Do fans want the prime timeline back?

[JarodRussell]

But, but, but...

 

[C.E. Evans]

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.



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.



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.



Um ok?



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?

For the sake of brevity, let's just say that I don't share or agree at all with your viewpoints.

 

[F. King Daniel]

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.)

You're forgetting that Nero was a very immediate threat. In order to figure out how to engineer a reliable time portal from the Red Matter (if at all possible), he'd need time - something that Earth and the Federation did not have. 47 Klingon ships and 7 Federation ships had already been destroyed and Nero was hovering right over Starfleet HQ when Spock boarded the Jellyfish. I'd say stopping Nero by any means ASAP was the logical option.

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).

But to do things like that they'd have needed to know the location of the Romulans on the Narada, and they didn't. When they beamed from Titan to Earth orbit, Scotty thought ("If the design of the ship makes any sense at all") he'd be beaming Kirk and Spock into an empty cargo hold. They materialized on the bridge, surrounded by Romulans. As when used earlier from Delta Vega to Vulcan, Scotty materialized inside the coolant system and almost died.

Then again, perhaps they could have used it to beam random chunks of Narada into space, or to beam a photon torpedo inside, a la VOY: "Dark Frontier" (but I guess I could argue that doing so would have detonated the Red Matter and created that massive final black hole in Earth orbit, likely destroying the planet)

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

Eh, I consider myself as truer fan as any and they don't bother me so much. But as you've read, I'm pretty good at excusing most of them - to my threshold of acceptability, at least

Why the Enterprise couldn't beam Spock and Khan from the flying garbage truck at the end of Into Darkness (because they were moving too much, or something like that) when in the prior movie Chekov beamed Kirk and Sulu out of terminal velocity free fall over Vulcan, on the other hand...

 

[F. King Daniel]

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.

But in "Yesteryear"...

THELIN: This change in the timeline will put you in my place, yet I am not aggrieved.

SPOCK: Andorians are not known for their charity.

THELIN: True. A warrior race has few sympathies, but one we do possess is for family. In your time plane, you will live and so will your mother. That is valuable. Live long and prosper in your world, Commander Spock.

SPOCK: And you in yours, Commander Thelin.


...sounds like Thelin's timeline will continue after Spock sets his history right (and in Myriad Universes: The Chimes at Midnight, Thelin's timeline does)

 

[The Emissary]

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 !

No one would care? You say that with such absolute certainty. Do you really think that with a good story and a good cast, that it'd be pointless to try it?

Who would it confuse exactly? People who don't pay attention. Does Trek really need to continue to dumb itself down to reach out to modern audiences that find old Trek boring? I agree that jumping back and forth between time lines can get a bit cumbersome, but Abrams' Trek is only two movies (and then one more). It is not equal to the 40 years plus that's been on before it.

And honestly, my questions to the people that say we should stick with Abramsverse...are... How and why? Because it is the latest Trek? Because Trek is "really about Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise. No one cares about the other crews." What nonsense. If Trek was only about them, Roddenberry wouldn't have made TNG. The other Treks, despite the criticism they got, wouldn't have lasted so long. Trek is not about Kirk, etc.

But honestly? What do people who support Abrams think is going to happen? Pine, Quinto, Saldana, etc. are not Shatner, Nimoy, etc. It is highly doubtful they'll remain with these characters beyond the third movie like the old cast did. And it is highly doubtful that if this franchise goes back to the television medium, that those actors will switch to television. Quinto used to be in television, but he seems to be trying to branch out from that.

So if you argue "fine...then...we'll get a new crew but in the NEW universe." Well...that kills the argument that Trek is only about Kirk and co. doesn't it? Unless we recast them again. Not to mention, based off of the movies, do you really think they won't simply rehash what was done on the old shows you all are arguing should stay dead?

I am honestly curious about those that want to stay in this nutimeline, what will it be about? What can be done in this universe that can't be done by going back to the original? Why did Abrams even split the universe in the first place? He should have had his time line erase the old and render this whole topic moot. I'd have been more for that then just leaving the old universe dangling as a "wink" to us.

