Did Abrams really save the franchise?

[ConRefit79]

If a movie works, you can invest in the characters very quickly. I was invested in Rick and Ilsa by the end of Casablanca, and I didn't need three movies to do so!

I agree. I can do that to. But for some reason, they cannot write Star Trek characters in a way for me to do that. And that's been true of all the Star Trek I've seen.

 

[Belz...]

I personally HATE re-boots, because it is the easy way to go.

I generally hate them too, but in the case of Star Trek, I think it was very well done by using the existing lore as a backdrop for erasing the previous timeline. Also, I had been saying for a while that Star Trek may need a timeline, if only to make it more accessible with people who didn't know much about it.

No. He simply produced 2 movies that have so far been successful. But if it's anything like Batman or Spiderman, It will reboot again after 3 or 4 films. Do we really want to keep starting over and over?

We don't know if that's going to happen yet. Let's have this conversation when we get there, if ever.

Canon has always been Star Treks Achilles. It never benefited anyone besides those who worship it.

Although, for regular viewers, respecting continuity simply helps suspension of disbelief.

Vonnegut, Kafka, Orwell, Murakami, Bukowski, Dostoyevsky....these people did not write fiction just to "entertain."

So ? When I watch a movie, amongst other things, I'm looking to spend time doing something I like. I'm not looking to challenge my worldview. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't watch a movie.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Vonnegut, Kafka, Orwell, Murakami, Bukowski, Dostoyevsky....these people did not write fiction just to "entertain." Entertainment is not a dirty word. It is the first step to making your audience think.

No. They wrote to entertain.

Even highly entertaining writers of genre fiction like Robert E. Howard, HP Lovecraft, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had bigger goals for their work than just entertainment.

Yes. Call it earning a living.

They priority for creating something pretty much goes like this: entertainment ---> money.

Didactic pontification is a distant third, that is, unless the artist is a giant, pretentious douche. None of those you mentioned were.

Why should a writer be forced to verse themselves in seven-hundred hours of material in order to write something?

Exactly™.

So we will never go anywhere.

I don't know about you, but I will be merely skipping off to the theatre, perhaps while whistling a jaunty tune.

 

[horatio83]

Abrams (or the be more precise, O&K) obviously hasn't saved the franchise. It doesn't need even more fanwank and continuity obsession. It needs fresh blood and a clear cut, another Nick Meyer, somebody who doesn't give a crap about came before him.

 

[Belz...]

I would rather no Trek than reboot after reboot after reboot. Talk about milking a franchise dry.

I would rather Star Trek kept going in a form I dislike than not at all.

While I may have watched the episodes dozens of times and can remember lots of it, it's not fair to expect that of a freelance writer. Forcing someone to follow Trek continuity chapter and verse is like tossing an anchor to a drowning man.

Well you can't expect it of them, but if Paramount had kept a writer's bible at any time, at least some of the major screw-ups, unimportant in the grand scheme of things as they may be, from happening.

 

[BillJ]

Abrams (or the be more precise, O&K) obviously hasn't saved the franchise. It doesn't need even more fanwank and continuity obsession. It needs fresh blood and a clear cut, another Nick Meyer, somebody who doesn't give a crap about came before him.

Even Meyer knew you had to respect what came before.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Even Meyer knew you had to respect what came before.

No. Khan and the Klingons were Nick Meyer originals.


Oops.

 

[BillJ]

Well you can't expect it of them, but if Paramount had kept a writer's bible at any time, at least some of the major screw-ups, unimportant in the grand scheme of things as they may be, from happening.

Do you know how thick that Bible would be if you included all the minutiae from seven hundred hours of material? It would put the regular Bible to shame.

All I expect from Trek, is that the broad strokes be "right" from episode-to-episode, movie-to-movie, series-to-series.

 

[Greg Cox]

You also want to avoid creating the perception that you need to be a card-carrying Trek expert with an advanced degree in Klingon politics to understand the latest Trek movie or TV show.

I actually think that most Star Trek episodes are fairly accessible to casual viewers, but the notion that "Trek is too complicated" and that you have to be a Trekkie to understand it was something that I used to hear at neighborhood barbecues and birthday parties and such. And it's a misconception that we may have brought on ourselves by obsessing so enthusiastically over obscure points of Trek trivia and continuity.

 

[RXTT]

It is not a matter of knowing everything that came before. If you create a story about Picard during his academy days, all you have to do is look up any relevant details that were already included in the canon. You do not have to analyze Spock to write for Picard, nor do you have to delve into the Borg if you want to write a short story/film about Captain Sulu.

All writers worth their salt do research. JJ had to do tons to make the new flicks. I do not think it would have been any less research for a noob like him to write something canonical.

 

[CorporalClegg]

all you have to do is look up any relevant details that were already included in the canon.

A writer doesn't have to do anything except write.

...And pay his taxes.

All writers worth their salt do research.

Bologna.

