That's too bad. I thought it was a great passing the torch from TOS to TNG (about the Klingons & Federation)
Post-Trek XI Comments
- Thread starter darkshadow0001
- Start date
That's too bad. I thought it was a great passing the torch from TOS to TNG (about the Klingons & Federation)
To compare the remakes of Batman to Star Trek is like comparing apples to oranges. the correct analogy would be 1978 Battlestar Galactica to the current one. Both are completely dissimilar and non-canon to each other respectively. When Batman gets remade, its previous films become unrelated to the current ones. For example, the Clooney version and the Michael Keaton versions are completely seperate in terms of technological advancements , actor playing the character, and how Gotham City is perceived. As a result, what either does in their respective films doesn't represent the canon in the other. In regards to the Star Trek franchise, what one movie or show does will affect the entire franchise. Over time, these inconsistancies do build up to corrupt everything. The problem with a retrospective series (Enterprise) is that there is a limit in terms of the technology and that the actions of that series will have an effect on the canon of newer series. Another example of canon inconsistency is when Scotty is left in the Genolan transporter buffer for 75 yrs. When he is rescued by the TNG Enterprise, he assumes that Kirk has gotten the Ent-A out of mothballs and has come to his rescue. But since he was on Ent-B in Generations, he should know that Kirk is dead and that there is more than one Enterprise. Errors like these turn off viewers and fans. If the errors are big enough (like the beer brewery and the jumbo Nacelles on eleventh Star trek film to be released) fans will turn off. Trekkies and Trekkers will divide into accepting this eleventh film as canon or a non-canon remake. I personally feel that this is a non-canon remake.
The problem with Star Trek has been that they have been cannibalizing previous strong stories with weak politically correct ones. What TNG failed to do was to place the characters in real positions of facing the challenges of human life that we face now. What makes TOS great was that the stories dealt with issues that mankind faced then (the 1960's) with the Cold War, equality for all , justice, liberty, and the belief in democracy. The new film is simply cannibalizing the Star Trek name and trying to milk the franchise for every last drop it has left. If there was any creativity left in Paramount, they would do a wide brainstorming among its fans and general public to build up story base to constitute a new series. They need to go back to the 2270's and tell the stories of other ships and their stories. They need strong captains who aren't afraid of what's out there. They have got to stop with this notion that the Federation is this great Utopia. They need to show the grit and roughness that TOS showed. Unless they fill in the gaps of the Enterprise B and C, there should be no more ships named Enterprise. Let the legacy of this great NCC-1701 and 1701-A remain with respect and honor.
The problem with Star Trek has been that they have been cannibalizing previous strong stories with weak politically correct ones. What TNG failed to do was to place the characters in real positions of facing the challenges of human life that we face now. What makes TOS great was that the stories dealt with issues that mankind faced then (the 1960's) with the Cold War, equality for all , justice, liberty, and the belief in democracy. The new film is simply cannibalizing the Star Trek name and trying to milk the franchise for every last drop it has left. If there was any creativity left in Paramount, they would do a wide brainstorming among its fans and general public to build up story base to constitute a new series. They need to go back to the 2270's and tell the stories of other ships and their stories. They need strong captains who aren't afraid of what's out there. They have got to stop with this notion that the Federation is this great Utopia. They need to show the grit and roughness that TOS showed. Unless they fill in the gaps of the Enterprise B and C, there should be no more ships named Enterprise. Let the legacy of this great NCC-1701 and 1701-A remain with respect and honor.
Then again, TAS elements have worked their way in. The name of Koloth's ship in "Trials and Tribble-ations" comes from TAS' "Time Trap"; and TOS-R has both a Federation freighter design and a Vulcan city landscape that originate in TAS, IIRC.
Yep, and then those elements become canon.
OTOH, if the live action shows and movies contradict something that's long-assumed or established in a book, cartoon, "fanon" or whatever - like, say, if they eliminate Robert April from the lineage of Enterprise captains in the new movie - then the non-canon detail goes into the dumper.
