Any other TOSers give up post-Abrams?

[Withers]

So, the question to the newcomers is this: Do you want to see what the rest of the place looks like, or do you just want to stare at some burning shrubbery all day? 'Cause the guys who set the first fire? Yeah, they're coming back with more fireworks, and they're probably gonna burn some more bushes, and if that's what floats your boat, fine, but we're got quite a show over on the boardwalk. Why don't you check it out sometime? Might help you understand why this old park has lasted this long.

It's more like this; a group of people in 2009 dug up a corpse and reanimated it. This corpse was born sometime in the 60's and has some resemblance of what it used to be but in reality its different. The people who dug it up gave it a face lift, told it some new jokes, and taught it some new tricks. The people who originally knew and loved the corpse are mortified that a.) it was dug up in the first place and b.) that it doesn't tell the same jokes, doesn't do the same tricks, and doesn't have the same face it had back in the 60's. The idea of a reanimated corpse brought people to the freak show. Now, the corpse has been reanimated, so in order to keep the attention of the people it has to keep performing (entertaining.)

Will the people who originally knew the corpse ever be happy it was reanimated? No. No matter what tricks it learns or what jokes it tells it won't be the same as it was when it was alive. So they're never going to like it. The fact that it is a reanimated corpse will lose its appeal to new fans of its act because at that point it will just be an entertainer and not a corpse exhumed for the purposes of making profit. To hold onto those fans it'll need to stay fresh.

Would it have been easier to just teach a new person said jokes and tricks? Yes, but the appeal of a resurrected corpse was necessary to get the initial draw.

There's your extended metaphor.

-Withers-​

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The park was abandoned, choked by weeds and filled with rubbish. It's under new management now, and the old rides that bored folks and drew no customers have been torn out, thrown away and replaced with more modern entertainments. And if some old guys want to sit around and harangue the kids with how much more fun the place was in '68...let 'em, as long as they don't slow traffic or block the concession stand.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I didn't find the experience as satisfying as I'd like but I think people need to let it go. There's not much more to be said on either side save for snide snarky comments.

 

[The Lensman]

Well here's what I know.....I know a guy who's 27, who doesn't give a crap about sci-fi, who's never seen a single Star Wars movie, (or Trek ep or movie for that matter) who has borrowed Star Trek *3* times from me, each time for a week. Seriously, the last guy I expected to like a Trek movie LOVES this movie. The movie did it's job.

For me, as a fan of the original Trek this movie hit the points and had about everything we got in the old show.

Kirk in fights like almost every episode.

Kirk trying to get the girl like too many episodes to list.

Crazy science shit in Red Matter, like multiple Earths or going really fast around the sun making time travel possible.

Something that made no logical sense...Kirk getting promoted to Captain...like the time they thought Scotty would hate ALL women because ONE caused him to be in an accident. Or the whole beaming into oneself malarky of "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" or no one noticing a planet blew up in TWOK. I mean seriously on all counts....WTF?!

Humour, like too many episodes to list.

Some heart and a generally upbeat tone, like too many episodes to list.

So yeah....it hit the points.

The bottom line is this: the original show was an action\adventure show first and foremost. And if they could sneak a little message or allegory in? Great. It was not Shakespeare or the bullshit that Roddenberry bought into on the convention circuit in the 70's when he bought into his own myth. See TMP or early TNG for the results of that thinking.

The show was meant to be a fun romp and it was always accessable to everyone, not just sci-fi snobs.

Frankly I stopped giving a crap about Trek when it became a factory produced product, especially around the Voyager and Enterprise eras. The original Trek has always existed in it's own universe to me because seriously....you can't reconcile the styles of the original with the styles of Berman era Trek. Sure they tried, it only accentuated that you can't. So that show has safely existed in a bubble for me with everything post S3 in a different timeline already.

Abrams has me interested again. It's fresh, it's new, it's exciting and anything goes. If you like the opposite of the that, go watch the last two Trek series on DVD.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

And that is now the leading nominee for Post Of The Year.

 

[plynch]

Why reanimate a corpse?

Why not let it be?

Seriously.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Because people will pay a lot of money to watch an updated version of it. Don't stretch the "corpse" metaphor any further out of shape.

