Do fans want the prime timeline back?

[Shaka Zulu]

When the Abramsverse has been around for 40+ years, THEN tell me it's "the most successful" one.

It's successful to the people that have seen it (the old fans like myself that aren't trapped in the past and who can only relate to the founding moment, the average person who isn't a fan of Star Trek, and the new fans who love it a lot and are vital to the franchise's survival) as well as to the people who are the ones that control the franchise and determine what gets made and what doesn't. That's all that matters.

As for you and the other obdurate foundamantalist (using a quote from Irshad Manji in her book The Trouble With Islam that describes the Muslims resistant to change creating problems for Islam itself) fans here stuck in the founding moment, if you can't get behind it, you can't get behind it, but that's not my problem, or CBS's, or Paramount's, or Bad Robot's or anybody else that's not so obdurate and trapped in the past and who can only deal with the founding moment. It's yours, and if you want to see more official Star Trek, you'd better get used to it, because the fan shows aren't going to be approved to become official productions so that they can be on TV (for one, they need professional actors to make it work.) This is it now, and most likely, forever.

 

[Timewalker]

Well, now you've ruined my whole day.

Look, I don't need a new movie every other year to feed my Star Trek habit. I rarely even watch TV. There are years' worth of pro novels I haven't even acquired yet, let alone read. And of the ones I already have, there are probably 2-3 dozen of those I haven't gotten around to reading yet.

And then there's the fanfic - the classic stuff from the '70s and '80s zines I've been reading online and collecting, and some pretty decent ongoing series on fanfiction.net and elsewhere. Or I'll write it myself if there's something I really want to explore and nobody else is doing it. It helps to have this thing called an "imagination" - so I don't necessarily need the pros to entertain me. I do appreciate those whose work I enjoy, and I salute their skill. But my Star Trek world will not crumble if the Abramsverse garbage is all that's left to show on screen.

So I Do Not Need somebody arrogantly telling me I'm "trapped in the past" and acting like the only Star Trek that matters is what's current. I don't consider the current movie series to be anything more than glorified crap, and it's my right to have that opinion. You have the right to your opinion, and isn't it wonderful that neither of us will be carted off to prison or executed for daring to voice our opinions?!

 

[The Emissary]

But when you strip it down, it's basically an adventure drama set in space. You can attach all sorts of other attributes and window dressing to it, but at it's core, that's what it is.

No...that's just the medium that the original Trek set it in. It has always been about the human condition and exploring us - humanity. It is not just some adventure drama set in space.

It's actually exactly what I'm talking about--a mix of standalone and multi-episode stories.

....no. You said TOS/TNG did that. They did not really do any multi-episode ideas except for the occasional two parter. I'm talking about how it was done in B5, Farscape, or "nuBSG" as you call it. I don't mean an occasional two parter. I mean one episode leading into the next. Not reset buttons every end episode.

That's how nuBSG did it, and with a difference being that the mix of standalone and multi-episode stories favored the latter. Otherwise, though, TNG, DS9, VOY, & even ENT all had an overarching story with a beginning and an ending (although in the case of TNG, it's overarching story--the Trial of the Human Race--was something that didn't become clear until its finale; with ENT, it was about Earth's first Warp 5 starship).

Um...yes. That's what I mean. Multi-episode stories...but a lot more than the random two parter. They all had a theme, but each episode did not lead into the other.

If that's the criteria you're basing on, then you're going to find that aplenty in every Star Trek series regardless of its setting or premise.

Except the other Trek shows didn't make it a point to say "OMG!!! Our ship is alone and lost in this dangerous unexplored area of space!" The others were business as usual in the Alpha Quadrant. The Delta Quadrant was the same thing.

Otherwise, I can't disagree with that more that they were identical.

I would think not being Human would be sufficient.

Um ok?

I don't get this. Were you expecting the space in the Delta Quadrant to be a different color than that in the Alpha Quadrant? Otherwise what makes different territories in space different are the civilizations who live there and what policies they dictate.

The civilizations that lived there looked exactly like anything you'd find in the Alpha Quadrant. That is my point.

Sure it is. It's the society they come from.

That is the equivalent of someone walking around my neighborhood and saying "now I understand the society that exists in this state." Them walking around Starfleet HQ or visiting Earth Spacedock is not exposing us to their society.

It's not "just." It's showing other aspects of that fictional universe, to see other Starfleet crews and Federation worlds.

...no it is not. The point is that if you are going to show other facets of life in that universe, it can be done better and not solely from the view point of Earth.

