Do fans want the prime timeline back?

[Greg Cox]

His story in TMP is pretty much about the pure Vulcan way not being for him.

People seem pissed that Abrams didn't take eighty-hours to get to that point in what is likely a trilogy of films that will have a total runtime of six-hours!

And do we really want to see Quinto's Spock doggedly retrace the gradual evolution of Nimoy's Spock, step by bloody step, for the next forty years? Or maybe we can find a new way to explore Spock's dual nature--perhaps through a long-term relationship with a human woman. There's something we haven't seen before!

Meanwhile, NuLeila Kalomi is wondering what Uhura has that she doesn't . . . .

 

[Admiral2]

I bash him cause his stuff is shit.

In your opinion.

Yes, in my opinion.

And you have yet to really contribute anything to back up the repeated vulgar torrent of verbal 'runs' you've had over the topic for 4 and a half obsessive years.

Again, it's my OPINION. "Backing up" is only necessary if I wanted to waste my time trying to convince the Abrams sycophants around these parts of the flaws in his work. That's never going to happen.

I merely offer an opinion. How you deal with it is your problem...

 

[Kemaiku]

Calling people who like the movie "sycophants" because they disagree with you doesn't help your case.

 

[BillJ]

...the Abrams sycophants around these parts of the flaws in his work. That's never going to happen.

Got to love when someone resorts to name-calling because someone else likes a piece of entertainment that they don't.

 

[Kemaiku]

...the Abrams sycophants around these parts of the flaws in his work. That's never going to happen.

Got to love when someone resorts to name-calling because someone else likes a piece of entertainment that they don't.

I've never watched anything else Abrams has worked on, do not really care about him as a person. The only thing I am concerned about is his work on the current Trek moves which I adore and rewatch more than the older forms of Trek, which now bore me considerably.

But somehow I'm a sycophant to the man and think he can do no wrong? wow, I must have missed that entirely.

It's exactly my point right there, the name calling, abuse, condescention from the ones who cannot or will out understand we like a couple of movies, amazing.

 

[Greg Cox]

You know, I keep vowing not to get sucked into one of these time sinks again ('cause, deadlines!), but then somebody insists (again) that all "real" fans reject the reboot or suggests that anybody who doesn't is some shallow newbie who doesn't know what Trek is really all about. Or doesn't have the right fannish credentials. Or isn't a fan for the "right" reasons.

If somebody likes or doesn't like the reboot, fine. But don't presume you speak for "the fans," no matter what side of the timeline you fall on!

So let's lay off the "More Trekkie than thou" stuff, please.

 

[Opus]

Amen.

 

[R. Star]

There do seem to be a lot of people on both sides of the debate that think something is fundamentally wrong with people who don't share their opinion.

To me, the Prime timeline is more entertaining. The reboot? It's alright, but I don't think it's as good. Into Darkness should've been trying to invent it's own original universe and story instead of cherry picking every "good" element they can from the prime timeline, putting it all in a blender and coming out with a "new" story.

 

[Greg Cox]

There do seem to be a lot of people on both sides of the debate that think something is fundamentally wrong with people who don't share their opinion.

To be fair, this is not just a Trekkie thing. I've seen the same on comic-book message boards.

"If you don't grasp everything that's wrong with the post-Silver Age, pre-Crisis origin story, then you're not a real Captain Armadillo fan!"

 

[bbjeg]

^Old Captain Armadillo is dead, deal with it!

​

 

[dub]

Also Captain Armadillo comic books are not canon, so stop wasting your time.

 

[Timewalker]

I guess you missed "Journey to Babel", "Amok Time", "Yesteryear" and the entirety of Star Trek: Enterprise?

Name one full-blooded Vulcan that exemplifies IDIC. Even Sarek shunned his own son for eighteen years. Why? For daring to explore a little of that infinite diversity rather than stay on Vulcan.

Surak. After all, he's the guy who invented the concept.

