It's Just Too Danged Easy

[davejames]

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

I would definitely be angry and want to lash out at that instant, but ultimately I'd realize that "oh wait, Spock was actually trying to help save my planet and simply didn't get there in time." It's not like Spock had it in for Romulus, or the supernova was engineered to wipe out his planet or anything (at least the movie and comic never establish that as his rationale).

To be bitter is one thing, but to take it to the level he does-- wiping out Vulcan and dozens of Federation starships-- all because some some scientists weren't able to stop a huge freakin supernova fast enough?

Hell, even HE didn't get there fast enough to save his wife and children. So the supernova obviously caught everyone by surprise.

 

[Jeri]

"Spock! -- it'll work!"

(edit: ^ Hmm, I think you edited your post? so mine doesn't make sense anymore...)

 

[gimpy117]

yes but ususally they involve trying to fix the changing of time, not what would happen if it wasn't fixed...

 

[schatenjager]

I always find it interesting that people love to complain about time travel in Star Trek but then you look at the lists of the Best of Trek and they consistently feature the time travel stories near the top. Yesterday's Enterprise is probably one of the best single (not the cliffhanger season finales, IOW) episodes of that show. DS9's Trials and Tribbleations is widely seen as one of the best of that series and Year in Hell (Voyager) is considered, by some, to be the best of that series and it's a time travel story.

I don't remember the names of TOS episodes involving time travel but they are usually ranked pretty high up there too.

Star Trek, particularly in its earliest years, was meant to showcase modern people dealing with futuristic problems. Kirk wasn't a man from the future, he was "us", set in the future. Time Travel allowed him to go back and see "our world" as we knew it and that was exciting. The same thing happened later in the other series. Time Travel will always be a core part of Star Trek because, even though we'll complain about the mechanism, the inconsistencies, etc, it's what we want, historically, to see.

 

[Carpe Occasio]

I always find it interesting that people love to complain about time travel in Star Trek but then you look at the lists of the Best of Trek and they consistently feature the time travel stories near the top. Yesterday's Enterprise is probably one of the best single (not the cliffhanger season finales, IOW) episodes of that show. DS9's Trials and Tribbleations is widely seen as one of the best of that series and Year in Hell (Voyager) is considered, by some, to be the best of that series and it's a time travel story.

I don't remember the names of TOS episodes involving time travel but they are usually ranked pretty high up there too.

Star Trek, particularly in its earliest years, was meant to showcase modern people dealing with futuristic problems. Kirk wasn't a man from the future, he was "us", set in the future. Time Travel allowed him to go back and see "our world" as we knew it and that was exciting. The same thing happened later in the other series. Time Travel will always be a core part of Star Trek because, even though we'll complain about the mechanism, the inconsistencies, etc, it's what we want, historically, to see.

Yes, some of my favorite episodes contain time travel ('City on the Edge of Forever' & 'Trials and Tribbleations') and that's because I love time travel stories, but not all the time. Star Trek has made it a necessary requirement to advance just about every storyline. Too much of anything gets tiresome and boring.

 

[Jeri]

I don't remember the names of TOS episodes involving time travel but they are usually ranked pretty high up there too.

"City on the Edge of Forever" is usually at the top; it's a time travel.

 

[schatenjager]

Assignment:Earth and Tomorrow is Yesterday are another couple that are usually listed pretty highly. Heck, even Space Seed is sort of a time Travel Story (and by extension TWOK) if you consider travel into the future as time travel (That's basically what Khan did by sleeping for those hundreds of years).

I agree that it's used too much. I agree that it's seen as a convenient plot element that is thrown around way too easily...but we get what we ask for is my point.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Assignment:Earth and Tomorrow is Yesterday are another couple that are usually listed pretty highly. Heck, even Space Seed is sort of a time Travel Story (and by extension TWOK) if you consider travel into the future as time travel (That's basically what Khan did by sleeping for those hundreds of years).

I agree that it's used too much. I agree that it's seen as a convenient plot element that is thrown around way too easily...but we get what we ask for is my point.

oh Hooey..they are all good episodes and movies. And who cares? I think its more important that they entertain, dont you? And if they do then who cares?

I think this 'they do it too much' mantra is really small potatos and, thankfully, so did Harve Benette and JJ and, in some cases, Berman.

