Non-fans of TWoK....

[Chrisisall]

(Spock wouldn't mind-rape someone, please!)

That was kinda cool IMO, Valeris being a bitch & all- I'm a bad man...

that the sole reason Starfleet existed was to counter the threat of the Klingon Empire, and that if the Klingons weren't a threat, that Starfleet would be disbanded. That takes Bennett's stupid militarization of Starfleet to a retarded extreme - Starfleet is for EXPLORATION!! It is NOT a military!!

I TOTALLY agree here, it was crap, except for the character stuff- my ten-year old Son said as much!

 

[TOS Purist]

If even a ten-year old can see that ST6 was messed up...makes you wonder about the minds that made it!

Bringing up Valeris reminds me of Saavik, which reminds me of another retarded point about TWOK. Has anyone in the 20 years since TWOK came out realized that Saavik is a MALE Vulcan name? I mean, it goes without saying that Bennett didn't know squat about Star Trek and probably just had somebody modify Spock's name (because we all know that Spock is every Vulcan, right?) and slap it on the character. But female Vulcan names are supposed to have the "T" prefix, like T'Pring or T'Pau (and if you want to go non-canon, T'Pol), whereas only the men have names that start with "S."

 

[Chrisisall]

female Vulcan names are supposed to have the "T" prefix, like T'Pring or T'Pau "

LOL. S'Stupid.

 

[TOS Purist]

Yes, Bennett is very stupid.

 

[Maurice]

For TWOK, [Roddenberry] gave control of the entire genre over to Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer...

If by "gave" you mean "had control stripped from him by Paramount", then yes. And while genre is a very loose term for a category, I don' think Star Trek is a genre any more than Gunsmoke is. It's a specific franchise within the space opera/sci fi genres.

Those technicalities aside, I agree with the spirit of much of what you have to say.

 

[Therin of Andor]

TOS Kirk wouldn't have bastard children.

Perhaps the 23rd century didn't label people "bastards" simply because their parents did not marry?

Has anyone in the 20 years since TWOK came out realized that Saavik is a MALE Vulcan name?

Yes, the original character, from a different ST II proposal than the Khan proposal and the Genesis proposal, was "Dr Savik", a young male scientist. See "The Making of Star Trek II" by Alan Asherman.

But Saavik, the female, was a half-breed Romulan, born on an abandoned colony world, and not likely to have been brought up with a trendy, civilized Vulcan "T'" prefix. Perhaps this prefix signified that a Vulcan girl had been bonded at age seven?

 

[Pauln6]

Yeah I always thought that only bonded females got the T prefix and then presumably it's up to them whether they change their name if they only bond after they reach adulthood. Saavik wasn't born on Vulcan and may not have the same respect for their tradtions. Alternatively, she might simply have adopted a boy's name because she liked it. Aint no thang.

 

[TOS Purist]

If by "gave" you mean "had control stripped from him by Paramount", then yes. And while genre is a very loose term for a category, I don' think Star Trek is a genre any more than Gunsmoke is. It's a specific franchise within the space opera/sci fi genres.

Those technicalities aside, I agree with the spirit of much of what you have to say.

Well, you make a good point about Paramount taking control away from him. But he DID have final say over the matter of whether or not they could use his original property, at least as far as I know. Ultimately he picked the route that would get him money...I don't think he cared about Star Trek THAT much that he would have forbidden them from making another Trek movie, no matter how much they messed it up from his original vision. But the point remains that Bennett drew it far away from what Trek was supposed to be.

And by "genre," I did mean Star Trek as an entity. I know that it's really a term with broader meaning, but it was the closest word I could use.

 

[Warped9]

In fairness I don't GR had much choice in giving up direct creative control after TMP. Paramount was paying the freight and they're the ones who ultimately had final say over who would make the big decisions. After TMP GR was effectively relegated to being a creative consultant.

They didn't even really need him for TNG but TPTB likely felt it was a good PR move to involve him in order to win advance fan favour.

 

[TOS Purist]

Yeah, DS9Sega made the point about Paramount taking control away from GR. Although it's kind of GR's fault, in a way...if he had stayed true to the spirit of TOS in TMP instead of throwing it out in favour of copying "2001," Paramount would have trusted GR with being in charge of another film.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

They didn't even really need him for TNG but TPTB likely felt it was a good PR move to involve him in order to win advance fan favour.

And he was their FOURTH choice after Nimoy, after Bennett, and after Greg Strangis.

 

[Joker]

Yeah, DS9Sega made the point about Paramount taking control away from GR. Although it's kind of GR's fault, in a way...if he had stayed true to the spirit of TOS in TMP instead of throwing it out in favour of copying "2001," Paramount would have trusted GR with being in charge of another film.

Uh.. no.

 

[Psion]

For TWOK, [Roddenberry] gave control of the entire genre over to Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer...

If by "gave" you mean "had control stripped from him by Paramount", then yes. And while genre is a very loose term for a category, I don' think Star Trek is a genre any more than Gunsmoke is. It's a specific franchise within the space opera/sci fi genres.

Those technicalities aside, I agree with the spirit of much of what you have to say.

How about "sub-genre"? After all, there are several different franchises involved -- at least according to Paramount's way of handling things. And going by the different series, it could be about life on a space station, life on a starship, or even about life in one of three different eras.

 

[trevanian]

Yeah, DS9Sega made the point about Paramount taking control away from GR. Although it's kind of GR's fault, in a way...if he had stayed true to the spirit of TOS in TMP instead of throwing it out in favour of copying "2001," Paramount would have trusted GR with being in charge of another film.

Uh.. no.

Maybe. But he'd have had to bring it in on first revised budget to keep that trust. Which means Katz and all the folks who were supposed to be watching Abel (and apparently were NOT) would have had to be protecting GR's interests ... and apparently they were not.

 

[Maurice]

Paramount didn't need Roddenberry's blessing. He sold of his rights to Star Trek to them in the 1970s. As such, he had no legal say-so on any matters re the films. It was only when he was brought in for TNG that he again had some creative control.

 

[TOS Purist]

Here we are debating the specifics of exactly HOW the control went from Roddenberry to Bennett, but that was never really my point in my overly long post...my point was that it was indeed given to someone else who reinvented it until it can't even really be considered Star Trek.

 

[Chrisisall]

Here we are debating the specifics of exactly HOW the control went from Roddenberry to Bennett, but that was never really my point in my overly long post...my point was that it was indeed given to someone else who reinvented it until it can't even really be considered Star Trek.

Bottom line: If Roddenberry did not write or produce it, it's just expensive fan fiction. Some good, some not so.

 

[Warped9]

I could point to a lot of nitpicky things I don't like about TWoK, but what really disappoints me is its "baby with the bath water approach."

The flaws with TMP were easy to fix. It would have been a matter of fine tuning. Instead Bennett and Meyer just threw everything away and remade it to their liking.

 

[TOS Purist]

Bottom line: If Roddenberry did not write or produce it, it's just expensive fan fiction. Some good, some not so.

Extremely well put...I hadn't thought of it in exactly that way but it actually fits really well. I'm going to borrow that phrase from now on, if you don't mind!

The flaws with TMP were easy to fix. It would have been a matter of fine tuning. Instead Bennett and Meyer just threw everything away and remade it to their liking.

Damn!! I'm definately going to borrow THAT one too, if you don't mind!

 

[Chrisisall]

Bennett and Meyer just threw everything away and remade it to their liking.

Yeah, their intentions were okay, but their understanding of the source material was flawed, and in error.
I wished they had executed their prime function.
Heh.