So my wife asked me a question...

[cooleddie74]

Probably because Kirk is dead unless they push the reset button.

Which has been one of my suspicions ever since news of when this movie was going to be set started to surface. To feature Kirk again as his younger, more dynamic and classic self requires a new actor doing the role. Which meant most likely a visual reimagining of the 23rd century TREK universe to appeal to younger audiences. Et al. Ad nauseam.

 

[M'Sharak]

My kids are in a star wars kick right now and are currently watching The Empire Strikes Back. Her question was.

With Star Wars having never been reset why would there be a need to reset Star Trek. I don't have an answer but maybe some people might.

I know Star trek has more hours of tv and perhaps a more negative geek appeal, but Star Wars has more books and supporting material.

Star Wars has never been rebooted or whatever so why the need to do it in Star Trek?

The difficulty here lies in that we don't know that this movie constitutes a reboot. Asking the question you've asked here supposes already that it does.

 

[ThunderAeroI]

My kids are in a star wars kick right now and are currently watching The Empire Strikes Back. Her question was.

With Star Wars having never been reset why would there be a need to reset Star Trek. I don't have an answer but maybe some people might.

I know Star trek has more hours of tv and perhaps a more negative geek appeal, but Star Wars has more books and supporting material.

Star Wars has never been rebooted or whatever so why the need to do it in Star Trek?

The difficulty here lies in that we don't know that this movie constitutes a reboot. Asking the question you've asked here supposes already that it does.

Well this may be true, but from what I understand here and elsewhere a reboot seems most possible

 

[Sharr Khan]

the money men think that this is the best way to get it back on track - everything else is window dressing.

Unfortunately, money men think it's the window dressing that makes the movie - they are notoriously inept when it comes to preserving a foundation.

They are not priests in some holy order trying to ensure that the words of our holy lord roddenberry are preserved forever - their job is to ensure that the franchise makes money. If it doesn't make money, it dies. You sneer as much as you like but that's how it is.

Capitalism isn't evil, nor is it mutually exclusive of artistic aspirations. Star Trek wasn't created to bring enlightenment to the masses - it was created to make GR a famous/successful TV producer and fill his pockets. That's not a sin even though in later years he himself must have viewed it that way.

Sharr

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

Star Trek is currently an orphan, being handed from one abusive foster parent to another.

Good one.

To continue the analogy, I think Star Trek just got adopted by Madonna.

 

[datas_cat_spot]

Oh sweet! Another thread where two completely different things are compared to one another!

As if the Bond and Batman comparisons aren't already pointless enough.

I was asked the question and I didn't have an answer. I also fail to see how the comparison isn't valid. They both have been around nearly as long as each other and both have alot of backup source material.

Can you imgien the uproar if Lucas rebooted Episode 4?

Trying to compare a six chapter story with a beginning and end to a few hundred television shows is silly. The story being told in this movie (Kirk and friends pre-TOS) hasn't been told. It's not as if Paramount is attempting to remake every TOS episode for tv which is what would be akin to remaking Ep 4. Besides, Lucas already did update and repackage the first trilogy for a new generation.

 

[cooleddie74]

Some diehard classic SW fans consider the CGI additions to the original trilogy to be "rebooting" to a certain extent. They will never consider the new Ian McDiarmid Emperor hologram in EMPIRE or Hayden Christensen's Anakin ghost at the end of JEDI anything more than blasphemy or a visual reboot.

 

[davejames]

If I was Lucas (oh boy I wish), I'd ensure I had some estate ready or already in place that would protect the IP and ensure proper story control, etc. Can't let the poor boy go without a parent.

Actually Lucas has already said he's arranged it so no one else can make SW movies after he dies. Which is kind of a sad thing, if you ask me. The SW universe is so vast and full of so many story possibilities, that it's a shame our last glimpse of it will have been the awful prequels.

As for the Trek reboot, I'm all for it. The heart of the franchise has always been Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, so it only makes sense to refocus the storytelling on them. And the only way to do that is with new actors and a new, more modern style.

 

[M'Sharak]

My kids are in a star wars kick right now and are currently watching The Empire Strikes Back. Her question was.

With Star Wars having never been reset why would there be a need to reset Star Trek. I don't have an answer but maybe some people might.

I know Star trek has more hours of tv and perhaps a more negative geek appeal, but Star Wars has more books and supporting material.

Star Wars has never been rebooted or whatever so why the need to do it in Star Trek?

The difficulty here lies in that we don't know that this movie constitutes a reboot. Asking the question you've asked here supposes already that it does.

Well this may be true, but from what I understand here and elsewhere a reboot seems most possible

You can find theories here and elsewhere advancing almost anything, some of them quite ludicrous, but until there's a good deal more credible evidence than we currently have, we just don't know, one way or the other (even if there were any sort of firm consensus on what the term "reboot" actually means.) I tend to be skeptical that it is, but that's just my own take on it; everybody is free to draw their own conclusions, for all the good that does before the fact.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Star Wars has never been rebooted or whatever so why the need to do it in Star Trek?

Lots of people will still pay money to see a "Star Wars" movie.

 

[Orac Zen]

You can find theories here and elsewhere advancing almost anything, some of them quite ludicrous, but until there's a good deal more credible evidence than we currently have, we just don't know, one way or the other (even if there were any sort of firm consensus on what the term "reboot" actually means.) I tend to be skeptical that it is, but that's just my own take on it; everybody is free to draw their own conclusions, for all the good that does before the fact.

