Justin Lin talks Trek 3

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Sounds good.

I also kinda want to see a movie poster with the words "from the director of Fast and Furious 7" on it.

You think, that would get more butts into seats? XD

 

[Mudd]

Yeah, I wanna see that - but not the "7;" Lin didn't direct that one. He's done so many they can just say "From the director of Fast & Furious."

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I'm with y'all. Make it known, proudly, not just in posters but in trailers and other marketing. And maybe put Pegg on a bit of a pedestal in some of the promos. You've got a Fast & Furious icon helming this thing, and you've also got writing credits from one of those fellows behind Shaun of the Dead and several other noteworthy projects. He's even performed admirably in the role of Scotty in those new Star Trek movies or whatever.

Then make sure there's a little heart, some strong comedic beats, and of course the requisite "gee, whiz" factor in the trailers, as well. That particular flavor combination is prime real estate right now, and I don't suspect things will have changed by this time next year.

 

[Mudd]

A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Right, right.

 

[Jeyl]

There are no aliens in Star Trek and never have been. There can't be. There are only characters created by human writers that are identified for story purposes as "aliens" and usually required to embody some subset of human motivation and behavior in order to make them seem distinct. In every case they are less than human because they're not permitted to exhibit a full range of human behavior.

When did Star Trek become this 'immersive free' thing all of a sudden? This isn't a discussion about how dimensional opinions and theories can be either true or untrue. We're talking about a science fiction franchise that takes place in a fictional universe where life outside of our planet exists. It's like going into a thread that's talking about the Starship Enterprise and telling everyone "There is no Enterprise and there never has been. It's only a model."

 

[Mudd]

No, it's not.

You're treating the notion of aliens as if they're substantial enough for Trek to be, in some valuable sense, "about them." That's nonsense. The portrayal of putative aliens is a storytelling prop, no different than the notion of faster-than-light travel, to enable the writers and actors to create a drama about human beings. To the extent that an alien character is interesting it's because that character is given human dimensions.

So yes, Star Trek is properly "about humanity," always has been, and as long as it's worth watching that's what it will be about. The proposition that "aliens" are somehow being given short shrift is preposterous and foolish.

TL;DR version:

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I really want that beautiful bastard back for Trek 4 Wrath.

 

[Mudd]

Oh, Khanberbatch must come back. Yes indeed-y.

 

[eyeresist]

It’s all new and fresh. The Klingons, Romulans and other species are great, but it’s time to go further. It has been fun to focus on creating whole new worlds and species.”

NOOOOO!!!!! He can't introduce any new species because if they weren't on TOS (or TAS or possibly TNG) they don't exist in this continuity! Bring back the Prime-Verse!!!

* The opinions in this post may not necessarily be my own...


This is heartening news. I became optimistic when I heard Pegg was on as writer, and more so when a director as talented as Lin came on board. This heartwarming story of Lin's childhood connection to Trek is just the icing on the cake.

In fact, perhaps the news is too good? Is there a danger STB will be a lame fan-film stuck in a 1960s sensibility?
(See *asterisk above.)


Regarding aliens, Trek has rarely or never dealt with other species in a radical, Solaris sort of way. Maybe it could, but so far that's not what Star Trek has been about.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

The aliens from ENT's "Silent Enemy" always kind of stick out in my head. Those folks are so goshdarn alien.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Cue years of threads, arguments and fanfic asking what would happen if these new aliens were encountered by Kirk Prime, Picard, Janeway or Sisko.

 

[Hythlodeus]

does new aliens necessarily mean new aliens or can it mean underused aliens too?
I'm asking for afriend with a Orion slave girl fetish

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I'm asking for afriend with a Orion slave girl fetish

 

[Malaika]

See? In a universe with a wide diversity of aliens.

There are no aliens in Star Trek and never have been. There can't be. There are only characters created by human writers that are identified for story purposes as "aliens" and usually required to embody some subset of human motivation and behavior in order to make them seem distinct. In every case they are less than human because they're not permitted to exhibit a full range of human behavior.