Until or unless they then add the contradictory element in someplace else later - "canon" does not mean "consistent" in any sense.
OTOH, if the live action shows and movies contradict something that's long-assumed or established in a book, cartoon, "fanon" or whatever - like, say, if they eliminate Robert April from the lineage of Enterprise captains in the new movie - then the non-canon detail goes into the dumper.
Until or unless they then add the contradictory element in someplace else later - "canon" does not mean "consistent" in any sense.
Personally I think it's going to be interesting to see. I saw it happen with the new Rob Zombie:Halloween remake, and I was on the side of the fence that the original Halloween was a masterpiece and should never be messed with. That the bastardized Shatner mask that the original Myers wore was "The" face of Myers and should never be messed with. That the actor Nick Castle moved slowly and with precision and that he was always in the background watching. It was creepy, I still find it creepy. Then the new movie/remake came out and Myers is this giant hulk of a man, bashing and crashing his way through stuff like some unstoppable juggernaut. Wearing a white mask didn't make him Myers to me. But then something happened. I stopped being a diehard fan and just watched the movie and tried to pretend I knew nothing about the history of the character or the other 8 movies that were made. And I found it was a pretty good scary movie. Myers was brutal yes, but I realized that todays audience really needed that level of brutality to be scared. The old Halloween movie just does not scare teenagers today. It's too slow for them, they have no patience for suspense. But the cool thing was, it brought in a ton of new fans who loved that movie, and wanted to watch all the old movies and collect masks and dolls, and it really brought new life to the franchise.
Then a year ago the same thing happened with the Transformers movie. But this time I was on the other side of the fence. I hadn't paid any attention to transformers since 1986-87. I was laughing when I first heard they made a Transformers movie. When I went to the theatre and saw the words, 'HASBRO' up on the screen, I laughed out loud.
2 hours later I was standing in Target trying to find a Bumblebee and a Barricade toy. Completely blown away by these giant metal robots that kicked ass and turned into vehicles. A year later I've got probably 150 of the little plastic guys.
Of course I had to go back and get all the original cartoons, learn about all the other series that they'd made, (Beast Wars what? Optimus Prime is a Gorilla? WTF?) And I watched all the cartoons, really enjoyed some of them, others not so much. But my point is I joined a few messageboards to learn more about Transformers, and all I saw on those boards was insane fighting. "The original Prime is the best, and nothing else is Prime." "The Gorilla/Optimus Primal is Prime, and nothing else is Prime" then you've got the new fans, "The new awesome realistic Prime is Prime and everything else is old and cheesy."
Huge fights, all the time, to the point where I finally found one board where the people were cool and didn't fight too much.
But my point is, all the old time fans had to get use to new fans, and they hated it. They felt like something had been stolen from them, they were angry. And the only reason I was able to understand what was happening was because I'd just gone through it myself with the Halloween remake.
Eventually old fans have to realize that the new movies are actually the best thing that could happen to their beloved series. Transformers are bigger then ever now, and the fan base is bigger then ever. Because of that there are new TF cartoons being made, many many new toys being made, a second movie being made, and everybody wins.
To some people, long time older fans, we have to grow up and just accept that what we love is the past. It's never going to happen again. Ever. Optimus Prime is never going to be that square truck with a grey cab, (G1 fans), or a big black Gorilla, (Beast Wars fans), that's just life. To a whole generation of kids and teens now, Optimus Prime for them will forever be the big red and blue semi with the flames painted on it. Same with me and Halloween, Michael Myers is never going to be Nick Castle wearing a painted William Shatner mask, now he's a huge guy with a rotted mask that vaguely resembles the original mask.
So when Star Trek XI comes out, to alot of people that's going to be Star Trek 1. They're either not gonna care about the old stuff and Shatner, or they're just going to pretend it doesn't exist and this is "their" Star Trek now. Everything else is just "old."
However, alot of those new fans are going to go back, buy the dvds for TOS, TNG, etc. etc. and they're going to fall in love with the mythos of the Star Trek universe. There's going to be new toys and all kinds of cool stuff. (Personally I can't wait to get my hands on a toy of the Enterprise and a Spock and Kirk figure.)
