Do you ignore the "new" Star Trek?

[F. King Daniel]

^You say that like TOS was aimed exclusively at adults. You must be assuming they were the intended audience for items like this?

There are teens who can recognize bad writing and aren't entranced by special effects. There are also adults who are the opposite.

That's nice and smug of you. And Parachuting Spock was aimed at which, please? Certainly the thinking man's TOS would never lower itself to target such unwashed masses. We're an elite community, don't you know.

E plub nista!

 

[mos6507]

Star Trek WAS originally aimed at adults.

It was picked up by kids (like me, Generation X) in reruns.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Star Trek WAS originally aimed at adults.

It was picked up by kids (like me, Generation X) in reruns.

The figures didn't come along until 1975, but Gold Key began publishing Star Trek comic books (which the Parachuting Spock box borrows art from) in 1967. They were most definitely not aimed at adults.

Trek was a family show.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Star Trek WAS originally aimed at adults.

It was picked up by kids (like me, Generation X) in reruns.

The figures didn't come along until 1975, but Gold Key began publishing Star Trek comic books (which the Parachuting Spock box borrows art from) in 1967. They were most definitely not aimed at adults.

Trek was a family show.

I wouldn't call it a family show, but there were elements that as a kid I liked. ( fights, spaceships, aliens) GR intent was to do a SF spin on Adult Westerns ( Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Have Gun Will Travel) and "free" the genre from the kiddieland ghetto.

 

[T'Bonz]

I want the parachuting Spock!

No reason why and it makes no sense.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I started watching Star Trek on NBC when I was twelve years old. During the three years that it ran, I knew two adults who watched it and dozens of adolescents.

Roddenberry could claim that it was aimed at whoever he liked, but the core audience in the 60s and 70s was always youngsters. It certainly never has contained anything that can't be fully appreciated by a fifteen year-old.

 

[AtoZ]

I started watching Star Trek on NBC when I was twelve years old. During the three years that it ran, I knew two adults who watched it and dozens of adolescents.

Roddenberry could claim that it was aimed at whoever he liked, but the core audience in the 60s and 70s was always youngsters. It certainly never has contained anything that can't be fully appreciated by a fifteen year-old.

Good point. I caught on to Trek at age 5. No question the show went way above my ability to comprehend at that point, however there was something very much fun about it. It wasn't perfect but it was colorful, sensible, imaginative and fantastic. Perhaps what drew me to it at that point wasn't all that far removed from what drew me to comics books of the period. To its credit, it translated even better as I reached adulthood. And the flaws that so many like to point out or make fun of.....to me shades it as fine art in a sense.

 

[stj]

I'm quite sure that the fifteen year olds who hadn't seen any U-boat movies didn't fully appreciate (for better or for worse!) Balance of Terror.

Equally any fifteen year olds who didn't follow the critiques of Robert MacNamara didn't fully appreciate A Taste of Armageddon.

And most of all, fifteen year olds didn't fully appreciate Spock's role as a fantasy figure who mastered sexual feelings.

Some of the themes in Star Trek may have become uncongenial due to the increasing conservatism of age, but working on a fifteen year old level doesn't mean it doesn't work on other levels either.

 

[Warped9]

One of the strengths of TOS was that it worked on multiple levels. In "The Enemy Within" the evil Kirk's attempted rape of Janice Rand is a pretty powerful scene and definitely adult level fare.

As a kid I enjoyed Looney Toons for all the silliness, but as an adult I now got all the jokes that (mostly) went over my head as a kid.

As an eleven year old and into my early teens I loved the cool spaceships and weird aliens and adventure of TOS, but as the years slipped by I started to really get all the subtleties and nuances and deeper meanings. The dramatic scenes resonated ever more with growing awareness and perception.

As a kid you might not see much difference between Star Trek and the Irwin Allen sci-fi productions, but as an adult the differences become quite stark.

 

[Gary7]

Roddenberry could claim that it was aimed at whoever he liked, but the core audience in the 60s and 70s was always youngsters. It certainly never has contained anything that can't be fully appreciated by a fifteen year-old.

As others pointed out, Bugs Bunny cartoons had appeal to both children and adults. But while Star Trek had appeal to youngsters, there was far more mature material within it. Whereas with Bugs Bunny had mostly childish themes with the occasional adult joke tucked within, Star Trek had mostly adult themes with some characteristics making the show appealing to children as well.


I personally remember watching Star Trek as a child and being captivated by the personalities and the hardware. Most of the time I didn't know what the overall plot of the episode was or the key concepts being delivered through the dialog. It was usually just "Kirk and crew in danger from aliens" and "Kirk and crew manage to escape the danger." As an adult, I see so much more than I did when I was a young viewer.

 

[trekkie52]

Am I the only one who feels this way? Am I just too closed minded?

No, you are not the only one who feels this way. Yes, you are too close minded.

This is a re-imagining of the series for a new generation of fans. JJ Abrams made a new Star Trek that can keep the attention of younger fans, while still adding things from the original Star Trek.

 

[DCR]

I'm almost 50 and TOS is my drug of choice in the great cornucopia of Star Trek.

