The Craig movie Blofeld sucks. I love Christoph Waltz, but damn, his Blofeld is an overhyped and poorly written nonentity.
Is it time to put Star Trek to rest?
- Thread starter Dar70
- Start date
Not everyone can be Dr. Evil.
I'd have taken Temu Mini-Me in those two movies. 
Maybe, but the few glances we've got of her outside that role so far don't really suggest otherwise - two of the times we've seen her talking to other instructors rather than cadets, she's suggested that Caleb "needs his arse kicked" and that diplomatic conferences should be replaced by to-the-death gladiatorial combat.
I really like the character FWIW, but I think by design she's meant to invoke 24th-century Klingon tropes, and Jay'Den's story last week obviously revolved around a version of Klingon honour that's affected by their new quasi-nomadic state, but not really hugely distinguishable from 24th century "grr, warrior" stuff. The 32nd century just isn't feeling like a huge departure to me, other than offering everyone an excuse to drop the Berman Elocution stuff and talk normally-ish.
I see where you’re coming from — though for me the one significant failing of SFA (for me; it’s probably an intentional move re the mass audience) is how faux-2026-hip the student dialogue is.* (The adults are fine.). And Jay-Den’s somewhat interesting because of how much he doesn’t fit the grr-warrior stuff, despite growing up surrounded by it.
*Likewise the use of modern pop songs as incidental music, which I usually hate even in shows actually set in the present. A single representative song over the titles in ENT is one thing, but doing a “song of the week” moment makes me grit my teeth. (There was a stretch somewhere in The Walking Dead’s early or middle years where they started doing that, and I very much hated it.)
It's a bit stereotypical Klingon (Or is it the Jem'Hadar coming out?)
I thought putting Tawny Newsome on the writing staff was supposed to resolve that?
He's the rebel in the bunch.
I thought putting Tawny Newsome on the writing staff was supposed to resolve that?
Tawny Newsome is 42 years old. Hardly a college student.
I love Tawny Newsome, but despite appearances, she’s no more 17 than I am.I thought putting Tawny Newsome on the writing staff was supposed to resolve that?
Almost. Judi Dench stuck around.
Batman has always been rebooted and was itself based on a comic, the longest continuity on screen were the various tv shows. Adam West was 60 "TV hours" over 3 years, plus the film.
Bond has always had new people playing the roll, and was itself based on a book. There's barely been continuity between each movie.
Star Trek never has been rebooted. Even the 09 version was direct continuation with Spock and time travel and alternate universes. It's a continuous story set in the same continuity for 15 times longer than Adam West portrayed Batman.
The larger question is why are so many in favour against the idea of new scifi.
A reboot means going back to to the start and throwing everything away. A clean slate. A one-hour dramatic Action-Adventure-Science Fiction television series with strong central lead characters plus other continuing regulars.
The SS Yorktown - an Earth Vessel - would travel the galaxy at 0.73 light years per hour, paroling the Ninth Quadrant. It would be built around characters who travel to worlds "similar" to our own, and meet the action-adventure-drama which becomes our stories.
Sounds great, and reasonable budget too.
Change the names a bit and Make It So. You don't need your satanic looking officer to be called "Mr Spock", could be "Mr Plink" instead. You'd certainly need your "Yeowoman" with a shape even a uniform could not hide. It can still follow Genes Vision after all.
What's the creative choice to go for "Mr Spock from Vulcan" rather than "Mr Chet from Pyroc"?
Bond has always had new people playing the roll, and was itself based on a book. There's barely been continuity between each movie.
Star Trek never has been rebooted. Even the 09 version was direct continuation with Spock and time travel and alternate universes. It's a continuous story set in the same continuity for 15 times longer than Adam West portrayed Batman.
The larger question is why are so many in favour against the idea of new scifi.
A reboot means going back to to the start and throwing everything away. A clean slate. A one-hour dramatic Action-Adventure-Science Fiction television series with strong central lead characters plus other continuing regulars.
The SS Yorktown - an Earth Vessel - would travel the galaxy at 0.73 light years per hour, paroling the Ninth Quadrant. It would be built around characters who travel to worlds "similar" to our own, and meet the action-adventure-drama which becomes our stories.
Sounds great, and reasonable budget too.
Change the names a bit and Make It So. You don't need your satanic looking officer to be called "Mr Spock", could be "Mr Plink" instead. You'd certainly need your "Yeowoman" with a shape even a uniform could not hide. It can still follow Genes Vision after all.