The point, which got seriously derailed, is that Earth does not need to be shown for another show. And the old episodic formula has been done to death. Why can't one Trek show go beyond that?

 

[Belz...]

But why does one have to invalidate the other?

+1.

Excellent post.

Of course I want a return to the original prime timeline. Not out of nostalgia, but because there is a lot of open ground there.

My problem with the idea is that, aside from longtime fans, no one would care and it could serve to just confuse people.

Personally, I wouldn't mind, but since we've made the switch already, I'd rather just stick to the new timeline. Besides, we can still watch the older stuff !

Have you seen Star Wars 1-3?

Star Wars is a mass appeal franchise. Star Trek is struggling to be one.

 

[F. King Daniel]

And in the same story, the man actually sits in and operates a time machine, which supposedly he himself has built in the future. And at no point does he consider, "Hmm, fascinating, suppose I ask my own ship how to engineer a time warp, either back to warn my home planet, or forward to stop the future guy from warping back." Instead, it's decided he'll bottle up his emotions and bury his feelings.

Old Spock's ship is not a time machine, it just carries the Red Matter weapon. The time travel in the movie was completely unexpected and uncontrolled. Nero and Spock fell into the same black hole seconds apart in the future, yet emerged 25 years apart and in different locations in the past.

Remember that in prior Star Treks, they've been able to time travel by warping around a star (STIV), modifying a deflector dish (ST: FC) or even in one DS9 episode by using the transporter - yet these things are never brought up as a means to fix anything that goes disasterously wrong. When the Federation was about to lose the Dominion war, no one mentioned going back to undo "Emissary" and warning everyone.

So yeah, there's an Imponderables clip in it, but it'd be one covering the entire Trek franchise.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

I don't consider the current movie series to be anything more than glorified crap, and it's my right to have that opinion. You have the right to your opinion, and isn't it wonderful that neither of us will be carted off to prison or executed for daring to voice our opinions?!

It's also my right to say that you and others like you don't speak for me when you attack the new movies, and I just exercised that right a while ago-nothing more, and nothing less. All I've been getting recently is that 'many fans hate the new movies' when in fact, it's not true, and many fans actually accept it just like the last one. A few fans at a convention or online at a web site saying that they hate it isn't 'everybody' at all, just those few fans. As for what you said about reading novels and fan fiction, great-please stick to that, and don't watch the movies in future, at all.

 

[JarodRussell]

As a human being, I naturally expect progress. A reboot of TOS isn't progress. Especially when the reboot only consists of references to stuff I already know. Give me something new already. A post-TNG/DS9 era film with a new hot and fresh crew and a new ship and truly alien stuff, strange new worlds that you can only realize in a big budget production.

To put things in perspective, thousands of people attended the Las Vegas convention. This poll questioned 100 people . . . out of at least 15,000 attendees.

Talk about statistically insignificant! I'd hesitate to draw any grand conclusions on what "the fans" want from a sampling of 100 people at one Trek convention . . . especially when the audience for the Star Trek shows and movies numbers in the millions.

And, no, the old timeline isn't coming back . . . except in the novels, of course.

Which are, of course, only read by those 100 people who voted at the con. Don't risk alienating your audience, Mr. Cox!

 

[bullethead]

I'm going to say "Hell no" to returning to the Prime Universe if it winds up going down the grimderp path of STO and the novels. I get that they wanted to shake up the status quo, but bringing back the Borg, blowing tons of stuff up, and having people drop out of the Federation for dumb reasons isn't likely to draw and maintain a sustainable audience. If you want to do a dark take on the Prime Universe, just look at all the unintended implications of things prior writers have put in the shows (such as the fact that if you look at Starfleet Command's/the Federation Council's track record of decisions, you get the impression Section 31 is pretty justified in taking things into their own hands when the people in authority consistently horrible decisions).

 

[Timewalker]

I don't consider the current movie series to be anything more than glorified crap, and it's my right to have that opinion. You have the right to your opinion, and isn't it wonderful that neither of us will be carted off to prison or executed for daring to voice our opinions?!

It's also my right to say that you and others like you don't speak for me when you attack the new movies, and I just exercised that right a while ago-nothing more, and nothing less. All I've been getting recently is that 'many fans hate the new movies' when in fact, it's not true, and many fans actually accept it just like the last one. A few fans at a convention or online at a web site saying that they hate it isn't 'everybody' at all, just those few fans. As for what you said about reading novels and fan fiction, great-please stick to that, and don't watch the movies in future, at all.

Damn, you're bossy.

