So - just go with the Flo?
Have the new Star Treks lost the progressive edge?
- Thread starter Oorang
- Start date
So - just go with the Flo?
I don't know about progressive and such bullshit, but I'd do the following things cuz:
- Keeping the tradition from the previous two films, mention Chapel's current two husbands.
- Kirk is told by an Admiral on subspace "Captain, I had less trouble with Jim Kirks when I was young and working in the adult industry, you will immediately seize your operation and head home."
- When he refuses, the nearest Federation ship, that happens to have a majority female crew and a female captain, is sent to the spot. Not a word about the gender of the crew on screen.
- Release Khan's people in dialogue. McCoy: "Jim, you wouldn't believe it, we got word from Earth that Khan's crew has been thawed." Kirk: "What? No way." McCoy: "Someone leaked their existence and people went on the streets. I never though I would say it, but I am glad to be in deep space." Kirk: "It has it charms Bones, you will eventually like it." It is later revealed that most of the supermen are just enjoying the future.
- End with a funny bit on pre-industrial cultures that, unlike the Nibiru sequence, goes beyond "they think we are gods" and "they are primitive", and paints them as more open-minded than either the audience or the crew of the Enterprise, end it with an inventor and thinker who wants to be taught how to build a phaser for hunting after making Kirk and company look silly.
- Keeping the tradition from the previous two films, mention Chapel's current two husbands.
- Kirk is told by an Admiral on subspace "Captain, I had less trouble with Jim Kirks when I was young and working in the adult industry, you will immediately seize your operation and head home."
- When he refuses, the nearest Federation ship, that happens to have a majority female crew and a female captain, is sent to the spot. Not a word about the gender of the crew on screen.
- Release Khan's people in dialogue. McCoy: "Jim, you wouldn't believe it, we got word from Earth that Khan's crew has been thawed." Kirk: "What? No way." McCoy: "Someone leaked their existence and people went on the streets. I never though I would say it, but I am glad to be in deep space." Kirk: "It has it charms Bones, you will eventually like it." It is later revealed that most of the supermen are just enjoying the future.
- End with a funny bit on pre-industrial cultures that, unlike the Nibiru sequence, goes beyond "they think we are gods" and "they are primitive", and paints them as more open-minded than either the audience or the crew of the Enterprise, end it with an inventor and thinker who wants to be taught how to build a phaser for hunting after making Kirk and company look silly.
Yes.
I totally agree with you regarding the lackluster TNG movies - for me was Insurrection and Nemesis, the last time I really enjoyed a Trek movie was First Contact. I remember in 2002 coming out of Nemesis and looking up and asking the sky "What have they done to Trek?"...
While I will concede that the Abrams Trek was certainly entertaining, a lot more so than Nemesis, it just seemed to me to completely miss the point of Star Trek along with its dependence on 'science' that (while Prime ST science was always in the slightly believable field) beggars belief even for the most gullible and fantastically minded.
I side completely with LeVar Burton in his synopsis of the situation, along with this great in depth look at what's wrong.
Once again I'm sorry if I've stepped on any toes. I hope you can all understand that Star Trek is close to my heart, and perceived wrongs regarding Trek cuts deep.
A
Amaris
Guest
Star Trek is close to our hearts. We're on a Star Trek message board, after all. Like several others have stated here, I love the Abrams films, and I've been a huge Trek fan my whole life, or at least 30 of my 34 years. Stepping on toes is one thing; you were tap dancing on them.
Relax; it's okay. You can freely dislike a Trek movie, or a series of Trek movies, but, and I say this with kindness, they're not yours to defend. Love what you love, but they're not under attack. Hold tight to what makes you feel good, but understand that because others like the new films, that doesn't make their reasons bullshit.
In the words of the great Dirty Harry Callahan, "opinions are like assholes; Everybody's got one." You can have yours, we can have ours, and it doesn't shame Star Trek, it doesn't take away your movies, and it certainly doesn't piss on Gene Roddenberry, who relished the notion of someone else redoing his work.
Most importantly, Star Trek, at its core, is a TV show and movie series. It's books, and magazines, and comics, and action figures, it's merchandise and property rights. It's not a sacred religion, and while I do want it to be around a long time as it is, if someone rebooted it all over again, I wouldn't be upset.
Oh, and one last thing: older is not always better, and tradition doesn't forever make for great drama. Eventually, things need to move forward.
What science is that? Can you name science that Star Trek actually did, because warp speed, transporters, humanoid aliens with bumpy foreheads, phase-inverting the tachyon generator from the deflector dish, adding nano-, proto, dodecohedro- to elements of the periodic table, the Nexus? Not really science. I'm sorry, but all the "science" in the world in service to a boring, incoherent story, makes a boring incoherent, technobabbly story. Maybe its because I, too, am old enough to actually have seen TMP first-run in a theater, and TOS on TV during it's first syndication, but I'd rather watch a story that's entertaining. My .02.
