Roberto Orci Not Directing Trek XIII
- Thread starter MvRojo
- Start date
As Groot
As Riddick. Crossover time!
And didn't that rumor say Paramount wanted Trek to be more like Guardians? Bring the Necromongers too, the villains of GoTG were pretty much that.
He should be a Klingon who spends the entire movie running around shouting "Qapla'!"
Such examples aren't most efficiently drawn from the show itself, but from the response it drew from viewers. Watch 'Trekkies' or read old collections of 'The Best of Trek' to see how the show affected people. I could go into a giant laundry list of examples from all the series, but isn't it easier just to look at the fandom and recognize that it has, indeed, taken place?
Anyway, you're employing a defense for the new films that has become increasingly common on these boards - an implication that Star Trek was never good in the first place. And a lot of criticism toward people who don't like the new films is laden with terms like 'disgruntled fanboys' and the like. It's sort of hilarious, watching registered users on a Star Trek internet message forum (probably one of the geekiest places on the Internet) try to belittle others by calling them 'fanboys'.
Most of that is self-serving propaganda.
The new director is Justin Lin. Well... he ought to be a perfect fit with the NuTrek movies so far, you have to give them that much.
Sorry... Trekkies is "self-serving propaganda"? SRSLY?
CorporalClegg said:
Sorry... Trekkies is "self-serving propaganda"? SRSLY?
Last edited:
A
Amaris
Guest
Such examples aren't most efficiently drawn from the show itself, but from the response it drew from viewers. Watch 'Trekkies' or read old collections of 'The Best of Trek' to see how the show affected people. I could go into a giant laundry list of examples from all the series, but isn't it easier just to look at the fandom and recognize that it has, indeed, taken place?
Anyway, you're employing a defense for the new films that has become increasingly common on these boards - an implication that Star Trek was never good in the first place. And a lot of criticism toward people who don't like the new films is laden with terms like 'disgruntled fanboys' and the like. It's sort of hilarious, watching registered users on a Star Trek internet message forum (probably one of the geekiest places on the Internet) try to belittle others by calling them 'fanboys'.
He didn't say that at all. Your conclusions are erroneous and presumptive. He's also right. Star Trek, while generally well written and high quality, didn't truly push the envelope. If it did, there would be more than examples of how people perceived it, rather than what it stated.
You're just making this up.
Most of us longtime fans watched the show in syndication or during live broadcasts in an era before Internet message boards, if you can imagine such a thing. Back then - and I'm speaking to a time as recently as the 90's here - you talked about the shows you watched with your friends or family, or if you were a BIG fan, you read all the novels and signed up for the newsletters, bought magazines, etc. Any 'legend, hype or spin' came from the direct experiences of people engaged with the media, not some sort of emergent supercollective groupthink phenomenon (which totally does happen on the Internet).
Stop trying to paint classic Trek in a poor light just to make new Trek look better.
Such examples aren't most efficiently drawn from the show itself, but from the response it drew from viewers. Watch 'Trekkies' or read old collections of 'The Best of Trek' to see how the show affected people. I could go into a giant laundry list of examples from all the series, but isn't it easier just to look at the fandom and recognize that it has, indeed, taken place?
Anyway, you're employing a defense for the new films that has become increasingly common on these boards - an implication that Star Trek was never good in the first place. And a lot of criticism toward people who don't like the new films is laden with terms like 'disgruntled fanboys' and the like. It's sort of hilarious, watching registered users on a Star Trek internet message forum (probably one of the geekiest places on the Internet) try to belittle others by calling them 'fanboys'.
I'd really need to see the laundry list from all the series. Again, I'm being totally sincere, I just never saw anything in a Trek series as a game-changer. Certainly not compared to what else was out there.
If people took away feelings from the show that helped shape them in life, good for them. I'm not denying it could happen. After all, each Trek series was, overall, optimistic and carried a hopeful message about a unified and peaceful mankind. In the depth of the Cold War and the Arab-Israeli conflicts during and just after TOS, this message of a good future may have been given more weight by some than it was ever intended to have.
