Abrams: ST is silly and ridiculous

[Sci]

The thing that strikes me about the quote at the beginning of this is that people are so outraged over it even though he's, well, right.

TOS is kinda silly and kinda campy. And that's fine! That's good! The original Star Trek is like Doctor Who in that regard -- there's some genuine drama and good stuff, but it coexists with and is surrounded by some silly stuff. Pajama uniforms, Fu Manchu Klingons, bad visual effects, over-the-top acting from Shatner, goofy-looking aliens, melodrama, and silly plots. Heck, the original series knew that it was a bit silly and didn't let that stop it from having fun with itself -- consider episodes like "The Trouble With Tribbles" or "A Piece of the Action."

TOS's silliness is part of its charm, part of what makes it a good show, especially in the context of when it was produced. The challenge with Star Trek XI is to take that TOS sensibility and find a way to reinterpret it in such a way that will retain the essential spirit of the original whilst making it relatable and enjoyable for a mass audience.

And, yes, the new film does need a mass audience. As NEM and ENT proved, we diehard fans just cannot financially support this thing. If we want onscreen Trek to continue, then we need Joe Moviegoer to like the thing. Elsewise, the only new Star Trek anyone's gettin' is from Pocket Books. Which is great stuff, I love it -- but I for one want some new live action Trek, goddamnit.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

^ What he said.

 

[ROBE]

Hopefully they will get the whole command structure sorted out properly, unlike most Trek. Somebody should have sat down and produced one doublesided page, on one side we have the uniforms with the colour codes clearly telling everone the correct departments each applies to and on the other the officers and ratings rank insignia again clearly labelled. So we don't get science officers wearing red and Lt Commanders wearing commanders insignia and we can tell ensigns apart from enlisted and what ratings the enlisted actually have. The costume department for Trek seems to have never heard of a reference guide.

 

[Jeri]

...So his challenge is to make a Trek movie that doesn't come off like, say, the awful Starsky & Hutch movie. He wants to make a "serious" Trek movie, not a parody of the original that makes people feel like they're watching Saturday Night Live...

Or the Wild, Wild West movie. I love the original television show, and I have all the DVD's now; but it was silly, too. The movie was a terrible bomb; Will Smith said it's the only movie he's regretted making. At least Abrams is cognizant of the inherent problems.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

If you approach TOS today as someone who has never saw it before, nor knows much about it, it definitely would look silly and ridiculous, and exactly for the reasons that Abrams cited. Abrams task in making this film is to make it into someting that an absolute "Star Trek virgin" would enjoy seeing.

We fans have the advantage of growing up with Star Trek, so we don't see TOS as silly-looking, but trust me -- it can look very silly sometimes, especially if you take a step back and look at it from a detached and un-biased point of view.

As proof of that, consider the some of younger Star Trek fans who grew up watching TNG or TNG re-runs...there are even many people among THAT group who say they love TNG (and DS9), but don't like TOS because it is "cheesey" -- which is a synonum for "silly and ridiculous"

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

...TOS's silliness is part of its charm, part of what makes it a good show, especially in the context of when it was produced. The challenge with Star Trek XI is to take that TOS sensibility and find a way to reinterpret it in such a way that will retain the essential spirit of the original whilst making it relatable and enjoyable for a mass audience....

I do agree with you -- but only somewhat...

...Admittedly, I think Abrams still needs to include that special "Star Trek Feel" that comes from the fact that it was a 1960s TV show, and the campiness that came along with the innocence of that TV era.

HOWEVER --- TWoK was not campy or silly, and was still great. TUC was not campy or silly and neither was First Contact. Those films prove that a great "Modern Era" feature film could be made from the "Star Trek" story without it being simply big-screen version of a 1960s (or 1990s in TNG's case) TV show.

Those three films are considered the best Star Trek films, and include some of the qualities of their respective TV shows, although they are not simply 2-hour long TV episodes. They lack the overall campiness of the TV show -- and that's a good thing.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

TUC was not campy or silly and neither was First Contact.

TUC wasn't campy?

What movie were you watching? Kirk's giant dolphin dive at the end and "Kirk, Enterprise!" Chekov trying to track down the assassins? Kirk pitching out terrible one liners while battling the changeling as himself?

Cringe-worthy.