Edited to add: Totally agree with J. Allen above me.
~FS
Apparently those people don't read media tie-in fiction. I've been quite pleased with reading about the further adventures of the Bermanverse.
Exactly so.
It's an interesting conundrum for the studios, including Abrams and Bad Robot, because the success of Star Trek Phase 2 and Star Trek Continues (I don't remember which one came first) is what inspired Abrams to recognize that there was still a market for Star Trek. Because of that, he went back to Kirk and Spock because that was the basis for the show.
If it was not for the such fan productions, then we probably would have had a different movie, if we had one at all.
Do you have a source for that? Only Star Trek: Phase II existed at the time development (as Star Trek: New Voyages) started on the first Abrams film. And there had only been three of those.
Abrams didn't have many places to go to make a Star Trek movie after the 22nd and 24th century series/movies fizzled out. No one was going to spend $150 million on a big-screen continuation of either.
I would love to see a link or source for that, because if true, it is very interesting.
Yeah, that's the first I'm hearing of that myself. Even more interesting is the fact that Continues didn't even exist in 2009, so how JJ could have been inspired by it is anybody's guess.
It's just a claim made by some folks associated with fan films, that's all.
I don't think that Trek has lost its progressive edge. But there have been some troubling steps into the wrong direction. When Sarek told Spock that he should not even try to suppress his anger concerning the man who murdered his mother the movie basically became antithetical to TWOK. In STID there was also a similar moment, when Spock fought with Khan. He enjoyed it a bit too much.
Now if the texture of the movie had indicated that this is questionable, like e.g. during the mind-rape scene in TUC, this would have been a different ball game. But the texture of the movie basically applauded the acts of revenge in both movies.
I'd call these worrying signs which are partially (but not totally) due to the medium and I remain optimistic that the next Trek series will stick to Trek's leftist (yeah, we could beat around the bush but I fail to see why we should not call it what it is: being friends with the Russians during the 60s, the concept of a United Earth or the notion that people work for Starfleet because of non-pecuniary incentives are radical and not moderate, left-liberal notions) general principles.
Now if the texture of the movie had indicated that this is questionable, like e.g. during the mind-rape scene in TUC, this would have been a different ball game. But the texture of the movie basically applauded the acts of revenge in both movies.
I'd call these worrying signs which are partially (but not totally) due to the medium and I remain optimistic that the next Trek series will stick to Trek's leftist (yeah, we could beat around the bush but I fail to see why we should not call it what it is: being friends with the Russians during the 60s, the concept of a United Earth or the notion that people work for Starfleet because of non-pecuniary incentives are radical and not moderate, left-liberal notions) general principles.
I suppose Sarek telling Spock he married Amanda out of love is a worrying sign, too?
There was never a moment in TWOK with the emotional impact of the destruction of Vulcan and six billion of its people. I'd think even a Vulcan should be allowed to at least momentarily go apeshit over something like that. Same with Khan in STID, Spock believed he had killed Kirk. Remember, in ST09, Sarek set it up early in the movie when he told young Spock (and the audience) that emotions run deep in their species, deeper than even in humans. Every Vulcan is a volcano ready to erupt without the serenity logic gives them. But that doesn't even work all of the time.
I don't think any character in any story grieving heavily over the loss of his mother or a very good friendship cut short is a "worrying sign." Just my take, though.
As far as TOS showing left-leaning notions goes, I never really saw it. Politics seemed to be played very close to the vest. Maybe the show projected what people wanted to take out of it. Me? I maybe see some Kennedy-style Cold War liberalism in Kirk, but that's about it. Eugene McCarthy's politics (a true liberal in the 1960s) certainly didn't drive TOS's content.
A
Amaris
Guest
^ Aptly stated.
Respectfully, that isn't the full story. It is actually from a documentary about fan films that I had the privilege of previewing 20 minutes of on another forum. I believe that Abrams was interviewed as part of it.
I don't plug for fan films just because
A
Amaris
Guest
Respectfully, that isn't the full story. It is actually from a documentary about fan films that I had the privilege of previewing 20 minutes of on another forum. I believe that Abrams was interviewed as part of it.
I don't plug for fan films just because
Do you think you could find it for us? This is the first I've heard of it as well, and I've seen nearly all of J.J.'s interviews over the years.
It was inevitable that the Trek franchise would return to Kirk and Spock. If not Abrams, it would've been someone else rebooting, reimagining, re-whatever the original "Star Trek." It was a matter of time regardless of the perceived influence of a fan production.