 

[Joker]

It's not a "corpse" at all, even at a stretch, unless you're talking literally about Nimoy. It's a completely new beast wearing the name Star Trek. It has a similarity in quality, in the sense that they're both "good".

New director, new writers, new actors, new score, new tea lady, new ship, new... so on it goes.

 

[plynch]

I think it's like trying to put new wine into old wineskins.

Trek was a 60s-space age-GR-Shatner-Nimoy-rubber rocks-eloquent (at times) -writing thing. Let it be. Move on.

But that's just me. I guess it made dough for the corporation, so they'll keep making more.

 

[Joker]

It has moved on.

A handful of fans are still living in 1979, though.

 

[Warped9]

A handful of fans are still living in 1979, though.

Yeah, that would be me apparently since you like trotting this out like an ironclad indictment of my (and others) opinion.

And I make no apologies for it and I shouldn't have to. It's no different than me preferring a pizza made one way as opposed to one made another that I don't like.

I make no apologies for thinking Trek started going into the crapper after 1979 in fits and starts and then later in steady decline. And my opinion is just as goddamned valid as anyone else's.

Why don't the lot of you come up with something substantial as a rebuttal for a change?

 

[Withers]

Recently (I can't speak for your posts on the whole as you're a Vice Admiral and have made way more than I could have read at this point) your replies have been measured and fair in regards to this clash over whether or not Star Trek started declining after 1979. Even though I don't agree with you even slightly (except to maybe say I think TMP is the worst movie of them all) I've been able to read your posts without feeling condesended to- without the feeling I'm being told I'm an ignorant savage for liking something that came after 1979 with any amount of zeal or that conversely I'm too uncomplicated a person if I don't particularly fangasm over TOS. Your posts have accomplished that task pretty well so far as I've read them lately.

Most of the people who share your point of view do not accomplish this task and seemingly relish the fact that they fail. Some of them seem to go out of their way to make anybody who either dislikes TOS or likes Trek that came after it in any significant degree feel like morons. When that happens it isn't hard to respond in kind by pointing out, in no uncertain terms, just how crazy the idea you support seems (to us; those who don't support it.) I don't think I "troll" anybody (though Anwar might think otherwise) and I've run into that "holier than thou" attitude twice in last hour.

It's tit for tat.

-Withers-​

 

[Captain Robert April]

For those who lack the initiative to click my sig, my latest blog entry:

I keep going back to a complaint Harlan Ellison had about TOS, that fits like a freakin' glove to this movie.

Not only was it mediocre, it was deliberately intended to be mediocre.

They didn't strive to make something great and fail (that's the saving grace of some of the worst episodes, at least they tried something different and it didn't work). They targeted this film to hit that lowest common denominator and get the biggest bang for the buck. From the ubiquitous lens flares to the shaky cam to the MTV rapid edits to the pandering to every Star Trek stereotype in the book, both real and imagined, this film was plotted and made solely to suck in as many people as possible and separate them from their money (nothing wrong with that, in and of itself), and (here's the real crime) BE AS UTTERLY NONCHALLENGING AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

And for Star Trek, any incarnation of Star Trek, that is completely unforgivable. Star Trek is supposed to make you think. That this film not only doesn't make you think, but actually requires you to not think, lest the whole house of cards falls apart, is far worse than just another bad installment in the franchise, but a fundamental betrayal of the very idea behind Star Trek that Roddenberry tried to instill in the production and the writing, summed up by his favorite saying on the subject, "There is an intelligent life form on the other side of that television tube!" Eye candy is not enough, you have to appeal to the mind, to the intelligence of the viewer. Short change that, and you sell out the whole thing and reduce Star Trek to "just a movie."

Understand why I'm so angry over this thing now?

 

[Captain Pike]

TOS didn't challenge the grey matter every episode. Many were just flat out action adventure - and great they often were too. Some fell flat. Some were just plain awful.

The Cage is the exception really, not the rule..