I could add a few for First Contact too, though its humor generally did not fall as flat. I'm not trying to be an ass here, because I agree with the sentiment of your post completely (but I will never understand the love the awful TUC gets.) TWOK may be the only Trek movie that completely avoided camp. There are maybe ten TOS episodes that did likewise. I want those followed. Balance of Terror. The Corbomite Manuever. Journey to Babel. City on the Edge of Forever. Taut, claustrophobic dramas that make you feel the isolation of space and the metallic interior of living inside a spaceship. A movie that has the tension of Master and Commander (still the best TOS movie ever made).

And if there's humor, I'd like it to actually be funny. No "nuclear wessels" cheese, please.

 

[dkehler]

TWOK may be the only Trek movie that completely avoided camp.

Not even that one. Remember Khaaaan!?

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

TWOK may be the only Trek movie that completely avoided camp.

Not even that one. Remember Khaaaan!?

Wrath of Khan is camp at the height of perfection.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

TUC wasn't campy?

What movie were you watching? Kirk's giant dolphin dive at the end and "Kirk, Enterprise!" Chekov trying to track down the assassins? Kirk pitching out terrible one liners while battling the changeling as himself?

Cringe-worthy.

Of course TUC had some humor; most films made today include humorous moments. However, TUC and TWoK did not have the same tone as the TV show, nor did First Contact have the same tone as TNG. These were all feature films and felt like feature films.

The point I was making in response to Sci's post is that even though much of the charm in TOS was in its relative "innocent campiness" (relative to some other TV sci-fi shows), many of the feature films did not share this same type of camp -- even though, as you pointed out, there was still much humor in the films, albeit I think the humor in the films has a completely different tone than the humor in the TV series.

TOS was often silly and ridiculous, especially if you imagine youself watching from the point of view someone who didn't grow up with it. HOWEVER....TWoK and TUC were not silly and ridiculous -- although sometimes they were funny.

 

[Sector 7]

TWOK may be the only Trek movie that completely avoided camp.

Not even that one. Remember Khaaaan!?

Wrath of Khan is camp at the height of perfection.

Selective memory can strike at any age (or level of fandom).

 

[Sci]

The thing to remember is that camp is not automatically a bad thing. It CAN be -- just witness Joel Schumaker's Batman & Robin from 1997. But camp can also be really really good and really really fun -- witness the original Adam West Batman. Camp can also be mixed very effectively with high drama -- witness Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. And for the record, yes, there is something inherently campy about space opera. I don't care if you're talking about Asimov or Lucas or Roddenberry, the idea of high melodrama in outer space is a bit campy.

The problem is that when most members of a general audience are exposed to camp outside of certain contexts -- in other words, when most people see space opera -- they get alienated by it. They don't recognize that camp can coexist alongside genuine human emotion and drama within the world of space opera, and so they mistake the melodramatic aspects of space opera as being an indicator that the fundamental premise of the genre is being violated -- that the camp elements contradict the dramatic elements. As a result, people will look at one of William Shatner's over-the-top screams of anguish and just laugh, but they won't acknowledge the genuine human drama of, say, Spock trying desperately to win his father's approval.

So Abrams' task is to take the joy that is a part of camp and infuse it into space opera in a way that does not, to the casual viewer, seem to contradict the fundamental conceits of a genuine action-adventure drama.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

Not even that one. Remember Khaaaan!?

Wrath of Khan is camp at the height of perfection.

Selective memory can strike at any age (or level of fandom).

No need for you to apologize.

Star Trek II is fantastic. It's the best Star Trek movie of them all, by far. I love it.

That said, it takes camp to a new level of boldness and confidence, and that is one of the primary reasons why it is so good.

Abrams should be so lucky. (Let's hope he is.)

 

[A beaker full of death]

http://www.trektoday.com/news/281008_03.shtml

...The article in Empire includes an interview with J.J. Abrams. In part of the interview, he discusses the challenges of making the 1960s boldly-colored uniforms palatable to today's audiences. "For me, the costumes were a microcosm of the entire project," said Abrams, "which was how to take something that's kind of silly and make it feel real. But how do you make legitimate those near-primary color costumes? How do you make legitimate the pointy ears and the bowl haircut? It's ridiculous and as potentially clichéd as it gets. How do you watch Galaxy Quest and then go make a Star Trek movie?"

Wow. What an ignorant putz. He should visit a naval ship sometime. So much for the verisimilitude that was a hallmark of TOS.

