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Is a Galaxy-Quest type movie the best way to restart Star Trek?

P

polyharmonic

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
The way the movie was written and made it was certainly a fun, don't take it seriously type of movie. I don't necessarily have a problem with that but I wonder if we want Star Trek going forward to be basically a version of Galaxy-Quest or Star Wars. Not quite as outlandish but certainly not serious sci-fi at all.

Imagine that this movie was called "Star Quest" and all the characters were renamed such as Dirk, Spom, etc. If that were done then you'd simply see this as a mostly silly, dumb and entertaining movie and just ignore all sorts of plot holes and things that don't make sense. You'd see Jero as some one dimensional villain and Mulcan being destroyed as just a big cartoonish event rather than a major tragic event that it is should have been.

One person wrote a very scathing criticism of the movie:
http://startrekxisucks.blogspot.com/
and I kind of know where he is coming from.

It was made to be a movie that appealed to everyone from children to regular movie goers with lots of fast paced action where you just sit back and watch all the visuals go by. But it was NOT made to appeal to people that wanted a mostly serious tightly and well written sci-fi flick.

Lots of scenes and events were clearly gratuitous or non-sensical. (Magical red matter? People carrying swords? Amazing coincidence of meeting Spock, Cadet to captain promotion, etc etc). Lots of things were thrown in as plot devices without attention or care to detail. (So Scotty can beam people anywhere even on moving ships far away, why do we need starships then?)

It's not that Star Trek (2009) wasn't entertaining or enjoyable. But there's just too much silliness and non-sense in it to take it seriously as a real sci-fi film. And now that they've established this tone for the Abrams vision of Star Trek, I just don't see how they could really made good future sequels that are well written sci-fi stories rather than more silliness and ridiculousness.
 
People talk about Galaxy Quest like it's an ubsurd, nonsensical parody.

They have entirely missed the point.
 
And yet another new member coming out of the woodwork, with another one of these posts. How surprising. Amazing how there all these hardcore Trek fans who hate this movie, yet are just now finding this site.

As for the original premise of the post, I reject it categorically. I did not find Star Trek silly or parodic in any way.
 
As a non-Trek fan, I have to say: I never really thought Trek was less silly than other forms of science fiction. It just thought it was more serious. Which is part of why Galaxy Quest is awesomely funny. It pokes holes in the Very Serious Business of science fiction television. The thing is, modern audiences have seen Galaxy Quest. The veil has lifted and we can no longer take a five year mission quite so seriously.

Modern audiences (I think) appreciate science fiction that, well, knows it's science fiction or completely ignores the "science" part of the science fiction. Because technobabble is, well, inherently silly and full of plot holes. So this movie nodded to that:
*"It's like trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet. Blindfolded. Riding a horse."
*"Do they still have sandwiches there?"
*"I am Spock." "Bullshit."


I think if someone had made a new Star Trek that seemed totally unaware that the genre itself requires willing suspension of disbelief, audiences would have been uninterested, much like they were uninterested in other recent Star Trek. (Unless, of course, it went the New BSG way, and was so swamped in "realism" I'm not sure how Kirk, Spock, and Bones could have retained much of what was crucial to their characters.)

The only real criticism I had with this story being, perhaps, Quest/SW/etc-like wasn't that it was silly. It was that... it didn't really fit the pseudo-military Trek trappings. This story was really about a group of misfits making it on their wits and guts. Which would be more fitting in a non-regimented setting. Of course, then it wouldn't be Trek. But most of the tonal issues, IMO, stemmed from this disparity. The characters were an imperfect fit with the setting. Still, it was done pretty well, so I didn't mind too much.
 
miniglik said:
I think if someone had made a new Star Trek that seemed totally unaware that the genre itself requires willing suspension of disbelief, audiences would have been uninterested, much like they were uninterested in other recent Star Trek. (Unless, of course, it went the New BSG way, and was so swamped in "realism" I'm not sure how Kirk, Spock, and Bones could have retained much of what was crucial to their characters.)
Click to expand...

There's "suspension of disbelief" and humor and then there's just plain nonsense. There's tightly well written plots and loosely written drivel. I won't go into too many details but it should be self-explanatory.

The only real criticism I had with this story being, perhaps, Quest/SW/etc-like wasn't that it was silly. It was that... it didn't really fit the pseudo-military Trek trappings. This story was really about a group of misfits making it on their wits and guts. Which would be more fitting in a non-regimented setting. Of course, then it wouldn't be Trek. But most of the tonal issues, IMO, stemmed from this disparity. The characters were an imperfect fit with the setting. Still, it was done pretty well, so I didn't mind too much.
Click to expand...

This is the one aspect that made this version of Starfleet seem somewhat silly. Its suppose to be a well-run military-like well-organized institution. But the whole cadets-only crews, having Kirk go from suspended cadet to acting captain to permanent captain (what happened to all the CMDR, LT CMDR, etc throughout Starfleet that would logically be given this command, are they all incompetent or something?) makes Starfleet seem like a thoroughly unprofessional and "silly" organization.

