Or All-Star Star Trek.
Alternate timeline = Not the same Kirk, Spock, et al.??
- Thread starter Jackson_Roykirk
- Start date
Or All-Star Star Trek.
Well, "Star Trek" has showed both. That's the point: There's no consistent time travel rules in 700 episodes written by 700 different sci-fi writers.
1. A predestination paradox is a time travel event that causes itself, and the characters are just along for the ride, with no free will. The past is never changed -- time travel just acts to fulfill destiny. We saw that in TNG's "Time's Arrow" abd Voyager's "Parallax."
2. But in other episodes, we clearly saw characters from one timeline go into the past specifically to change the timeline permanently, making it different from their own past. We saw that in "Yesterday's Enterprise," "Star Trek Generations," and Voyager's "Endgame."
3. Then we have seen characters go back in time, and screw up the past, but some other characters, who were conveniently shielded from the changes, then go back in time and "repair" the timeline (e.g., in "The City on the Edge of Forever," "Star Trek: First Contact," "Trials and Tribble-ations," "Past Tense," "Year of Hell" and many others). Characters in these stories always have the choice whether to "fix" the past or not.
It looks like "Star Trek XI" will fall into this third category, despite Roberto Orci's contention that it belongs in the second. (I think, half the time, the writer of the time-travel episode himself does not know which category his paradox belongs in.)
If all of "Star Trek" were a predestination paradox, then the future would always work out as it was destined, and the characters would have no choice in the matter, and would not have to worry about "changing" or "fixing" the past. But the fact that some episodes have depicted new timelines, while others have depicted predestination paradoxes (or causality loops), means the characters (or the writers) never know which situation they are in. (What if, in "Star Trek: First Contact," Picard had said, "No, let's just stay here in this new timeline with 10 billion Borg living on Earth. No need to go back and change history. It's just a predestination paradox"? When characters consciously choose to go back in time to make a different future than the one they are in, that's an alternate timeline, not predestination -- even if they do it twice and end up back where they started, each time they are choosing to change the past, whether it's the hero or the villain making that choice.)
I think "Star Trek XI," like "Mirror, Mirror" or "Yesterday's Enterprise," is more like Marvel's old "What If ...?" series from the '70s, which depicted alternate realities within the real Marvel Universe, like TNG's "Parallels."
The "Ultimate" books (as far as I know -- I haven't read them) are not part of the real Marvel Universe -- they are just re-tellings of the stories with similar characters, like the Marvel movies, or like the new "Battlestar Galactica" series, which has no connection to the characters or events in the original series (i.e., they're non-canon).
"Star Trek XI" is definitely a continuation of the "Star Trek" series, set in an alternate reality, like many of the best Trek episodes. They are all part of the Trek canon, whether they take place in another dimension, reality, Universe, or whatever.
No, the Ultimate Marvel universe is a parallel reality, called Earth-1610. It's still canon. Characters have crossed over from it to Earth-616 (the main Marvel universe). Ultimate Marvel is no more, or less, 'canon' than What If.
I agree with trekguide, spot on!
Brilliant, you win!
And I think drawing comparison to what you said two posts up, the 'new' continuity will likely continue to exist in some other 'Trek' universe that's no longer treated as the primary - 'Trek1966' perhaps?Well said, Trekguide.com. I tend to agree - it's a continuation in an alternate reality - the key word being 'continuation.' It may be showing us the past, but they are continuing based on everything that has gone before in the 'future,' rendering it an alternate reality. I also like your point regarding the 'What If' series, but I'm uncertain whether 'Star Trek XI' will end up falling into that category since it's possible (and I think rather likely) that the franchise will go forward with the new history established in this film as its starting point.
It's been a few years since I've read comics, but as I recall, there was an issue of "What if ...?" about Spider-Man having a daughter in the future. And from that one story, a "Spider-Girl" comic series was created. So, one alternate universe spawned an entire series of new stories set in that universe. Maybe that's what "Star Trek XI" will do (if it is successful in its opening week at the box office).
Caution! Long post!