My point is, you guys who are long time fans are in for one of the most exiting times, you're going to see your beloved Star Trek blossom into something big that you probably never thought you'd see. Now I really, really like Star Trek. I watched all TOS with my Uncle when I was a kid, and growing up I hung on every episode of TNG (had a serious crush on Troi too.) I admit by the time I was a teenager I didn't pay any attention to DS9 or Voyager, however I did watch all of Enterprise and throughly enjoyed it. But I'm not a huge Trek fan, I don't have the numbers and classes of all the ships memorized, I can't remember the names of all the episodes. I just enjoy the characters, enjoy that universe, and basically I just enjoy my time that I get to spend in that universe. But I'm really, really looking forward to this new movie. I must have watched the trailer 10 times by now.
And in talking about it with other people, people I know that never liked Star Trek are looking forward to the movie because the trailer is very exciting and action packed, it's not what they thought Star Trek was and now they're looking forward to it.
Like it or not, Star Trek has a huge and horrible stigma of being some really dumb nerdy jive that only the biggest dorks in the world would like. A show made for geeks and outcasts who want to wear pointy rubber ears and practice learning Klingon. Nerds who never made it out of their mothers basement that like to sit around arguing, for example, whether Kirks middle initial was a T or an R or whatever.
Is it true? No, not really. There's a small percentage of the fandom that is completely absorbed in it, just like any fandom, and they come across as creepy and give the entire fandom a strange stereotype. This movie has the chance to totally erase all that. To make millions of people go, "Oh shit! Star Trek is cool! I always thought it was for nerds! I GET IT NOW!"
This is a good thing. I saw it happen with Transformers. Transformers fans had the same kind of reputation. Obese nerds collecting toys in Moms basement. But because of the new movie, now Transformers are "cool" again.
For example, I'm a musician/artist, I play and teach guitar fulltime and it's how I make my living. I've got lots of tattoos from my hands to my neck. And when I mentioned to one of my students (a 15/16 year old girl) that I was looking forward to the new Star Trek movie she practically started crying saying, "You? You? You like Star Trek? It's so old and cheeeeeesy! MY DAD!! likes Star Trek!" and then she kind of shuddered.
This is the stigma that the new movie could crush.
I pretty calmly told her that Star Trek is alot cooler then people think, that the stories and the characters are actually very interesting, and then I hit her with, "Have I ever lied or been wrong before?" And since she trusts me from a couple years of teaching, she went home and watched the trailer. Next week I saw her she was saying, "Man that trailer looked really cool! And that one guy (kirk) was really cute! and isn't the blue shirt guy the guy from Hero's?" And now she wants to see it. One more theatre ticket sold.
So she went from a body shudder at the mere thought of Star Trek, and apparently being offended that someone she thought of as "cool" would like Star Trek, to actually wanting to see the film now. That's huge, it really is. One trailer changed a lifetime of her preconceptions of Star Trek. So imagine it on a global scale when the actual film hits theatres. It's going to be huge.
So to wrap up what has turned out to be an unbelievablely long reply, (damn, are you still actually reading this?) The new movie will without doubt piss off all the old fans. Simply for the reason that no matter the new movie is, it's not "Their" idea of what Star Trek is. They're going to protest and bitch and piss and moan about how awful it is and how the ship looks wrong and everything else they can think to bitch about. Because it's hard to accept change. I understand that. But if they can remove all that baggage from their mind and sit down and enjoy the film for what it is, I think they're going to find that it's going to be a really good and exciting film. And all it's going to do is help the franchise. It cannot possibly hurt it in any way, shape or form. It can only help bring in new fans, now toys/media, and it can change the stigma that ST fans are total nerds.
