Should it have been a straight reboot?

Yeah, that's how I saw it too. That's not to say those films are necessarily a bad thing, but it really is a sorry state of affairs when Star Trek is reduced to popcorn muncher status.

 

Yeah, don't get me wrong, sometimes I like those (The Fifth Element for example), but I tend to think that Star Trek should strive to be a bit more cerebral at the same time. Of course the other extreme would be to be too cerebral, like say The Motion Picture. I hate to sound like a pretentious movie critic, but I tend to like more balance. To be fair, it's hard to define what works and what doesn't, which actually makes it kind of hard for me to explain why I feel a movie worked or it didn't.

 

No, it should have been a straight up prequel in the prime timeline with no " Old Spock "( not that I didn't enjoy him or the movie) and no Romulans.( not that I didn't like them either) If I had my way, I would have focused on young Kirk and young Spock much like they did in the movie. then movie to the Academy and a longer Kobyoshi Maru scene. Have Mcoy come in while Kirk is at the academy, then end with Kirk and Spock and Mcoy save the day and Kirk and crew ending up on the enterprise some years later. You could have that spread over two or three movies much like SW prequels, but spend very little time with boy Kirk. Make Pike the hero in the first one and establish friendships and everyone gets assigned to different ships. The second one a huge threat comes about that involves multiple ships: Enterprise, Faragout, The Bad guys. The third movie caries over from the second( POTC style ) and involves the bad guys still on the run and like I said Kirk saves the day and in the very end we see Kirk assigned to the Enterprise after Pike is incompcitated. No " canon violation" and all is conected together. The gaps are filled. I would update the tech a little and make it look like a mix between Enterprise and the Kelvin, the TOS look would be updated, but recognizeable.

 

I could have lived with it either way. A fresh reboot might have been better though just to give it complete creative freedom.

Theres that cerebral thing again. TMP was dull, not clever. None of it made sense, lacked tachnical/scientific validity and failed to make up for these short comings with any form of entertainment value. I'm grateful that the lessons of TMP were learned in one film.

 

That is the purpose of an official publication: to hype the series or movie it's promoting. If you want unhampered, independent critiques then you buy an independent magazine.

For example, when "Starlog" had a license to do official ST movie magazines and posterbooks, they hyped the movies in the official products and gave quite balanced positive and negative critiques in the regular monthly magazine.

 

I would have rather had a prequel or retelling, too, but to be fair that wasn't the question. Either way I don't think I would have started out with the crew all being so young if the intention was to get them all together on the Enterprise at the end. In some ways, the idea of focusing on say just the big three when they are younger does appeal to me, but it would be difficult to pull off and still keep it entertaining for people just out to see a movie.

I have to disagree for the most part. Yes, it was dull, but in the same way as 2001: A Space Odyssey was. It wasn't as cerebral as 2001, but it was still pretty cerebral in that it was focused way more on philosophy and religion more than a story most people would find interesting.

 

I think that what perhaps qualifies as cerebral differs for everyone, in much the same way it's been observed that it can be hard to describe the reasons quite why people like what they like.

However, while I certainly feel that highly cerebral is not an accusation that can be aimed fully at the new film, I also don't feel it can be aimed at TMP either.

But it depends on how one reacts to the questions it attempted to raise. I don't think it asked anything new, or in a new way and as a result of also not being able to provide any answers (because there are none) it ended up saying nothing within the context of a very dull film that looked very good, but had little else batting for it.

 

Right, because having two actors in a scene together (Quinto and Nimoy) is a much less satisfying experience than having Quinto act into thin air against a CGI double of himself.

No wait, it isn't.

I thought their scene together was pure gold, much better with two actors than if they had duped Quinto somehow.

 

To the original question: no, not to my taste. I liked the nod to TOS and I've regarded it as equivalent to a reboot since the first time I saw the movie.

Agreed - I've never seen an old age make up that was truly convincing. Besides, using Nimoy they had it all - someone for ZQ to act against, a convincing old Spock and something for the old fans.

Not to mention a lead in to TOS for newbies.

 

I never said that : /

I said it was fan service. Which it was. Hence why you found it satisfying.

 

Exactly. They could've quite easily used Quinto in make-up or found some old guy to play Spock, but the 'fans' would've had a fit.

 

Quinto in old age prosthetics, if done well would have made more sense than just getting some older guy to play Spock.

For me personally, it made more sense for them to have Nimoy come in and play, though one could say I'm not being impartial since I quite enjoyed seeing him there, even though my only experience of watching him is really from the TOS movies and appearance in TNG, rather than his appearances in TOS.

