For people who don't like the reboots

[Paradise City]

Yup, just like when they killed Spock and already knew they were going to turn that around in the next movie.

Or uploading Data to B-4.

Or the time Scotty died and was "fixed" a few minutes later by Nomad.

Or making the audience sit through thinking McCoy was fatally ill then 'klolno fxed bai' by the Oracle's database just short of the end of the episode with no explanation.

Or Kirk being suffocated then revived in Amok Time by McCoy.

Etc

There's alot of dumb stuff in the episodes too.

 

[Kemaiku]

TOS treated death like a cold, you'd be back on your feet by the end of the episode regardless.

Like the Cap said, walk it off.

 

[Lance]

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.

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.

I guess I disagree. It was a series with action, but a "rock 'em, sock 'em action series" seems a over-simplified characterization that leaves out a lot of material. Star Trek was more a science fiction take on the "adult Western," (not surprisingly as Roddenberry had worked a lot on Have Gun Will Travel) attempting to add grown-up dramatic themes to what had previously been more of a juvenile genre. Just as most Gunsmokes had a scene with Matt beating up or shooting someone, so did many TOS episodes have the stunt doubles mixing it up hand-to-hand. But it was usually just one part of an episode that was mostly drama, or comical, or a mystery etc.

I've watched TOS for 40 years and have a pretty good idea of what it was like. I don't claim the new movies aren't "close enough," but I certainly don't feel that 79 hours of TOS "averages out" to two (or four) hours of action sequence after action sequence. Nor did the original movies really capture the whole feeling, nor would I expect them to, either. I understand why the choice was made to make the type of movie that they were, but ST09 or STID are no more a pure distillation of the essence of TOS than TMP is.

I can see that, and I'm certainly not denying that TOS definitely had a 'moral center' that perhaps the new movies gloss over (I wouldn't mistake it for being missing, but it's not at the forefront). Implicitly there are moments where that kind of moralizing comes up -- for example Kirk magnanimously offering to save Nero in '09 (negated when Nero turns it down, but hey-ho), or listening to Khan's story and making his own mind up about the Admiral's true motives in STID. So yeah, the moralizing is definitely there.

I was thinking more along the lines of equating each Abrams-Trek movie to a single TV episode. Your average TOS episode in isolation features a number of elements that recur from one show to the next, and it was certainly more 'actionized' than many of the Trek's which followed it. People have a kind of collective memory of Star Trek being that show where Kirk brings together Eminiar and Vendikar with a moralistic speech about how "we're not going to kill today", but forget that the rest of the episode sees him bringing about that peace through force. Or they remember the bit where Kirk refuses to kill the Gorn, rather than the 15 preceeding minutes where he's in a life-and-death struggle with it. As a collective memory, we tend to remember The Next Generation's more moralistic take on the franchise -- using conflict only as a last resort -- and ascribe that kind of philosophy to TOS as well. The reality is that, as Spock himself says in TNG's own 'Unification', Captain Kirk was a very much a cowboy diplomat who could be quick to throw a punch in the aim of bringing about peace. I see more than a bit of that in Pine's Kirk as well.

TOS was a very action-orientated show. And the new Trek movies reflect that, even if they do take it to another level.

 

[fireproof78]

TOS treated death like a cold, you'd be back on your feet by the end of the episode regardless.

Like the Cap said, walk it off.

Exactly. Death is meaningless unless the writers need to to have meaning. I don't think Abrams Trek is different, so much as it is more in your face with it and the pacing.

I know VOY gets a lot of flak for the reset button, but TOS had it just as much, even in the films. I think Trek IV is the most guilty of this, despite all the challenges that Kirk and Spock go through, the most that happens is a new Enterprise and Kirk is captain again.

I still enjoy the Abrams films as much as other Trek films, more than a lot of the TNG ones, but I think that is more a character thing, than anything else.

 

[eyeresist]

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".

The TNG movies are often said to be different in tone from the TV show, but it's less often pointed out (these days, anyway) that the TOS movies are very different to the series. TOS TV didn't have the epic ponderousness of TMP or the issues of ageing that the later movies had. I would also argue that the characters and relationships of the Big Three are deeper in the movies than they were in the TV show, where things were fairly glib and superficial by comparison.