Sarek didn't shun Spock for wanting to associate with non-Vulcans or go off-planet. He shunned Spock because:

A. Spock refused to follow in Sarek's footsteps in the field of diplomacy.

B. Spock refused to settle for the Vulcan Science Academy. Sarek saw that as Spock rejecting his Vulcan heritage and Vulcan ways.

C. Spock chose Starfleet. Sarek's objections to Starfleet were because sooner or later, Spock would be ordered to kill. Vulcan is a pacifist culture, and has been since the time of Surak. Sarek saw Spock as going against that - not necessarily that he would go nuts and kill for the hell of it, but that he would have to kill, period.

The NuTrek Vulcans contradict themselves, completely forgetting about IDIC.

In the Prime Universe I never got the impression the Spock was shunned...

Huh?

All you have to do is watch Amok Time and Yesteryear to know that what you state simply isn't true.

In Yesteryear, we saw Vulcan children making fun of Spock and insulting him. That's hardly logical behavior, but it can be said that they were children, insufficiently trained as yet in logic (or good manners). The Healer said disparaging things about Spock because Spock had played a prank on him.

In Amok Time, there are several factors involved:

1. Pon-farr is such an embarrassing thing that Vulcans don't like to talk about it with each other, let alone any other people.

2. T'Pring is a selfish, jealous bitch who has to have it All About Her. She and Stonn deserve each other.

And finally, it's silly to accuse Sarek of not embracing IDIC. He married a human woman, didn't he? And not once, but twice (Perrin in TNG).

I guess you missed "Journey to Babel", "Yesteryear" and the entirety of Star Trek: Enterprise?

Name one full-blooded Vulcan that exemplifies IDIC. Even Sarek shunned his own son for eighteen years. Why? For daring to explore a little of that infinite diversity rather than stay on Vulcan.

Tuvok. He might have been annoyed when the likes of Neelix and the EMH poked him about being so logical, but he accepted and advocated diversity.

Tuvok also mentored younger crewmembers (Kes and Harry). He would have felt comfortable with Seven, since she had a calm, ordered mind and didn't often display excessive emotion.

You know, I keep vowing not to get sucked into one of these time sinks again ('cause, deadlines!), but then somebody insists (again) that all "real" fans reject the reboot or suggests that anybody who doesn't is some shallow newbie who doesn't know what Trek is really all about. Or doesn't have the right fannish credentials. Or isn't a fan for the "right" reasons.

If somebody likes or doesn't like the reboot, fine. But don't presume you speak for "the fans," no matter what side of the timeline you fall on!

So let's lay off the "More Trekkie than thou" stuff, please.

Dunno if you're partly referring to me, since you mentioned my using the terms "realSpock", "realKirk", and "realUhura." I used those terms because that's how I differentiate between characters who are the original, authentic ones and the cartoony ones depicted in the nuTrek movies. At no time did I say that the people who like these movies aren't real Star Trek fans. They just happen to like what is, to me, an inferior kind of Star Trek that doesn't feel real or authentic to me.

 

[Greg Cox]

^Old Captain Armadillo is dead, deal with it!

​

But he was only the true Captain Armadillo. All those new versions are cheap imitations. I know because he was the first Captain Armadillo I ever read about . . . and my childhood trumps your childhood!

Heck, kids these days have never even seen the old black-and-white "Captain Armadillo" serials, so what do they know? They don't count as real fans!

 

[F. King Daniel]

I guess you missed "Journey to Babel", "Amok Time", "Yesteryear" and the entirety of Star Trek: Enterprise?

Name one full-blooded Vulcan that exemplifies IDIC. Even Sarek shunned his own son for eighteen years. Why? For daring to explore a little of that infinite diversity rather than stay on Vulcan.

Surak. After all, he's the guy who invented the concept.

Fair enough in theory, although our only glimpses of the man himself are a dream-images from Spock's and Captain Archer. After all, Gene Roddenberry started something great despite not exactly living up to it's ideals himself.

Sarek didn't shun Spock for wanting to associate with non-Vulcans or go off-planet. He shunned Spock because:

A. Spock refused to follow in Sarek's footsteps in the field of diplomacy.

B. Spock refused to settle for the Vulcan Science Academy. Sarek saw that as Spock rejecting his Vulcan heritage and Vulcan ways.

