Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot?

[DalekJim]

I think you're grossly underestimating the stigma that Star Trek had to overcome in order to be accepted by the general public. "Back to basics Star Trek" felt like an interesting proposition for most people, who remembered Kirk and Spock and understood that they, not unlike James Bond, could be updated for the 21st Century. "More Star Trek", which is why you recommend, doesn't have the same ring to it.

But surely having Spock in it would be more of a stigma than not? Spock is associated by the general Star Trek hating public as a nerd icon. Somebody that nerds like. The type of people who make "hilarious" jokes about people living in their mother's basement (NEVER GETS OLD!) would be turned off by a movie with Kirk and Spock in a way they wouldn't have been with new characters and no Vulcans on the bridge.

It's fun to speculate.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

But surely having Spock in it would be more of a stigma than not? Spock is associated by the general Star Trek hating public as a nerd icon. Somebody that nerds like. The type of people who make "hilarious" jokes about people living in their mother's basement (NEVER GETS OLD!) would be turned off by a movie with Kirk and Spock in a way they wouldn't have been with new characters and no Vulcans on the bridge.

It's fun to speculate.

Well that movie exists and those people were not turned off, no speculation is necessary.

 

[Balrog]

Anything else you're unable to understand?

Yes:

- Why you liked ST09 so much when it first came out

- Why you think being questioned about this is "mudslinging" when it clearly is not

- Why the need to be snarky because people disagree with the your current opinion of AbramsTrek

- Why you consider your opinion is, somehow, fact

Other than that, I don't really care that you hate AbramsTrek, or if you care that I or anybody else likes it.

 

[M'Sharak]

Are you even capable of making relevant points in a debate beyond inarticulate mud-slinging?

I have no time for hecklers and internet white knights, address my points intelligently and maturely or I won't respond. If you want to spend your time spouting inane, blunt, irrational aggression then take your posts to the YouTube comments section where they belong.

DalekJim, when you walk into a forum with a stick and start off by stirring up the anthill, you've waived the option of being able to play the "victim" card after the ants nibble on you a little in return. That's your doing; now own up to it.

Join the discussion because it's what you want to do, or don't. Treat people with respect, and chances are better than average that you'll get the same in return. But please: don't come in, bait people, and then try to act as if you're above it all and "Why are these people picking on me?" That sort of game from you is getting pretty tired, and here's the part where I recommend you dispense with it. Soon.

Also: post, not poster. Keep that in mind, and you'll go far.

 

[DalekJim]

- Why you liked ST09 so much when it first came out

This is off-topic but to save me being stalked through another four threads. I hadn't seen Trek in a long time, saw the JJ film after getting stoned with some friends and really liked it. I then rewatched TOS, TNG and DS9 before seeing it again and hated it, finding that it lacked anything I'd enjoyed in the shows.

- Why you think being questioned about this is "mudslinging" when it clearly is not

Being stalked through thread after thread where this isn't to do with the topic is irritating. This is a thread about the necessity of the continuity reboot, not about how my opinion has changed over the years since release of a movie. Yet the same damn user has followed me here to bring up the same argument again. If he genuinely cared about the answer he'd PM me, he's just causing a fight in public for attention and I find it pathetic.

- Why the need to be snarky because people disagree with the your current opinion of AbramsTrek

I'm only snarky to the rude and the ignorant. My social skills aren't very good I admit but that's something I always try to work on. I'd explain why but I don't want to be stalked through thread after thread and be heckled over it.

Why you consider your opinion is, somehow, fact

I don't get what this means. Explain.

 

[M'Sharak]

...

This is off-topic but to save me being stalked through another four threads.

...

Being stalked through thread after thread where this isn't to do with the topic is irritating.

...

I'm only snarky to the rude and the ignorant.

...

Knock it off. Now.

 

[DalekJim]

Knock it off. Now.

OK, I'm sure you'll do the same to them in the next thread they follow me to .

 

[Awesome Possum]

But surely having Spock in it would be more of a stigma than not? Spock is associated by the general Star Trek hating public as a nerd icon. Somebody that nerds like. The type of people who make "hilarious" jokes about people living in their mother's basement (NEVER GETS OLD!) would be turned off by a movie with Kirk and Spock in a way they wouldn't have been with new characters and no Vulcans on the bridge.

It's fun to speculate.

Well that movie exists and those people were not turned off, no speculation is necessary.

In fact, Spock is probably the most popular character from it.

Back on topic, rebooting Star Trek is the best thing to ever happen to it. Let's be honest, Star Trek was dead. After driving the movie series into the ground and ending Enterprise with the single worst episode of its run, Trek wasn't really going anywhere. Thankfully, we got a movie that not only honored the past, but speaks to current audiences. It saved Star Trek and is merely the start of future greatness.

