Simple Question: Do You Like The Reboots?

[Greg Cox]

...Abrams who seems to want to make Star Trek more like Star Wars.

That was exactly his intent and he has said so openly.

That's not exactly true, "if you'll forgive me my saying so."*

Abrams said early on that he was not a fan of Trek growing up, but he was a Star Wars fan. That does not automatically disqualify him from being an effective Trek director. We've seen very good movies done by directors who were not Trekkies.

Bingo.

True story. Awhile ago, an editor asked me if I was familiar with a certain franchise.

"No," I answered honestly. "But I can be."

You don't have to be a lifelong SPACE VIXENS fan to make a good SPACE VIXENS movie (or write a good SPACE VIXENS novels). You just have to do your homework, familiarize yourself with the source material, and figure out how it works.

Then you have fun with it and try to write the best SPACE VIXENS story you can. Doesn't mean you try to turn it into something else.

 

[Nerys Myk]

...Abrams who seems to want to make Star Trek more like Star Wars.

That was exactly his intent and he has said so openly.

Maybe it's because I was never the sort of person who mixed their potatoes with their vegetables, but I'd really like to keep Star Trek and Star Wars separate. They both had their strengths and weaknesses, but trying to bring the two together results in something that feels like neither.

Now I worry that he'll do the same with Star Wars VII. I know that a lot of Star Wars fans will be annoyed if the characters start spouting Treknobabble and talking about the Prime Directive.

What elements of Star Wars are in the new Trek films that are the equivalents to "The Prime Directive" or "Treknobabble"? Both of which are more common in the spin offs than TOS

Star Trek is a pretty broad canvas. Much broader than the Star Wars films. It, mostly on TV but in film too, can tell all sorts of stories. Funny, tragic, serious, allegorical, farcical and straight up commentary. But at it's heart it is an action-adventure series. Poster Harvey has seen a memo from Roddenberry were he reminds Fontana Star Trek is an action adventure show intending to entertain, not East Side West Side or The Defenders.

 

[Ghrakh]

In the ST09 DVD special features he says openly right on camera that he felt Star Trek should be more like Star Wars.

In that he was successful.

Star Trek is a pretty broad canvas. Much broader than the Star Wars films. It, mostly on TV but in film too, can tell all sorts of stories. Funny, tragic, serious, allegorical, farcical and straight up commentary. But at it's heart it is an action-adventure series. Poster Harvey has seen a memo from Roddenberry were he reminds Fontana Star Trek is an action adventure show intending to entertain, not East Side West Side or The Defenders.

Really? I hear this a lot. You say it's a broad canvas, then reduce it to "action-adventure" to boost nuTrek. I never viewed ST as just "action-adventure", and always saw it as more than that. Be interested in reading this memo, because TOS entertains without having much "action-adventure" in it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

In the ST09 DVD special features he says openly right on camera that he felt Star Trek should be more like Star Wars.

In that he was successful.

Star Trek is a pretty broad canvas. Much broader than the Star Wars films. It, mostly on TV but in film too, can tell all sorts of stories. Funny, tragic, serious, allegorical, farcical and straight up commentary. But at it's heart it is an action-adventure series. Poster Harvey has seen a memo from Roddenberry were he reminds Fontana Star Trek is an action adventure show intending to entertain, not East Side West Side or The Defenders.

Really? I hear this a lot. You say it's a broad canvas, then reduce it to "action-adventure" to boost nuTrek. I never viewed ST as just "action-adventure", and always saw it as more than that. Be interested in reading this memo, because TOS entertains without having much "action-adventure" in it.

My point is with in it's action adventure format it can tell may types of stories. It was set up to do so. Star Wars style of action adventure was more narrowly focused.

TOS had fistfights, gun fights and other action based scenes in almost every episode. Both pilots have the lead character fight someone. Pike has a scuffle with the Kaylar and the Keeper. Kirk has a knockdown with Gary. TOS is rarely a bunch of people talking. The philosophizing usually comes after the fighting and a few deaths.