I say that because even in TOS, Roddenberry tells us that we didn't make it to that future without a World War III that nearly destroyed us. By TNG, depending on how one interpreted things, the implication was there may have even been two great wars killing millions, the Eugenics Wars of 1996, and a later world war, which mankind still hadn't completely recovered from by 2079. So, even the "real world" vision being presented in the late 1960s of a mankind that didn't fall into the abyss, but found a way to move beyond the Cold War to peacefully coexist and grow, was compromised.
In an odd way, we've actually done better as a species (so far) than Roddenberry expected us to do.
Edited to add: No one is trying to paint TOS or any of the series that followed in a bad light -- only a more realistic one. They were TV shows of generally high quality and high entertainment value. They were also a fun escape from reality. But as I said above, they were not cutting edge or all that progressive, and they weren't particularly deep or thought-provoking compared to other TV shows of their times -- especially the four later series. And that's perfectly OK, because they were not really intended to be so.
Last edited:
A
Amaris
Guest
I'm a longtime fan who has been watching since 1984, at the age of 4, and I agree with Santa Kang. Star Trek was hopeful, and optimistic, but it wasn't a game changer in terms of social revolution or political upheaval.
First interracial kiss on TV?
Sammy Davis Jr., Nancy Sinatra, "Movin' with Nancy" (1966)
African American with a prominent series role?
Bill Cosby, "I Spy" (1965)
Ivan Dixon, "Hogan's Heroes" (1965)
Greg Morris, "Mission Impossible" (1966)
Interracial Cast of Regulars?
Ivan Dixon, "Hogan's Heroes" (1965)
Greg Morris, "Mission Impossible" (1966)
Bill Cosby, "I Spy" (1965)
Social Values Via Sci-Fi Allegory?
The Twilight Zone (1959)
The Outer Limits (1963)
None of this takes away from Star Trek's accomplishments, but it really wasn't the game changer some seem to think it was.
The biggest problem with the "most of us longtime fans" gambit is that you keep trotting it out in response to comments by those who have been watching since the original series was on its original run. They're telling you that, while they enjoyed the series (and continue to do so,) it simply wasn't (for them) the "game-changing" experience of which you speak, and you seem not to want to accept that viewpoint as valid.
This isn't to say that you're wrong in having that opinion about the show—your own personal experience is your own personal experience, after all—but neither is it wrong for them to feel otherwise. That's no "supercollective groupthink phenomenon," as you put it; it's just people not all having the same opinion. It doesn't have to be an epiphany for everyone.
Don't have the hours to devote to an essay on how Trek influenced me right now.
Social revolution? Political upheaval? I think you're taking my comment a bit far.
What I said was: "For most of us longtime Trek fans, Star Trek was a game-changer for us. It was the show (and movies) that taught us new ways to look at the world; a narrative that wasn't afraid to delve into questions of philosophy, asking both the characters and the viewers to re-examine themselves in the face of strange new worlds and new ideas, and come away from the experience at little more open-minded, if not more educated."
I wasn't trying to say that Star Trek was the first or only show to break all barriers or set records for 'first X happening on TV' events. I was trying to convey what made the show special, and a cut above most media in its class, and how it touched people, and stuck with them throughout their lives, in a manner rarely equaled in fandom. How many other franchises have documentaries focusing solely on the fans, as a phenomenon?
These elements, IMO, are missing in the new films.
You misapprehend me. The 'supercollective groupthink phenomenon' was in context to Santa Kang's line: 'They confuse the legend, hype and spin with the reality of what Star Trek is.' He's the one suggesting that there's a sort of collective revision of Star Trek history to make it better in memory than it really was somehow.
I was countering that by saying that people felt this way about Star Trek back when it was new and they saw it the first time, not because of hype-induced revisionism. I was NOT personally suggesting that groupthink was at work here, I was REFUTING it (while admitting that such social dynamics DO exist in the real world, especially on the 'net).
As a celebrative study of fandom, the film is mostly harmless. People do what they do. It's what makes them unique, and it's a good thing. The problem is, there's a very fine line between celebration and glorification.Sorry... Trekkies is "self-serving propaganda"? SRSLY?
It's when, "Star Trek is a really cool show; it's kept me entertained, taught me a few things, and helped me make some really great friends along the way," becomes "Star Trek has been the greatest influence in my life. I wouldn't be the same person without it, because it's guided my actions and shaped my ideology more than any one thing or person," that it's time to be concerned. There are people in both films who seem eerily similar to the latter.
