Reboots have "diminishing returns" too, meaning I think another Trek reboot would go the same way. Look how quickly Supergirl flopped, the Kelvin universe lost steam, etc. Craig 007 and Nolan Batman are more the exception than the norm in regards to reboot success, and even DC tried to back back the Keatonverse before Gunn came along.
Evidence of SNW being a possible alternate timeline from TOS
Yeah, I don't think a reboot is needed (though, under the current philosophy, it seems to be the only possibility of letting showrunners feel like they can produce something fresh... not that it necessarily worked last time), just a TNG-style approach of making something totally unbeholden to previous series and not concerned about contradicting them.
For its first season I thought SNW flirted with doing exactly that - Chapel is clearly a completely different character to the TOS version, but she's a better character, so "continuity" rightly goes out the window in favour of writing something more interesting. It's just a shame the show went on to tie itself in knots with the Memory Alpha connect-the-dots exercises, and got so stuck on reusing old ideas rather than just writing something entirely new. "We may have to reset your perception of the Gorn"...
For its first season I thought SNW flirted with doing exactly that - Chapel is clearly a completely different character to the TOS version, but she's a better character, so "continuity" rightly goes out the window in favour of writing something more interesting. It's just a shame the show went on to tie itself in knots with the Memory Alpha connect-the-dots exercises, and got so stuck on reusing old ideas rather than just writing something entirely new. "We may have to reset your perception of the Gorn"...
I never interpreted that line literally, i chose to view that as them saying they were going to set up this scenario again. See if a human and gorn can work together and therefore reset the perception of the gorn.
Of course I like my continuity as connected as possible since I prefer vast universes over isolated stories in their own continuities so I have entrenched myself in the multiple Gorn species headcanon.
Did he struggle, or did he just NGAF? I mean he didn't want to keep writing them, he wanted to be writing historical fiction and other stuff like Lost World. He got so fed up he killed Holmes off, and it took him ten years to bring him back. I honestly would not be surprised if he just threw up his hands and said "Whatever! I don't care, just give me money!". As someone who is trying to be a writer, I don't struggle to keep my stories consistent - even though for some of them I have them planned out ten books in advance - but that's when I care about the stories. If I write something I don't care about, not only is the quality worse, I certainly don't put much effort into keeping it consistent.
IMO Moriarty only has one brother, named James. I have seen fans argue he has two, because the brother is both called "Colonel" in one story and said by Holmes to work as a station master in another. I guess folks find it hard to believe an ex-army colonel would get a job as a station master (fair enough), but the context in which Holmes mentions Moriarty's brother being a station master also precludes there being a second brother. In the Valley of Fear, Holmes is trying to convince a Scotland Yard inspector that Moriarty is a crook. To do this he says the Professor has a painting worth £40k, which he obviously cannot afford on his salary. To head off the suggestion it was bought by a wealthy relative, Holmes then says that Moriarty is unmarried (so no rich wife) and his brother works as a station master (too poor to buy a £40k painting). If Moriarty had two brothers as many fans believe, Holmes should have mentioned him in this context, otherwise Holmes looks silly.
"Oh, the Professor is unmarried, and his brother is a mere station master. They cannot have bought him this expensive painting!"
"But Holmes, what about his other brother, the Colonel?"
"My word, Watson, you are right! I forgot about him!"
I mean the Doyalist answer is likely that someone (an editor?) pointed out to Doyle that a relative could have bought the painting, and that Moriarty had a brother, and dismissing the brother as being too poor doesn't work quite so well for Holmes if the brother is an army colonel (ex or otherwise) so Moriarty's brother becomes a poor station master in order to prove Holmes' point that the Professor is a rich crook. But I still maintain that in the context of the scene, Moriarty must have only one brother, otherwise Holmes would have mentioned he had two, since he was trying to make a point that Moriarty didn't get the painting from a relative.
And all of this wall of text just goes to show exactly what I was saying about some fans (ie me) thinking way too hard about these things. In my defence though I wrote two Holmes pastiche novels involving the Professor's brother as a main character, so I kinda had to think about it. I just got around the issue by saying that the Colonel got a job as a station master as part of one of the Professor's schemes, and tied it into the Lost Special short story.
The Cage or The Menagerie. It's the scene zooming into the bridge from the outside.
Professor and his brother are both named James Moriarty? Apparently so
The Gorn are so easy to manage, unless you think all humans look like LeBron James.
Assumption.
There is a 50% chance that the Gorn that Kirk fought was a male.