 

[BillJ]

STID had no intention of Kirk remaining dead and everyone knows it. It was a cheap and completely obvious ploy that no one could fall for particularly since they bring him back soon after in the same movie. They could have at least left him dead until the next film, but even that would still have been obvious as well.

Pike is a main character in the rebooted films and I see no indication he's coming back.

 

[Greg Cox]

TOS had fistfights, gun fights and other action based scenes in almost every episode. Both pilots have the lead character fight someone. Pike has a scuffle with the Kaylar and the Keeper. Kirk has a knockdown with Gary. TOS is rarely a bunch of people talking. The philosophizing usually comes after the fighting and a few deaths.

Exactly. Sure, by modern standards, TOS may not seem action-packed, but it was definitely sold as an action-adventure program. Rare was the episode where somebody didn't end up facing the business end of a phaser or disruptor and where there wasn't a big fight scene of some sort.

And all those redshirts didn't die of natural causes!

Even "Court Martial," which is essentially a courtroom drama, goes to ridiculous lengths to ensure that Kirk has a slugfest with Ben Finney in the final act. And even the comedy episodes, like "Tribbles" and "Shore Leave" and "A Piece of the Action," have fight scenes. TOS couldn't afford big elaborate action sequences, like a modern movie, but they squeezed in as much fighting as they could manage.

Now it's true that TOS was more than just an action-adventure series, but danger and violence and excitement were always part of the formula. It was never a purely intellectual symposium on the issues of the day . . ..

 

[Warped9]

STID had no intention of Kirk remaining dead and everyone knows it. It was a cheap and completely obvious ploy that no one could fall for particularly since they bring him back soon after in the same movie. They could have at least left him dead until the next film, but even that would still have been obvious as well.

Pike is a main character in the rebooted films and I see no indication he's coming back.

But he's not a major character to the Star Trek franchise. His initial importance was that he happened to be the frst Captain of the Enterprise portrayed and then forgotten until he shows up in "The Menagerie." He's really little more than an incidental character in the broader scheme of things and that hasn't changed. That would change only if they rebooted TOS as a series and Pike was the feature character rather than Kirk as was originally planned when the show was first conceived.

 

[Greg Cox]

STID had no intention of Kirk remaining dead and everyone knows it. It was a cheap and completely obvious ploy that no one could fall for particularly since they bring him back soon after in the same movie. They could have at least left him dead until the next film, but even that would still have been obvious as well.

Pike is a main character in the rebooted films and I see no indication he's coming back.

But he's not a major character to the Star Trek franchise. His initial importance was that he happened to be the frst Captain of the Enterprise portrayed and then forgotten until he shows up in "The Menagerie." He's really little more than an incidental character in the broader scheme of things and that hasn't changed. That would change only if they rebooted TOS as a series and Pike was the feature character rather than Kirk as was originally planned when the show was first conceived.

Still, the 2009 movie was also willing to blow up Vulcan--which is rather more than a footnote in Trek lore--without pushing any sort of reset button in either that movie or the next. Last time I checked, Vulcan was still toast, with no sign that it's ever coming back.

And yet, ironically, it often seems that it's the people who don't like the new movies who most object to Vulcan being destroyed and want to reset everything to the Prime Universe, in part to get Vulcan (and Amanda) back.

One could argue that blowing up Vulcan was at least as gutsy as killing Spock, especially since they didn't bring it back the next movie!

 

[Amaris]

 

[Kemaiku]

The series that gave us Kirk-fu and Vulcan's toting guns of their own accord in episode 1 (well, 2) but still, brain stuff!

 

[Ghrakh]

My point is with in it's action adventure format it can tell may types of stories. It was set up to do so. Star Wars style of action adventure was more narrowly focused.

I understand that, but when it dominates a film it then it simply is the film. TOS was always the story first.

TOS had fistfights, gun fights and other action based scenes in almost every episode. Both pilots have the lead character fight someone. Pike has a scuffle with the Kaylar and the Keeper. Kirk has a knockdown with Gary. TOS is rarely a bunch of people talking. The philosophizing usually comes after the fighting and a few deaths.