It pains me to agree with M'Sharak but in this instance I must. There are few real details about this movie out there, but it seems the only basis of the claims that it's a reboot are that the uniforms and the Enterprise look a bit different, and perhaps one or two other equally minor details. That's it, as far as I can tell, and all those things really represent are cosmetic differences within a fictional universe. If there's any genuine evidence out there that the forthcoming movie is a "reboot" - whatever that is (is it minor cosmetic changes? Drastic stuff like making Kirk a woman? What?) - then by all means, direct me to it.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

I would argue that Star Wars was rebooted, somewhere around the middle of Return of the Jedi. At that point the story shifted tremendously and went from being Luke's story to being Anakin's story. The prequels are in many ways a reboot in the way that TNG was a kind of reboot. Same universe, same essential thematics and tone, reworked hero's journey.

And Star Wars probably will be retold again later. Probably not until Lucas' kids own the rights, but the idea that the Lucas estate won't, in the model of the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, license out the tale for new versions, or continuations, is pretty far-fetched.

See, it has to do with controlling the copyright. Artistic works enter the public domain some number of years after the initial copyright - for printed works this has to do with publication date, for visual artworks it has to do with the date of the artist's death - and it varies from country to country. For instance there was a flap over Project Gutenberg putting the text of Gone With the Wind up - Margaret Mitchell's estate claimed they still held the copyright, which releases to the public domain 95 years after publication - but only in the US. In Australia and a few other countries, it releases 50 years after publication - so the internet is complicating things mightily.

Filmed works, especially filmed works owned by corporations, which never die the way individual artists do, are another case entirely. Disney has been fighting it out in the courts because Mickey Mouse's copyright was supposed to hit the public domain a few years ago, but Disney is fighting it tooth and nail.

Regardless, Star Wars is likely to hit the public domain at some point, and someone will absolutely use the universe and/ or characters in a new story.

Star Trek, being owned by Paramount, may never hit the public domain. But they've shown the will to reboot it as they feel necessary to make a continued successful commercial property.

But ultimately - any story of any staying power eventually gets retold. I mean, people do it by the truckloads already with fan fiction. You basically can't stop people from reworking popular stories - though you can keep them from being able to make money doing it.

 

[ThunderAeroI]

Well i should get myself a C-Corp and make some stuff that cant ever enter the public domain then

 

[AJBryant]

Star Trek is currently an orphan, being handed from one abusive foster parent to another.

If you were a woman, I'd hug you. Since you are a man, I'll just slap you on the shoulder in a slightly uncomfortable yet macho way and say "bravo."

 

[Iamnotspock]

Unfortunately, money men think it's the window dressing that makes the movie - they are notoriously inept when it comes to preserving a foundation.

They are not priests in some holy order trying to ensure that the words of our holy lord roddenberry are preserved forever - their job is to ensure that the franchise makes money. If it doesn't make money, it dies. You sneer as much as you like but that's how it is.

Capitalism isn't evil, nor is it mutually exclusive of artistic aspirations. Star Trek wasn't created to bring enlightenment to the masses - it was created to make GR a famous/successful TV producer and fill his pockets. That's not a sin even though in later years he himself must have viewed it that way.

Sharr

"Don't try to be a great man, just be a man, and let history make its own judgements."

 

[Australis]

Star Trek is currently an orphan, being handed from one abusive foster parent to another.

If you were a woman, I'd hug you. Since you are a man, I'll just slap you on the shoulder in a slightly uncomfortable yet macho way and say "bravo."

Oh, please. You, all of us, simply don't know enough yet. Granted B&B did fail in the end, and badly, but you have no idea how JJA's effort will turn out.

To OP question: SW has worn better by being made later. Social attitudes changed drastically between the mid 60s and early 80s, and have changed again. But TNG et al were still chuntering along on ideas of society set in TOS. The air needed clearing, and I hope TSTM (you hard it here second, folks!) will do that. Flexibility of use of canoin is allowed, you know.

 

[The Wormhole]

Star Wars is remarkably accessible for non-fans. Well, the original trilogy anyway. Being a fan is kind of required to make any sense out of the prequals.

Star Trek at this point isn't so easy for a non-fan to get into. And since Abrams and his Cohorts want these unwashed masses to see their movie, they feel the need to reboot the Trek franchise.

 

[Neopeius]

Oh sweet! Another thread where two completely different things are compared to one another!

As if the Bond and Batman comparisons aren't already pointless enough.

Did you see the Star Wars prequels trailer with the Trek trailer audio?

 

[BillJ]

They are not priests in some holy order trying to ensure that the words of our holy lord roddenberry are preserved forever - their job is to ensure that the franchise makes money. If it doesn't make money, it dies. You sneer as much as you like but that's how it is.

Who the f*** is "sneering?" If anything, it's your smart-ass answer. In most cases, accountants are really out of the loop as to what makes a movie work or not - their approach of "change the stuff our focus groups tell us they don't like/understand," despite the fact that most focus groups are 'focused' on getting the answers TPTB want to hear, rather than gathering honest or informed responses. I have no doubt that people who understand how to create movies would be much better judges of what needs to be done than do accountants; I said nothing about canon/continuity.

Accountants don't run focus groups.

But accountants control the purse strings... and they take the focus group recommendations very seriously.

 

[soot]

Lapis Exilis is right, Star Wars has been rebooted in every way that really matters. The continuity may not have changed, but the style and characters have.

The only thing the new Trek movie may be doing that Wars didn't is jettisoning the old continuity. That wouldn't work well for Star Wars because it was a limited series based on a single story. Without that existing framework, they would have to retell the same basic story. We'd have to go through Luke's coming of age again, find out that Vader is his father again, and so on. Or else go off in a completely different direction that would make any link to Star Wars as we know it rather slight.

Because Star Trek was a TV series, more of a story format that a story, a reboot need not clash with the original in the same way. Rebooting it just means recasting the characters, modernizing the ship, and coming up with new stories. There's less direct competition with the original, and the two can more easily compliment each other as different takes on the same characters -- even if there are a few continuity differences between the presentations.