Six reasons Star Trek should stay dead?

[22 Stars]

This is some person's rant on Trek.

I think it's closer to six reasons that Trek deserved to get retooled. Many are valid points, but you could make the same claims for the Bond franchise, and with the right actors and stories, it is alive and well once again.

I sure hope this new film makes this writer eat their words.

 

[ktanner3]

This guy is a total moron.

6. Trek is a poison dart of nostalgia aimed at the hearts of aging fan-dudes. The franchise caters to a fearsomely loyal cadre of dorks who recite Shatner's Promise Margarine commercials to each other. They also obsess over every minor detail from the show's 40,000 year history, leading to...

Hello? TNG,DS9,Voyager, Enterprise was not watched exclusively by old hippies.Check a fan convention some time and see how many old folks are there.

And what fans of any franchise DOESN’T have some obsession? Superman,Batman, James Bond etc… It’s called having a loyal fan base moron.

5. Obsessive continuity and reveling in cheese. .Rumor has it the new Trek movie will feature tribbbles and the Guardian of Forever, and god knows what other callbacks to ancient episodes. Trek also groans under the weight of cliches it can never outgrow, from "beam me up" to "warp nine" to "shields down to 59 percent."

Star Wars: “I have a very bad feeling about this” “May the force be with you” Rocky: every movie has him fighting insurmountable odds and the theme is always about “going the distance” Most movies have the tired cliché of good triumphating over evil. Your point?

4. It's an out-of-date news flash. Trek's format is a Cold War relic, from the original show's running Soviets=Klingons metaphor to the post-Cold War "new order" of TNG and DS9. Most storylines relate to "our" superpower, the Federation, facing off against other superpowers or coping with third-world planets. Take away the Cold War as a reference point, and you have boring space opera.

Here’s another news flash. ALL STORIES AND IDEAS ARE BASED ON REAL EVENTS. The writer sees something in the news or experiences something that compels him/her to write a fictional story based on that truth. It’s called good story telling. And I question this guy’s so-called knowledge of Star Trek if he’s using cold war references for DS9.

3. It's no longer looking ahead. Like Star Wars, Trek is trapped in prequel-land. Enterprise bored us by filling in pointless backstory on the early days of Starfleet, but the J.J. Abrams movie looks to be twice as pointless. We already know everything we need to about young Kirk and the other Trek tots. Mining your own past is a prime symptom of idea bankruptcy.

Wait a minute. First it was using tired cliché’s and now you slam it for being different. Get you whines in order.

2. We're tired of the clueless wanker with Asbergers who teaches us what it means to be human. Spock was sort of cute, so nu-Trek served up Data, Odo, that holographic doctor, Seven of Nine and T'Pol. It's not Trek without Rain Man trying to understand our human ways. We prefer the Cylons, who school us about humanity by screwing and killing us.

I’m tired of clueless wankers who talk out of their ass. The movies are a complete 180 from the series.

1. Sanctimonious preaching is in Trek's DNA. From the Prime Directive to the Captain's Log, the franchise was made for droning voices giving us lectures. Starfleet Academy must give would-be captains a special course in holding forth about the moral lesson in every conceivable situation. We're also sick of constantly hearing about how our heroes are too noble to share their advanced technology with other cultures.

Again, totally clueless if you call all of Trek preachy. The niners would beg to differ.

In a nutshell, the only Star Trek we've liked in ages was Galaxy Quest, and that was mostly for Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman and Veronica Mars' dad.

In a nutshell, the only Star Trek you liked was the original and you closed your mind to the rest.Because had you watched you wouldn’t have made some of those stupid accusations.

 

[22 Stars]

^ I agree with most of your points.

 

[number6]

I think Trek should live and the fans should die.

 

[captcalhoun]

what a pillock.

 

[Jack Bauer]

He's a douchbag.

 

[Who_Trek]

See above comments (although I probably wouldn't have been so blunt). And he think ST fans need to get a life???

 

[votd]

I find it difficult to respect people who take offense at people who enjoy a tv show. Maybe we know it a little too well; but how does that compare unfavourably with people who follow football and know about all the teams/players; or people who know everything about cars?

 

[Borg451]

He says it badly. but its true. Trek should stay dead.. it harms the already existing episodes by making more stuff..

 

[misskim86]

Trek shouldn't be dead, just because you make more material doesn't automaticly mean it's bad.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Borg451 said: Trek should stay dead.. it harms the already existing episodes by making more stuff..

The BBC had better cancel Doctor Who immediately then. The 695 episodes made between 1963 and 1996 should be more than enough to keep you happy.

 

[stj]

6.This is juststupid, because even if it were true, how does that make it bad? Since there's not even any reason to think its true, it's doubly stupid.

5.Obsessive continuity I agree is a bad thing. But what's obsessive? This doesn't actually say anything. As for cheese, some people think aliens are cheese, spaceships are cheese, scifi in general is cheese. He's not actually saying anything.

4.He's right about TNG and DS9, but this isn't a TNG or DS9 movie. The first Star Trek movie showed that Trek didn't have to be Cold War in Space.

3.Seems he couldn't get them all wrong. Maybe Abrams will produce a literary miracle that actually makes the kids more interesting than the adults. Not bloody likely.