And let me say again, I am completely in agreement that Abrams breathed life in Trek and literally lifted it out from the lowered coffin. I like that he gave the characters more humanity, instead of the sterile "evolved" humans of TNG. I like action (I am not against it). But he didn't do much else... Both movies were stories done in the old universe. There is nothing "fresh!" there. I also agree that if Trek were to come back (prime timeline or nu) it needs to switch up the format instead of being a TNG-lite.

(SORRY Belz. I didn't mean to go into a rant mode on you. It just happens. Was not ranting at you. )

 

[BillJ]

Why the Enterprise couldn't beam Spock and Khan from the flying garbage truck at the end of Into Darkness (because they were moving too much, or something like that) when in the prior movie Chekov beamed Kirk and Sulu out of terminal velocity free fall over Vulcan, on the other hand...

Pretty easy.

Kirk and Sulu were moving in one direction at a constant rate of speed, so it would be easy to calculate where they would be when. Spock and Khan were moving all over the barge in an unpredictable way.

 

[Shikarnov]

I'm a fan of the prime universe for multiple reasons -- the main one of which is that it gave us something to aspire to. The new universe is designed to appeal for the drooling mass audiences who care nothing of big ideas, plausible (albethey fictional) technologies, or characters that actually work to earn their status, etc.

I understood that on ST09's opening day; in the bathroom of the movie theater, listening to two teenage street thugs who could hardly construct a coherent sentence, talk about how surprising it was that this new Star Trek was actually good. "And yo, man, that was hot when they was blowin up the black hole." I remember thinking in exactly that moment that Trek was truly and completely doomed.

That said, I think that NuTrek is well suited for the big screen. It's hard to derive 100s of millions of dollars in sales from Trekkies alone. But on television, I don't think this universe can carry its own weight. Real fans looking for more than a fun moviegoing experience will never tune in long term. For a long-running series, it will need to appeal to folks that enjoy a rich history and a wealth of ideas that produce many stories. And, sorry to say so, that's not going to happen with the new low-brow Trek universe.

 

[RandyS]

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.

If I was in charge of Star Trek, I would then turn around and sell the rights for a pile of cash, the size of which would cause a slight, but noticeable shift in the Earth's orbit.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I'm a fan of the prime universe for multiple reasons -- the main one of which is that it gave us something to aspire to. The new universe is designed to appeal for the drooling mass audiences who care nothing of big ideas, plausible (albethey fictional) technologies, or characters that actually work to earn their status, etc.

I understood that on ST09's opening day; in the bathroom of the movie theater, listening to two teenage street thugs who could hardly construct a coherent sentence, talk about how surprising it was that this new Star Trek was actually good. "And yo, man, that was hot when they was blowin up the black hole." I remember thinking in exactly that moment that Trek was truly and completely doomed.

That said, I think that NuTrek is well suited for the big screen. It's hard to derive 100s of millions of dollars in sales from Trekkies alone. But on television, I don't think this universe can carry its own weight. Real fans looking for more than a fun moviegoing experience will never tune in long term. For a long-running series, it will need to appeal to folks that enjoy a rich history and a wealth of ideas that produce many stories. And, sorry to say so, that's not going to happen with the new low-brow Trek universe.

One has to remember, though, that Star Trek was created to be mass entertainment that a wide variety of people can enjoy. Calling those who may appreciate it just for its action-adventure aspects as "the drooling mass audience" and "low brow" reeks of elitism, something that Trek never was.

 

[BillJ]

I'm a fan of the prime universe for multiple reasons -- the main one of which is that it gave us something to aspire to. The new universe is designed to appeal for the drooling mass audiences who care nothing of big ideas, plausible (albethey fictional) technologies, or characters that actually work to earn their status, etc.

I understood that on ST09's opening day; in the bathroom of the movie theater, listening to two teenage street thugs who could hardly construct a coherent sentence, talk about how surprising it was that this new Star Trek was actually good. "And yo, man, that was hot when they was blowin up the black hole." I remember thinking in exactly that moment that Trek was truly and completely doomed.