C. Spock chose Starfleet. Sarek's objections to Starfleet were because sooner or later, Spock would be ordered to kill. Vulcan is a pacifist culture, and has been since the time of Surak. Sarek saw Spock as going against that - not necessarily that he would go nuts and kill for the hell of it, but that he would have to kill, period.

So, MASSIVELY FAILING at IDIC, then.

 

[Greg Cox]

You know, I keep vowing not to get sucked into one of these time sinks again ('cause, deadlines!), but then somebody insists (again) that all "real" fans reject the reboot or suggests that anybody who doesn't is some shallow newbie who doesn't know what Trek is really all about. Or doesn't have the right fannish credentials. Or isn't a fan for the "right" reasons.

If somebody likes or doesn't like the reboot, fine. But don't presume you speak for "the fans," no matter what side of the timeline you fall on!

So let's lay off the "More Trekkie than thou" stuff, please.

Dunno if you're partly referring to me, since you mentioned my using the terms "realSpock", "realKirk", and "realUhura." I used those terms because that's how I differentiate between characters who are the original, authentic ones and the cartoony ones depicted in the nuTrek movies. At no time did I say that the people who like these movies aren't real Star Trek fans. They just happen to like what is, to me, an inferior kind of Star Trek that doesn't feel real or authentic to me.

Don't worry. That wasn't directed at anyone in particular, but at this whole recurring meme of "Real Fans Vs. the Reboot" that keeps turning up like bad penny. Honestly, at this point, all these threads are starting to blur together in my mind so I'm sometimes not even sure who I'm responding to!

Nothing personal. Heck, I recently got into this same debate with a reporter at the New York Post!

 

[bbjeg]

Nothing personal. Heck, I recently got into this same debate with a reporter at the New York Post!

Old New York Post is dead, Deal with it!

...Ok, I'll stop.

...but it is dead for me at least, I use the web.

​

 

[Hartzilla2007]

There do seem to be a lot of people on both sides of the debate that think something is fundamentally wrong with people who don't share their opinion.

To be fair, this is not just a Trekkie thing. I've seen the same on comic-book message boards.

Honestly you can apply to pretty much anything people are involved in be politics, religion, book series, tv shows, and ect.

 

[DFScott]

This may sound a little weird, but here goes: I say Spock's story in STXI is an allegory for a closeted homosexual coming out. He has emotions, which his people see as extremely distasteful. He can't supress them as well as they do, but he TRIES to live up to his rigid society's expectations of emotionlessness. He acts like he doesn't have them in public.

King Daniel, I think the explanation you came up with in your own mind is ultimately more interesting than the actual movie. Had the movie portrayed these events in this way -- had we actually seen Spock take Uhura, say, into a private corner and say, "I need to apologize for not having returned your affections... I realize now what I have been missing" -- that would have been, quite possibly, a fantastic scene.

But you and I have to invent such a backstory for ourselves, which we could just as easily have done without the help of the movie. (For my own part, while I was out it, I'd have toned down the lighting just to save my eyes from the strain.)

If we really are to have a new timeline, then the story needs to sell the viewer on the new and improved characters. It cannot rely on the old value propositions from 40 years ago. It can't paint Kirk to be a boorish amateur and then expect us to say, well, he's Kirk, he'll get away with it, he always skirts past the rules, look at his track record. Not if the story also expects us to see Spock return a kiss on his own accord, when his track record tells us that couldn't happen.

Greg Cox wrote:
And do we really want to see Quinto's Spock doggedly retrace the gradual evolution of Nimoy's Spock, step by bloody step, for the next forty years? Or maybe we can find a new way to explore Spock's dual nature--perhaps through a long-term relationship with a human woman. There's something we haven't seen before!

I would be very interested in seeing a rational interpretation of a new and unexplored side of the established character. Not an old and retreaded side of a completely different character wearing the same outfit. But the new format of these movies does not appear to want to make the time to explore any of the characters to any extent of depth. So when a movie simply throws out there that Spock and Uhura are an item, some viewers (e.g., King Daniel) can come up with really good, rational explanations for why and how, but others (e.g., myself) try and fail.

