superweapon" - and? Don't see why that's an issue. Specific recurring plot elements are not bad in and of themselves, it's what each movie DOES with them that counts.

All of that said...

If someone just HATED the movie, that's fine. That's an opinion. It's just all this talk about betrayal and pissing on the franchise and JJ being some kind of retarded monkey because he didn't like TMP and on and on (all interspersed with the occasional insinuation that anyone who DID like the movie/DID find it to be "true Trek" is either dumb, deluded, or just doesn't get Star Trek)... come on you guys, it's just a movie based on a TV show.

TMP is more alike TOS than nuTrek will ever be. For one thing it was adult oriented. It also had some thought behind its ideas. NuTrek...not so much. NuTrek is a shallow reboot and a shallow film. Hell, JJ basically ripped of his beloved Star Wars: A New Hope for the story.

Firstly: The flavor of nuTrek (swashbuckling action adventure; bright, vivid colors; lots of humor; interactions between the characters driving the story) is MUCH closer to a lot of TOS episodes than the flavor of TMP (very slow-paced; no action or humor to speak of; 2001-eqsue feel; plot driven by large-scale revelations; muted, gray color schemes).

I am not talking about quality, which is largely subjective anyway. I'm talking purely about which one resembles TOS more in approach. Granted, TOS sometimes possessed greater depth beyond pure entertainment value (in certain episodes; certainly not across the board), and nuTrek had almost no real depth, but that's ONE point stacked up against everything above. I find it baffling that anyone could think TMP is the more TOS-like between the two overall, since I see barely any similarities between TMP and TOS (even when TOS was at its slowest-paced, most methodical, and most non-action oriented, it couldn't touch TMP).

Secondly, A New Hope? Really? The similarities are quite superficial, unless "planet is destroyed by superweapon" and "has a coming-of-age story for the main character" are sufficient for you to label a work as being a rip-off of ANH.

If some insist on dragging JJ-trek into the TOS forum then don't be surprised if somebody gets pissed about it.

I am pretty surprised by that, actually. I mean, why should people be getting PISSED at the mere mention of JJ and his movie in the TOS forum? It goes back to what I said above: it's just a movie. Seriously.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I think TMP and STXI are both legitimate extrapolations from TOS. TMP taps in to the cerebral, STXI into the action-adventure.

FWIW, TMP bored the hell out of me when I was the age Abrams was in '79. I appreciate it now for what it is. And Spock stranding Kirk makes little sense. But so does Spock sneaking off out an airlock to perform a potentially fatal mind meld with V'Ger (not to mention one that could have compromised the Enterprise and Earth even further if V'Ger assimilated Spock's knowledge). In both instances, he was emotionally compromised. The former case far more so than the latter.

 

[BillJ]

Somebody pissing all over something he cares about, that's worth some ire.

But Abrams hasn't pissed on anything. I still have my three seasons on DVD, three seasons on Blu-ray and all six of the films. No one broke into my house and stole or pissed on anything. Even if Abrams did a Jack Black/Will Ferrell buddy comedy, no one can take away what Trek has meant to me over the years nor can they take away those collections. Hell, I sleep with the Diamond Select Enterprise on my bedside table.

As I said before, I love The Motion Picture and am lukewarm towards Star Trek 2009 (it did some things right, did some things wrong) but I feel the latter is far closer in spirit to The Original Series I grew up watching.

When people throw around "pissing on" or that someone is "stupid" because they made a movie they don't like, it just brings all those bad jokes about Trek fans right back to the fore. Shatner was right all those years ago when he told people to "get a life". There's nothing wrong with being passionate about something, but so many times here I watch full blown stupidity try to get passed off as "passion".

 

[Ronald Held]

This thread probably should not be about JJ. I think that he is not the one to have "revived" Trek, but if we are fortunate someone else may take over after the third movie.
It is the case that the Prime universe still exist. IMO that should he the focus of future movies and tv.

 

[BillJ]

This thread probably should not be about JJ. I think that he is not the one to have "revived" Trek, but if we are fortunate someone else may take over after the third movie.
It is the case that the Prime universe still exist. IMO that should he the focus of future movies and tv.

