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Hate for the new Trek and the Future of Trek

A situation caused by Roddenberry insisting the entire look of the Klingons be changed just for TMP, without explanation. He could have left well alone, or given some reason for it. They did because he wouldn't.
 
The point was Berman Productions rewrote TOS, a so called prequel to Star Trek, and invented an explanation on Enterprise. The ridges was what they really looked like.

You do realize that the explanation contradicts nothing in The Original Series, movies or spinoff series?
 
JJTrek doesn't mess with the normal timeline. Lack of originality is all Berman Productions including First Contact; where Picard's crew don't even try not to violate the timeline by revealing everything Cochrane's going to do. Not even when Riker and Geordi joins Cochrane on his journey, I mean that's part of history being violated. Urgh. It made me sick.

In fairness, though...Star Trek IV was guilty of playing loose and free with time travel rules a decade before First Contact. Some of the stuff in Star Trek IV is so bad, it almost makes me just dismiss the entire movie.

That said, both FC and TVH are both fun entertaining movies...so these kinds of things get a pass with me.
 
In fairness, though...Star Trek IV was guilty of playing loose and free with time travel rules a decade before First Contact. Some of the stuff in Star Trek IV is so bad, it almost makes me just dismiss the entire movie.

No doubt.

Chekov gives the US Navy a Klingon disruptor, Scotty gives away the formula to transparent aluminum, McCoy gives an old lady a pill that grows a new kidney. Then they remove an actual person and two whales from 20th century Earth.

But even before that, we have McCoy, Kirk and Spock showing up in the 1930's in "City...". McCoy in his uniform. A bum disintegrates himself with a phaser.

Star Trek has always been fast and loose with the timeline.
 
Transparent aluminum. Oy! The one thing I could say about that is at least they didn't tell the owner of the glass company his future. Scotty and Bones have a discussion about violating the timeline and Scotty had a great answer to it, but I least the two minds had some discussion about it. Was there anything else? I don't remember the other stuff.
 
Whoa, it was Roddenberry who developed the Klingons changing to what they were in TOS and claiming is was a genetic defect??? Guys, go watch your Enterprise.
To be fair, that wasn't really Berman. Okay, yes, he was the show's executive producer, but during the fourth season of Enterprise, aside from writing TATV neither Berman nor Braga had any real involvement with the show instead sitting back and letting Manny Coto run the show as he saw fit. Which is why that season mostly ended up unadulterated fanwank.
 
No doubt.

Chekov gives the US Navy a Klingon disruptor, Scotty gives away the formula to transparent aluminum, McCoy gives an old lady a pill that grows a new kidney. Then they remove an actual person and two whales from 20th century Earth.

But even before that, we have McCoy, Kirk and Spock showing up in the 1930's in "City...". McCoy in his uniform. A bum disintegrates himself with a phaser.

Star Trek has always been fast and loose with the timeline.

Transparent aluminum. Oy! The one thing I could say about that is at least they didn't tell the owner of the glass company his future. Scotty and Bones have a discussion about violating the timeline and Scotty had a great answer to it, but I least the two minds had some discussion about it. Was there anything else? I don't remember the other stuff.

Parking a cloaked alien ship in Golden Gate Park

Selling the glasses to the pawn shop guy

The massive ramifications of the FBI catching a Russian on a United States nuclear-powered aircraft carrier during the Cold War.

Appearing in front of a whaling ship to protect the whales
 
I miss the days of Star Trek being fun and people not being overly worked up about canon and continuity. I remember the great stories DC Comics did between Star Trek III and Star Trek IV, where Kirk was in command of the Excelsior with Sulu as his first officer and Spock off commanding a science vessel.
 
Well, the ship was cloaked, I figured it was covered.

Appearing in front of whaling ship the seaman sees a UFO. Sightings are very common. Still today surprisingly.

The Enterprise security was investigating Chekov, I don't know where they would've gone if he didn't hurt himself. But it was addressed and covered.
 
I don't know....