2.Data, Odo, EMH and Seven of Nine at the end all wanted to be human. But Spock and T'Pol did not. He can no more get the characters than he can spell Asperger's. Preferring BSG proves he's an idiot.

1.This is not factually true. Plus, it's pretty obvious that he just disagrees with old fashioned humanitarianism.

In a nutshell, he didn't notice that the real problem with Trek is that the science is outdated---no genetic engineering, no understanding of computers, no interest in real aliens (instead of thinly disguised metaphors for race and culture.)

Nothing in Abrams' career suggests that he has a clue about how to reimagine Trek in a meaningful way, though. But this guy is just snarking.

 

[Sharr Khan]

Borg451 said:
He says it badly. but its true. Trek should stay dead.. it harms the already existing episodes by making more stuff..

No it doesn't

Sharr

 

[exodus]

I kinda agree with him to a point. I do agree that if the best new idea that TRek has is to do prequels or retellings, then they really don't have any new ideas being brought to the table.

Trek needs to be brought up to speed to match modern times & issues taking place within it. There is no reason outside of lack of creativity that Trek was behind the ball on covering topics like AIDS, why it refuses to address homosexual relationships within the military, 9/11 or the Tsumami. These are issues classic Trek & TNG used to be on point in exploring. Plus, it's issues that fans are asking to be covered. By not addressing them, they're cutting off a major part of a fans base that still held some interest in the franchise.

 

[Tralis]

6: Clearly false. DS9. QED.
5: Fine balance here. I think that, with a few groan-worthy exceptions all of the modern Trek used continuity as something to draw from rather than being a slave to it. Some managed to forge their own identity better than others, but I don't see any as having continuity a higher priority than good stories.
4: TNG updated the setting for changing times. DS9 updated the setting for changing times. VOY jerked off in its own corner. ENT, especially in the 3rd and 4th season, tried to update the setting for changing times, with some sucess and some failures.
3: It doesn't have to be. Paramount could make a forward series with a flick of their wrist.
2: It is a character cliche that got pretty old by VOY, much less ENT. Data and Odo were fresh takes on the Spock archetype, or at least fresh enough to sustain themselves, but after that it took a downturn. While the Cylon quote is awesomely funny, you could say more or less the same for many Trek antagonists, though without the awesomeness of Boomer's character. You can't really compare antagonists and non-human protaganists. BSG is doing a hell of a lot right, but that's because RDM learned how to do things right from TNG and DS9.
1: The preachy writing is a Trek tradition from Rodenberry's humanist goals. However, it doesn't have to be, and DS9 and ENT proved that. TNG even proved that, the later seasons are much less preach-dense.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I agreed with numbers 6 and 5, but after that it looks like the writer ran out of observations - the others are a lot of generalized mumbling about Trek's worst habits, not core aspects of it.

 

[trevanian]

I found 1 thru 3 to each contain some merit, and while there's something (admittedly small) to be said for all the points, it really just looks like blogging for blog's sake.

 

[I am not Spock]

This guy needs to take a chill pill.

Maybe Trek is tired, maybe it is riddled with cliches, but shan't we wait and see what J.J Abrams serves up before bashing it? Batman Begins and Casino Royale succesfully reignited their respective franchises, what makes this guy think Trek XI can't do the same?

As also, as someone who has Asperger's Syndrome, I found it slightly insulting that the guy not only said 'some wanker with A.S' but that he couldn't even be bothered to spell it correctly.

 

[trevanian]

I am not Spock said:
Batman Begins and Casino Royale succesfully reignited their respective franchises, what makes this guy think Trek XI can't do the same?

CASINO didn't reignite anything, you can check the box office for DIE ANOTHER DAY and see that pretty clearly. It was a different direction to go dramatically, but that just means it is like FOR YOUR EYES ONLY following MOONRAKER, or THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS following VIEW TO A KILL (though nowhere near as interesting as either FYEO or TLD.)

About the only time the Bond franchise needed reigniting was during the 6 year lull between LICENCE TO KILL and GOLDENEYE, and it got that.

If you're saying CASINO was a creative resurgence, I'd take serious issue with that. CASINO masquerades as an intelligent movie, but that is mainly by way of comparison -- because the cars don't turn invisible and Bond isn't weighed down with gadgets.

It is still mega-stupid (and for once I'm not talking about the miscasting), with Bond being played like he has the emotional maturity of a teenager (which is even more silly when Bond is played by somebody who looks older than he is.) Killing spies to get their cell phones (geez, they don't train these guys to MEMORIZE phone numbers anymore?) may be a trendy movie device, but it still ranks for me as moronic as anything they had Roger Moore do as Bond (which is saying a LOT.)

I don't know that much about BATMAN (I've seen them all, I just don't think that much of them till the Bale film) except to say that I thought BATMAN BEGINS, like the third HARRY POTTER film, was fantastic and the way they should always have been. Somebody who is more of a devotee might take exception to the reimagining, but if the original imagining wasn't anything special, then I've got nothing to complain about.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Sharr Khan said:

Borg451 said:
He says it badly. but its true. Trek should stay dead.. it harms the already existing episodes by making more stuff..

No it doesn't

Sharr

If the new Trek will harm your enjoynment of the old stuff, DON'T WATCH THE NEW STUFF! Why do people have to make life difficult for themselves?