I admit "propaganda" was probably too strong a word. I couldn't think of a better one. And the film itself really doesn't do any of that. But there is an element of indoctrination going on and the film does help promote (if only slightly) that. Certainly, it mostly just promotes Star Trek. It's not a stretch to think Paramount's primary goal with the film was to sell more Star Trek stuff. But it does nudge the ideology along to help do so.
And really, I more or less enjoyed the films--and the various other Trek docs. Watched 'em a couple of times and thought nothing of it after, really. It's been a long time since I've seen them, and haven't really thought about them in years, TBH.
My issue is with this prevailing idea that Star Trek is some sort of life-altering, world-changing, bigger than all of us, all-inclusive entity. To me, that starts to sound an awful lot like a religion, or at least--as indicated above--some sort of tribal doctrine.
I know it's only a very, very minor few who truly think and feel that way, but I've seen similar (albeit lesser) thoughts creep in to conversation a lot lately. I find it a bit worrisome--if not a little obnoxious.
I think it's the idea that somehow our lives, and especially the world, would somehow be drastically different if Star Trek never existed.
I can't think of any way my own life would be hugely different without Trek. Of course, I have my own cherished memories relating to it, but I'm fairly certain those could just as easy be replaced with something else. I would have never stumbled upon TBBS either, but my life would probably be better for it.
Then there are those stories of the guy who says Star Trek made him an astrophysicist. No. Hard work and self-sacrifice made him an astrophysicist. Now Star Trek probably pointed him down the right line. But it's impossible to know he wouldn't have found the same path without Trek. People of certain personalities tend to draw upon certain professions. He may not have wound up an astrophysicist specifically, but dollars to doughnuts he would have found that spark that still lead him towards the sciences.
Or the woman who says she's a surgeon because of Bones. Did Bones really make her a surgeon, or was it her empathy and altruism ... and hard work and self-sacrifice?
Again, on an individual, personal level, stories like these are harmless celebrations. But start piling them on top of one and another as if they're parts of a greater mythological whole, and the ideal becomes self-inflated glorification.
Then there's the world level. Things like the flip phone and tablets are popular examples of how "Star Trek impacted the world." Well, not really.
The cell phone itself was an inevitability. Humans were simply going to find away to do it. The designer of the flip-phone admits he was influenced by Star Trek. Okay fine. But the flip-phone's ubiquity lasted, what, three years? Then someone figured a way how to do it better.
Tablets are just the obvious and inevitable culmination of the technology. A computer one can write on like paper, read like a book, and is easily transportable isn't exactly some extraordinarily inspired concept. And it's safe bet that it's not the end of the technology's evolution.
In either case, it's really hard to believe the world would be without smart phones and tables if Star Trek hadn't come along.
And the idea that it's some sort of powerhouse or vanguard for social change is equally mind-numbing.
Take Nichols's MLK story, for example. She spins it so well, each time exaggerating it a little more than last--usually when ever she's got a new book. But whatever. That's Publicity 101. Can't fault her for it. The problem is people start to buy into it, and the whole thing escalates to the point where now Star Trek was influential in the civil rights movement.
Or her and Shatner's kiss. Or Farrell and Thompson's. Both monumental moments in TV history. Well... sort of but not really.
It's the accumulation of these ideas and stories where it all starts to look a bit like dogma to me. Again, it's not each one individually but the bundle and those who preach about it that, to me, seems awfully self-serving and propagandist in nature.
No he's not. A lot of fans keep claiming that old Trek was this super-smart, pure and wholesome source of wisdom and education, versus current Trek's lower-common-denominator-pleasing, explosion-ridden fun. We're pointing out that old Trek wasn't that holy.
Stop trying to do the opposite. Both have their ups and downs.
A
Amaris
Guest
I consider those things to be game changers.
Bronies. We have at least three feature length, and professionally produced documentaries focused on us, one of them hosted and directed by none other than Mr. John de Lancie himself. Friendship is Magic.
Oh, also Star Wars fans, Firefly fans have had a documentary made about them. Cosplayers, D&D fans have documentaries, as well as Lord of the Rings fans, Harry Potter fans, and of course, Comic-Con has had a documentary or two focused on it. There are many, many more.
I disagree. The new movies offer a different perspective for anyone willing to look closely.
Oh, maybe in your part of the world.