Yes, I'm familiar with your thesis (repeated here) that the Trek timeline has experienced multiple divergences over the years. However, even accepting that for the sake of argument (I find it debatable, but never mind that for now), there's a key point you're overlooking with all your examples:
In every single one of those examples, what you're calling the "new" timelines began at what was functionally the furthest-forward point we had ever seen in that Trek series (and, save for ENT, in the entire Trek universe), and proceeded forward from there into unknown territory. We never had the occasion to grow familiar with any other version for more than (at most) the length of a single episode, and so felt little or no emotional loss at not seeing those alternatives developed further.
Here, in contrast, we're being shown a story about a "new" timeline that begins before almost everything we know about Trek's characters and history, and will proceed forward to overwrite and displace what we know and love.
(For that matter, even if the history turns out "very similar," IMHO changing the backstory drastically (as for Kirk) still makes a character someone different. We can argue about nature vs. nurture all day; suffice it to say I think both are critical, and having the same DNA but a different life history does not make you the same person.)
(Personally I never grew to care about Picard's crew the same way I do about Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the rest of the originals, but they did eventually become interesting, at least. Except for Riker. Him, I could happily do without.)
But seriously... you're actually emphasizing the distinction that undermines your position here. If JJA and company wanted audiences to treat these characters as new and unknown, then they would have made them new and unknown—giving us a different crew and ship set in, say, the 25th century. Instead, they deliberately chose to trade on audiences' familiarity with Kirk's crew and ship. Doing that but then writing them as (actually) different characters amounts to trying to have their cake and eat it too.
They're not characters we've never seen before, and it's perfectly fair to have expectations about them.
In this case, "familiar, but different" is exactly what Jackson and I and others are complaining about. That might be entertaining for the length of a single story, but not for the indefinite future. If you call a character "Jim Kirk," we're entitled to prefer the version we've come to know. Otherwise it's a bait-and-switch.
Giving the filmmakers the creative freedom to tell "whatever story they desire from this point onward" may or may not result in stories that are entertaining on their own, self-contained merits, but those stories will clearly be distinct from "Star Trek" as just defined.
To frame it concisely, why should I necessarily be interested in characters named "Kirk" and "Spock" but who aren't the characters I've come to know and won't have the same life experiences I've seen them have? It makes sense to be interested in an "untold origin story" of characters I know; whether I care about one for characters I've never met before, especially when they're replacing ones I know, is another matter entirely.
At the very least, the filmmakers under those circumstances have implicitly set themselves the burden of offering something better than the sum total of what's gone before in order to justify displacing it... and IMHO that's a pretty damn hard row to hoe, and an awfully hubristic thing even to try.
Mightn't you find enjoyment from something genuinely new, though, rather than a story that casts aside that "old stale Trek universe" despite the people who are still rather fond of it?
Sorry, but I'm with Jackson Roykirk (and Franklin, et al.) here: if it's an alternate timeline, then they're not really the same characters, and it's just not as satisfying.
Yes, I'm familiar with your thesis (repeated here) that the Trek timeline has experienced multiple divergences over the years. However, even accepting that for the sake of argument (I find it debatable, but never mind that for now), there's a key point you're overlooking with all your examples:
In every single one of those examples, what you're calling the "new" timelines began at what was functionally the furthest-forward point we had ever seen in that Trek series (and, save for ENT, in the entire Trek universe), and proceeded forward from there into unknown territory. We never had the occasion to grow familiar with any other version for more than (at most) the length of a single episode, and so felt little or no emotional loss at not seeing those alternatives developed further.
Here, in contrast, we're being shown a story about a "new" timeline that begins before almost everything we know about Trek's characters and history, and will proceed forward to overwrite and displace what we know and love.
(For that matter, even if the history turns out "very similar," IMHO changing the backstory drastically (as for Kirk) still makes a character someone different. We can argue about nature vs. nurture all day; suffice it to say I think both are critical, and having the same DNA but a different life history does not make you the same person.)
Well, sometimes they did, at least.
(Personally I never grew to care about Picard's crew the same way I do about Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the rest of the originals, but they did eventually become interesting, at least. Except for Riker. Him, I could happily do without.) But seriously... you're actually emphasizing the distinction that undermines your position here. If JJA and company wanted audiences to treat these characters as new and unknown, then they would have made them new and unknown—giving us a different crew and ship set in, say, the 25th century. Instead, they deliberately chose to trade on audiences' familiarity with Kirk's crew and ship. Doing that but then writing them as (actually) different characters amounts to trying to have their cake and eat it too.
They're not characters we've never seen before, and it's perfectly fair to have expectations about them.