(I don't have any doubt that a certain novelist could conjure a brilliant chapter that fills in these details, and that as a result would be better than the entire film.)

DF "Uhura Approaches Spock. They Kiss. Insert Random Rationalization Here" Scott

 

[BillJ]

But you and I have to invent such a backstory for ourselves, which we could just as easily have done without the help of the movie. (For my own part, while I was out it, I'd have toned down the lighting just to save my eyes from the strain.)

I don't know about you, but I've been inventing backstory and reading others inventions for these characters for near forty-years now.

Star Trek is what it is and I find it hypocritical to blame Abrams and Company for following the general template that was laid down by Roddenberry and Company nearly fifty-years ago. So many of the details seem to have come from fanon and the novels and not the source material. "Keep it Vague", seemed to be the slogan of TOS (that is one of its charms, there is a large canvas for the imagination) and, honestly, I'm not sure we learned anymore about the characters in seventy-nine episodes than we did in the two Abrams films.

 

[Timewalker]

I guess you missed "Journey to Babel", "Amok Time", "Yesteryear" and the entirety of Star Trek: Enterprise?

Name one full-blooded Vulcan that exemplifies IDIC. Even Sarek shunned his own son for eighteen years. Why? For daring to explore a little of that infinite diversity rather than stay on Vulcan.

Surak. After all, he's the guy who invented the concept.

Fair enough in theory, although our only glimpses of the man himself are a dream-images from Spock's and Captain Archer. After all, Gene Roddenberry started something great despite not exactly living up to it's ideals himself.

Sarek didn't shun Spock for wanting to associate with non-Vulcans or go off-planet. He shunned Spock because:

A. Spock refused to follow in Sarek's footsteps in the field of diplomacy.

B. Spock refused to settle for the Vulcan Science Academy. Sarek saw that as Spock rejecting his Vulcan heritage and Vulcan ways.

C. Spock chose Starfleet. Sarek's objections to Starfleet were because sooner or later, Spock would be ordered to kill. Vulcan is a pacifist culture, and has been since the time of Surak. Sarek saw Spock as going against that - not necessarily that he would go nuts and kill for the hell of it, but that he would have to kill, period.

So, MASSIVELY FAILING at IDIC, then.

How about actually putting yourself in Original Sarek's shoes and actually thinking about it, instead of throwing all-caps at me?

Vulcan is a society of tradition. Evidently it's traditional for sons to follow their fathers in their fathers' careers, or at least general area. Spock chose not to do that. Therefore, friction ensues.

Sarek was genuinely baffled at Spock's insistence that he didn't want to attend the Vulcan Science Academy. He couldn't figure out what Spock could learn off-planet that he couldn't learn at the Academy.

Sarek, like many Vulcans, opposes killing. They oppose it to the point that they oppose any sort of military careers for their offspring. Spock chose not only to not become a diplomat, he chose to attend an off-planet institution of higher education. The fact that it was Starfleet Academy - a place that mostly prepares its students for careers in the military - was the last straw. Like Tevye in Fiddler On the Roof, who gave in to his two older daughters who flouted tradition, he simply could not bring himself to give in the third time. As Tevye says," There is no other hand!"

I get the impression that Sarek wouldn't have shunned Spock for 18 years if the first one or two were the only ways that Spock defied his father. But Starfleet was the dealbreaker.

And I repeat: Sarek's wives were human. If he were an inflexible bigot, he wouldn't have married them.

If we really are to have a new timeline, then the story needs to sell the viewer on the new and improved characters. It cannot rely on the old value propositions from 40 years ago. It can't paint Kirk to be a boorish amateur and then expect us to say, well, he's Kirk, he'll get away with it, he always skirts past the rules, look at his track record. Not if the story also expects us to see Spock return a kiss on his own accord, when his track record tells us that couldn't happen.

The problem is that the nuTrek characters are basically fresh out of the Academy. They don't have a track record!