I think some want to count TOS, but don't want any new Trek to be anything like it, too validate the Berman series.
Do fans want the prime timeline back? Part 2: Poll edition.
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I think some want to count TOS, but don't want any new Trek to be anything like it, too validate the Berman series.
I did but the poll still applies that notion.
Berman Trek = Prime Trek
But
Prime Trek =/= Berman Trek
You could want the Prime Timeline back but not want Berman's style. If someone likes an apple, he likes fruit but a person who likes fruits doesn't necessarily have to like apples.
I don't think it's a generational thing. I grew up on TOS as well, but the 24th century shows are more to my liking. I prefer character driven drama over science fiction. TOS is a show about science fiction concepts and is very light on characterization. On the other hand, the 24th century shows are about the characters. The plots exist to develop the characters or put them through situations to see how they react. "The Inner Light" wasn't about a society facing its last days; it was about Picard experiencing the life that he gave up for his career.
As for TOS, I do love the few character driven episodes such as "Journey to Babel", "The Doomsday Machine", "Balance of Terror", "The City on the Edge of Forever", etc. However, everything else is close to unwatchable for me.
That's about the exact opposite of my interpretation. I see TOS as being about the characters first. Them and their interactions keep me watching even through the worst episodes. I think David Gerrold once called it a buddy cop show in space pretending to be sci-fi.
TNG I see as a group of unrelatable, unrealistic and ultra-PC characters going through far less colourful adventures.
49, grew up watching TOS reruns and TAS on Saturday mornings. Enjoyed TNG in first run, but, a lot of isn't that great to me anymore. I still love DS9 (Second only to Babylon 5 in my top TV Series of all time) and have recently found new appreciation for Enterprise and Voyager on rewatches (Which I didn't think much of during first run).
I like Trek in General and I just move forward with it as it changes. I am enjoying the Abrams movies, and I completely understand they can't possibly be as character driven as a TV Series, so, I am very happy for the Characterization we actually do get for such a short amount of screen time, and I love the fun and action.
I definitely want a weekly TV Series back, but, I'm not particular about when it's set, I'll take it in whatever setting they give us, and hopefully I will find it enjoyable (I definitely will not approach it with per-conceived notions of what it "should be", as that pretty much turned me against Enterprise and Voyager in First run)
I like Trek in General and I just move forward with it as it changes. I am enjoying the Abrams movies, and I completely understand they can't possibly be as character driven as a TV Series, so, I am very happy for the Characterization we actually do get for such a short amount of screen time, and I love the fun and action.
I definitely want a weekly TV Series back, but, I'm not particular about when it's set, I'll take it in whatever setting they give us, and hopefully I will find it enjoyable (I definitely will not approach it with per-conceived notions of what it "should be", as that pretty much turned me against Enterprise and Voyager in First run)
The TOS characters might be more fun (although I disagree with that), but they have no depth. Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, and Scotty are little more than nameless extras and even the much-vaunted big three are nothing more than a single characteristic (logic, emotion, and dashing hero) that defines their entire existence. Even Harry Kim had more to his character than that. However, I will concede that the films do flesh out the characters a bit more. I am a huge fan of the TOS films (2, 3, 4, and 6).
As for TNG, I preferred the less colorful adventures. "The Drumhead" is one of the first episodes that come to mind when I think about episodes that define Star Trek. It was a bottle episode where characters sat around various rooms discussing things, but talking can often be far more exciting and eventful than the most action-packed adventure. When Admiral Satie had her breakdown in the final coutroom scene and was tearing into Picard I found that far more engaging than anything in TOS. Those are the scenes that made me a Star Trek fan; not Kirk throwing rocks at a lizard.
I don't prefer one over the other. Put on an episode of the first 3 series and I will be happy. I have a sense of wonderment about what we would find in space, and therefore, I like science fiction, especially the optimism of the Star Trek universe. When I bought the remastered Star Trek Season 1 a couple of months ago, I enjoyed episodes like The Man Trap, Charlie X, Where No Man Has Gone Before, The Naked Time, The Enemy Within, What are Little Girls Made of, Miri, The Corbomite Maneuver, Return of the Archons, Space Seed, Devil in the Dark, Errand of Mercy, The Alternative Factor, and City on the Edge of Forever.
What I didn't enjoy were the episodes that treated women like crap (The Conscience of a King anyone?) and the iconic Arena and Balance of Terror. I thought they were straight bad-guy stories that I've seen too much of.
As for when I bought the 4th season of TNG a month later, I enjoyed Family, Brothers, Reunion, Data's Day, The Wounded, Clues, First Contact, Galaxy's Child, Night Terrors, The Nth Degree, The Drumhead, Half a Life, The Host, In Theory, and the partial season cliffhangers BOBW, II and Redemption, I.
What I didn't enjoy--Remember Me, which is fast-forward-worthy, Final Mission which was just bad acting from Wil Wheaton, The Loss which featured over-the-top acting from Marina Sirtis, and the rest I was indifferent on.
So it's not a battle of 23rd versus 24th centuries. I think it's prime universe versus the last 2 films. There's been a lot of destruction in JJ Abrams universe and I don't see positive outcomes from that. I think it hurts the franchise that we can't do a story that doesn't involve a galactic war.
There was a hell of a lot of destruction in TOS too - Nomad sterilized several entire worlds before reaching the Enterprise. The Doomsday Machine wiped out at least one solar system, M-5 killed the entire 400+ crew of a starship, V'Ger had digitized hundreds of solar systems.