But mostly, I think really the main problem is that they were trying to do way too much in one 2 hour movie and was somewhat "lazy" in the writing. For all the story and development that needed to be done, it would probably take several episodes to do well.

And a lot of the things that people complained about in terms of the plot and writing could have been alleviated with simple fixes. As many people have pointed out in the Kirk promotion thread, if they already had Kirk graduate and we saw him rising up the ranks or if they simply did a "a few years later" and made him captain then Starfleet would feel less "silly".
 
Starfleet is not a military organization. This is a point that has been made time and time again, even by GR himself.

There are bridge officers on the Enterprise that weren't cadets. Sulu was one, comm officer was another. Kirk was given a field promotion in an extreme situation and it was established that Pike thought Kirk was "Starfleet material" not to mention an overachiever.

The cadets were called into action because of a planetary emergency (Vulcan under attack.).
I think what this film did was done well and every issue you seem to have can be easily explained by paying attention.
 
I have seen Galaxy Quest. Many times. So many of the people who post here remind me of some characters in the movie.
 
number6 said:
Starfleet is not a military organization. This is a point that has been made time and time again, even by GR himself.

There are bridge officers on the Enterprise that weren't cadets. Sulu was one, comm officer was another. Kirk was given a field promotion in an extreme situation and it was established that Pike thought Kirk was "Starfleet material" not to mention an overachiever.

The cadets were called into action because of a planetary emergency (Vulcan under attack.).
I think what this film did was done well and every issue you seem to have can be easily explained by paying attention.
Click to expand...

Starfleet may not be a military organization but it is very military like in its structure and it has always been portrayed that way. I've never seen in all of Star Trek anything like what happened at the end of Star Trek (2009). I don't recall any stories of cadet straight to captain stories.

But regardless of whether one is a hardcore Trekkie or someone who has never seen one episode of Trek, having a cadet becoming captain of a major starship makes as much sense as having a naval cadet suddenly becoming in charge of the equivalent of an aircraft carrier simply makes no sense unless of course you are purposefully trying to make a film that is purposefully silly.
 
Starfleet may not be a military organization but it is very military like in its structure and it has always been portrayed that way.
Click to expand...

What? Starfleet has never been portrayed in a military way. Picard's crew had to have been the most unmilitary crew in existence.
 
polyharmonic said:
number6 said:
Starfleet is not a military organization. This is a point that has been made time and time again, even by GR himself.

There are bridge officers on the Enterprise that weren't cadets. Sulu was one, comm officer was another. Kirk was given a field promotion in an extreme situation and it was established that Pike thought Kirk was "Starfleet material" not to mention an overachiever.

The cadets were called into action because of a planetary emergency (Vulcan under attack.).
I think what this film did was done well and every issue you seem to have can be easily explained by paying attention.
Click to expand...

Starfleet may not be a military organization but it is very military like in its structure and it has always been portrayed that way. I've never seen in all of Star Trek anything like what happened at the end of Star Trek (2009). I don't recall any stories of cadet straight to captain stories.

But regardless of whether one is a hardcore Trekkie or someone who has never seen one episode of Trek, having a cadet becoming captain of a major starship makes as much sense as having a naval cadet suddenly becoming in charge of the equivalent of an aircraft carrier simply makes no sense unless of course you are purposefully trying to make a film that is purposefully silly.
Click to expand...

And in current events, a 31 year old man was placed in charge President Obama to handle GM until a new board of directors is sworn in. Funny how life imitates art.

Let's remember that nuKirk received captaincy at age 28. Riker was offered his first command in his late 20s as well, soon after he became Picard's XO. Starfleet's attitude is about the quality of experience, not simply the amount of experience.

Now, I would've much rather preferred a field commission to lieutenant commander or even first officer, and I think captain is pushing it. But it's not a story-robbing nit anyway.
 
polyharmonic said:
Starfleet may not be a military organization but it is very military like in its structure and it has always been portrayed that way. I've never seen in all of Star Trek anything like what happened at the end of Star Trek (2009). I don't recall any stories of cadet straight to captain stories.

But regardless of whether one is a hardcore Trekkie or someone who has never seen one episode of Trek, having a cadet becoming captain of a major starship makes as much sense as having a naval cadet suddenly becoming in charge of the equivalent of an aircraft carrier simply makes no sense unless of course you are purposefully trying to make a film that is purposefully silly.
Click to expand...




That line of reasoning is certainly specious.


Kirk got promoted due to extraordinary circumstances.


If you don't recall any "cadet straight to captain" stories, you should rewatch DS9's "Valiant."
 
I wish. It is interesting how many of these Trek XI SUXXXX threads are being started by "cadets."
 
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