 

[Withers]

actually requires you to not think, lest the whole house of cards falls apart, is far worse than just another bad installment in the franchise, but a fundamental betrayal of the very idea behind Star Trek

Star Trek depends on people not thinking. It's called suspended disbelief and without it the whole house of cards falls apart. This film doesn't require you to be stupid but to believe in a future like any Trek presents you have to turn off that voice in your head that says 'what I'm seeing isn't realistic' and all Trek requires you to do that.

-Withers-​

 

[Warped9]

Recently (I can't speak for your posts on the whole as you're a Vice Admiral and have made way more than I could have read at this point) your replies have been measured and fair in regards to this clash over whether or not Star Trek started declining after 1979. Even though I don't agree with you even slightly (except to maybe say I think TMP is the worst movie of them all) I've been able to read your posts without feeling condesended to- without the feeling I'm being told I'm an ignorant savage for liking something that came after 1979 with any amount of zeal or that conversely I'm too uncomplicated a person if I don't particularly fangasm over TOS. Your posts have accomplished that task pretty well so far as I've read them lately.

Most of the people who share your point of view do not accomplish this task and seemingly relish the fact that they fail. Some of them seem to go out of their way to make anybody who either dislikes TOS or likes Trek that came after it in any significant degree feel like morons. When that happens it isn't hard to respond in kind by pointing out, in no uncertain terms, just how crazy the idea you support seems (to us; those who don't support it.) I don't think I "troll" anybody (though Anwar might think otherwise) and I've run into that "holier than thou" attitude twice in last hour.

It's tit for tat.

-Withers-​

Believe me there have been times I, too, have succumbed to the reflex response and spoke with more emotion and anger than reason. But every so often I can rein it in knowing that a reasoned response will get more attention and respect even if not agreement.

When I first watched this film I was swearing a blue streak and for quite sometime afterward whenever the subject came up I kept hearing my cursing echoing in my head.

Saying, "I don't like a damned thing about this f------ p.o.s." isn't going to get me far in debating it. I think I'll get a lot farther cooling down and articulating why I don't like it. And I think I can cool down enough to hear out an opposing viewpoint.

The bottom line is this: Abrams' movie matters not one whit in regards to TOS. TOS remains what it is and the nuTrek doesn't change it in the least.

I, too, would have liked to see a new Star Trek that resonated with something of the one I like so much. I've waited a long time for it. Sadly, I didn't get it this time around (in my opinion) and I'm just going to have to keep on waiting.

 

[Withers]

The more and more I read of your posts the more I find we agree on. Even though, fundamentally, we don't agree on this particular film...

I, too, would have liked to see a new Star Trek that resonated with something of the one I like so much. I've waited a long time for it. Sadly, I didn't get it this time around (in my opinion) and I'm just going to have to keep on waiting.

...the things that unite us are far greater than the things that divide us. You and I are on that same bench, waiting for a movie that speaks to the element of Trek that we like (for you it was TOS and for me it was the grit of DS9). I like that idea. How very... Roddenberry.

-Withers-​

 

[Warped9]

Grit isn't a foreign element to TOS, not when one understands what you could and could not get away with in the mid 1960s.

Take "The Enemy Within" with its attempted rape scene. And, yes, make no mistake as to what the evil Kirk's intentions were. They pushed that scene as far as they could get away with on television in 1966.

Take "A Taste Of Armageddon" where Kirk is actually setting up the possibility of destroying an entire civilization with his General Order 24. And although it was sanitized people were getting murdered in the suicide booths they were being herded into.

Take "Plato's Stepchildren" and the deliberate brutalization of our heroes. It is uncomfortable to watch, but what better way to illustrate how corrupt the powerful in a society can become when they're totally free of lawful consequence and conscience to do as they please.

Those are only three examples.

I will hasten to add that there is a distinction between grit and gratuitous violence and gore.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

actually requires you to not think, lest the whole house of cards falls apart, is far worse than just another bad installment in the franchise, but a fundamental betrayal of the very idea behind Star Trek

Bad news: if you question the sense of TOS it all falls apart. Fans don't like that, and generally don't get it because they don't question it. That's why they're fans.

 

[Joker]

A handful of fans are still living in 1979, though.

Yeah, that would be me apparently...

It wasn't addressed to you.

Once again, get over yourself.