Stereotype much?

I like the Prime Universe, I like the Abramsverse, I like Star Wars, I like 2001 and 2010 and I like reading Baxter and Clarke and Kim Stanley Robinson.

So I guess I'm part of the "drooling" masses?

EDIT: I also call bullshit on your "bathroom" tale.

 

[Greg Cox]

I'm a fan of the prime universe for multiple reasons -- the main one of which is that it gave us something to aspire to. The new universe is designed to appeal for the drooling mass audiences who care nothing of big ideas, plausible (albethey fictional) technologies, or characters that actually work to earn their status, etc.

I understood that on ST09's opening day; in the bathroom of the movie theater, listening to two teenage street thugs who could hardly construct a coherent sentence, talk about how surprising it was that this new Star Trek was actually good. "And yo, man, that was hot when they was blowin up the black hole." I remember thinking in exactly that moment that Trek was truly and completely doomed.

That said, I think that NuTrek is well suited for the big screen. It's hard to derive 100s of millions of dollars in sales from Trekkies alone. But on television, I don't think this universe can carry its own weight. Real fans looking for more than a fun moviegoing experience will never tune in long term. For a long-running series, it will need to appeal to folks that enjoy a rich history and a wealth of ideas that produce many stories. And, sorry to say so, that's not going to happen with the new low-brow Trek universe.

One has to remember, though, that Star Trek was created to be mass entertainment that a wide variety of people can enjoy. Calling those who may appreciate it just for its action-adventure aspects as "the drooling mass audience" and "low brow" reeks of elitism, something that Trek never was.

Amen. I admit I roll my eyes whenever people start sneering at "the masses." To my mind, Star Trek is not an elitist thing intended only for the cognoscenti. So what if not everybody who buys a ticket is the "right" kind of viewer? Are we going to start insisting that people pass some sort of fannish IQ test before they're allowed to enjoy a Star Trek movie? To make sure they're watching the movie for the "right" reasons?

Please.

Star Trek started out on NBC, for pete's sakes. It was always meant to appeal to general audiences.

 

[Shikarnov]

^Partly true. But it's not elitism. It's about raising the bar. If you want to talk about Trek's roots, lets go back to the Cage which featured women wearing pants and acting in professional roles and positions; and was rejected for having too cerebral of a concept. And though TOS was less ambitious and a lot more campy, it too pushed the envelope to challenge audiences to think with commentary on culture, race, religion, politics, and more. Star Trek aspired to be something the network and censors would never allow and inspired audiences to dream.

I'm sorry if it comes across as elitist of me to enjoy entertainment that exercises a few neurons -- which Star Trek, in most cases, did -- and to lament the lowering of the bar in this new rebooted universe. One would think you'd, particularly, understand that, Mr. Cox; In all my years as a fan, I never saw any of Star Trek's new target market walking around with the latest sci-fi book tucked under their arm.

 

[Nerys Myk]

^Partly true. But it's not elitism. It's about raising the bar. If you want to talk about Trek's roots, lets go back to the Cage which featured women wearing pants and acting in professional roles and positions; and was rejected for having too cerebral of a concept. And though TOS was less ambitious and a lot more campy, it too pushed the envelope to challenge audiences to think with commentary on culture, race, religion, politics, and more. Star Trek aspired to be something the network and censors would never allow and inspired audiences to dream.

It also features a half clad green animal woman dancing in a "alien" harem. A Captain uncomfortable with women on the bridge. Blather about female drives. A fight scene between Pike and barbarian. Another fight between Pike and a Talosan that ended with Pike threatening to blow its head off. Real deep stuff that.

It was the network and studio that insisted they include more minorities. Which is why the lily white Cage gave way to the more inclusive TOS.

I'm sorry if it comes across as elitist of me to enjoy entertainment that exercises a few neurons -- which Star Trek, in most cases, did -- and to lament the lowering of the bar in this new rebooted universe. One would think you'd, particularly, understand that, Mr. Cox; In all my years as a fan, I never saw many of Star Trek's new target market walking around with the latest sci-fi book tucked under their arm.