Exploration was not dealt with in the TOS-TNG movies, except for TFF. All the other movies, they were still in known space, and didn't really discover anything (except V'ger, arguably). But if we expand the meaning of exploration to say that the audience should feel like they're discovering something new, then that would encompass most of the movies.
One legitimate criticism of the JJ movies is that the audience doesn't really get that feeling very much. Both movies start with great opening sequences, that have a feeling of something new, but in the main plot we're mostly retreading old ground. Apart from the opening sequences, we see the ice moon in ST09, but that's quite a brief sequence, and we see Kronos in STID, but it's very uninteresting.

I don't expect Beyond to feel exactly like an old TOS episode (or movie), but I think the exploration issue will be satisfactorily addressed.

 

[Trekkin]

Kirk was so upset about the loss of David and the original Enterprise. I mean, for two movies he put the former in the same forgotten limbo as his dead brother, and at the first opportunity he replaced the latter with its identical twin...kinda like Genesis Empty-shell Spock and B4.

Trek has a lot of strengths. Realistic depictions of hard-hitting, long lasting consequences isn't usually one of them.

 

[BillJ]

The TNG movies are often said to be different in tone from the TV show, but it's less often pointed out (these days, anyway) that the TOS movies are very different to the series. TOS TV didn't have the epic ponderousness of TMP or the issues of ageing that the later movies had. I would also argue that the characters and relationships of the Big Three are deeper in the movies than they were in the TV show, where things were fairly glib and superficial by comparison.

I think the difference being, there was time between TOS and the movies for the characters to grow and change. In the TNG movies, we pick up right after the TV series yet these characters are different.

 

[Marsden]

I don't like the reboots. I want to say before I continue that if you do like them I am not attacking your taste in movies, I just speak for myself and dislike the whole "not real Star Trek" garbage as much as anyone. A person could make a case that there was no new Star Trek since 1967, 1968, 1974, 1991, or even 1994, depends on your attitude and how close minded and stubborn you are I guess.

I want to say one of the main reasons I didn't like the reboots it completely closes the door on what we now retronym the "Prime Universe" I'm talking about future movies or shows, not novels or other media. I doubt they would ever go back, period. It's something of a final death, unlike Kirk's mostly death in STiD. Miracle Bones can't fix this one. And that's not even the reboot itself, just it's existence has a mark against it for me.

Now, if I actually enjoyed the resulting reboot, that could have been just ignored, I can ignore myself as well as I can ignore anyone else. Sometimes I don't even tell myself what I'm thinking.

My next problem was the whole assembling the crew shtick which I greatly disliked from TMP, but at least that had some logical progression to it. This one is just willy nilly scenes to get everyone on the ship. If the first scene of ST09 was Chris Pine narrating a Captain's log on the way to investigate the strange ion storm picked up on their sensors it would have improved dramatically for me. Who the hell wouldn't know who any of these people were? and then for those special people also couldn't find someone that does know to tell them? I can see that if it was a whole new property, but it's not. That's the point of updating a pre existing IP, its has built in recognition.

There's lots more I can complain about from the pacing to the art direction but I think if it was just the Enterprise with the crew and were somewhere in the timeframe of the 5 year mission without any alternate universe stuff at all, it would have been much better. So what no one mentioned this adventure subsequently? There's tons of Star Trek things that no one ever mentions again. All of those nice TOS setting novels I've read never interfered with the shows, why would this? If Pine was just Kirk and not AltKirk or NuKirk I would have felt much better.

What do you think Sir BillJ? I know we like to go around on this.

 

[Nyotarules]

The first time I watched the movies I enjoyed the experience apart from the Khan trubite, some folks love that sene I hated every moment of it and groaned aloud in the theatre. For me a real reboot would make Spock captain and Kirk the XO or better yet Uhura as Captain lol Maybe the next reboot in 2046 might do this.

 

[Kor]

For the record, I really enjoy the reboots. They take me back to my days of watching the bright colors and fun action of TOS in wide-eyed wonder as a a wee lad, waaaaaay more than any of the Trek spin-offs from 1987 onward.

Kor

 

[Shikarnov]

Folks look at Kirk in nuTrek and think he's immature and out of control, but I'd say he is too intelligent and full of himself rather than simply immature. One factor in that is no father figure he respects. However, is that so very different from prime Kirk? In TOS, while he followed rules, he had no qualms subverting them like getting a friend to ditch the Koridion players in Conscience of the King. He had no problem flaunting authority brazenly given the chance like Barris in Trouble with Tribbles. One might postulate while he had a stronger family past to keep him on the right track and be something of a stack of books with legs in his youth but that as he got higher in command and status reaching the admiralty in the films he had little or no more controls on his hubris and becomes very devil-may-care much like nuKirk at the outset of the JJ films.