I do have to say that I'm a little disappointed how the whole Gorn storyline unfolded. I had no issues with them expanding upon the Gorn at first, indeed was looking forward to seeing what they we're going to do. There were some banger episodes along the line, however the resolutions to the stories just weren't satisfying to me. The the season 3 opener was just a little too familiar if you know what I mean, and the whole "reset your perceptions" thing works just fine, but it's just a bit clunky.
I do have to say that I'm a little disappointed how the whole Gorn storyline unfolded. I had no issues with them expanding upon the Gorn at first, indeed was looking forward to seeing what they we're going to do. There were some banger episodes along the line, however the resolutions to the stories just weren't satisfying to me. The the season 3 opener was just a little too familiar if you know what I mean, and the whole "reset your perceptions" thing works just fine, but it's just a bit clunky.
It's a continuity fudge really, watching "Arena" the Gorn are pretty much breaking news to the Enterprise crew there. Whereas had Strange New Worlds gone with say, the Tholians as a big threat. there would've been some basis for establishing everything about them, which becomes a reputation later on...their renowned punctuality and so forth.
See, I would just do what TNG did. Tell stories of a new crew in whatever setting you want in that universe and build from there. Have references to past Trek being something of a rarity. Have there be a new status quo. Don't feel you need to explain everything. TNG didn't even really bother explaining how exactly the Klingon Empire became Federation allies, that was a ball that Nimoy decided play with for one of the movies. Hell, they couldn't even actually commit to sticking with a name for the Klingon homeworld. What's funny is when Nimoy finally decided it was "Kronos" Rick Berman forbade the name from ever being used on TNG because he didn't like it. Then later it seemed he stopped caring, probably because calling it "the Klingon homeworld" just sounded stupider as it went.
Exactly. You can move forward without abandoning the past.
Arguably, we can regard the VFX at the opening of "The Cage" as something akin to a nonliteral cutaway whose entire function is to establish to the audience the location of the bridge set relative to the exterior of the starship.
However, the way the footage is used in "The Menagerie," it is much more difficult to sustain that same interpretation. To the court trying Spock, although they are experiencing an illusion, it seems they are watching images on the briefing room screen of what really happened thirteen years ago. There is nothing that seems artificial about what they are looking at, or they would have said so when they were discussing whether the images were of what had actually happened. That suggests, though of course does not necessitate, that what they're looking at on the screen is what the ship really looked like.
I always took it that there was a transparent dome above the TOS bridge. The idea of it being some type of artistic license like zooming past a solid opaque dome and straight into the bridge is not really a stylistic flourish that the show really tries ever again. Of course, we rarely ever saw windows looking outward at all on TOS. That always came down to budget and timing. Not until TMP and TNG that they would regularly feature a starfield outside a window, especially during warp.
And then the remaster happened, and they actually made it appear as a transparent dome. Did the remaster team do that with the understanding of what the f/x crew intended with that shot in "The Cage", or was that their own prerogative? I have to imagine they had some insight on the intent of that zoom in.
And then the remaster happened, and they actually made it appear as a transparent dome. Did the remaster team do that with the understanding of what the f/x crew intended with that shot in "The Cage", or was that their own prerogative? I have to imagine they had some insight on the intent of that zoom in.
The Menagerie really can't be used to prove anything as it was an illusion and furthermore we have no evidence that there were cameras in-universe recording the events of the Cage to be used in Menagerie. Heck, I don't think we even have evidence that there are cameras in SNW recording everything that Pike's crew does.
I already addressed that point. The characters discussed whether the events happened as depicted, and they agreed they did. I very much doubt Spock or Pike would have misremembered that the top of the bridge was a transparent dome, as shown in the images.
As to whether there are shipboard cameras, there are, as established in "Court Martial". In "The Menagerie", it is also stated that cameras can record images aboard ship; the quality of what they seem to be watching on-screen during Spock's court martial is stated to be better than the quality of what the shipboard cameras can record.
So, it was not the Starfleet shipboard cameras that recorded the images. Therefore, the Talosians scanned the images that are presented on-screen in "The Menagerie". If they did it entirely out of what's in the minds of Pike's crew, then that's a bit more evidence in favor of the idea that the bridge really has the transparent dome on top, as depicted in the images recycled from "The Cage", because it would look the way that the crew thought it did.
The bridge in TAS also has a second exit, where there is none in TOS.
Heck, there are gooseneck viewers in "The Cage" and "Where No Man..." that are all gone by the time of "Corbomite".
Canonically, the bridge has undergone modifications, some minor like the gooseneck and various station configuration changes, and some major like the second exit added when going from TOS to TAS. It's not a stretch to suppose that the automatic bridge defense system—a system not established in TOS—was completely new to TAS. Accordingly, it's entirely possible the dome was changed, too.
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