I haven't seen STID yet, but I bought ST09, and have seen it a few times. I don't normally have a problem with reboots; I usually find they do some things well, others not so well. For me, the casting was for the most part good, but not perfect. I liked Karl Urban the most, and Simon Pegg the least. I wouldn't call it good science fiction, it had holes you could fly a Doomsday Machine through, but it was a decent action flick.

Where it fell down for me, was in the execution more than the concept. I disliked that Sulu's blade was essentially a samurai sword, as I thought his self-image of a swashbuckler with a rapier from TOS was both more interesting and less of a cliche than giving the Asian guy a katana. I didn't like the ship much, either. It just doesn't look balanced in my eyes.

As a TOS fan, while I will follow the new Trek movies as long as they keep making them, I'll still put the TOS-era fan films first, because for me they feel closer to the series I love than the new movies.

For what it's worth, I didn't like the new BSG, though I was a big fan of the original when it first came out. I thought the execution of the new BSG was better, but many of the ideas didn't interest me, especially the new take on the Cylons. It felt like it made the BSG Universe smaller, and that didn't work for me.

 

[ralfy]

That's nice and smug of you. And Parachuting Spock was aimed at which, please? Certainly the thinking man's TOS would never lower itself to target such unwashed masses. We're an elite community, don't you know.

E plub nista!

I am not being "smug," just reasonable. Why do you think glowing reviews of the film by professional writers refer to the special effects and exciting action scenes?

It has nothing to do with "unwashed masses" but to the fact that by default people are generally attracted to special effects and action scenes. But if you take more effort, then you can see beyond them and evaluate what you see based on what I mentioned.

 

[ralfy]

I wouldn't call it a family show, but there were elements that as a kid I liked. ( fights, spaceships, aliens) GR intent was to do a SF spin on Adult Westerns ( Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Have Gun Will Travel) and "free" the genre from the kiddieland ghetto.

I'd like to add that the writers did want to add social commentary and things that were innovative that time, such as a multinational crew (including a Russian character) and an interracial kiss (although probably not the first on TV).

Certainly, similar attempts were made for the others shows, but because of political correctness, they ended up looking bland compared to TOS.

For the new movies, there are attempts to create a darker version of ST but special effects and actions scenes are overwhelming them. Also, I miss the "technobabble" and possibilities by which protagonists can use guile to defeat opponents.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I am not being "smug," just reasonable. Why do you think glowing reviews of the film by professional writers refer to the special effects and exciting action scenes?

Yet you'll find few fans talking about the FX - have a read through the XI+ forum. I've read hundreds of comments about the crew, their interactions and the drone weapon allegory.

It has nothing to do with "unwashed masses" but to the fact that by default people are generally attracted to special effects and action scenes. But if you take more effort, then you can see beyond them and evaluate what you see based on what I mentioned.

You never answered me in the Future of Trek thread - do you similarly dislike Wrath of Khan? It has very similar nitpicky complaints and plot holes your articles point out in Into Darkness, like the Reliant somehow confusing Ceti Alpha VI for V (when V exploded, leaving the system without a sixth planet), Khan remembering Chekov who hadn't yet joined the crew, Kirk's overwhelming incompetence (if he'd raised the shields when he should have, Khan's entire scheme would have failed), victory hinging on Khan failing to understand the worst code of all time ("Hours will seem like days"), and Khan somehow not realizing that space is a three-dimensional battleground (which is frankly impossible to believe for a layman, let alone a character with a supposed superior intellect). Not to mention the Genesis Device which briefly elevated Federation science to the level of Q and somehow turned a nebula into a planet, completely unlike it's earlier stated programming.

If you somehow forgive WoK's flaws but not those of ID, then it's simply a case of you liking one more than the other, not because of some article which showed you the truth.

Also, I miss the "technobabble" and possibilities by which protagonists can use guile to defeat opponents.

This is how TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT Star Trek writers came up with their technobabble:

 

[Dukhat]

^Ugh. Technobabble is the last thing new Trek needs.

 

[Warped9]

^Ugh. Technobabble is the last thing new Trek needs.

Seconded.

 

[Ovation]

^Ugh. Technobabble is the last thing new Trek needs.

Seconded.

Thirded.

Think of Trek as ice cream. A huge variety of flavours but no one is forced to like chocolate (my favourite) AND pistachio (which I loathe). However, I don't care that others like pistachio ice cream nor would I ever resort to the argument that pistachio ice cream isn't real ice cream just because I don't like it. Same with all iterations of Trek. One is free to like or dislike whatever one wants. But I am getting fed up with the "Abrams' movies are not real Trek". That's simply absurd.

 

[Avon]

i ignore everything that was made after 'the cage', due to it not being true to roddenberry's original vision.

i just can't accept anyone other than jeffrey hunter playing the captain.

 

[ATimson]

For me, the casting was for the most part good, but not perfect. I liked Karl Urban the most, and Simon Pegg the least.

I used to agree with you; however, the more I thought about it, the more I think my problems with Scotty lay with the script and not with Simon Pegg. Into Darkness only furthered that theory, since I liked his role there.