How was XI closer to the spirit of TOS ...

[trevanian]

The new Star Trek movie went back to the spirit of TOS: bold new adventures where anything can happen. They seem to have left the technobabble and long-winded, preachy monologues in favor of real action, adventure combined with a message.

Have you ever actually watched DS9?

I am not, nor shall I ever be a soap opera watcher... therefore I am not a Niner either. Since joining TrekBBS I have tried watching DS9. I can only take it in small doses.

My favorite DS9 episodes (and the only ones I have on DVD) are Trials and Tribble-ations and Little Green Men. Is it coincidence that they are the most like TOS? I think not.

Considering the former is a well-intentioned mess and the latter barely even utilizes principal characters, I don't think those are good examples at all. If you really appreciated TOS, you'd have seen superb examples of TOS feel in the three parter that opened season 2, especially the extended scene where everybody is saying goodbye to Kira ... that was -- outside of TNG/LEGACY's Data/Riker coda -- probably the first time I ever really FELT the TOS presence on what I used to call ModernTrek.

I watched most DS9s out of order, so the character development I saw was in individual eps ... just like TOS.

As for the topic ... Lil ENTERPRISE was a total misfire, so it was pretty much in keeping with the new movie, except that it wasn't quite as offensive. If the new movie has the spirit of TOS, it keeps it cloaked (only if the Abrams had sought to cloak its stench ... )

 

[Shazam!]

It did have some great TOS themes which it lovingly recaptured.

Such as?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It did have some great TOS themes which it lovingly recaptured.

Such as?

I believe we have had this conversation before.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Oh good grief. Must every thread eventually devolve into this crap?

"I try to get out, but they keep pulling me back in!"

I tried to get back to the original topic, but to no avail. The OT was once upon a time called: "How was XI closer to the spirit of TOS..." Somehow it was derailed by a fanatic Niner along the way. I chose to stop responding to that person in hope of returning to the more pleasant discussion appropriate to a thread named "How was XI closer to the spirit of TOS".

Or maybe it got derailed and turned into crap by a certain poster who introduced a silly statements such as "I have no interest in soap operas, so I have no interest in DS9" - and we still haven't been informed what this has to do with the spirit of TOS or with ST09?

And it's not like the thread got really derailed by a fanatic Niner-hater who is known for constant trolling of the DS9 forum and jumping at the throat at anyone who says anything positive about DS9 in any thread anywhere else, and has received numerous warnings about it. No, it's not his fault at all.

It was probably my mistake for answering to his crap, since I should know better,so I'll stop - and prevent it from ever happening again by finally putting Anwar on Ignore.

Please go back to the normal discussions, and please everyone refrain from any further ridiculous jabs at other shows that are not TOS nor ST09.

I gave a friendly last night to cut this out. One warning for trolling, send comments via PM.

 

[Chrisisall]

I guess you need to define "the spirit of TOS".

The captain, boldly giving moral mock-Shakespearian speeches where no dude has before.
The very cool Enterprise.
Phasers.
High concept/low-to-medium budget execution.
Spock goofing on McCoy.

There, that's it.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, see sig.

 

[Chrisisall]

It's just a movie, and it didn't bore my ass to tears. Win.

Can't argue with THAT!

 

[Clancy_s]

wrt the OP, I'm very character orientated so having Kirk, Spock and McCoy automatically makes ST11 closer to TOS than Enterprise was.

Also, unlike Enterprise*, we don't know what the future holds for the ST11 version of Star Fleet, which I like.

*yep, I know there were canon violations, but in principle Enterprise's future was known.

 

[CoveTom]

^ The presence of the characters of Kirk, Spock and McCoy makes STXI closer in structure to TOS, but not necessarily closer in spirit, which is what the OP asked. These are new interpretations of the characters, based on the fact that different actors are playing for them, different writers are writing them and, most of all, they are alternate timeline versions of the TOS characters with very different backgrounds.

As far as I'm concerned, it remains to be seen whether the Kirk, Spock and McCoy we will see in the STXI timeline are close to the spirit of their TOS counterparts or not.

 

[Kai Winn]

The new Star Trek movie went back to the spirit of TOS: bold new adventures where anything can happen. They seem to have left the technobabble and long-winded, preachy monologues in favor of real action, adventure combined with a message.

yep, it was great. two of the major four worlds of the alpha quadrant destroyed, body count in excess of 10 billion, slapstick troughout the whole movie. that's what kids like, and they push their parents to buy them the cinema tickets, and dvd's. better business than to adress adults, evidently. how will star trek 12 top that? by reducing the whole galaxy to rubble? sorry, i continue to stick to voyager. that's the series which embodies the spirit of star trek most.