How the world would you know the reading habits of any Trek fan, much less the "new target market"? Most people don't bring books to the movies. (I do, though)

 

[F. King Daniel]

Why the Enterprise couldn't beam Spock and Khan from the flying garbage truck at the end of Into Darkness (because they were moving too much, or something like that) when in the prior movie Chekov beamed Kirk and Sulu out of terminal velocity free fall over Vulcan, on the other hand...

Pretty easy.

Kirk and Sulu were moving in one direction at a constant rate of speed, so it would be easy to calculate where they would be when. Spock and Khan were moving all over the barge in an unpredictable way.

Hmmm.... I still don't quite buy it, they probably could have beamed the whole barge up. Maybe the Enterprise's targeting scanners were damaged during the Vengeance attack, or something.

[snip]...the new low-brow Trek universe.

Lower brow than Joe Piscopo and Data making spastic noises on the holodeck in "The Outrageous Okuna"?

 

[BillJ]

I'm sorry if it comes across as elitist of me to enjoy entertainment that exercises a few neurons -- which Star Trek, in most cases, did -- and to lament the lowering of the bar in this new rebooted universe.

I'm sure there are lots of people who enjoy science-fiction and look at Trek fans and think, "they think their shit is smart and deep, how cute". They likely think you're simple for enjoying something they don't think very highly of. They probably consider you as part of the drooling masses. Why do I care if someone goes to a Trek movie to watch shit blow-up? All I care about is if I enjoyed it.

Personally, I watch Star Trek to be entertained, not to make people think I'm smart.

 

[BillJ]

Hmmm.... I still don't quite buy it, they probably could have beamed the whole barge up.

Do we have any idea if they have the uber transporters of TNG on? If not, beaming an entire barge, especially after the ass-whoopin' they took, may not have been an option.

 

[nightwind1]

Why the Enterprise couldn't beam Spock and Khan from the flying garbage truck at the end of Into Darkness (because they were moving too much, or something like that) when in the prior movie Chekov beamed Kirk and Sulu out of terminal velocity free fall over Vulcan, on the other hand...

Pretty easy.

Kirk and Sulu were moving in one direction at a constant rate of speed, so it would be easy to calculate where they would be when. Spock and Khan were moving all over the barge in an unpredictable way.

Hmmm.... I still don't quite buy it, they probably could have beamed the whole barge up. Maybe the Enterprise's targeting scanners were damaged during the Vengeance attack, or something.

[snip]...the new low-brow Trek universe.

Lower brow than Joe Piscopo and Data making spastic noises on the holodeck in "The Outrageous Okuna"?

Or Janeway and Paris "de-volving" into lizards?

Or "Spock's Brain" or "The Way to Eden" ("I reach, Herbert...")?

 

[Shikarnov]

Personally, I watch Star Trek to be entertained, not to make people think I'm smart.

The same is true of me. The OP's question was "Do fans want the prime timeline back?" I answered it from my POV and explained why I think so. I'm not trying to look smart. Hell, if I was so interested in fitting in, I would have been a lot more successful leaving my love of Trek in the closet.

[snip]...the new low-brow Trek universe.

Lower brow than Joe Piscopo and Data making spastic noises on the holodeck in "The Outrageous Okuna"?

LOL. You got me there. But in my own defense, I did acknowledge that the prime universe didn't always provide food for thought, just that it did in most cases. With 28 seasons and 10 movies, there's plenty of nonsense.

 

[BillJ]

LOL. You got me there. But in my own defense, I did acknowledge that the prime universe didn't always provide food for thought, just that it did in most cases. With 28 seasons and 10 movies, there's plenty of nonsense.

And I'm sure there's plenty of that non-sense you enjoyed.

 

[trevanian]

First you call his story about the bathroom 'bullshit' and now you're deigning to tell us what lesser entertainment he enjoyed?

Man, I love you in the THESE ARE THE VOYAGES thread, but everyplace else ...