The Tholians, for example, are territorial and belligerent people - they exhibit no behavioral traits that are not human because human writers invent them to act in a dramatic story.

that's pretty much one of the 'problems' in trek (and every story with similar genre). In theory you have a fictional reality where humans are not supposed to be the default when it comes to the very concept of 'people' and thus everything should be relative (in that, for example, Spock isn't more alien than Uhura and Kirk and McCoy. Humans are themselves aliens to the vulcans, right?) but in practice, the humans are always the most prominent. Characters like Keenser who are less humanoid in look than Spock or the klingons or the andorians etc etc, are treated as the 'weird' thing (or more like Scotty's personal pet in this case) rather than people equal to the human characters.

It's difficult for writers to truly write about aliens and sometimes when they make the attempt the risk is that they make them too alien. That's because the writer IS human. He can write about elves and vampires and every kind of fantasy creature but they will always inevitably humanize them a bit, the same goes for the aliens.

But then, one could rationalize the aliens exhibiting 'human' traits as those being common traits of many different intelligent races/species who live in the space. So one could say that it's not that the aliens are like us, but rather we are like them and viceversa because perhaps we come from the same source (not talking about religion here) and had a similar evolution.

I think that ultimately, maybe everyone is human but also everyone is alien.

 

[Mudd]

One can rationalize it, but the point is that aliens can't be anything but human beings with exaggerated/de-emphasized characteristics. Apologies to Willie Wonka, but "pure imagination" doesn't exist - writers draw on experience to create characters; everything that exists in fiction is ultimately a recombination of what exists, some of it more novel than others.

I remember people talking when I was young about how awesome Larry Niven's aliens were - so I start reading him, and what he invariably does is select one or two human behavioral traits and carry them to one possible logical conclusion. Everything about Puppeteers grows from cowardice, for example. Protectors are aggressively parental and...well, protective (the Niven formula is really something like selecting a single trait and then motivating the character by a presumed-to-be-universal desire to control everything).

 

[Franklin]

"Of my friend, I can only say this: of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most human."

Seems an appropriate quote given the way the topic has gone.

 

[Mach5]

This interview appears almost too good to be true.

I do want some Klingons, though. STID did set up the tension between the Empire and the UFP, and it would be a pity if they just decided to abandon that story line entirely.

That sets up an opportunity for exploration and the deeper you go, the more you are examining humanity

Star Trek in a nutshell. The very essence if it.

 

[fireproof78]

One can rationalize it, but the point is that aliens can't be anything but human beings with exaggerated/de-emphasized characteristics. Apologies to Willie Wonka, but "pure imagination" doesn't exist - writers draw on experience to create characters; everything that exists in fiction is ultimately a recombination of what exists, some of it more novel than others.

I remember people talking when I was young about how awesome Larry Niven's aliens were - so I start reading him, and what he invariably does is select one or two human behavioral traits and carry them to one possible logical conclusion. Everything about Puppeteers grows from cowardice, for example. Protectors are aggressively parental and...well, protective (the Niven formula is really something like selecting a single trait and then motivating the character by a presumed-to-be-universal desire to control everything).

Precisely so. Even Tolkien, with his wonderful world building, still recognized that ultimately, his stories were about humans and how they respond to things. I can't recall the exact quote, but the essence of it was that his stories would eventually become about humans because that his how the reader identifies with the story and characters.

Even aliens will eventually have a trait that makes them more like us. Even Mr. Spock (who was even more logical and alien at first) is used commonly to illustrate one of Freud's concepts of personality (Freudian Trio, as the trope goes, apparently). If aliens are made more alien, then often times there is either a character who ascribes human motivation to it (bonus points if they are completely right) or they reveal something that we humans can identify with.

This is meant as no offensive to anyone, but Star Trek has shown some fairly alien life, only for it to have human characteristics (The Horta, for example).

I guess my point is that it isn't a bad thing. YMMV, I guess

 

[Malaika]

the aliens are an allegory about humanity.
Spock for example... he is that very introvert person who isn't able to express his feelings the way others do openly but it doesn't mean he doesn't feel. He could also be an allegory about asperger syndrome (Einstein and Mozart had it too)

truth is, even among the humans you have plenty of people with completely different personalities and cultures, we don't have a default human the way fiction seems to depict the aliens.