For people who don't like the reboots

[indycar]

A common complaint of the reboots is that they aren't close enough to the shows or they aren't about exploration. If that's the case, how come people criticize TMP (which is about finding V'Ger) for being to slow and TFF (about searching for God and Sha Ka Ree) for it's plot, although the plot is pretty far fetched and the effects really hurt it. Also, people call Insurrection "The Long TNG Episode".

I understand that these aren't the greatest examples in the franchise, but two deal with exploration and another is similar to its parent series.

Also, my opinion of those movies is that TMP is underrated and TFF and Insurrection are okay, but neither are great.

 

[BillJ]

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is my favorite Star Trek movie. Followed by The Undiscovered Country and Star Trek Into Darkness.

I think that we're downright lucky to have a franchise that offers such a diverse product.

Okay... I'm done rambling.

 

[Gov Kodos]

I've always watched Trek for Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, so TNG forward never held my interest to any great extent. The TOS films have always been enjoyable, especially 2, 3, and 4. Greatly enjoyed the new films, too. Nice to have gang back on screen.

 

[BillJ]

I've always watched Trek for Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, so TNG forward never held my interest to any great extent. The TOS films have always been enjoyable, especially 2, 3, and 4. Greatly enjoyed the new films, too. Nice to have gang back on screen.

Kirk and Spock are my main reasons for watching Trek, though I have enjoyed the rest of it to varying degrees. The spinoffs just didn't have any staying power for me.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Having grown up with the troika, it is hard to discount the nostalgia factor, but the casts and the AB story structure of the TNG era were easy to drift away from. I simply didn't care about the bulk of the cast on TNG, DS9, or Voyager. Perversely, the Enterprise cast was my favorite in spite of the often dull stories. I'm delighted Pine, Quinto, and Urban have been able to bring back the fun for me.

 

[BillJ]

I was very leery of them recasting my childhood heroes, but I have to say that Abrams did a stellar job.

 

[Tosk]

A common complaint of the reboots is that they aren't close enough to the shows or they aren't about exploration. If that's the case, how come people criticize TMP (which is about finding V'Ger) for being to slow and TFF (about searching for God and Sha Ka Ree) for it's plot, although the plot is pretty far fetched and the effects really hurt it. Also, people call Insurrection "The Long TNG Episode".

Maybe because all people who didn't like JJ Trek aren't united in other opinions?

Everyone just like what they like, dislike what they dislike, and we'll all just have to learn to live with the fact that we often like different things to one another.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I don't see the NuTrek films as a reboot as they've tried to tie them together with the Primeverse by going down the alternate timeline route, which is my main problem with them. Had the films been a full reboot of the franchise, making big changes to the characters and setting (and dropping all connection to the existing canon) I could get behind it more, as they stand they come off as just half-arsed, IMO.

As for not being about exploration, none of the Trek films have been about exploration (perhaps with the exception of TMP, as they are venturing into the unknown lurking within V'Ger, though as mentioned it is often seen as being slow--I thought so the first time I saw it, though as I've gotten older I have come to appreciate it more), they have all ramped up the action and stakes for the plot--which is understandable from a business perspective, as that'll be the kind of thing that gets bums on seats at the cinema. If well done, an action-packed Trek film really works, so long as the story and characters are given proper consideration and the focus isn't just on making it look good (substance beats style everytime). The likes of TWOK, TUC and FC all have plenty of action in them, but also a good plot to them, one that tests the hero on a personal level.

After seeing STID in the cinema, I have no real desire or drive to see it again as it is lacks much to really sink my teeth into to make me watch again and again.

But that's just me.

 

[Warped9]

Exploration in Star Trek is really a jumping off point for a story. They are involved in some routine surveying or exploratory task and then something unusual happens that presents a problem that needs to be solved.

In TMP the Enterprise was not tasked specifically with exploring Vger, but rather solving the problem Vger presented. Exploring and understanding what Vger was was part and parcel of learning how to deal with the problem. Whatever action arose out of that situation stems from unpredictable variables that complicate the larger problem.

The problem with TMP has nothing to do with the essential story and more to do with overall execution. TMP was very much like a lot of TOS episodes only it was stretched out to two hours yet without enough substance added in to make the story feel as taut as a one hour episode.


More recently Interstellar is basically a story of exploration in that exploring what was unknown was part of the process to solve the problem of human survival. In both TMP and Interstellar the survival of humanity is at stake yet Interstellar did a generally better job at executing the story and filling the two hour running time, and also while not benefiting from a cast of familiar characters to help carry us through the story. I like to think of Interstellar as the kind of film TMP could have been but with a good rewrite before filming.


Star Trek faces something of a dilemma with fans and the general viewrship at large. Trek's best stories and moments were generally not action oriented yet many fans and general viewers alike seem to focus on fighting with Klingons and ship battle sort of things. Those are easy things to understand and yet they are not the things that made Trek good. They were incidental things added in to spice up the bigger story, but they weren't the story in of themselves. In action films the action is the main selling point and the main focus. But that's not what made Trek so appealing for so many over all these years.

