Archer gets last laugh
- Thread starter Guartho
- Start date
That's great!
Even funnier are all the indignant comments that follow the comic. Riled up, they are!
STXI borrows from ENT quite a bit.
STXI borrows from ENT quite a bit.
It matters as much as what happened in the prime timeline, because they're both just as real -- which is to say they're not real at all. But if you can form an attachment to one version of the Star Trek Universe and the events that happen in it, why can't you form an attachment to a new one?
What you're saying would be like if a Batman fan were to watch The Dark Knight and say, "Nothing here matters" because The Dark Knight is set in a different continuity than the Batman comics. It's a narrow-minded attitude that denies the artistic value of new versions of a story.
I've asked myself that question many times since I came back from seeing this film. I happen to believe a person's life experiences make a character who they are. In otherwords, Spock was the character I love... right until the moment, the writers saw fit to deprive him of two important aspects of his background. Likewise for Kirk, I didn't see all those life choices that led to the evolution of the person in the TV show. Even the portrayal of Captain Pike bears no relation to the uptight bad ass written down in the Pilot. My point really is, couldn't Star Trek have been reintroduced with the writers doing their best to fit a story into the Original Series' past, rather than coming up with their own alternative past?
Star Trek is nothing like a Batman comicbook. JJ Abrams' film is certainly no Batman Begins either. I happen to like both Batman (1989) and The Dark Knight. One for its fantasy, almost old Universal horror vibe. The other is gritty, realistic and has profound thoughts about the nature of good vs evil. I saw both as exciting reinventions for different times. I recall the jokey Adam West version growing up too. But then I'm not a fanatic of either the Caped Crusader or comics in general. I'm aware they regularly reinvent the wheel and start over from scratch... mainly to add relevance to the modern day. The age of superheroes for one. It can't be the same Superman now, as the one who fought Nazis for instance. This I feel is completely different to Star Trek because of its place in our future. I am deeply obsessed with this franchise and for 39 years it dealt primarily with one continuity. Parallel universes only serve one purpose: to show alternates that do not replace an ongoing saga. To allow audiences to encounter evil twins of familar characters, or a "What-if?" where desperate circumstances mean their lives have taken a wrong turn. We enjoy the journey and once that story is done... the reset button is hit, we get our beloved universe back and have another screen adventure in it.
Feel free to call this a "narrow-minded attitude", to me its a loyalty that saw me through every iteration of Star Trek. I don't oppose change. Just unnecessary change. The cast, the sets and FX in this film are all amazing. They perfectly reflect an updated TOS, particularly the bridge and uniforms, done with all the colour of the original. I felt that sense of belonging to Star Trek from the very first released photo. The Enterprise in her 2009 refit is different but reminiscent enough. The fact the writers felt the need to have a time-travelling villain corrupt Trek history and place him as the catalyst that brought Kirk, Spock and the crew together... that left me deeply unsatisfied. Star Trek chronology is a massive lateral puzzle and they just basically went, screw this... let's invent Nero instead.
Sci, you asked me why I can't form an attachment to the new film and it all boils down to how closed-minded they were to even trying to do a traditional prequel. I respect how much you like the new movie and how you feel the choices made were the right ones... which is why I'll shut about this now.
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^I agree with you on most points there. Apart from one: couldn't they have tried to fit it into Star Trek's past without changing the timeline? Like that, we would always know the Enterprise, Earth, Vulcan, or any other planet wouldn't be destroyed, and none of the characters killed off, because we have seen them at age 50. Another problem would be that they couldn't give it new looks. The outside of the ship still holds up fine,(I hate the TrekXI design) but it looks rather dated on the inside, as does the fashion of those days.
That's awesome.
Well... a lot. Basically, there are two timelines, the one we've followed all these years containing the whole Trekverse from ENT to NEM and the new one seen in the movie, which split off in 2133, moments before Kirk's birth. Events play out rather differently from there. Since the split occurred in 2133 ENT is the only Trek series existing in the new timeline. Also, Archer and his beagle are mentioned in the movie by Scotty.
Damn, no one spotted my mistake? It's of course 2233, not 2133...
But there's 40 years of backstory and character development in the Prime universe, there's just over two hours in the JJverse, they can't compare. I can get emotionally involved in a two-hour movie, but not to the same extent as I feel involved in the Prime universe because I've spent my whole life caring about the goings on in that world.
From a personal standpoint I found it impossible to care about much of the goings on in Trek XI because I found Kirk to be so uninteresting as a character. Spock was okay, but his development was dropped in the final act of the movie so that we could see things get blowed up real good. None of the other characters did anything worth mentioning from an emotional standpoint. If I don't care about the characters then I don't care about the universe, and I sadly did not care about the characters.
And that's completely fair, as is a failure to feel emotionally invested in the world of the new movie because you feel it was poorly-written. I just really object to the idea that it is inherently impossible to become emotionally invested in a new Star Trek continuity just because it's not the original continuity.