Well, this is quite a different TOS than the one I've watched. Seriously, did people watch ST for the brief fight scenes?

Now it's true that TOS was more than just an action-adventure series, but danger and violence and excitement were always part of the formula. It was never a purely intellectual symposium on the issues of the day . . ..

Who said it was? And why is that bad?

 

[BillJ]

The series that gave us Kirk-fu and Vulcan's toting guns of their own accord in episode 1 (well, 2) but still, brain stuff!

I love TOS. I really do. It helped me through the roughest years of my life. But its reputation is massively overblown.

 

[Kemaiku]

The series that gave us Kirk-fu and Vulcan's toting guns of their own accord in episode 1 (well, 2) but still, brain stuff!

I love TOS. I really do. It helped me through the roughest years of my life. But its reputation is massively overblown.

Exactly, it's a lot of fun, but it's not gospel.

 

[BillJ]

I understand that, but when it dominates a film it then it simply is the film. TOS was always the story first.

Obviously it wasn't or else Roddenberry wouldn't have sent Fontana a memo saying TOS was an action-adventure show.

 

[Greg Cox]

Crazy thought: I wonder how much of this perception that the new movies are more "actiony" than TOS is simply a matter of budgets and SFX.

TOS was constantly destroying planets, colonies, starships, etc. There was often violence and destruction on an epic scale, but it usually took place offstage because the original show lacked the ability to show the Doomsday Machine blasting apart entire planets or swarms of flying neural parasites wiping out entire populations or a cloaked Romulan vessel blowing apart one Starfleet outpost after another.

All that stuff happened on TOS but it usually had to be implied. "Captain! Sensors report that there no life-forms remaining on the planet!"

Now that the movies can actually show, rather than just tell about such catastrophes, it may seem like there's more action in the movies even if there's really just the same amount of carnage . . ..

 

[Ghrakh]

I understand that, but when it dominates a film it then it simply is the film. TOS was always the story first.

Obviously it wasn't or else Roddenberry wouldn't have sent Fontana a memo saying TOS was an action-adventure show.

Roddenberry influenced ST until it's convenient to argue he didn't. And I haven't seen the memo, irrespective of whether it was adhered to by the writers or not.

 

[Kemaiku]

Well, less. They're only killed one planet, TOS's planetary death toll is staggering.

 

[BillJ]

Crazy thought: I wonder how much of this perception that the new movies are more "actiony" than TOS is simply a matter of budgets and SFX.

TOS was constantly destroying planets, colonies, starships, etc. There was often violence and destruction on an epic scale, but it usually took place offstage because the original show lacked the ability to show the Doomsday Machine blasting apart entire planets or swarms of flying neural parasites wiping out entire populations or a cloaked Romulan vessel blowing apart one Starfleet outpost after another.

All that stuff happened on TOS but it usually had to be implied. "Captain! Sensors report that there no life-forms remaining on the planet!"

Now that the movies can show, rather than just tell about such catastrophes, it may seem like there's more action in the movies even if there's really just the same amount of carnage . . ..

Precisely. I think a TOS today with Roddenberry of '66 in charge would look a lot more like the Abrams films than many are comfortable admitting.

I understand that, but when it dominates a film it then it simply is the film. TOS was always the story first.

Obviously it wasn't or else Roddenberry wouldn't have sent Fontana a memo saying TOS was an action-adventure show.

Roddenberry influenced ST until it's convenient to argue he didn't. And I haven't seen the memo, irrespective of whether it was adhered to by the writers or not.

I think it's safe to say that Roddenberry was in charge of TOS from '66-'68. It was his show.

 

[Amaris]

You've got to love the show that introduced the flying butt kick:

 

[Ghrakh]

Crazy thought: I wonder how much of this perception that the new movies are more "actiony" than TOS is simply a matter of budgets and SFX.

The TOS films weren't "actiony" either.