BalthierTheGreat said:
So they changed the uniforms. I think you're placing way to much emphasis on the color of the pants Kirk wears.
The essence of Trek wasn't having Kirk in the right uniform, or not changing the set. The idea is exploration. I'd be far more inclined to call XI a reboot if it lacked the science fictiony goodness of TOS. Somehow all of this got backwards and Trek is only Trek for having the right look. Trek is Trek if it has the Trek nature. It would have been Trek if they made the TNG actors act nude on an empty set. What matters is the content, not the dressing.
I don't think you understand what's being said.
Those of us who've suggested the movie will be at least a type of reboot (possibly meaning to change the look only, but holding to all plotlines we know from the original timeline) aren't saying the movie won't be true to the "spirit" of Trek.
What we're saying is that Trek has always had an established history.
Everything followed what came before. Even ENTERPRISE addressed the seeming discontinuity of Klingon appearance, finally ironing out the one real wrinkle in continuity there was.
If we saw a glimpse back to an earlier Trek era, we saw EXACTLY what we'd seen before. It all matched.
What's happening here is like having a stage play where different actors play the characters with each new act, but they're not supposed to be a different age.
More than that, the sets keep being redesigned, us seeing several different versions of the same room, none of them looking like one another. Again, there not being any significant passage of time in the story.
You'd never accept it. You wouldn't know who was talking to who, and even if they used one another's names while talking, you couldn't be sure if this was the same "Mike and Betty" as you saw in the last act, or if this was a different couple. The changes in the sets would also have you wondering "where are they?", it not being clear that this is supposed to be the same room.
You'd never accept it as "sane" theater. You'd wonder just what these people were doing, and if this was some sort of bizarre "art" piece.
In Trek XI, we can easilly accept the new faces. This is an earlier time in the lives of Kirk, Spock, etc. We understand there have to be younger actors playing them.
To change the appearance of the ship, the uniforms, etc., however, is to change the anchor. We KNOW what the TOS era looked like, and now JJ seems to be telling us "No you don't...but this IS the same era."
In my own thread, I compared this to SUPERMAN RETURNS. Supposedly, Singer intends this to be a sequel to the first two films starring Chris Reeve as Clark/Superman. While some things look different (and it's implied they always have...the costume, for example), the EVENTS of the first two films are what's being held on to. Not the look, but the plot/story/continuity.
It seems that dispite Team Trek's promising us that XI does indeed take place in the same continuity we've always known, their changing the look of EVERYTHING says very plainly it does NOT.
The closest we can come is to view XI as a parallel universe. Maybe a later film with this cast will take place during the five year mission, and make references to things we saw during the series. If this happens, it'll plainly suggest that the STORIES we know are sill valid, but for THIS Kirk and Spock, the things seen in those stories by us LOOKED different than we remember.
Again, it seems the best we're going to have with XI is a very similar parallel universe to "our" TOS.
I don't like that they're changing things, but if it works one way, it can work the other way too.
We might be able to well imagine that while the new Kirk and Spock with their nu-look Enterprise are having various adventures in this and any later films, "our" Kirk and Spock had the very same adventures, but with the ship, uniforms, and equipment that we know from the original series.
Quality of film-making or story-telling isn't what this is all about.
It's simply a matter of things looking different, and the production thus PROVING itself to not be the same universe/continuity we've always known.
It seems CBS/Paramount and JJ have decided to disconnect from "our" Kirk and Spock and their reality, and show us something else.
Okay. Maybe it'll still be a sort of "Star Trek", but it won't be the same, despite claiming to be.