Kirk is a man prone to displaying extreme confidence to the point of hubris. He is aware of that as he intimates to McCoy in Balance of Terror, but he very rarely has that confidence truly challenged or rattled until TWOK and TSFS. Getting Spock back he goes on from high to high. NuTrek does a better job of taking some of that wind out of his sails than TOS or the prime movies ever did.

I do think nuKirk is immature. And while I agree that Prime Kirk pushes the limits of hubris, he was a man who earned the right to push those limits. He earned his position. And I don't mean that he was a great commander with many natural gifts... I'm talking about working hard in order to achieve... "I remember you back at the academy. A stack of books with legs."

James T. Kirk was an inspiration -- he was the embodiment of the old expression that "hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard" because he had the talent AND he worked hard. And on top of that, by the time he earned his command, he had experience and wisdom from his postings on the Republic (reprimanding a friend) and Farragut (hesitating to fire, losing his CO and comrades), and so on.

He was a testament to the idea that so many of us were told while growing up: you can do anything -- you can be anything -- if you're ambitious, if you're persistent, and you're willing to go the distance in the pursuit of your dreams.

NuKirk is nothing more than an at-risk youth -- and a crude one at that -- who would still be slogging it out in midwestern bars if not for a lucky meeting with Captain Pike. There's nothing to learn from him except that you too can achieve greatness if you come from the right family, know the right people, or win some kind of cosmic lottery. Studying, working, struggling, advancing -- that stuff is for lesser men.

 

[CorporalClegg]

For the record, I really enjoy the reboots. They take me back to my days of watching the bright colors and fun action of TOS in wide-eyed wonder as a a wee lad, waaaaaay more than any of the Trek spin-offs from 1987 onward.

Kor

Yup.

 

[shapeshifter]

I don't understand why some do not understand NuTrek isn't about the characters being perfect right out of the box, that it is about them starting out flawed in order to make their eventual growth into characters more like we remember more satisfying.

So far, NuTrek has been about seeing this crew from the beginning, something we only glimpsed through spoken communications between characters in the other timeline. If these had been cookie cutter imitations of the Originals right from the start then there would have no adventure watching them evolve towards the more familiar.

I suspect STB will feature a crew acting more like we know they can be, firing on more cylinders than we've yet seen. At which point someone will be disappointed the characters are growing up unrealistically fast. lol

 

[Nyotarules]

NuKirk is nothing more than an at-risk youth -- and a crude one at that -- who would still be slogging it out in midwestern bars if not for a lucky meeting with Captain Pike. There's nothing to learn from him except that you too can achieve greatness if you come from the right family, know the right people, or win some kind of cosmic lottery. Studying, working, struggling, advancing -- that stuff is for lesser men.

ITA, there is a suspension of belief that goes with watching most movies but a group of cadets aka university graduates being promoted to the ship as the alpha crew with Kirk as captain required too much suspension of belief for me. The only experienced bridge officer of the famous seven is Spock, Scotty, Bones (he had medical experience as a doctor) and maybe Sulu (unless he was a cadet as well). And what the hell is a 17 year old doing in combat???

 

[fireproof78]

I don't understand why some do not understand NuTrek isn't about the characters being perfect right out of the box, that it is about them starting out flawed in order to make their eventual growth into characters more like we remember more satisfying.

So far, NuTrek has been about seeing this crew from the beginning, something we only glimpsed through spoken communications between characters in the other timeline. If these had been cookie cutter imitations of the Originals right from the start then there would have no adventure watching them evolve towards the more familiar.

I suspect STB will feature a crew acting more like we know they can be, firing on more cylinders than we've yet seen. At which point someone will be disappointed the characters are growing up unrealistically fast. lol

I have to agree. I love NuKirk and his arc, and the fact that we see what were the catalysts in his growing and developing in to his TOS self. NuKirk didn't have that, and so his journey is a bit different, his edges are bit a rougher, and he a lot of growing to do.

I can understand and even appreciate the fact that the pacing of Kirk going from cadet to captain is a stretch (more on that below) but I do appreciate the fact that Kirk is an at risk youth, not contributing to society, and, ultimately, not living up to the Roddenberry ideal that was more present in TNG.

ITA, there is a suspension of belief that goes with watching most movies but a group of cadets aka university graduates being promoted to the ship as the alpha crew with Kirk as captain required too much suspension of belief for me. The only experienced bridge officer of the famous seven is Spock, Scotty, Bones (he had medical experience as a doctor) and maybe Sulu (unless he was a cadet as well). And what the hell is a 17 year old doing in combat???