Personally I cannot wait to see it, just judging by the trailer I know I'm going to love it. No it's not the Shatner Kirk I grew up with, it's not the same Enterprise I grew up with. But it is a Kirk and a Spock on the Bridge of an Enterprise. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's not like Shatner could play Kirk anymore anyway. He doesn't even really look much like Kirk anymore, he's doing goofy PriceLine commercials. If I want to see Shatner Kirk I've got to watch the old shows. If I want to watch Nick Castle Michael Myers I've got to watch the original Halloween. If I want to see Optimus Prime lugging a big grey trailer I've got to watch the 80's cartoons. That's all there is to it, I've got to accept that. The old stuff is never going to happen again. It's old, it's the past, it's been done and times have moved on and changed since then. The trick is making properties nowadays that will fill new fans with the same sense of adventure and wonder, with enthrallment at these characters, that the old shows and cartoons gave to us older fans.
Basically the new Kirk isn't "our" Kirk anymore, our Kirk exists on TOS and lives on through dvd. This new Kirk will be this generations Kirk, and they'll probably love him just as much as we love Shatner. Instead of complaining about it, think about how wonderful it is that the Character of Captain Kirk is so cool, that 40 years later he can completely enrapture an entire new generation of people.
That's awesome! We're witnessing a period in time where our favorite characters are actually becoming American Legends. Jason Voorhees and his hockey mask. Myers and his white mask. Leatherface and his chainsaw. Captain Kirk and his Starship Enterprise. Freddy and his razorglove. Hell even Spiderman and Batman. All these old properties are being reimagined and are living whole new lives. It's an amazing time to be a fan of american pop fiction, and I for one feel really happy that I get to watch this happening. America doesn't have much culture. We've got rock and roll, and cool movies that tell cool stories. And now we're witnessing our stories and pop culture become legend that's getting passed down through generations.
My grandchildren will probably know who Optimus Prime and Captain Kirk are, and might even have their own Prime and Kirk toys. How cool is it that my grandchildren just might have the same heros as a child that I did?
There's almost something magical about that.
anyway, ..../ end extremely long ramble'rant
(*sorry I talked so much, back to lurking.)
Then a year ago the same thing happened with the Transformers movie. But this time I was on the other side of the fence. I hadn't paid any attention to transformers since 1986-87. I was laughing when I first heard they made a Transformers movie. When I went to the theatre and saw the words, 'HASBRO' up on the screen, I laughed out loud.
2 hours later I was standing in Target trying to find a Bumblebee and a Barricade toy. Completely blown away by these giant metal robots that kicked ass and turned into vehicles. A year later I've got probably 150 of the little plastic guys.
Of course I had to go back and get all the original cartoons, learn about all the other series that they'd made, (Beast Wars what? Optimus Prime is a Gorilla? WTF?) And I watched all the cartoons, really enjoyed some of them, others not so much. But my point is I joined a few messageboards to learn more about Transformers, and all I saw on those boards was insane fighting. "The original Prime is the best, and nothing else is Prime." "The Gorilla/Optimus Primal is Prime, and nothing else is Prime" then you've got the new fans, "The new awesome realistic Prime is Prime and everything else is old and cheesy."
Huge fights, all the time, to the point where I finally found one board where the people were cool and didn't fight too much.
But my point is, all the old time fans had to get use to new fans, and they hated it. They felt like something had been stolen from them, they were angry. And the only reason I was able to understand what was happening was because I'd just gone through it myself with the Halloween remake.
Eventually old fans have to realize that the new movies are actually the best thing that could happen to their beloved series. Transformers are bigger then ever now, and the fan base is bigger then ever. Because of that there are new TF cartoons being made, many many new toys being made, a second movie being made, and everybody wins.
To some people, long time older fans, we have to grow up and just accept that what we love is the past. It's never going to happen again. Ever. Optimus Prime is never going to be that square truck with a grey cab, (G1 fans), or a big black Gorilla, (Beast Wars fans), that's just life. To a whole generation of kids and teens now, Optimus Prime for them will forever be the big red and blue semi with the flames painted on it. Same with me and Halloween, Michael Myers is never going to be Nick Castle wearing a painted William Shatner mask, now he's a huge guy with a rotted mask that vaguely resembles the original mask.