We saw war in the vast bulk of DS9 (which only ended because of an attempted genocide) and 1/4 of ENT (which began the mass murder of 7 million humans) and were told of devastating off-screen wars in TOS (the Eugenics Wars, WWIII and the more recent war against the Romulans) and TNG (the Cardassians). The threat of future war drove the plots of movies III, VI and X. FC picked up shortly after a war which killed millions.
Add to that, it was Romulus Prime (and presumably Remus) which was destroyed in ST'09, accounting for at least half the mass destruction in that movie.
So I say again, all Trek Prime is is a backstory. The difference between Kronos being the place where Worf fought a political battle with the Duras family vs. the place where Kirk went to find Khan. Or Kirk's Enterprise being the one which visited K-7 and got infested with Tribbles or the one which saved the planet Nibiru. All the planets and species are the same, it's just change in what happens to them. Does that really matter any more than the style of the new stories being told?
Name me a world in Star Trek re-boot that hasn't been destroyed or faced extinction (Nibru's world, Romulus and Remus in prime universe, Vulcan, Kronos because Praxis has already exploded, Earth because of the drill in '09, the destruction of terrorist attacks in STID, etc.). It's incredibly dark. It isn't some of the time and Kirk and Crew stopping it. It mostly affects the Federation. It's not a very bright future, despite what JJ Abrams has said. It will militarize Starfleet.
We simply don't know if that was Praxis or not in Star Trek Into Darkness.
I find the Abramsverse no darker than TOS.
I'm 43. I grew up on TOS, and I didn't start watching TNG until the 3rd season. My favorite is DS9, and I've come to appreciate what ENT could have been.
I don't mind new stories about young Kirk, but I think the alternative canon is stupid. Through many franchises and films, Star Trek developed a sense of history and memory that is difficult to build and difficult to replace. Not only is that difficult to replace, I doubt that anyone involved in the new Trek movies has any real desire to do so. Knowing now how Trek will develop, I would definitely protest similar "reboots," particularly to something like Tolkien's Middle Earth.
BTW, the moralizing didn't begin with Picard: Kirk could preach with the best of them.
I don't mind new stories about young Kirk, but I think the alternative canon is stupid. Through many franchises and films, Star Trek developed a sense of history and memory that is difficult to build and difficult to replace. Not only is that difficult to replace, I doubt that anyone involved in the new Trek movies has any real desire to do so. Knowing now how Trek will develop, I would definitely protest similar "reboots," particularly to something like Tolkien's Middle Earth.
BTW, the moralizing didn't begin with Picard: Kirk could preach with the best of them.
Even the MPAA disagrees with you. While movie ratings have become more lax, each of Abrams movies is a PG-13 rating. With the exception of Nemesis, no movie was over a PG rating.
We've seen countless destroyed ships, we've seen horrific scenes like a man's head being crushed and a Captain hit by a phaser, watching him die. These movies have been incredibly violent, and I wouldn't introduce anyone to the universe seeing all this death and destruction.
Wrath of Khan carried a 15 rating in the UK until recently, owing to the ear bugs and brutalized Regula-1 crew.
And lets not forget TNG's "Conspiracy", probably Trek's most gory moment and so severe I never actually saw it (owing to TV censorship in the UK) until my recent attempted TNG rewatch on DVD.
And lets not forget TNG's "Conspiracy", probably Trek's most gory moment and so severe I never actually saw it (owing to TV censorship in the UK) until my recent attempted TNG rewatch on DVD.
Don't forget "Operation--Annihilate!" How many planets did the neural parasites wipe out? And let's not forget that Kirk's brother and sister-in-law died horribly.
And I seem to recall Khan massacring all the scientists at the Genesis space station (albeit offstage): "He cut their throats."
The final frontier has never been a safe place, even in TNG. What did Q say again?
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."
Probably my favorite line in all of TNG--and Q is absolutely right. Exploring the final frontier was never supposed to be warm and cozy and peaceful. Death and disaster come with the territory sometimes.
"Risk is our business" and all that.
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We've seen Epsilon IX, three Klingon cruisers and Lt. Ilia "digitized" in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. We watched Captain Terrell disintegrate himself, the Ceti Eel makes a bloody exit from Chekov's head, we see the charred body of Peter Preston and the destruction of the Reliant in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. A freighter crew bites the dust in the opening minutes of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. The Grissom is destroyed, we watch David Marcus get stabbed, a Klingon boarding party gets killed during the destruction of the Enterprise and Kirk kicks Kruge in the face several times before he falls to an obviously gruesome death.
Selective memory?
I find Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan far more "graphically violent" than Star Trek Into Darkness.
This.
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(1) MPAA ratings from different decades aren't comparable.
(2) MPAA ratings from the same era are, often, not comparable.
(3) Star Trek: First Contact was also rated PG-13.
(4) The PG-13 rating didn't exist until July of 1984, so the first three TOS films couldn't have been given it (and obviously weren't going to be rated R).
Good point! I suspect Khan at least would have been rated PG-13 had that rating existed back then . . . .
With the torture of Terrell and Chekov, Terrell's suicide, the bodies onboard Regula One, and all the bloody injuries onboard Enterprise and Reliant...I'd say it's certainly possible. But, of course, the MPAA has never had a rubric of any sort to define its rating system, so we can only speculate on this point.
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