 

[RandyS]

Yes.

Personally, I would have much rather have had Abrams and Co. just call this relaunch of the franchise a flat-out re-boot without jumping through the hoops of having Nero change the timeline...
...But that's just me.

No it isn't. it's me too.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed 2009, and expect to enjoy 2013, but yeah, I still feel that a straight reboot without ties to past Star Treks would have been better. And I'll use Batman as my frame of reference. Adam West, Michael Keaton, and Christan Bale all made fine Batman stories on their own without relying on each other.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

There's no reason one can't watch the movies without giving any thought to whether they're tied to past Star Treks; they're designed that way.

 

[DalekJim]

Back on topic, rebooting Star Trek is the best thing to ever happen to it. Let's be honest, Star Trek was dead. After driving the movie series into the ground and ending Enterprise with the single worst episode of its run, Trek wasn't really going anywhere.

I don't think a reboot of continuity was needed, just a reboot of creative energy and marketing. Doctor Who ran for 26 seasons before being cancelled in 1989. It returned in 2005 and was a complete continuation of the old continuity. It just marketed itself to a new audience and didn't rely on old continuity. I think Trek would have gotten along fine doing that.

 

[EnsignRicky]

I too agree that they should have rebooted it.

The fact that we have to invent words like total reboot and partial reboot clearly indicates that they did not.

 

[Franklin]

Yes.

Personally, I would have much rather have had Abrams and Co. just call this relaunch of the franchise a flat-out re-boot without jumping through the hoops of having Nero change the timeline...
...But that's just me.

No it isn't. it's me too.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed 2009, and expect to enjoy 2013, but yeah, I still feel that a straight reboot without ties to past Star Treks would have been better. And I'll use Batman as my frame of reference. Adam West, Michael Keaton, and Christan Bale all made fine Batman stories on their own without relying on each other.

Well in a way, it was a complete reboot. The characters were (re)introduced with an entirely new future ahead of them. The method by which Orci and Kurtzman gave themselves a blank slate to start TOS over again was quite imaginative. Nothing old was lost, yet everything is also new and fresh. Best of both worlds, really.

 

[BillJ]

Back on topic, rebooting Star Trek is the best thing to ever happen to it. Let's be honest, Star Trek was dead. After driving the movie series into the ground and ending Enterprise with the single worst episode of its run, Trek wasn't really going anywhere.

I don't think a reboot of continuity was needed, just a reboot of creative energy and marketing. Doctor Who ran for 26 seasons before being cancelled in 1989. It returned in 2005 and was a complete continuation of the old continuity. It just marketed itself to a new audience and didn't rely on old continuity. I think Trek would have gotten along fine doing that.

But it's really an apples and oranges comparison. JJ Abrams wanted to do Star Trek, specifically he wanted to do Kirk and Spock. The old continuity hemmed in the dramatic potential of a Kirk and Spock movie, we know when one dies and know that the other lives deep into the 24th century. It's tough to ramp up the danger when you know nothing can happen to the characters your writing.

Whatever I think of the movie itself, Abrams made the right move by rebooting the franchise. No one was going to get excited by another film featuring Modern Trek characters nor do I think anyone would've been excited by generic characters in a universe that was a continuation of the Prime universe.

By the way, blaming liking a film on being stoned is a really, really weak way of trying to pass off your original thoughts as not reflective of what you really thought.

 

[DalekJim]

Whatever I think of the movie itself, Abrams made the right move by rebooting the franchise. No one was going to get excited by another film featuring Modern Trek characters nor do I think anyone would've been excited by generic characters in a universe that was a continuation of the Prime universe.

I think so long as a likable actor was playing the character, modern blockbuster audiences wouldn't care who was in the captain's chair or who his first officer was.

 

[Shazam!]

The old continuity hemmed in the dramatic potential of a Kirk and Spock movie, we know when one dies and know that the other lives deep into the 24th century. It's tough to ramp up the danger when you know nothing can happen to the characters your writing.

I'll bet you any money in the world that none of the crew are killed off in the 1 or 2 more films we're likely to get.

The dramatic potential is as hemmed in as it always was.

 

[SeerSGB]

But surely having Spock in it would be more of a stigma than not? Spock is associated by the general Star Trek hating public as a nerd icon. Somebody that nerds like. The type of people who make "hilarious" jokes about people living in their mother's basement (NEVER GETS OLD!) would be turned off by a movie with Kirk and Spock in a way they wouldn't have been with new characters and no Vulcans on the bridge.