But Marty himself remembered the original history. That's a key difference—indeed, the resonance of the story's ending relies on it. If his own memories had been altered, audience identification with him would have been lost.
In this case, "familiar, but different" is exactly what Jackson and I and others are complaining about. That might be entertaining for the length of a single story, but not for the indefinite future. If you call a character "Jim Kirk," we're entitled to prefer the version we've come to know. Otherwise it's a bait-and-switch.
Do you really need this spelled out to you? I think it's safe to say that most of us count ourselves fans of Star Trek because we have enjoyed past stories, and the characters we have come to know through them. Indeed, the cumulative experience of those stories and characters is what defines "Star Trek."
Giving the filmmakers the creative freedom to tell "whatever story they desire from this point onward" may or may not result in stories that are entertaining on their own, self-contained merits, but those stories will clearly be distinct from "Star Trek" as just defined.
To frame it concisely, why should I necessarily be interested in characters named "Kirk" and "Spock" but who aren't the characters I've come to know and won't have the same life experiences I've seen them have? It makes sense to be interested in an "untold origin story" of characters I know; whether I care about one for characters I've never met before, especially when they're replacing ones I know, is another matter entirely.
At the very least, the filmmakers under those circumstances have implicitly set themselves the burden of offering something better than the sum total of what's gone before in order to justify displacing it... and IMHO that's a pretty damn hard row to hoe, and an awfully hubristic thing even to try.
Ah. Well, there's your problem, then.
Mightn't you find enjoyment from something genuinely new, though, rather than a story that casts aside that "old stale Trek universe" despite the people who are still rather fond of it?
Word.
God help us, that's what I'm most afraid of—that JJA and company will give us something that avoids intelligent SF and instead has the look and feel of "Star Wars."
Lawman, here is what I do not understand about your and others with the same complaint. You all... (what is the right word...) agree, accept(?) this is a "new" timeline but go on to state how events in it are going then begin overwriting and/or erasing what came before but, if it is a new timeline and they are two separate reality's, how can that be?
That I can see, they only do if we allow them to by not keeping them both in their proper, separate settings.
God help us, that's what I'm most afraid of—that JJA and company will give us something that avoids intelligent SF and instead has the look and feel of "Star Wars."
You don't think the original Star Wars movie had a good story that was intelligently thought out?
You don't think the audience wants upgraded and more special effects in their Star Trek movie?
What's worse... do you think an audience wants a movie about time travel and alternate universes.. especially a "new, converted" audience??
I DO understand that this film may be about a new timeline...and that's part of the problem. I was hoping for a story that told me about the origins of the TOS characters. However (if the plot rumors are to be believed) we are being told that the characters we will see develop are NOT the same characters from TOS.
I'm not saying that I think these characters will act 'out of character' -- I think these actors may do a damn good job capturing the essence of the familiar characters. But, in my mind, the origin story we see will still not be the origin of the TOS regulars.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that I necessarily won't enjoy this film for what it is...if it's interesting and exciting and has great dialog, then I will indeed enjoy this film -- and I think it very well could be all of that. Based on what we presently know about this film, I just don't see it being the "origin" story that it seems JJ and his crew are advertising.
Last edited:
I understand, Jackson_Roykirk. THAT^ is a logical and legitimate complaint for which I sympathize with you and everyone one like-minded. I too would have preferred the same treatment but alas, it seems, that it not to be but, that is not the same thing as I addressed in my above post.
In my post, I was addressing lawman's claim that events in a "new" timeline will overwrite/displace events in the Original Timeline. That this is an impossible claim, since they are separate reality's, was my point.
That's my issue too. Don't sell me an 'origin story' that takes place in an alternate universe. That's ridiculous. As close as it gets to being the same as what 'really' happened, it still has to be vastly different to fit the story we've seen so far. I'm not saying I probably won't enjoy it either, but come on.
And Trekguide.com, using Spider-Girl spawning the MC2 universe as your comparison, I get that. In that regard, I agree this movie could still be an elseworlds even if it spawns a new franchise.
Crap, 'new franchise.' (Freudian slip?) I guess that's really what it will be though.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. In a technical, "in-story" sense, I understand that per Orci's explanation, the "true" Trek universe will still be there somewhere off to the side.
