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Explaining the Movie to non-Trek fans

USS Triumphant

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I wrote this in an email to a long-time non-Trek-watching friend today:

Remember the tv show Friends? It was extremely popular, but the spin-off, Joey, didn't do so well. Just for giggles, let's add the idea that another spin-off was done, and that tanked, too.

There's a bunch of people who would like more Friends, but what they really want isn't another spin-off, it's the feeling the original show gave them back when no one knew whether Ross and Rachel would ever end up together or not.

Okay, imagine that someone found a bunch of actors that looked like Rachel, Ross, Phoebe, etc the way they looked in the first few seasons. Then they started a new tv series, but started from right before Ross and Rachel admitted how they felt about each other. And then, they blew up the apartment building they all lived in through the whole original series, while they were all at work one day.

You'd have long-time Friends fans bitching that they just threw all of the later seasons of the original show in the trash, and that the new apartment building they all moved to in the new show just isn't the same. But, if you worked it right, you'd have a show that's watchable, and you wouldn't necessarily know what's going to come next, because the situation is different.

THAT is what this movie was for Trek. And they had to, because without it or something like it, with the way they screwed up the last two series, Trek was going to be dead, anyway.
 
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I just updated the OP with some stuff I added to the email I'm still in the process of writing.

No one has any thoughts on this?
 
^ I think you make good points. Because of 40 years of canon, Star Trek's past and future was already written out, all we would do is see it on the television. This new Star Trek wipes that future clean, and makes the future unknown and adventurous again. I look forward to it with anticipation of what just may come to pass. Is that what you're going for? Because that's how I feel. :D

J.
 
I understand where you are going with your analogy. I've often explained to people that the new movie is the ultimate 'what if' scenario. We in the Trek fandom pretty much know what is going to happen. But, what if something went back and changed it all?

Everyone who knows anything about sci-fi knows and/or has a basic understanding of parallel universes. In fact, we get "evil ___" from TOS. What! You have a goatee? You must be the evil version of ____. Anyway, I digress...

Once I explain the 'what if' factor, they get it. They understand the slew of possibilities this opens up. In addition, the idea of a parellel universe means that new beginings, and most understand that as well.
 
Has this person never seen the episode of Southpark with Evil Cartman? Wow... okay, well it might be more universal with Seinfeld. But, point well taken.
 
"So the kid from Heroes, the kid from Harold and Kumar and Sean of the Dead himself walk into a bar..."
 
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