It's fun to speculate.

Well that movie exists and those people were not turned off, no speculation is necessary.

In fact, Spock is probably the most popular character from it.

Back on topic, rebooting Star Trek is the best thing to ever happen to it. Let's be honest, Star Trek was dead. After driving the movie series into the ground and ending Enterprise with the single worst episode of its run, Trek wasn't really going anywhere. Thankfully, we got a movie that not only honored the past, but speaks to current audiences. It saved Star Trek and is merely the start of future greatness.

I'd been saying for years, Trek needed a reboot. Canon had become to much a mess and the franchise felt like it was suffering from small world syndrome. The sense of scale was gone.

I'll admit I didn't like the '09 movie when it came out. But I blame a lot of that over still being annoyed with the middle figure we got with TatV and not having a lot of faith in the new actors. I gave the movie some time off--about a year or so--came back and found that I enjoy it. Take it on its own merits without all the baggage from the original franchise, and it's an enjoyable movie.

Still, I miss my lava lamp engine cores from the TOS movies.

 

[BillJ]

The old continuity hemmed in the dramatic potential of a Kirk and Spock movie, we know when one dies and know that the other lives deep into the 24th century. It's tough to ramp up the danger when you know nothing can happen to the characters your writing.

I'll bet you any money in the world that none of the crew are killed off in the 1 or 2 more films we're likely to get.

The dramatic potential is as hemmed in as it always was.

You might be right, you might be wrong. But the actions that are taken by these characters aren't controlled by twenty year old movie and TV episodes anymore.

 

[Ovation]

I've already stopped taking him seriously.

Good, now both of you kindly stop talking to me as you will never have anything interesting to add to this or any discussion beyond blunt heckles.

As it stands, that's the explanation the movie leads us to believe, in my opinion.

I think it would have made sense for him to have been waiting for Spock if he didn't also have the ultimate goal of destroying Earth. Surely he'd have got that over with first? If only to pass the time .

But he needed the "red matter" from Spock Prime's ship to do that. So getting it over first was NOT an option.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Back on topic, rebooting Star Trek is the best thing to ever happen to it. Let's be honest, Star Trek was dead. After driving the movie series into the ground and ending Enterprise with the single worst episode of its run, Trek wasn't really going anywhere.

I don't think a reboot of continuity was needed, just a reboot of creative energy and marketing. Doctor Who ran for 26 seasons before being cancelled in 1989. It returned in 2005 and was a complete continuation of the old continuity. It just marketed itself to a new audience and didn't rely on old continuity. I think Trek would have gotten along fine doing that.

Doctor Who has been rebooted several times during its own run, the concept is built into the show. Just say the Doctor has been on his own for a while and reintroduces villains and concepts to the audience through the companion. It's one of Doctor Who's strengths that other shows lack. You can't really do that with Star Trek, the closest they came to that was creating new crews that audiences cared about less and less.

Whatever I think of the movie itself, Abrams made the right move by rebooting the franchise. No one was going to get excited by another film featuring Modern Trek characters nor do I think anyone would've been excited by generic characters in a universe that was a continuation of the Prime universe.

I think so long as a likable actor was playing the character, modern blockbuster audiences wouldn't care who was in the captain's chair or who his first officer was.

Actually they would. Audiences aren't stupid, they know about Kirk and Spock if only by osmosis. Classic Star Trek is part of our culture if you've never seen a single episode or movie. Everyone knows "Beam me up, Scotty", "He's dead Jim" and the Vulcan hand sign. The only crew that audiences really seemed to connect to besides the original was TNG, who were aging and not really wanting to do another movie. Plus all the Next Generation films went downhill from First Contact and Nemesis was so bad it killed the movie franchise. It would have been difficult to make a movie with the DS9 and VOY crews, mainly because only Trek fans knew about them and even less cared. There would definitely not be an ENT movie either. A movie series based on an entirely new crew wouldn't work either, the whole movie would have to be focused on getting to know them and how they work together. It would bomb. To compare it to Doctor Who, it would be like the 60s Doctor Who movies. There is a character similar to the Doctor. But he's a human called Doctor Who and it has no connection to what people know.

By rebooting it, we were able to return to the Kirk era with the only characters that most audiences ever truly gave a damn about. They didn't have to display who most of them are because we know them already. We don't have to have Scotty's job explained, he's the engineer. We get slightly different motivations for the characters, but it works and makes them seem like flesh and blood people. This gets the general population who only know the classic series. Toss in the sex and explosions and they get excited about a Star Trek movie. It also introduces them to the universe and may inspire them to check out the rest. It also gets the fans due it being a new take on classic characters.