I think Sulu is probably among the more experienced officers on the Bridge, as well as Spock, since he is an instructor at the Academy.

Also, it's funny how in WW2 there were 17 year olds in combat and that was not regarded as strange. Heck, even my uncle was a Marine in Vietnam at 17. So, as strange as it sounds now, it isn't that strange to me, given different military histories.

 

[Shikarnov]

I don't understand why some do not understand NuTrek isn't about the characters being perfect right out of the box, that it is about them starting out flawed in order to make their eventual growth into characters more like we remember more satisfying.

Pretty much all of them are perfect -- except Captain Kirk... Spock is a seasoned Commander by the time the five-year mission begins. Uhura is an expert linguistics officer, Chekov is the "Russian whiz kid" who is still young and still multitalented (in TOS it was navigation and science, and in the movies, navigation and engineering). McCoy is a curmudgeon. And so on.

And I get that the movies are about growth -- Kirk's growth, principally -- but there are better ways to explore that kind of evolution than promoting a cadet to Captain (as opposed to just giving him a commendation) and then watching him whine about losing his ship because his first officer, if you can believe the audacity, told the truth.

 

[Nyotarules]

Also, it's funny how in WW2 there were 17 year olds in combat and that was not regarded as strange. Heck, even my uncle was a Marine in Vietnam at 17. So, as strange as it sounds now, it isn't that strange to me, given different military histories.

That I understand, but humanity are meant to be 'more enlightened' in the future, so unless the age of legal adulthood for humans is lowered in Star Trek's 23rd century I would not expect SFA to be taking children under its wings assuming they are the future version of Sandhurst and West Point. Since Chekov is 17 when he graduates and eligible for combat that means he probably started SFA between 14 or 16 years old. I don't are how much a genius a minor is I don't see any parent allowing their child to join a paramilitary organisation like Starfleet when their child is under 18.

 

[fireproof78]

That I understand, but humanity are meant to be 'more enlightened' in the future, so unless the age of legal adulthood for humans is lowered in Star Trek's 23rd century I would not expect SFA to be taking children under its wings assuming they are the future version of Sandhurst and West Point. Since Chekov is 17 when he graduates and eligible for combat that means he probably started SFA between 14 or 16 years old. I don't are how much a genius a minor is I don't see any parent allowing their child to join a paramilitary organisation like Starfleet when their child is under 18.

Respectfully, I will disagree.

First of all, in TOS, the Federation is presented as being a highly organized, planned, society. Individuals seem to be oriented towards the larger needs of the group, colony or the Federation, rather than predicated upon individual wants or desires.
Secondly, there seems to be an increased emphasis on service to the Federation, specifically Starfleet. Since Kirk, and by extension, others are tested at some specific time to determine their aptitude, I would imagine that such tests would allow identifying where the individual can best contribute and grow.

Also, as strange as it might sound, different attitudes about organizations, like Starfleet, will vary. Chekov's parents might have considered the Academy the best place for him to use his abilities.

 

[Trekkin]

I don't see any parent allowing their child to join a paramilitary organisation like Starfleet when their child is under 18.

Why? In the even more enlightened future of TNG, nobody gave a shit about Wesley full-on being in service before he'd even grown pubic hair.

Weren't most of speaking roles in the TNG-era Academy meant to be teens? Red Squad, Wesleys little group of manslaughtering friends, Nog etc.

 

[Marsden]

I don't understand why some do not understand NuTrek isn't about the characters being perfect right out of the box, that it is about them starting out flawed in order to make their eventual growth into characters more like we remember more satisfying.

So far, NuTrek has been about seeing this crew from the beginning, something we only glimpsed through spoken communications between characters in the other timeline. If these had been cookie cutter imitations of the Originals right from the start then there would have no adventure watching them evolve towards the more familiar.

I suspect STB will feature a crew acting more like we know they can be, firing on more cylinders than we've yet seen. At which point someone will be disappointed the characters are growing up unrealistically fast. lol

It's not that I don't understand, it's that I don't like it. I don't like and am very tired of teenagers ruling the universe. I'm also extremely tired of established characters with decades of existence as fictional characters needing an "origin" story and finally I'm tired of only the "pretty" people are the ones that are important, back in the 20th century someone could be competent or a hero and be ugly or unattractive. Now it's young and handsome or out. These are certainly not exclusive to the Star Trek reboots but they are full of it.

I also don't like having to plow through two movies to get to a good one. Also not exclusive to Star Trek but certainly applies.