I suppose I come at this from a different POV than most Trekkies, but I'm a theatre person (to the point where I'm graduating this August with a B.A. in Theatre Studies). And one of the things that we in the theatre world inevitably have to be able to accept is that no matter how much we may have loved the original production of a given play or musical, one day, a revival will come along with a new cast, new sets, new arrangements, new choreography, and possibly even new songs -- a revival could will completely re-interpret the original work, thereby making it fundamentally different from the original production.
For instance, the original Broadway production of Cabaret in the 1960s was very different from the revival that was produced in the late 90s. The revival was much more overtly sexual in choreography and costuming, new songs were added, old songs were deleted, and the male lead was definitively established as being bisexual where there had originally been no reference to him being anything but straight. New costuming and makeup choices also firmly established that heroin and cocaine use was common amongst the characters without definitively saying so. It was, in short, a fundamental reinterpretation of the work that was very, very different from the original production.... and yet that doesn't make it bad.
Those of us in theatre always have to learn to accept the idea of a reinterpretation, because that's how classic works stay relevant. Aspects of the original work that were once marginalized are brought to the forefront, original aspects are marginalized, and new aspects are introduced and old aspects are deleted. And that's a healthy part of the creative process so long as it allows the soul of the original work to maintain. For instance, there's currently a revival of the classic musical West Side Story on Broadway. The new twist? Its Puerto Rican characters actually sing in Spanish -- the result of a longstanding criticism of the original work from Latino-Americans, and a new element that has helped to revitalize the work for a new generation.
And if we look at almost any other long-running franchise or story, inevitably we find that reinterpretations of the original work happen all the time in order to ensure its vitality. Batman, Superman, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland.... The Legend of King Arthur.... It's how stories survive.
So I can understand not liking this particular "re-imagining" or "re-interpretation" and I can understand being more invested in the original. But I object very strongly to the idea that Star Trek should only have one continuity and that no other continuity can possibly be worthy of feeling emotionally invested in.
As for the decision to make it a pseudo-prequel... I mean, hey, it's a decision that's not gonna work for everybody. But I thought it was clever: It allows them to start over from scratch, throw out what they don't like about the original continuity, add any new things they want to keep, and it does it all while still preserving the existence of the original continuity for anyone who wants to do stories set in that continuity in the future. (Which is more than Broadway musicals get when revivals open!
)
BTW, to those who object to the idea of the new film being in a new continuity instead of using the existing one, bear something in mind.
Star Trek is now essentially owned by two different corporations -- CBS owns the Star Trek name and its trademarks and the TV shows, whilst Paramount owns the films and has the rights from CBS to do new films based on Trek.
Creating two continuities, one for TV and one for film, allows CBS and Paramount to both produce Star Trek without stepping on each-other's toes.
Star Trek is now essentially owned by two different corporations -- CBS owns the Star Trek name and its trademarks and the TV shows, whilst Paramount owns the films and has the rights from CBS to do new films based on Trek.
Creating two continuities, one for TV and one for film, allows CBS and Paramount to both produce Star Trek without stepping on each-other's toes.
That's very true and that would also be great if you actually assume that CBS, under it's current management, is the least bit interested in doing anything with this great asset it owns. Unfortunately, they seem to be interested in milking its existing Trek library for all its worth and nothing more. I personally believe that Star trek will never return to television.
I hope I'm wrong.
If the events of Enterprise are ever relevant to a "nu" movie, it'll be ironic.
Now it's just bizarre.
4 years of Ent is part of the backstory of the JJverse. That's kinda what the comic that's the subject of the thread is about.
This and Anwar's quote about archetypes I found incredibly compelling. I agree. I'm not sure I would agree that JJ borrowed heavily from ENT. I think JJ has a supreme direction and his writers are light years ahead of many of the ENT writers. Maybe the similarity is the time travel contigency that made ENT what it was (and many fans strangely angry)?
With ENT, they just used time-travel as an excuse for a long-running plot that didn't go anywhere. With the new movie it drove the entire plot from the beginning and had lasting consequences.
If they had the Time War in ENT to radically change the timeline permanently and create a new universe instead of saying "Nah, this is pretty much how it always was" then it would've worked better.
If they had the Time War in ENT to radically change the timeline permanently and create a new universe instead of saying "Nah, this is pretty much how it always was" then it would've worked better.
That is the big difference, always before in Star Trek, the battle with time travel always came back to the current time line with maybe a bit of change to the future.
Wasn't there already enough screaming about how Enterprise was destroying Star Trek? I can imagine the response if BnB had used Enterprise to create a new time line and toss out 21 seasons of NewTrek.
Wasn't there already enough screaming about how Enterprise was destroying Star Trek? I can imagine the response if BnB had used Enterprise to create a new time line and toss out 21 seasons of NewTrek.
I am very much inclined to agree.