 

[Sci]

http://www.trektoday.com/news/281008_03.shtml

...The article in Empire includes an interview with J.J. Abrams. In part of the interview, he discusses the challenges of making the 1960s boldly-colored uniforms palatable to today's audiences. "For me, the costumes were a microcosm of the entire project," said Abrams, "which was how to take something that's kind of silly and make it feel real. But how do you make legitimate those near-primary color costumes? How do you make legitimate the pointy ears and the bowl haircut? It's ridiculous and as potentially clichéd as it gets. How do you watch Galaxy Quest and then go make a Star Trek movie?"

Wow. What an ignorant putz. He should visit a naval ship sometime. So much for the verisimilitude that was a hallmark of TOS.

As I understand it, the brightly-colored shirts used in the uniforms of some officers/enlisted men aboard an aircraft carrier are a function of the need to allow crew to know from a distance, visually, what function another crewmember is playing on the flight deck, since they're unable to use verbal communication due to the noise levels, and because of the sheer number of people involved.

In other words, reasons that aren't the least bit applicable to Star Trek.

 

[Aragorn]

The entire premise of this thread reminds me of the "positive review" by Michael Medved on the back cover of the Batman & Robin DVD. He actually gave it a negative review, but praised things like set design and so forth. So the quote on the back cover actually has a bunch of .... in between short phrases.

 

[Tyberius]

The designs weren't/aren't at all silly, but they've been put to silly uses over the years, by others, and have unfortunately come to be associated with such silliness by many. Silliness like the Trek parody episodes of "Night Court", "The Wonder Years" and "Seinfeld".

Which episode of Seinfeld would that be? I don't recall any episode where the look of the original series was parodied.

She is not gone if we find a way to remember her by.

KHAAAAN!

As I understand it, the brightly-colored shirts used in the uniforms of some officers/enlisted men aboard an aircraft carrier are a function of the need to allow crew to know from a distance, visually, what function another crewmember is playing on the flight deck, since they're unable to use verbal communication due to the noise levels, and because of the sheer number of people involved.

In other words, reasons that aren't the least bit applicable to Star Trek.

In space, no one can hear you scream.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

TUC wasn't campy?

What movie were you watching? Kirk's giant dolphin dive at the end and "Kirk, Enterprise!" Chekov trying to track down the assassins? Kirk pitching out terrible one liners while battling the changeling as himself?

Cringe-worthy.

Of course TUC had some humor; most films made today include humorous moments.

Um, I think you misunderstand my comments on TUC. It didn't have humor, it had cringe-worthy attempts at humor (IMHO of course). It had moments of over-the-top silliness that jerked me out of the movie.

The point I was making in response to Sci's post is that even though much of the charm in TOS was in its relative "innocent campiness" (relative to some other TV sci-fi shows), many of the feature films did not share this same type of camp -- even though, as you pointed out, there was still much humor in the films, albeit I think the humor in the films has a completely different tone than the humor in the TV series.

Camp is not the same thing as humor - it's a subset of humor. Camp is creating humor by treating something imminently silly with complete straight-faced seriousness.

TOS was often silly and ridiculous, especially if you imagine youself watching from the point of view someone who didn't grow up with it. HOWEVER....TWoK and TUC were not silly and ridiculous -- although sometimes they were funny.

TUC was silly and ridiculous. And not even in a cool, campy way. TWOK I don't think was particularly silly and ridiculous at all. Even "KHAAANNN!" (though the way Shatner screws up his face before he screams it does walk a very fine edge). TWOK is a taut chase drama. It mostly didn't try to be funny, and what jokes were there, were mostly dry, genuine character exchanges.

"What if they went nowhere?"
"Then, this is your big chance to get away from it all."

That's a far cry from the ham handed rim shot jokes of TUC.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I was talking to an old man once about movies and when we came to the subject of science-fiction movies, he summed them all up as "that silly stuff." He was basically talking about people walking around in strange makeup and clothes more than about the stories.

I do think that if given a chance, Abrams would have totally reinvented this movie from the ground up. Totally new ship design, totally new uniforms, etc. I think the only reason why this thing looks anything even remotely like TOS is because of Paramount and the idea that it should be somewhat familar-looking to casual audiences. That being said, it's still possible to be a fan of the basic premise of TOS and its characters, but not so much of how it looked and a lot of its accumulated trappings.

There are all sorts of Trek fans out there, and not all of them like every aspect of it, but that doesn't make them any less fans--just ones whose viewpoints we may not share. I do think that if Abrams truly hated TOS, he never would have signed on to have this movie made, much less direct it himself...

 

[Therin of Andor]

the only new Star Trek anyone's gettin' is from Pocket Books. Which is great stuff, I love it...

And IDW Publishing. And Tokyopop.