The thread is about the "Official Chronology", as such it should be open to discussion about any series or movie (even Insurrection).

And the Prime Universe is dead. Really wished Abrams supernova would've destroyed the whole galaxy so people would stop going on about going back to it.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

This keeps getting repeated and simply convinces me those who say it weren't watching the same show others were watching.

And, of course, you're wrong about this as well. So what?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It is the case that the Prime universe still exist. IMO that should he the focus of future movies and tv.

And the Prime Universe is dead. Really wished Abrams supernova would've destroyed the whole galaxy so people would stop going on about going back to it.

Yep. It's done.

The "Prime universe" does not "still exist," because it never existed. There's nothing that either requires or prevents future producers from referencing it, but that would have been true no matter what these movies were like or what was established within them for fictional purposes.

 

[aridas sofia]

Yep. Anyone who thinks TMP represents what TOS is are the ones who must have been watch a different show.

I thought that was the main criticism of TMP... that it was remaking a mediocre episode:

"Where Nomad Had Gone Before"

Or was it "The Doomsday Machine" with Decker sacrificing himself to save the day?

The story was certainly Star Trek. The execution is where things got confused.

TOS tried to blend action and ideas. TMP was a "G" rated movie pitched to a "G" rated crowd that tried to be as cerebral as "2001". JJTrek is Star Wars in different costumes. TMP and JJTrek represent the extremes with TOS somewhere in the middle. The question is, just which "extreme" reflects the "heart" of Star Trek?

Star Trek began with "The Cage" and an idea to bring Jonathan Swift into the 1960s. Star Wars begins with an idea to remake "Flash Gordon". I think Star Trek starts cerebral and sugarcoats with action and adventure to make the message palatable. Star Wars is quite the opposite, beginning with action-adventure and down the road aspiring to remake John Frankenheimer in space.

Having said this, I admit that JJ Abrams is the right filmmaker for his time. He knows his audience. But in order to do what he does so well, he had to dump most of what was Star Trek and start over. I'm sure that in addition to being a credit to JJ Abrams instincts, that says something about the unmarketability of Star Trek as it was originally conceived.

Or not.

It has got to be a lot harder to wrap an idea-driven script with action than it is to just do action. I think that's why we keep seeing filmmakers go to that well. But for being such a "failure", TMP sure inspires fanatic defenders even to this day, 33 years after its release. A script developed for TV being rewritten as the camera rolled, a studio determined upon a release date, SFX being wholly reconceived late in the production... and it's box office still ranks in the top 50 "G" rated films of all time. And it rebirthed Star Trek for the big screen and TV. And yet, all of us would agree that it didn't do what Roddenberry was setting out to do, which almost certainly was to tell a story well. But as I said above, wrapping an idea with action and adventure is hard. Particularly when you forget the action and adventure.

But was it "Trek" at heart? Absolutely. It was trying to say something deep and meaningful about the human condition -- that Man and God as Creator and Creation are interchangeable. That makes it Star Trek at its heart, whether it was perfectly executed or not. More so than any of the other Star Trek movies. Definitely more so than the current efforts.

JJ's Trek does not forget the action and adventure and is immensely popular. But IMHO it will not inspire a fanatic, deep obsessive fan base unless this road is followed long enough to build its own universe and mythos like the Star Trek that preceded it and the Star Wars that inspires it. Why? Because at heart, it isn't Star Trek. That doesn't make it "bad". Believe me, as an investor, I don't believe it is "bad". But I will be surprised if it results in a new "Star Trek" franchise. There is no "there" there, to steal from Stein. No heart. No Roddenberry and Jefferies (or Lucas and McQuarrie, for that matter). Just stuff -- stuff floating on a big, dead pond of nothing.

 

[JarodRussell]

Not really. Its the closest we've got, and the Okudas obviously worked on the production at the time so they had a lot of cred. But a lot of the entries in the book have got the footnote "conjecture" attached to them. I tend to look at it as only being as valid as any other piece of Star Trek fiction. Certainly an interpretation of events, but not necessarily the right interpretation of events.

That having been said, it was an interesting read and an updated edition is long overdue.

Just to make sure... we are not talking about The Bible right now?