Did I EVER claim to speak for you? No, not even once. The only person I claim to speak for is ME. It's MY opinion that I hate the Abramsverse crap. I wasn't at this convention, didn't vote, and have no idea what it was about. In fact, I've only ever been to one fan event in the US - in the late '80s, when I met Sylvester McCoy at a Doctor Who event at the PBS TV station in Spokane, Washington. So kindly do not tar me with whatever animosity you hold for the people at this other event. And taunting me with "your version of Trek will never be on TV or in the movies again, neener-neener-neener!" is just childish.

 

[DFScott]

Okay, King Daniel, fair enough that Spock didn't actually build the "Jellyfish" to be a time machine. But it became one, and quite obviously so, and it strikes me as going against the grain of the character to not have him consider how that happened and whether he could use that to save billions of souls, before deciding rather illogically to use it in another Impulse Act of Revenge and kill a few hundred. (For an emotionless character, we have two films where Spock could have been played by Sally Field.)

But I shouldn't stray too far from the topic, lest the moderator call me out. You do have a point, Daniel, in that throughout the franchise is sprinkled the ingredients with which any character can make a Magic Reset Button. And if the characters were smart enough to realize that fact... well, then, any jeopardy or danger they're put in, or any negative consequences they would ever have to face, would be reversed. Which could threaten to make the entire series somewhat pointless if handled poorly enough.

That said, I think it's ridiculous for any writer to saturate an episode or movie with ingredients for all sorts of Magic Reset Buttons (e.g., transporting between any two points in space including inside warp bubbles, tossing a teaspoon of red matter into space resulting in instant time/space wormholes, etc.), and then to force the viewer into accepting that the only reason the characters don't open their eyes and use these devices as Magic Reset Buttons, is because they're too stupid. It's not good storytelling to create magic plot devices for the express reason of moving the plot along and advancing the jeopardy, and that for unexplained reasons can't be used to simply resolve the whole issue (e.g., instantly transport Nero off the Narada and onto the Gorn homeworld).

Modern Trek viewers are modern sci-fi viewers, and their expectations have been raised since 1967 or 1987. Some of the silly bits that you've parodied in your videos (like the two-minute elevator ride from deck 1 to deck 2, which had me howling on the floor) are places where the seams are showing in a program that we all love anyway and have learned to laugh at and forgive. It's these glaring inconsistencies in the modern version of the product, which I believe make true fans wish they have those two-minute, eight-foot elevator rides back again.

DF "I'd Pay Money to See That Turbolift as a Six Flags Ride" Scott

 

[BillJ]

Okay, King Daniel, fair enough that Spock didn't actually build the "Jellyfish" to be a time machine. But it became one, and quite obviously so, and it strikes me as going against the grain of the character to not have him consider how that happened and whether he could use that to save billions of souls, before deciding rather illogically to use it in another Impulse Act of Revenge and kill a few hundred. (For an emotionless character, we have two films where Spock could have been played by Sally Field.)

But what about the billions who were born who never were in the other timeline? Fixing one timeline means that you're essentially destroying one.

Things had been changing for twenty-five years. It wasn't like both Spock and Nero were spit out at the same time and you were resetting a few hours.

Plus, the prime timeline is still there. Spock merely arrived in one that had split away from the one we're used too.

 

[T'Girl]

Plus, the prime timeline is still there. Spock merely arrived in one that had split away from the one we're used too.

But how would Spock know that?

From his experiences in Yesteryear and GOTEOF he would have every reason to believe that Nero's actions resulted in near two centuries of the Prime Timeline being destroyed.

 

[Mysterion]

Odds are, we each have a different interpretation of what Star Trek is. If one of us was suddenly given carte blanche to produce our own version of the show, there would be tens of millions of fans telling us how stupid we were.

I think this is very true. If I was in charge of Trek, there would be many, many unhappy people. No doubt whatsoever.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I definitely want the main timeline back. I consider old Trek and new Trek separate franchises that happen to have a lot of the same character names.

But I agree with other posters, I'd take the *spirit* of Star Trek back before I took the timeline back. Exploration, idealism, a Kirk who solves problems with tactical cleverness instead of just shooting everything.

 

[Greg Cox]

Plus, the prime timeline is still there. Spock merely arrived in one that had split away from the one we're used too.

But how would Spock know that?

From his experiences in Yesteryear and GOTEOF he would have every reason to believe that Nero's actions resulted in near two centuries of the Prime Timeline being destroyed.

Clearly, the much older Spock had revised his thinking after reviewing the latest theoretical studies from the Vulcan Science Academy.

