It's Just Too Danged Easy

[Carpe Occasio]

Following are excerpts from an article on Sci-Fi Wire (or SyFy Wire) that mirror my sentiments (that I've posted before) about time travel in Star Trek, specifically in STXI. Like the author of the article, I liked the movie, but...


"...It's just too danged easy.

For Star Trek especially, flinging yourself into the past seems to be about as difficult as catching a subway from Oakland to Starfleet HQ in downtown San Francisco. Every starship seems to have an extra "time leap" button on the control panel, to the right of "impulse power" and "warp factor," much as the hot cars in the original Fast and Furious had a special button for nitrous oxide.

I know the value of skipping the pseudo-science lecture, where the writer shows her variation on the theory and practice of time travel (title of an excellent essay by Larry Niven, by the way). But it would be more dramatic and, to this viewer, more creatively satisfying if we had some idea of the immense difficulty involved in going backward from 2175 to 1984.

Isn't that one of the core truths of drama? That the larger and more terrifying the challenge, the more satisfying the resolution?

...Time-travel stories have become the empty calories of sci-fi storytelling.

So, much in the vein of an overstuffed customer stumbling away from a Krispy Kreme in sugar shock, I'm calling for a "time out" on time-travel stories. Not a permanent ban. Just a season off."


Amen. Let's hope that Star Trek XII doesn't involve yet another time travel based storyline (and no rehash of Khan either).

It's time for something really new.



http://scifiwire.com/2009/07/columnist-michael-cassutt-4.php#more

 

[Gojira]

Time Travel stories in any science fiction franchise are always my favorite.

But I have to agree I think Star Trek needs to give time travel a rest.

 

[Carpe Occasio]

Time Travel stories in any science fiction franchise are always my favorite.

But I have to agree I think Star Trek needs to give time travel a rest.

Same here. I love time travel stories, but not all the time.

 

[Royal Fizzbin]

Every starship seems to have an extra "time leap" button on the control panel, to the right of "impulse power" and "warp factor,"

And just above "Mode Select".

 

[cbspock]

I agree, time travel is over used on Trek. It became a story telling crutch. I want to see something new.


-Chris

 

[trampledamage]

At least this time travel didn't come with a reset - although that fact seems to have annoyed as many people as it pleased!

 

[davejames]

I didn't get the impression there was anything "easy" about the time travel in this movie. It was the completely unintentional result of Spock and Nero getting sucked into a black hole, which then deposited them into another universe-- something that's been theorized about black holes for a while now.

Frankly I found that a lot more plausible than the slingshot around the sun in TVH, or the neutron star that magically through the Enterprise into Earth's orbit in Tomorrow is Yesterday.

 

[Carpe Occasio]

I didn't get the impression there was anything "easy" about the time travel in this movie. It was the completely unintentional result of Spock and Nero getting sucked into a black hole.

Frankly I found that a lot more plausible than the slingshot around the sun in TVH, or the neutron star that magically through the Enterprise into Earth's orbit in Tomorrow is Yesterday.

I think the "easy" part came from the fact that it just happened. It wasn't a result of great effort, it was just a convenient (to the storyline) event. A black hole allowed for time travel without crushing or otherwise destroying everything.

 

[Bertie]

Yep. There's no doubt that time travel figures disproportionately high in this franchise's very best stories, but the last really exceptional time travel episode was probably DS9: "The Visitor", and that was a long time ago. Since that point, there's been a few decent time travel stories and a lot of "blah".

In particular, time travel really wrecked ENT for me during its first run — on the one hand, it was an attempt to add a certain dramatic uncertainty to a prequel that otherwise wouldn't be there, but on the other hand treating the whole continuity as something can be trivially overthrown was problematic.

(Although, it should be noted, that "easy" time travel isn't new — it couldn't get any easier than TOS: "Assignment: Earth".

 

[Jeri]

At least this time travel didn't come with a reset - although that fact seems to have annoyed as many people as it pleased!

Boy, truer words were never spoken.

As Freud famously posited: "What do Star Trek fans WANT?"

 

[Peter the Younger]

Yep. There's no doubt that time travel figures disproportionately high in this franchise's very best stories, but the last really exceptional time travel episode was probably DS9: "The Visitor", and that was a long time ago. Since that point, there's been a few decent time travel stories and a lot of "blah".

In particular, time travel really wrecked ENT for me during its first run — on the one hand, it was an attempt to add a certain dramatic uncertainty to a prequel that otherwise wouldn't be there, but on the other hand treating the whole continuity as something can be trivially overthrown was problematic.

(Although, it should be noted, that "easy" time travel isn't new — it couldn't get any easier than TOS: "Assignment: Earth".