However, it won't be the one we're actually getting stories about. In the sense of the narrative (or the "franchise") moving forward, in the sense of how things are presented to the public and intended to be lodged in the popular imagination, this movie and its sequels will be Star Trek, and to the extent that they contradict or supersede what we know from before, well, hey, that's just "old stuff."
Sometimes this sort of thing is actually worth doing. Battlestar Galactica didn't have the same kind of history or fan base as Trek, and moreover was pretty crappy to begin with, so nuBSG was a worthy endeavor -- and has more than lived up to the challenge I described earlier, of being better than the sum total of what went before. I have grave doubts, though, that JJA's take on Trek will clear that bar.
In a word? No. Surely you're aware that there's a long-standing division between fans who prefer ST and fans who prefer SW? No insult intended to any people who manage to like both equally; I'll grant that the original SW and ESB were mildly entertaining, but it was all downhill from there, and I've never really understood why they developed such a large and loyal following. In my book Lucas' storytelling is far inferior. It's derivative (to put it charitably) in any number of ways that have long since been chronicled, and in world-building terms it just doesn't hang together well. Fundamentally, SW is more fantasy than SF. It's a fairy tale, a mythical "hero's journey."God help us, that's what I'm most afraid of—that JJA and company will give us something that avoids intelligent SF and instead has the look and feel of "Star Wars."
You don't think the original Star Wars movie had a good story that was intelligently thought out?
And subsequent installments didn't help; far from building new layers as with the Trek universe, they (IMHO) methodically drained away any minor bits of interest that might have been left in the SW universe, then kept on going, running on empty.
That's a different question. Sure, modern FX are nice. They're not a substitute for good, thought-provoking SF storytelling, though, nor are they an excuse for changing characters and other narrative elements, which is what we're really talking about.
Do 1982-vintage effects stop you from enjoying TWOK, after all?
Not quite sure what you're getting at here. On the one hand, I don't really think those elements are necessary or even desirable in this particular story, although we're getting them anyway. On the other hand, I have no reason to believe that such elements would in any way be alienating to a general audience, at least not one primed by decades of other SF films.
I agree completely. A reboot might be entertaining in its own right, but it's still no substitute for a story about the "real" characters.
Bingo.
To quote myself from a slightly different context, my own web site about DC comics history:
"I suspect that casual readers have never really been the main devotees of 'genre' material, in any medium. From Sherlock Holmes to Star Trek, J.R.R. Tolkien to J.K. Rowling, it’s stuff that by its very nature either turns people off, or turns them into fans. And it therefore stands to reason that a publisher, in order to sustain a loyal fan base, needs to care about continuity.
"This is what keeps us coming back, what turns casual readers into fans—this sense of depth and context. We care about the characters and their world, and we want to know what happens to them, beyond the parameters of any single tale’s plot. (New readers should still be able to enjoy any individual story, of course—albeit not necessarily as much as fans. This isn’t a zero-sum game.) We want to see how the events and revelations of this issue, this chapter, this episode, carry over into the next, and the one after that. Conversely, it doesn’t matter how long ago something was stated to be canonical, only that it was stated within the context of the same fictional reality. Today’s story doesn’t necessarily have to rely on knowledge of what has gone before, but it shouldn’t contradict it either, not without a truly compelling reason."
You make good points and I mostly agree. My personal preference, there are 4-5 ST movies I'd rather watch than Star Wars, or Empire. And I consider myself more a trek fan.
So....
lawman said:
If I'm correct, the main objective of this movie is to be profitable by appealing to a mass audience, while trying to retain as much as the old audience as possible.
Adding "time-travel; alternate universes" only steepens the slope in already uphill task. It risks alienating former audience. And I don't think "average joe movie-goer" is generally attracted to those type of story ideas, so its a risk in gaining new mainstream audiences.
Seems that a "mythical heroes journey" might do better. And in some cases I prefer that to "Nemesis, Insurrection, The Final Frontier, The Voyage Home, The Motion Picture".
Hey, hopefully I'm way off base... maybe it's all put together in an entertaining, plausible way that adds to an intriguing story. I mean, I'm rooting for this movie, but strategically I'm not sure they chose the best plot choice.
Thank you. Very gracious of you.
I think that TMP and TVH actually stand up decently enough, although I'll agree without reservation that TFF, Nemesis and Insurrection don't bear re-watching.