Seriously, given that over a century had passed between "Yesteryear" and the Narada incident, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that a better understanding of time-travel and parallel universes had developed over the previous hundred-plus years!

It's not like Einstein knew about string theory back in the day, and that was less than a century ago.

 

[DFScott]

From BillJ:
But what about the billions who were born who never were in the other timeline? Fixing one timeline means that you're essentially destroying one.

If this were a TV series rather than a set of movies, our character would have time to weigh that very question, to consider the alternatives, and then maybe reject taking any action with some logical basis behind his decision. But if he did consider these things - the very kind of consideration that made his character interesting in the first place - we're not treated to any part of that story, because there just isn't time. I can just imagine a producer saying, we have a roller coaster ride to manage; we don't have time for a theological seminar.

And that's sad, because what this means is that television is the farm for growing new characters, and movies is where they get harvested and exploited.

DFS

 

[JarodRussell]

Plus, the prime timeline is still there. Spock merely arrived in one that had split away from the one we're used too.

But how would Spock know that?

From his experiences in Yesteryear and GOTEOF he would have every reason to believe that Nero's actions resulted in near two centuries of the Prime Timeline being destroyed.

Clearly, the much older Spock had revised his thinking after reviewing the latest theoretical studies from the Vulcan Science Academy.

Seriously, given that over a century had passed between "Yesteryear" and the Narada incident, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that a better understanding of time-travel and parallel universes had developed over the previous hundred-plus years!

It's not like Einstein knew about string theory back in the day, and that was less than a century ago.

He WITNESSED how everything disappeared in CotEoF.

Had Einstein witnessed a spaceship going faster than light, he would have re-thought his relativity theory.

 

[Greg Cox]

But how would Spock know that?

From his experiences in Yesteryear and GOTEOF he would have every reason to believe that Nero's actions resulted in near two centuries of the Prime Timeline being destroyed.

Clearly, the much older Spock had revised his thinking after reviewing the latest theoretical studies from the Vulcan Science Academy.

Seriously, given that over a century had passed between "Yesteryear" and the Narada incident, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that a better understanding of time-travel and parallel universes had developed over the previous hundred-plus years!

It's not like Einstein knew about string theory back in the day, and that was less than a century ago.

He WITNESSED how everything disappeared in CotEoF.

Had Einstein witnessed a spaceship going faster than light, he would have re-thought his relativity theory.

He witnessed it, but he may not have interpreted it correctly. I doubt his tricorder was capable of registering the existence of co-existing parallel universes.

Remember, time-travel itself had only been discovered a few months earlier--in "The Naked Time." It's not like anyone was an expert on the topic back then. They were still learning the ropes.

By the time Romulus blew up, there'd been over a century of additional thought and study on the subject.

 

[JarodRussell]

Clearly, the much older Spock had revised his thinking after reviewing the latest theoretical studies from the Vulcan Science Academy.

Seriously, given that over a century had passed between "Yesteryear" and the Narada incident, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that a better understanding of time-travel and parallel universes had developed over the previous hundred-plus years!

It's not like Einstein knew about string theory back in the day, and that was less than a century ago.

He WITNESSED how everything disappeared in CotEoF.

Had Einstein witnessed a spaceship going faster than light, he would have re-thought his relativity theory.

He witnessed it, but he may not have interpreted it correctly. I doubt his tricorder was capable of registering the existence of co-existing parallel universes.

Remember, time-travel itself had only been discovered a few months earlier--in "The Naked Time." It's not like anyone was an expert on the topic back then. They were still learning the ropes.

By the time Romulus blew up, there'd been over a century of additional thought and study on the subject.

Didn't the Guardian himself explain that the timeline was altered and needed to be restored?

 

[Greg Cox]

He WITNESSED how everything disappeared in CotEoF.

Had Einstein witnessed a spaceship going faster than light, he would have re-thought his relativity theory.

He witnessed it, but he may not have interpreted it correctly. I doubt his tricorder was capable of registering the existence of co-existing parallel universes.

Remember, time-travel itself had only been discovered a few months earlier--in "The Naked Time." It's not like anyone was an expert on the topic back then. They were still learning the ropes.

By the time Romulus blew up, there'd been over a century of additional thought and study on the subject.

Didn't the Guardian himself explain that the timeline was altered and needed to be restored?

Hmm. Possibly, but I suppose one could argue that the Guardian itself is a bit of an enigma, so one needs to take its pronouncements with a grain of salt. It's a cryptic plot device that works in its own mysterious ways . . . .