 

[barnaclelapse]

I think it's honestly a matter of perspective.

Enterprise was certainly a return to a much simpler concept of Star Trek, something closer to TOS than the franchise had been in years, but you could argue that IX was, in my opinion a more specific effort to bring back the chemistry, tone and energy of the best of TOS and combine it with more modern filmmaking and storytelling techniques.

There was a very obvious effort to find a middle ground between those two sensibilities.

So, I think Enterprise and Star Trek both sought to scale things back to Star Trek's essence, but they had different reasons for doing so and went about the process in different ways as well.

I'm not sure that makes any sense.

 

[Sector 7]

sorry, i continue to stick to voyager. that's the series which embodies the spirit of star trek most.

 

[Chrisisall]

sorry, i continue to stick to voyager. that's the series which embodies the spirit of star trek most.

Actually I can see Kai's point. But really, NOTHING captures the OS spirit. It was unique. Parts of Voyage Home, the Undiscovered country, elements of DS9, Voyager...
Actually, Galaxy Quest did a better job of capturing it than any subsequent Trek IMO!

 

[DevilEyes]

sorry, i continue to stick to voyager. that's the series which embodies the spirit of star trek most.

It all depends on what one considers "the spirit of Star Trek".

For me, Voyager as a whole and some of my least favorite episodes of TNG embody most of the things that I dislike about Star Trek. For someone else, they may embody the things they like about the franchise.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The new Star Trek movie went back to the spirit of TOS: bold new adventures where anything can happen. They seem to have left the technobabble and long-winded, preachy monologues in favor of real action, adventure combined with a message.

yep, it was great. two of the major four worlds of the alpha quadrant destroyed, body count in excess of 10 billion, slapstick troughout the whole movie. that's what kids like, and they push their parents to buy them the cinema tickets, and dvd's. better business than to adress adults, evidently. how will star trek 12 top that? by reducing the whole galaxy to rubble?

Better not read relaunch. Rubble doesn't even begin to describe it.

 

[CoveTom]

Voyager, as a premise, is pretty TOS-like. Back in the TOS days, space seemed a whole lot bigger. The ship was often left to make decisions on its own. There was no instantaneous communication with the nearest starbase. No constant interactions with the rest of the fleet. And there was a heck of alot more exploring.

However, Voyager, in its execution, did not live up to its premise, I'm sad to say. At least they waited until the sixth season to have them start talking to Starfleet on a regular basis.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The new Star Trek movie went back to the spirit of TOS: bold new adventures where anything can happen. They seem to have left the technobabble and long-winded, preachy monologues in favor of real action, adventure combined with a message.

yep, it was great. two of the major four worlds of the alpha quadrant destroyed, body count in excess of 10 billion, slapstick troughout the whole movie. that's what kids like, and they push their parents to buy them the cinema tickets, and dvd's. better business than to adress adults, evidently. how will star trek 12 top that? by reducing the whole galaxy to rubble? sorry, i continue to stick to voyager. that's the series which embodies the spirit of star trek most.

Depends on which Universe and Time period you're in. Romulas was destroyed in the 24th Century of the Prime Universe. Vulcan was destroyed in the 23rd Century of the New Universe. Isn't Romulus in the Beta Quadrant?

I'm not a fan of genocide and planetary destruction in the real world, but in fictional ones it makes for higher stakes and more action.

When did Star Trek (or it's fans) lose it's sense of humor? This is the show that would end with the crew having a laugh, no matter what the body count of the episode, right?

 

[Greg Cox]

The new Star Trek movie went back to the spirit of TOS: bold new adventures where anything can happen. They seem to have left the technobabble and long-winded, preachy monologues in favor of real action, adventure combined with a message.

yep, it was great. two of the major four worlds of the alpha quadrant destroyed, .

Okay, I'm curious: how does that violate the spirit of TOS? Planets blow up all the time in STAR TREK. Remember the Doomsday Machine? The Genesis Planet? Ceti Alpha VI?

Heck, TOS was inspired by FORBIDDEN PLANET, which ends with a huge planetary explosion. That's a staple of science fiction adventure dating back to Lensman at least . . . .

There's no STAR TREK rule that says that Vulcan or Romulus has to last forever.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

TOS was always steeped in "pulp sf" - in fact, to be fair a large portion of what appeared in the pulps was better than Trek ever achieved. In any event the show embraced it, never "resorted" to it.