However, I honestly don't see the same audience barriers here that you do. And it's always risky for filmmakers to try to second-guess what audiences will like, really; that kind of thinking has led to lots of disappointing movies (financially and creatively). Far better just to tell the best story you have in you and hope that audiences will connect with it. Certainly if "average joe" was turned off by the kind of SFnal story elements you mention, Back to the Future would never have been a hit, for instance... and for that matter if studio heads had thought that "average joe" would be turned off, that film would never even have been made.
At any rate, if (for argument's sake) "mythical hero's journey" was really the story that Abrams, Orci and the rest wanted to tell, then they should have done it with some other property, because that's just not what Star Trek has ever been about thematically.
As it stands, my interpretation of things is this: when Abrams decided to take on Trek, his idea was to do a coming-of-age story for Jim Kirk... and given that he was never really a Trek fan so much as a SW fan, his notion of what that story should entail was, well, completely unrelated to (A) what we know about the history of Jim Kirk and the 23rd century in general, not to mention (B) the themes and ideas that Trek has traditionally chosen to explore. He brought in screenwriters who did know and love Trek, but they still had to work with the basic idea he'd handed them... the end result being (judging from the trailer) a stylistic mishmash of Trek and SW, with Kirk having a radically different backstory than he should. The writers threw in some fanwank pseudoscience to handwave away these differences—per Orci's interview—but still, the movie on screen will be a very different thing from what Trek has been before.
And, for those of us who care about continuity, there's no getting around the fact that it will quite literally be about different characters.
Whether large "general audiences" will like JJA's take on things remains to be seen, but that's merely a question of financial success, not creative.
It is the same situation as "Star Trek: First Contact."
Did the origin of Zefram Cochrane from The Original Series really involve him, Geordi and Riker making Earth's first warp flight?
Or was it a similar Cochrane, with a similar origin story, but with the interference of time travelers?
"Star Trek XI" is showing the origin of James Kirk, but with some time-traveling Romulans and Vulcans making his early life more interesting. But, like in "First Contact," history is "fixed" by the end and Kirk and crew will move forward into a familiar future.
I think this will be a similar case to "First Contact" and "Back to the Future," where history is changed, but as long as everyone is still alive at the end, then it will be "close enough."
(Now, if "Star Trek XI" ends with Scotty and Sulu being killed off, then that will obviously spin off into a new timeline, like in "Yesterday's Enterprise." But if all the main characters are still alive, and the ship is still called the Enterprise, then it will be another case of history being changed, but then "fixed," as in "First Contact." Specific characters may have different memories of specific events, but the history of the Federation will continue largely unchanged.)
^ The difference there is, we don't *know* if there was ever a version of history that didn't involve the events of ST:FC. It could have been a predestination paradox - i.e. those things were always supposed to happen, and there was never a timeline where they did not. I tend to believe this is true, since Picard and crew returned to the same timeline that they left.
I don't see how that can be possible here. Are we seriously considering that *Nero* might be part of such a predestination paradox? I admit I never thought of it that way, but I highly doubt it's possible. For example, there's the obvious differences in technology and look of the Enterprise. Also, if Nero destroys Vulcan, then obviously ST:TNG won't be possible as seen, since Vulcan still exists in that series. Ditto for San Francisco (we've seen it, and Starfleet Command, in several scenes set after TOS).
I don't see how that can be possible here. Are we seriously considering that *Nero* might be part of such a predestination paradox? I admit I never thought of it that way, but I highly doubt it's possible. For example, there's the obvious differences in technology and look of the Enterprise. Also, if Nero destroys Vulcan, then obviously ST:TNG won't be possible as seen, since Vulcan still exists in that series. Ditto for San Francisco (we've seen it, and Starfleet Command, in several scenes set after TOS).
Last edited:
^
^^ I personally am not getting caught up in the "differences in technology". I see those differences as being a total "out-of-universe" issue -- i.e., The tech looks different because the movie is made in 2009 and no other reason.
For all intents and purposes the look of the tech in the context of the story is exactly the same as it was for the TOS characters.
^^ I personally am not getting caught up in the "differences in technology". I see those differences as being a total "out-of-universe" issue -- i.e., The tech looks different because the movie is made in 2009 and no other reason.
For all intents and purposes the look of the tech in the context of the story is exactly the same as it was for the TOS characters.
Similar threads