I agree. In ENT, time travel was treated as a kewl toy for the writers to employ when they needed something to drive the plot. But the real consequences of repeated time travel were never explored in any intelligent way, even though there are dozens of examples in SF literature - hell, in other TV shows - they could have cribbed from.

But ironically, everything I hated about old Trek's time travel is why I loved how they handled it in ST09. First, it wasn't easy, it was extremely difficult and dangerous and unpredictable (yes, it's also inconsistent with past episodes, but we've beaten that one to death; you either accept the change or you don't.) More importantly, the multi-worlds interpretation effectively banishes all the silly contrivances of previous time travel scenarios: unresolved paradoxes, temporal waves, arrogant presumptions about the "correct" timeline. There's no reason for any of that now, because what happened, happened, it just happened somewhere else. The new Trek makes this point so clearly, it's hard to see how the franchise will regress into "we must stop the 29th century from preventing the future of the 32nd century or this big distortion effect will re-arrange all of us and change our uniforms!"

 

[RobertScorpio]

Time Travel stories in any science fiction franchise are always my favorite.

But I have to agree I think Star Trek needs to give time travel a rest.

I don't care if they have TIME TRAVEL or not; AS LONG AS IT IS TOLD WELL. And this one was, IMO. So when I read articles, like the one the OP quoted, I can only shake my head. The movie was a hit..a big hit...and it was fun and did exactly what it set out to do; make the HIP factor go up.

Star Trek fans should be happy...not sad about THAT turn of event.

Oh..and when I read articles going into the science of Time Travel, and fans fighting back and forth whether or not it can happen, I just laugh at the crazy talk between both sides. ITS A FRICKNIG MOVIE!!!

Oh well...

Rob

 

[davejames]

I didn't get the impression there was anything "easy" about the time travel in this movie. It was the completely unintentional result of Spock and Nero getting sucked into a black hole.

Frankly I found that a lot more plausible than the slingshot around the sun in TVH, or the neutron star that magically through the Enterprise into Earth's orbit in Tomorrow is Yesterday.

I think the "easy" part came from the fact that it just happened. It wasn't a result of great effort, it was just a convenient (to the storyline) event. A black hole allowed for time travel without crushing or otherwise destroying everything.

Yeah I suppose. But I think they established well enough that this wasn't your standard black hole, and that it might operate differently than usual.

Now the whole "Nero holding a grudge because Spock didn't stop the supernova from destroying Romulus" backstory that led UP to it I still find to be pretty weak-- but the black hole and time travel itself, I'm perfectly okay with.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I didn't get the impression there was anything "easy" about the time travel in this movie. It was the completely unintentional result of Spock and Nero getting sucked into a black hole.

Frankly I found that a lot more plausible than the slingshot around the sun in TVH, or the neutron star that magically through the Enterprise into Earth's orbit in Tomorrow is Yesterday.

I think the "easy" part came from the fact that it just happened. It wasn't a result of great effort, it was just a convenient (to the storyline) event. A black hole allowed for time travel without crushing or otherwise destroying everything.

Yeah I suppose. But I think they established well enough that this wasn't your standard black hole, and that it might operate differently than usual.

Now the whole "Nero holding a grudge because Spock didn't stop the supernova from destroying Romulus" backstory that led UP to it I still find to be pretty weak-- but the black hole and time travel itself, I'm perfectly okay with.

I have no problem with Nero's beef with Spock. If you were off Earth and it was utterly destroyed (all 4 billion dead) you might find the smallest reason to blame someone for it..and that is what he did..and I would do too.

Rob

 

[EnsignRicky]

Especially when you know how.

 

[EnsignRicky]

Time travel is fun.

 

[SalvorHardin]

Time travel is fun.

It would be if one of those damn time travelers shared next week's lottery numbers

 

[Jeri]

It never really worked that way on Early Edition either.

 

[Blue_Trek]

It may be easy, but it is an integral part of all the Star Trek series and movies. It's like saying you don't want lightsabres in Star Wars.

So tough cookies, live with it.

Or not, and don't be a fan anymore.

This is such a non-issue with me.

 

[soot]

But it would be more dramatic and, to this viewer, more creatively satisfying if we had some idea of the immense difficulty involved in going backward from 2175 to 1984.

Isn't that one of the core truths of drama? That the larger and more terrifying the challenge, the more satisfying the resolution?

I don't understand the reasoning here. Time travel wasn't the challenge of the movie. It didn't even really happen on screen. The challange of the movie was confronting this huge terror from the future. How the terror got to be here was unimportant.

My instinct is to agree with the idea that time travel is overused in Trek, but there's no inherent reason why it needs to be difficult. No one complains that space travel is too easy, they just accept that the challenge is what happens *after* you get to where you're going.