1. Seems to me like a (relatively) giant, solid invisible object parked in the middle of a very popular park would cause some problems.
2. True enough about the whaling ship probably not being a huge issue...but you never know what ripples can be the result of these kinds of things.
3. It was not Enterprise security. The guys interrogating him after he is arrested are FBI. And, to BillJ's point, he left an alien communicator, alien disruptor, and Starfleet ID badge with them when he ran out.

Again, I don't really care...because it's still a fun movie regardless. My point is that FC wasn't the first time Star Trek was really goofy with the timeline. In fact, I'd argue that FC was less intrusive.
Well, the ship was cloaked, I figured it was covered.

Appearing in front of whaling ship the seaman sees a UFO. Sightings are very common. Still today surprisingly.

The Enterprise security was investigating Chekov, I don't know where they would've gone if he didn't hurt himself. But it was addressed and covered.
 
So you're telling me you'd rather watch Into Darkness than First Contact? I call your bluff.
I'd rather watch Into Darkness. :shrug:
Same here. I tried to rewatch FC recently and just couldn't get in to it.
One of the reason I like Voyager is (with the exception of Paris) I think I would personally like the main characters if I knew them in real life.

It took me a while to figure it out, but the primary reason I dislike (not hate) DS9 is (with the possible exception of Jake) I can't see myself actively liking a single one of the major characters if I knew them, at best I would be neutral on Ezri.
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See, I'm the opposite, which is funny. I like Tom Paris, and think I would get along with him really well, and would enjoy having drinks or whatever. But, the rest of the VOY crew is hit or miss with me, and I don't find myself, um, endeared, towards them, if that's the right word.

DS9, I find Bashier very likable, even when he is a bit irritating, and would enjoy playing tennis. O'Brien would be fun, and Sisko would be a man that I would sit down and just shoot the breeze with. I also was kind of in love with Jadzia for a while, so there's that.

Speaking broadly, I think that most shows are entertaining if I can connect, in some way, with the characters. As odd as it sounds, TNG was enjoyable for me because of Wesley. I could identify with him, and was sad to see him go. The funny part being that many people found him annoying at the time. So, to each their own ;)
 
Whoa, it was Roddenberry who developed the Klingons changing to what they were in TOS and claiming is was a genetic defect??? Guys, go watch your Enterprise.
You might want to watch TMP.

The actually discrepancy really came from the episode Trials and Tribble-ations, which wasn't written by Berman, but instead Ronald Moore and Rene Echevarria. Prior to this episode the ridged Klingons had "alway looked that way," this episode is the one that made clear that the TOS Klingons did look substantially different prior to TMP.

To be honest, I prefer to explanation in John Ford's novel Final Reflection over the one given in the ENT arc.

But I really don't see your point. What happen in ENT wasn't a case of retcon because it didn't change canon, rather it added to existing previous established material.

What exactly did
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rewrite?

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Impressions:

I never liked FC. Not ever. It felt forced the whole way through. Frankly I don't like any of the NextGen movies, they paid very little attention, I felt, to the character development/interaction given us in the series and I thought that was sad. I never felt like the characters were at ease with each other again, as in the series. Of ye olde ones I watch only TSFS and, would you believe it, TFF, these days. TMP is the bore it always was and TVH is just too much comedy--at the time I was grateful but the jokes are stale now and I'm left wondering where the real Trek was instead of a reunion show. TWOK is great but I have seen it too often. Maybe I'll look at it again in 5 years.

.Abrams' movies feel cold and formulaic to me, clunky and almost pasted together from the cutting-room floor. That's an opinion that could extend to any movie, Trek or not. Also, in a more Trek-related vein, I feel like these are people acting the old roles and not being the characters (although I admit to a delight in Karl Urban's McCoy, felt he was truly sunk in the character and loved it, but it's not enough to save it for me).