Rob

 

[Carpe Occasio]

Assignment:Earth and Tomorrow is Yesterday are another couple that are usually listed pretty highly. Heck, even Space Seed is sort of a time Travel Story (and by extension TWOK) if you consider travel into the future as time travel (That's basically what Khan did by sleeping for those hundreds of years).

I agree that it's used too much. I agree that it's seen as a convenient plot element that is thrown around way too easily...but we get what we ask for is my point.

oh Hooey..they are all good episodes and movies. And who cares? I think its more important that they entertain, dont you? And if they do then who cares?

I think this 'they do it too much' mantra is really small potatos and, thankfully, so did Harve Benette and JJ and, in some cases, Berman.

Rob

The things you like in life, the things you like to eat, the things you like to do, the places you like to go, you want to do them 24/7? You never get tired of anything? You never look to do or eat or go someplace new?

I'm just saying that time travel is overused. I didn't say ban it entirely, but how about something else to advance a storyline, something else to intrique us and keep us on the edge of our seats.

 

[EEE]

The things you like in life, the things you like to eat, the things you like to do, the places you like to go, you want to do them 24/7? You never get tired of anything? You never look to do or eat or go someplace new?

Pizza. I've never gotten tired of pizza. Never will.

 

[Aragorn]

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

Didn't they already have that on Voyager? It was in between the "reset" button and the "last-second technobabble solution" button, and right above the "self-important, self-indulgent, holodeck program" button.

 

[schatenjager]

Agreed, overdoing even a good thing isn't good. However, were I JJ Abrams or the guys that wrote the movie or even Paramount, and were I going to try and revamp the Star Trek franchise, and were I going to do in in a way that allowed me to bring in a whole new generation of people that weren't intimately familiar with every aspect of Trek lore going back for 40 years, I might want to go back to what really made Star Trek a great series in 1966-69.

How does one do that? If you were to just insert a new story into the classic era timeline, you'd have a lot of problems. One little line from the new Canon film might undue years of episodes. It would be a minefield.

Forget the old stuff altogether? You'd lose most of the audience right off the bat. I don't think there's enough interest in DS9 to sustain a feature picture. Enterprise would certainly not be suitable given that the majority of Trek Fans didn't like it on TV (most of the time, there are certainly fans). You can't introduce a whole new crew, new ship, new era on the big screen. It would take way too much introduction, exposition, etc to make it work. What does that leave you with? You either continue after the events of Insurrection (which almost everyone would agree is not the best plan, especially if you want to bring in a new audience) or you go back to the original crew.

That settled, how do you do that? You need to invent a story arc that lets you get back to that crew but also lets you play with the universe a bit...Oila! Parallel Universe.

Contrived? Yeah. Too heavy on the Time Travel stories? Yeah. They did exactly what they set out to do though. They got a whole new audience, kept a lot of the old fans (my daughter, son and I are perfect examples. They hated Trek before this recent film and last week sat down and watched 1 though 4 with me in order and loved it...the movies didn't change...so they must have). Maybe they had to use time travel and a contrived parallel universe to do it but they got it done.

Should they go back to Time Travel for the next film? Absolutely not. That means, perhaps unfortunately, no Shatner-Kirk. I very much want an original storyline. Throw a TOS character or two in there as an homage if you want. I'd love to see Harry Mudd wandering around but not as the main character. I don't want to see a Khan retread. I don't want more probes that were launched from earth in the 20th century returning to seek out their creators...

Personaly, I would like to see a good, knock-down battle movie with the Klingons but that's me.

 

[M'Sharak]

The things you like in life, the things you like to eat, the things you like to do, the places you like to go, you want to do them 24/7? You never get tired of anything? You never look to do or eat or go someplace new?

Pizza. I've never gotten tired of pizza. Never will.

That's different. Pizza is more awesome than time travel.

 

[Carpe Occasio]

...Personaly, I would like to see a good, knock-down battle movie with the Klingons but that's me.

Amen.

 

[Aragorn]

Pizza has been and always shall be your friend.

What does God need with a pizza?

I'm giving her all she's got, captain! She cannot take anymore toppings!

 

[Carpe Occasio]

Pizza has been and always shall be your friend.

What does God need with a pizza?

I'm giving her all she's got, captain! She cannot take anymore toppings!