Of Canon, intellectualism and Morality

[Peter the Younger]

And it doesn't seem to you that it's a bit odd that the flagship of the Federation is crewed ENTIRELY BY 17-23 year old CADETS? I understand it is an emergency and all, but was every experienced officer in Starfleet except for Pike and Spock was away on business or something? Yet another absolutely silly plot contrivance. Even in TWoK, when the Enterprise was on a training mission specifically desined for cadets, there were still a full staff of adults around to take charge when things went haywire.

It isn't all 17-23 year old cadets. Spock and Scotty are both experienced officers, and McCoy is an experienced doctor who was commissioned at a higher rank in recognition of that. It should also be noted that Starfleet ranks clearly don't work like military ranks - no 17 year old get a comission in the modern Navy no matter how smart he is, but Chekov isn't even the first example of this in Trek.

I won't argue with you about the silliness of Kirk's meteoric rise through the ranks - it does strain credulity, and while I understand why they did it (the studio no doubt wanted "Captain Kirk" by the end of the movie, not "Ensign Kirk" or even "Lt. Kirk"), I think they should have given the audience a little credit, and left Pike in command with Spock and Kirk serving under him.

Having said all that, it didn't ruin the movie for me, because I didn't let it. It isn't worth getting that upset about.

 

[candle_86]

agreed, Kirk as captain in 2258 doesnt make sense. He graduated in 2258 from the acadamey and didnt take command of the Enterprise to 2266 and even then thats fast.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

The "it's popular so it's washed down for the masses, who are dumb" is what gets me the most. What's so bad about something we love becoming loved by more people? It's a good thing, guys.

What bothers me is the implication that, back in the day, Star trek was some amazing type of intellectual story-telling beyond the ken of mere mortals. It was a TV show. And not even that groundbreaking a TV show, judging by the internal NBC memos that show they were the ones pushing for diversity and a lot of the stuff that people attribute solely to Roddenberry's influence. Methinks some folks around here bought into GR's self-hype a little too fully.

Good points abot GR's self-promoting bullshit but one need only look at the state of SF tv in the decades before and the decades after to see that Trek took its science fiction millieu more seriously than Lost in Space, Battlestar Galactica TOS, Buck Rogers, etc. The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits could be pretty serious and thought-provoking but they were anthology shows which never asked for the kind of investment Star Trek did. Some of us are gonna be a little miffed to see all that tossed out in favor of bubblegum silliness--I fully expected I would.

 

[Ovation]

The "it's popular so it's washed down for the masses, who are dumb" is what gets me the most. What's so bad about something we love becoming loved by more people? It's a good thing, guys.

What bothers me is the implication that, back in the day, Star trek was some amazing type of intellectual story-telling beyond the ken of mere mortals. It was a TV show. And not even that groundbreaking a TV show, judging by the internal NBC memos that show they were the ones pushing for diversity and a lot of the stuff that people attribute solely to Roddenberry's influence. Methinks some folks around here bought into GR's self-hype a little too fully.

This cannot be overstated. The "cult of Roddenberry" is, at times, a bit scary.

Onto the thread title and its topic:

TOS "violated" its own "canon/continuity" on a regular basis (and no, 40 years of "fanon" rationalizations do NOT make those go away). A few episodes of all of Trek were noticeably more thought-provoking than other quality television shows (I've seen them all, at least twice, most many more times than that--I'm hard-pressed to think of a dozen out of 700, though). And the "moral lessons" of Star Trek were NEVER "deep" or "complex". That is one of the worst exaggerations by some from the nostalgic set (I'm from the "nostalgic set" as well--been watching since 1973--but until I came to the this board a few years ago, I really thought people stopped believing Trek had "deep" and "complex" morality lessons by the time they reached middle to late adolesence, if not earlier). Oh, the "lessons" were there. No doubt about that--not a majority of the time, but a significant portion of it. But hardly challenging or complex.

In another thread, someone argued that those of us who like the movie were projecting qualities that are not actually in the film owing to our long association with Trek by way of implying a lack of objectivity in our assessment of the film. If true, the reverse also clearly applies. A number of people who dislike the film berate it for lacking qualities that, frankly, were either also absent in the original or, at best, far less significant than nostalgia has come to make them.

People can argue the merits of the film as a film (quite apart from it being Trek) and come away with legitimate differences of opinion. People can argue whether the film is "Trek" as they understand it, also with legitimate differences of opinion (though, in this case, each side of the debate frequently forgets to include a qualifying statement to indicate "as they understand it"--instead they make claims about "any true fan", etc. and presume to speak for all. Some of that can be blamed on the "heat of the moment" exchanges (to which I'll cop one or two instances), but in some cases, it is far beyond that). But people cannot (and should not) attempt to define for anyone but themselves whether the new film (or any element of Trek, really) is "real Trek" for anyone other than themselves.

In the end, it is just a movie, just like all of Star Trek is just entertainment. Anything anyone gets out of it beyond that is a coincidental byproduct, not its main design. Star Trek (the franchise, in its 40+ year history) is and always has been a commercial entertainment product, with varying levels of quality. It doesn't "owe" anything to anyone beyond providing a product for which one has paid. The audience has the right to be pleased or displeased (to whatever degree applies individually) and that's it.

 

[Thrawn]

In another thread, someone argued that those of us who like the movie were projecting qualities that are not actually in the film owing to our long association with Trek by way of implying a lack of objectivity in our assessment of the film. If true, the reverse also clearly applies. A number of people who dislike the film berate it for lacking qualities that, frankly, were either also absent in the original or, at best, far less significant than nostalgia has come to make them.

Quoted. For. Truth.

 

[Jamie H]

And it doesn't seem to you that it's a bit odd that the flagship of the Federation is crewed ENTIRELY BY 17-23 year old CADETS? I understand it is an emergency and all, but was every experienced officer in Starfleet except for Pike and Spock was away on business or something? Yet another absolutely silly plot contrivance. Even in TWoK, when the Enterprise was on a training mission specifically desined for cadets, there were still a full staff of adults around to take charge when things went haywire.

It isn't all 17-23 year old cadets. Spock and Scotty are both experienced officers, and McCoy is an experienced doctor who was commissioned at a higher rank in recognition of that. It should also be noted that Starfleet ranks clearly don't work like military ranks - no 17 year old get a comission in the modern Navy no matter how smart he is, but Chekov isn't even the first example of this in Trek.

I already mentioned that Spock was the only adult other than Pike on the ship. I don't see how you can count Scotty. He wasn't even supposed to be on the ship!

McCoy is about the only believable case--if you are an experienced doctor and the main doctor is killed, it is reasonable to assume you might take over, regardless of how long you've been in the military.

I wouldn't have minded 17-year-old Chekov if he were one child savant among a ship of adults. But they seem to have crewed the entire ship either with 22 year olds or with adults so inept that they are relieved of their posts within 5 mintues to be replaced by the wunderkids.

I would have been nice to see some actual story here rather than wunderkid-trek-powers-activate! Form of, an entire bridge crew!

 

[Greg Cox]

In another thread, someone argued that those of us who like the movie were projecting qualities that are not actually in the film owing to our long association with Trek by way of implying a lack of objectivity in our assessment of the film. If true, the reverse also clearly applies. A number of people who dislike the film berate it for lacking qualities that, frankly, were either also absent in the original or, at best, far less significant than nostalgia has come to make them.

Quoted. For. Truth.

Indeed. That was very well put.