 

[Warped9]

You also want to avoid creating the perception that you need to be a card-carrying Trek expert with an advanced degree in Klingon politics to understand the latest Trek movie or TV show.

I actually think that most Star Trek episodes are fairly accessible to casual viewers, but the notion that "Trek is too complicated" and that you have to be a Trekkie to understand it was something that I used to hear at neighborhood barbecues and birthday parties and such. And it's a misconception that we may have brought on ourselves by obsessing so enthusiastically over obscure points of Trek trivia and continuity.

I think it's possible this happened. And coupled with the over-saturation we got towards the end.


Regarding something said upthread. Yeah, no fan is really bound by continuity. By that I mean series-to-series or series-to-film continuity. You can bail or tune out at any time and focus simply on the things you like. It's certainly done in regard to comics all the time.


Another point: technically Trek has been rebooted numerous times if one really chooses to see it that way.

- "The Cage" (the original version)
- "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (a mild reworking of the original version)
- TOS (1966-1969: a freshening up and fleshing out of the essential concept)
- TAS (1973-1974: a world-building expansion of TOS)
- TMP (1979: TOS as filtered through Robert Wise)
- TWOK-TUC (1982-1991: TOS as filtered through Harve Bennet, Nick Meyer, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner)
- TNG (1987-1994: a reinterpretation of Gene Roddenberry's concept)
- DS9, VOY and ENT (1993-2005: each an expansion from the TNG concept)

 

[horatio83]

It is not a matter of knowing everything that came before. If you create a story about Picard during his academy days, all you have to do is look up any relevant details that were already included in the canon. You do not have to analyze Spock to write for Picard, nor do you have to delve into the Borg if you want to write a short story/film about Captain Sulu.

All writers worth their salt do research. JJ had to do tons to make the new flicks. I do not think it would have been any less research for a noob like him to write something canonical.

Abrams didn't write the movie(s). If there is any problem in the last two (or let's generalize it to three, Logan was also a fan) movies it is precisely that a fan was involved in writing the script, that there is too much knowledge about past Trek which lead to massive fanwank.

Nothing against using ingredients that have been used before, TWOK did it and FC did is as well (but then again if you take the arguably best TOS story, City, it obviously worked so well because the original script has been written by an outsider). But merely using these ingredients and throwing them together does not lead to a good script.

 

[CDR6]

fiction is written by humans to talk about things that would otherwise not be allowed.

No. That's not why fiction is written.

Abrams did not save Star Trek...the fans did...

Forty years ago you could make that argument.

Now? Absolutely wrong.

It doesn't matter what flavor of cool aid you hawking... if you can't get butts in the seats (fans/movie goers/what ever) you're done. They make the movie, and the franchise...it's the "bottom line" against which all is measured.

 

[BillJ]

It is not a matter of knowing everything that came before. If you create a story about Picard during his academy days, all you have to do is look up any relevant details that were already included in the canon. You do not have to analyze Spock to write for Picard, nor do you have to delve into the Borg if you want to write a short story/film about Captain Sulu.

All writers worth their salt do research. JJ had to do tons to make the new flicks. I do not think it would have been any less research for a noob like him to write something canonical.

What do you do when minutiae contradicts minutiae like we've seen so often in Trek?

 

[CorporalClegg]

Two prevailing arguments in this thread:

"The best filmmakers know everything about their subjects!"

"The best filmmakers know nothing about their subjects!"

Ah, Trekkies.

 

[RXTT]

all you have to do is look up any relevant details that were already included in the canon.

A writer doesn't have to do anything except write.

...And pay his taxes.

All writers worth their salt do research.

Bologna.

Have you ever read anything describing how writers do what they do? I don;t mean specifically novelists, but TV writers, script-writers, etc? They ALL DO RESEARCH.

 

[Greg Cox]

But "canonical" is not a virtue in its own right. Most people don't judge a movie or book on how "canonical" it is. And if if the idea is to get off to a fresh start, reboot the franchise and start over, "canon" is the last thing you need to fixate on.

Star Trek is not an encyclopedia. It's a vehicle for telling (hopefully) engaging and interesting stories.

 

[RXTT]

It is not a matter of knowing everything that came before. If you create a story about Picard during his academy days, all you have to do is look up any relevant details that were already included in the canon. You do not have to analyze Spock to write for Picard, nor do you have to delve into the Borg if you want to write a short story/film about Captain Sulu.

All writers worth their salt do research. JJ had to do tons to make the new flicks. I do not think it would have been any less research for a noob like him to write something canonical.

What do you do when minutiae contradicts minutiae like we've seen so often in Trek?

Nothing. I accept it as part of a flawed human creation.

expanding on something (a sequel) is a much different beast than a re-boot (I hate that word. It is just a remake by another name).

 

[RXTT]

Greg Cox is right.

"canon" stuff just lays out a blueprint. This makes sure that we do not see Spock characterized as a fey, lazy brat.