So when Star Trek XI comes out, to alot of people that's going to be Star Trek 1. They're either not gonna care about the old stuff and Shatner, or they're just going to pretend it doesn't exist and this is "their" Star Trek now. Everything else is just "old."
However, alot of those new fans are going to go back, buy the dvds for TOS, TNG, etc. etc. and they're going to fall in love with the mythos of the Star Trek universe. There's going to be new toys and all kinds of cool stuff. (Personally I can't wait to get my hands on a toy of the Enterprise and a Spock and Kirk figure.)
My point is, you guys who are long time fans are in for one of the most exiting times, you're going to see your beloved Star Trek blossom into something big that you probably never thought you'd see. Now I really, really like Star Trek. I watched all TOS with my Uncle when I was a kid, and growing up I hung on every episode of TNG (had a serious crush on Troi too.) I admit by the time I was a teenager I didn't pay any attention to DS9 or Voyager, however I did watch all of Enterprise and throughly enjoyed it. But I'm not a huge Trek fan, I don't have the numbers and classes of all the ships memorized, I can't remember the names of all the episodes. I just enjoy the characters, enjoy that universe, and basically I just enjoy my time that I get to spend in that universe. But I'm really, really looking forward to this new movie. I must have watched the trailer 10 times by now.
And in talking about it with other people, people I know that never liked Star Trek are looking forward to the movie because the trailer is very exciting and action packed, it's not what they thought Star Trek was and now they're looking forward to it.
Like it or not, Star Trek has a huge and horrible stigma of being some really dumb nerdy jive that only the biggest dorks in the world would like. A show made for geeks and outcasts who want to wear pointy rubber ears and practice learning Klingon. Nerds who never made it out of their mothers basement that like to sit around arguing, for example, whether Kirks middle initial was a T or an R or whatever.
Is it true? No, not really. There's a small percentage of the fandom that is completely absorbed in it, just like any fandom, and they come across as creepy and give the entire fandom a strange stereotype. This movie has the chance to totally erase all that. To make millions of people go, "Oh shit! Star Trek is cool! I always thought it was for nerds! I GET IT NOW!"
This is a good thing. I saw it happen with Transformers. Transformers fans had the same kind of reputation. Obese nerds collecting toys in Moms basement. But because of the new movie, now Transformers are "cool" again.
For example, I'm a musician/artist, I play and teach guitar fulltime and it's how I make my living. I've got lots of tattoos from my hands to my neck. And when I mentioned to one of my students (a 15/16 year old girl) that I was looking forward to the new Star Trek movie she practically started crying saying, "You? You? You like Star Trek? It's so old and cheeeeeesy! MY DAD!! likes Star Trek!" and then she kind of shuddered.
This is the stigma that the new movie could crush.
I pretty calmly told her that Star Trek is alot cooler then people think, that the stories and the characters are actually very interesting, and then I hit her with, "Have I ever lied or been wrong before?" And since she trusts me from a couple years of teaching, she went home and watched the trailer. Next week I saw her she was saying, "Man that trailer looked really cool! And that one guy (kirk) was really cute! and isn't the blue shirt guy the guy from Hero's?" And now she wants to see it. One more theatre ticket sold.
So she went from a body shudder at the mere thought of Star Trek, and apparently being offended that someone she thought of as "cool" would like Star Trek, to actually wanting to see the film now. That's huge, it really is. One trailer changed a lifetime of her preconceptions of Star Trek. So imagine it on a global scale when the actual film hits theatres. It's going to be huge.
So to wrap up what has turned out to be an unbelievablely long reply, (damn, are you still actually reading this?) The new movie will without doubt piss off all the old fans. Simply for the reason that no matter the new movie is, it's not "Their" idea of what Star Trek is. They're going to protest and bitch and piss and moan about how awful it is and how the ship looks wrong and everything else they can think to bitch about. Because it's hard to accept change. I understand that. But if they can remove all that baggage from their mind and sit down and enjoy the film for what it is, I think they're going to find that it's going to be a really good and exciting film. And all it's going to do is help the franchise. It cannot possibly hurt it in any way, shape or form. It can only help bring in new fans, now toys/media, and it can change the stigma that ST fans are total nerds.