Fan service that actually worked I would say. Fair enough if it didn't work for others. Besides, Nimoy has a venerable presence, though I can't tell if that's just me as a Trek fan talking or not.

 

Yep

 

I still don't understand why anyone would WANT Quinto in makeup or some other actor to play Spock when Nimoy is still alive and fully capable of playing the part he originated. To use any other person simply doesnt make sense.

 

Has anyone said they wanted Quinto in make-up?

 

My mistake.. I thought that was what you were saying.

 

Yeah, that they didn't use make-up (or even just cast some old dude) was my reasoning for suggesting that using Nimoy was fan-service, which, for the record, isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

Ok, so i did sort of understand you there....i guess its a moot point to "argue" whether it was fan service (or not) by using Nimoy. In the overall spectrum of things to worry about, that point isn't one that is high on my list. For me, personally, it simply would have been illogical (sorry) to use any other actor to play Spock.

 

Warning, very long musings ahead...



If I may, I would like to circumvent for a moment the debate on the appropriateness and/or effectiveness of the new film´s Multiverse approach to Star Trek storytelling, in favor of what I personally find equally noteworthy about this particular narrational strategy.

At least from my point of view, the writers´ choice reflects their efforts to (re?)introduce into the larger mega-narrative of the Star Trek world, what, in the jargon of Transmedia Storytelling Theory, is called a state of dynamic equilibrium.
This term defines a writing strategy that strives to preserve certain pre-established and widely accepted elements and motives of a large(r) story-world, while it simultaneously introduces new and unfamiliar developments into the narrative in order to avoid staleness and repetitiveness.

Interestingly, the very approach of creating parallel universes within already well established pop-cultural narratives in order to construct and maintain such a dynamic equilibrium, has been implemented before.
In his MIT master thesis on "Media Expectations Across Entertainment Media" Alec Austin lists and analyzes, among other topics, the narrational strategies of various comic book franchises with regard to this issue.

I find it quite instructive to note how much the Abrams team´s approach to their concept of the diverging Star Trek universes does echo, on a structural level at least, certain methods of storytelling applied by Marvel Comics, particularly with regard to the construction of an in-continuity, off-shoot, parallel narrational space.

In my opinion, it might not be too bold to postulate that Abrams et al. could have based their decision, about how to further develop and manage the Star Trek mega-narrative, on certain FORMAL similarities the property shares with various comic book franchises.
From my perspective, these common traits originate from the often unusual circumstances which have shaped, over time, the presence of Star Trek as a TV/movie narrative and franchise, such as the saga´s very long, almost half a century spanning production history, its existence in multiple incarnations and of course, the sheer amount of the material produced.

On the other hand, Orci and Kurtzman could also have been steered towards their decision to choose the Multiverse storytelling approach more subconsciously, simply because of any previous encounters with this particular narrational strategy as (self-professed) dedicated, longtime fans and followers of various media franchises.
Furthermore, I am also familiar with and would certainly not want to dispute Orci´s own explanation of the writers´ choice as the result of their engagement with what could arguably be interpreted as scientific evidence for a possible, actual existence of parallel universes.

To my knowledge, so far none of the producers and/or writers of the new film have actually stated directly, if and how strongly the principles of Transmedia Storytelling Theory might have influenced the realization of this latest chapter of the Star Trek saga.
But, aside from various intra-textual indications of the creative team´s familiarity with these concepts, I am also aware of several extra-textual factors that seem to lead to the same conclusion.

For instance, ample evidence can be found for Abrams more than passing professional acquaintance with TV-writer (Alias, Lost, Heroes), future showrunner (Day One) and staunch Transmedia Storytelling proponent Jesse Alexander.
Furthermore, Star Trek producer (and co-showrunner of Lost) Lindelof, Alexander and several other industry colleagues all participated in a well-documented brainstorming session on the topic, as has been reported through an article published in Fast Company magazine.
But most intriguingly, the Abrams team offered and actually filmed a Klingon Cameo for the new movie with MIT and USC professor Henry Jenkins (as he himself described in his public blog), who is widely considered to be the founder and most prominent scholar of Transmedia Storytelling Theory.

So, personally, I do see several reasons for Abrams et al., that might have led them to adopt a narrational strategy for Star Trek pioneered originally by the comic book industry.
And consequently, I find it even more tempting to speculate about the possible future intentions of the writers as they relate to the preservation, re-interpretation or erasure of other specific genre conventions informing story content and character building, which in the past have differentiated Star Trek from other pop-cultural mega-narratives.