 

[Paradise City]

I don't rate these films according to what went on in Star Trek previously. I think that's a very inadequate way to test these films, frankly. And I step aside from the 'debate' (shouting match) as to what is "Star Trek" and what isn't. Sometimes Star Trek is about war, sometimes it's about politics, sometimes it's about exploring the strange and the unusual and so on. So, I've no objection to the two films on those grounds. I'm not a "Star Trek traditionalist" or a "Roddenberry ideologue". Much of episodic Star Trek is quite mediocre to be perfectly honest but when Star Trek hits its stride; it's world class stuff and so I rate these films as to whether they reach an adequate standard of quality or not.

I'm normally selective as to what films I do see but I waived that criteria here as I wanted to see what they made of the Star Trek franchise just as I later did with Star Wars. I was fairly impressed with Star Wars, I wasn't with the two Star Trek outings. I didn't like the way they awkwardly crammed in hackneyed homages by flipping the TWOK scene and then resolved it all with magic blood before the credits roll, blowing up planets willy nilly. unsteady delinquent to commander of the flag ship in one week, Admiral Yosemite Sam, Spock going bananas, Scott being pulled around in a transparent tube..et al and what messages they seemed to try to make struggled to keep ground with the OTT FX. Star Wars FX was strong but not OTT, it was a traditional yarn, OK, but they injected a great plot twist and people left the cinema grieving.

There was a simple genius to that.

With the NuTrek films though, I felt both pair of films were overweight and underwritten and were resolved in a very underwhelming way with a delinquent Kirk getting the captaincy of the flag the week after graduating! And the magic blood debacle. People can keep their own counsel as to what they find acceptable or not but it fell far below my standard of quality of what I expect from good cinema.

And I've no time for the line of argument that some people chase me with - that this nonsense that was depicted in the film was in TOS episode whichever or that nonsense depicted in the film was in DS9 episode whatever and therefore I must "like" these films. I don't think so.

.

 

[Kor]

And there are SW fans who were greatly disappointed in TFA and thought JJ did a much better job on his Trek movies.

And there are JJ Trek fans who think that "Beyond" will be mediocre because JJ isn't directly involved.

Anyway, I would say that Trek is not about exploring space, or war, or politics, or aliens, or technology, or whatever. It is about the human condition, using such trappings in an allegorical way to tell us about ourselves, but above all else, in an imaginative, entertaining action-adventure framework. If it's just an essay but doesn't entertain, then what's the point?

Kor

 

[CorporalClegg]

And there are SW fans who were greatly disappointed in TFA and thought JJ did a much better job on his Trek movies.

And there are JJ Trek fans who think that "Beyond" will be mediocre because JJ isn't directly involved.

Anyway, I would say that Trek is not about exploring space, or war, or politics, or aliens, or technology, or whatever. It is about the human condition, using such trappings in an allegorical way to tell us about ourselves, but above all else, in an imaginative, entertaining action-adventure framework. If it's just an essay but doesn't entertain, then what's the point?

Kor

Yup.

Star Trek is a space adventure that's about being a human, either literally or existentially. Everything else it does or is "about" is just an extension of this. This facet holds true in every incarnation, series, or film--including the new ones.

 

[Paradise City]

Every drama is about the human condition, Trek or no. Is that something that's in dispute here?

 

[CorporalClegg]

No?

 

[BillJ]

And the magic blood debacle.

We have blood based therapies now. So I'm not sure how the blood is a "debacle"?

 

[Paradise City]

We have blood based therapies now. So I'm not sure how the blood is a "debacle"?

I never said blood was a debacle. What an odd thing to post.

 

[BillJ]

"And the magic blood debacle."

Khan had remarkable recuperative powers per McCoy in "Space Seed", we use blood now to treat certain conditions. So I'm not sure how it's a debacle?

 

[Paradise City]

He uses the blood to cure not any old disease but the condition known as "death". It's an embarrassing conclusion to the bungled attempt to crowbar in the TWOK scene. Ergo, the magic blood, debacle. None of the simple but heart rendering finesse that was evident in the Star Wars film.

 

[Kor]

It was established in the beginning of ST:ID that Khan's blood could cure fatal conditions. So it made sense in the context of the movie.

Kor

 

[Lance]

A common complaint of the reboots is that they aren't close enough to the shows

Well, to address this point, I'd say the nuTrek are actually quite close in style to TOS. At least on a surface level.

People forget that The Original Series, while exploring moral dilemmas and tackling 'issues' relevant to the time, wrapped all this up inside the format of a rock 'em, sock 'em action series. Kirk didn't always talk the bad guys to death, in fact more often than not he got down and dirty and rolled around in the sand with them while throwing his infamous double-fisted over-the-shoulder punches.

No, the confusion lies in Gene Roddenberry going off on something of a tangent later on, saying that "Star Trek was all about the philosophy, of where humankind is going", and this got solidified in The Next Generation and it's spin-offs where your average 24th century citizen was above the human vices, etc. But wash all that away, and focus only on the original 69 episodes, and I'd lay claim that the 2009 movie and it's sequel effectively capture the feel of your average Star Trek episode. Maybe not the philosophy of the franchise as a whole, but certainly the spirit of The Original Series is alive and well in both of them.

Those people who are claiming that the new movies "aren't close enough to the shows" clearly don't remember what Star Trek was actually like from 1966-1969.