Personally I cannot wait to see it, just judging by the trailer I know I'm going to love it. No it's not the Shatner Kirk I grew up with, it's not the same Enterprise I grew up with. But it is a Kirk and a Spock on the Bridge of an Enterprise. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's not like Shatner could play Kirk anymore anyway. He doesn't even really look much like Kirk anymore, he's doing goofy PriceLine commercials. If I want to see Shatner Kirk I've got to watch the old shows. If I want to watch Nick Castle Michael Myers I've got to watch the original Halloween. If I want to see Optimus Prime lugging a big grey trailer I've got to watch the 80's cartoons. That's all there is to it, I've got to accept that. The old stuff is never going to happen again. It's old, it's the past, it's been done and times have moved on and changed since then. The trick is making properties nowadays that will fill new fans with the same sense of adventure and wonder, with enthrallment at these characters, that the old shows and cartoons gave to us older fans.
Basically the new Kirk isn't "our" Kirk anymore, our Kirk exists on TOS and lives on through dvd. This new Kirk will be this generations Kirk, and they'll probably love him just as much as we love Shatner. Instead of complaining about it, think about how wonderful it is that the Character of Captain Kirk is so cool, that 40 years later he can completely enrapture an entire new generation of people.
That's awesome! We're witnessing a period in time where our favorite characters are actually becoming American Legends. Jason Voorhees and his hockey mask. Myers and his white mask. Leatherface and his chainsaw. Captain Kirk and his Starship Enterprise. Freddy and his razorglove. Hell even Spiderman and Batman. All these old properties are being reimagined and are living whole new lives. It's an amazing time to be a fan of american pop fiction, and I for one feel really happy that I get to watch this happening. America doesn't have much culture. We've got rock and roll, and cool movies that tell cool stories. And now we're witnessing our stories and pop culture become legend that's getting passed down through generations.
My grandchildren will probably know who Optimus Prime and Captain Kirk are, and might even have their own Prime and Kirk toys. How cool is it that my grandchildren just might have the same heros as a child that I did?
There's almost something magical about that.
anyway, ..../ end extremely long ramble'rant
(*sorry I talked so much, back to lurking.)
That's absolutely true, and one reason for it is that Halloween was so successful and defined a couple of generations of these movies - so much so that the tropes of the movie became overly familiar, cliche and lost their power to frighten.
Much the same has happened with "Star Trek."
Star Trek, Star Wars,Twilight Zone, 1978 Battlestar Galactica, and so on are original productions that were built upon the expansion of sci-fi. They are original and have made their own respective lasting contributions. What bums me out is that many attempts of making other viable contemporary Sci-Fi were snuffed out. One example is when Firefly debuted and was scheduled at the same time slot as Enterprise. Then to add insult to injury, the show got cancelled in under 10 episodes because it is cheaper and more profitable to have reality shows. The sad truth is that the Star Trek stories that we would like to see wouldn't appeal to the current young generation. The younger viewers would like to see "hot actors" having simulated sex in just about every episode.
I personally didn't like the direction that Star Trek was heading on since TNG (with moderate exception to DS9). As time went on, stories were recycled, technobabble exponentially increased, and the acting became wooden and stiff. Enterprise was marketed as adventurous and rugged, except the acting was just as wooden as Voyager was. I tried to get into it, but I just couldn't stand it. This is what has brought Trek to its knees. Lack of creativity and aged stiffness. I wish they have made a movie or series within the 23rd century with a new ship and cast of characters to tell their stories.
I personally didn't like the direction that Star Trek was heading on since TNG (with moderate exception to DS9). As time went on, stories were recycled, technobabble exponentially increased, and the acting became wooden and stiff. Enterprise was marketed as adventurous and rugged, except the acting was just as wooden as Voyager was. I tried to get into it, but I just couldn't stand it. This is what has brought Trek to its knees. Lack of creativity and aged stiffness. I wish they have made a movie or series within the 23rd century with a new ship and cast of characters to tell their stories.
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