What's the creative choice to go for "Mr Spock from Vulcan" rather than "Mr Chet from Pyroc"?
This is one of the things that makes me strongly dislike the idea of a reset. Star Trek's continuity is a living work of art at this point, a work of collaborative fiction spanning 60 years. There is very little else out there with such a massive amount of history, only franchises like Doctor Who and Star Wars come close. So what would be the point in ending something so rare and special and beloved when it's not even necessary in order to make something new?
I don't want Star Trek to be reset.
But they need to refocus.
The last 1.5 decades have been rather shallow and very self-referential (but not to themselves - they completely depend on TOS & the 90s shows, as if modern mainstream audiences would remember plot points from DS9?).
I think they need a break, new team, fresh ideas, and then try to establish themselves without relying so much on references and callbacks.
(I'm sadly the absolute opposite of optimistic with the new Paramount leadership and their political leanings to produce an open-minded, humanistic sci-fi show... )
But they need to refocus.
The last 1.5 decades have been rather shallow and very self-referential (but not to themselves - they completely depend on TOS & the 90s shows, as if modern mainstream audiences would remember plot points from DS9?).
I think they need a break, new team, fresh ideas, and then try to establish themselves without relying so much on references and callbacks.
(I'm sadly the absolute opposite of optimistic with the new Paramount leadership and their political leanings to produce an open-minded, humanistic sci-fi show... )
I think we the fans rightfully love the rich history of Star Trek. I honestly think the problem is that this rich history intimidates (and frankly causes distain) amongst modern writers who want to do their own thing and be unburdened from all that. So, as a result, you see more effort put into creating scenarios and situations where the canon doesn't matter (see also: 31st Century, Kelvinverse, etc) or semi-ignoring it (Strange New Worlds, S1 S2 Discovery) than actually creating excellent science fiction stories within that universe.
At the end of it all, I'd rather see high-quality thoughtful and fun science fiction stories than suffer through the contortions the franchise seems to put itself through recently to avoid needing to understand canon. That's why I tend to lean (ever so slightly) towards "do away with it all and start again."
What absolutely fucking annoys me to no end - is that the current producers & writers talk so much about how canon constraints them, so much so that they shift timelines (ST09) or centuries (DIS/SFA) to escape canon.
And then they go out and exclusively tell stories about Klingons, Spock, the Gorn and fucking Betazoids.
Like what the fuck?
If they would just invent NEW antagonists (you know, like all the 90s shows did all the time, when they introduced Cardassians, Borg, Jem'Hadar, Hirogen, Xindi, etc etc) or characters & species (like Saru - the ONE new major alien they invented in the last 4 shows!) - they wouldn't have any fucking canon problems at all!
New species. First contact. Go from there.
The current crop is completely dumbfounded and hamstrung by canon, and it's a completely self-inflicted problem!
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I think the art of writing good science fiction is not necessarily in the writing room/producer inventory, currently. That doesn't mean they are not capable of good stories, good drama, good characters.....but the actual science fiction elements are what makes Star Trek different from NCIS, One Tree Hill or Chicago MD. If you can't credibly and confidently build upon a science fiction universe set in the wonders of outer space (complete with new species, first contacts, etc), it's going to be really hard to create excellent Star Trek.
Yes. I blame superhero movies. Because sci-fi elements are now super mainstream (everyone has laser guns now), but sci-fi stories are as rare as ever.
Most superhero stories are villain-centric stories, even if they take place on spaceships (like GotG). And that's what most current media is about.
Whereas really good sci-fi stories are often puzzle-centric, where the characters need to solve a unique problem (a diplomatic, technological or scientific one, or a "human" one, like surviving, getting back home, making peace, solving that robot murder mystery etc.)
That's just incredibly rare now anywhere, even if we see laserguns and alien monsters in every 2nd Hollywood production.
Because they think people want, or maybe people do want spectacle, not speculation.
Given how people respond to ambiguous story telling speculation seems verboten and many just want clear answers.
Not just that. Humans are incredible (para-) social creatures. So viewers clicking with the characters & actors are the main predictor of success or failure for a tv show.
And nuTrek isn't actually bad at this? Like all the shows have fantastic, charismatic actors, that shine even in the most cringe scenes (cough SFA), and it's quite obvious that they all had a really good time making these productions.
But for all these shows the main complaint seems "bad writing", which for me boils down to there's just no "meat" to these stories. And all the great production and character moments (often better than "old Trek") can't compensate for this, because in sci-fi, that also is at the core of all things.
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