I'm more of a series guy. My problem with ALL the movies is that they are relatively unimaginative compared to the series. In the movies we get time travel, a long cycle about Spock, 2 x earth threatened by great big space things, and basically regular humanoid characters making trouble in pretty ho-hum ways for not very interesting reasons. In the series we get mad ESPers and Sargon's people and Jack the Ripper and bodiless Gamesters, we get Nagilum and Trills and activated introns and phasing cloaks and subspace aliens, Great Link and more of the MU and blood oaths with Klingons, Demon Blood and Hirogen Hunters...well, you get the idea. You are going to find much more outside-the-known-box thinking in almost any given episode of any of the series than in any movie. They just never seem to let themselves go wild idea-wise, they never let their hair down. I know it's about the mass audience instead of the niche audience, but it has always been disappointing because I am the niche audience (and so are you).
 
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I'm more of a series guy. My problem with ALL the movies is that they are relatively unimaginative compared to the series. In the movies we get time travel, a long cycle about Spock, 2 x earth threatened by great big space things, and basically regular humanoid characters making trouble in pretty ho-hum ways for not very interesting reasons. In the series we get mad ESPers and Sargon's people and Jack the Ripper and bodiless Gamesters, we get Nagilum and Trills and activated introns and phasing cloaks and subspace aliens, Great Link and more of the MU and blood oaths with Klingons, Demon Blood and Hirogen Hunters...well, you get the idea. You are going to find much more outside-the-known-box thinking in almost any given episode of any of the series than in any movie. They just never seem to let themselves go wild idea-wise, they never let their hair down. I know it's about the mass audience instead of the niche audience, but it has always been disappointing because I am the niche audience (and so are you).

I tend to think that it is easier to pull off "outside the box" thinking in a TV series format. You sink a million or two into an episode that doesn't work, it's really no harm, no foul. You spend $200 million on a movie and it tanks, people are losing their jobs over it.

So, big budget Summer films tend to be safer. For me, the Abrams films are comfort food. They make me feel warm inside when I watch them. I get to see my childhood heroes in a way that I could only imagine as a kid. They're entertaining but don't reinvent the wheel.

YMMV.
 
It wasn't so much Rick Berman as it was (initially) Gene Roddenberry who wanted to distance TOS from TNG in terms of continuity, terminology etc. I think Berman just carried that thought forward.

Also, ENT, for better or worse, was purposefully designed to break from continuity in an attempt to make the show more accessible. That was the whole rationale for doing the prequel. Unfortunately, they forgot somewhere that having good characters, meaningful conflict, and fun original adventure stories are what REALLY draws new audiences.

To be fair, UPN was mostly responsible for trying not to make ENT a Trek prequel. That's how we got the Temporal Cold War. If streaming was around back then, the TCW probably wouldn't exist. I strongly believe ENT would have benefited a lot from Netflix, not just from a ratings perspective but also because of the freedom to do stories without meddling studios.

In the early seasons, they didn't understand that aimless wandering and exploration are not one and the same. The worst symptom was bouncing T'Pol between the men to see who she had the best chemistry with. When a character isn't actively torn between two love interests, that looks very silly. By the time they squeezed enough fun stories and meaningful conflict in, it was too late. But I strongly disagree that ENT didn't have good characters (though some were badly underutilized). People wouldn't call TATV an abomination if they didn't kill off Trip. It should be obvious from my avatar who my other favorite character is. Yes Archer was all over the map but he was great when they wrote him up to his potential. I'd love it if Phlox was my doctor. And when they gave Hoshi something to do, it was nice to see her grow.

Ironically, the JJ movies were criticized by some fans for being too accessible to non-Trek fans and yet they did well financially. Why do you guys think it worked for the JJverse and not ENT?
 
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Ironically, the JJ movies were criticized by some fans for being too accessible to non-Trek fans and yet they did well financially. Why do you guys think it worked for the JJverse and not ENT?

They played it too safe. No one wanted to be the one that screwed up Trek because they did something different.
 
I think why some people react so strongly to Abrams films is that they're rewriting established characters. If the characters were not called Kirk, Spock etc and the films were just colourful action adventures of some new crew, I don't think people who don't like the style of the films would mind that much. Sure, they still wouldn't like the films but they wouldn't hate them.
 
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