Star Trek's Troubling 50th Anniversary
- Thread starter MakeshiftPython
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I can see that, but it's still for me a narrative dead-end.
On the DVD commentary for Star Wars (bugger all that 'Episode IV: A New Hope' bollocks), George Lucas says how he liked the idea of writing this as a universe with a bit of unseen history, and how it enhances the storytelling, and enriches the overall mythology, by the very fact that all of the backstory is "told" rather than "shown". One wonders, then, what he honestly thought could be gained by actually going backwards and showing that backstory. I really think Star Wars suffers as a 'Saga' because of that kind of muddled thinking. The original trilogy still stands up well on it's own, and the prequel trilogy likewise stands up on it's own in a lot of ways, but couple them together and you only end up with headaches.
I honestly think there's more creativity in going forwards instead of going back. But that's just my tuppence worth.
To toss in some more food for thought (and other analogies-insert yours here
) I agree with Lucas' sentiment, and I think both Star Wars and The Hobbit (the book) work really well in that sense.I also recently watched Guardians of the Galaxy, and that world is brimming with history that is talked in passing, but never treats the audience to full exposition mode. It makes the world more rich because it leaves me wondering what happen prior to that happening, what led to the peace treaty between Xandar and the Kree, and who is Ronon?
Star Wars is unique because it gives us insight in to what may have been (Anakin, the Republic, etc) and the fans took that and created their own fan canon and ideas, and such, and adds layers to the stories. Well, now the audience is engaged with the material and is adding their own ideas to what the story was about.
I think the same can be said about Star Trek and why Enterprise was a little rough, but Abrams Trek, I think, makes an easier transition because it crafts as history and experience that the audience has not seen.
Obviously, your mileage will vary, but I think the less of the history of a world you show in detail, the more it makes the audience engage the material and craft their own answers to questions.
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Amaris
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That would be for the general audience, who probably wouldn't have a clue as to what a Ferengi or Borg would be. At that point in the series, die hard Trek fans didn't really matter. How devoted to that base could they be if they weren't even using the franchise name at first, opting for the show just to be called Enterprise?
It also doesn't change that towards the end of the series they started ramping things up to cram as many references to Star Trek that they could; anything that might get Trek fans to start watching again.
Ugh.
I would probably be less likely to watch a show with an Enterprise-G in it, because all I'd be thinking was "are we really doing this again? Look! We can have staff meetings on a new Enterprise! We still don't have money, and we're adhering to all of that heavy as shit canon!"
I figure something like that would get one season at best.
Nah. I think all that was included to reassure the ST base that Enterprise was the same but different. All series do this to a certain extent. Successful series usually survive by mixing signifiers w new stuff.
I have a theory that the ratings around DS9's decline have more to do with some people's disappointment that they were on a space station.
A stationary Star Trek.
I can remember at 17 that I wasn't too thrilled with the concept and that I didn't really start to embrace DS9 until well after it was cancelled, around 2006, I think.
And I remember some backlash against it for that reason.
However, my disappointment (at the time) didn't preclude me from checking out Voyager and watching all of Season 1.
I still say if they could've made a new show with new concepts and issues, Trek didn't have to end. Or at least end on such a sour note. But that's just my theory.
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That's a fair point.
The reason prequels don't work is because the fanatics get their own preconceived notions of how the history plays out if such history is ever referenced in the current run of movies (i.e. Star Wars OT, Star Trek over the years before Enterprise) and think: "Ok, given those little tidbits, here's how I would write the prequels, and fanatics all over the world will worship me as the one who kept the home fires burning for them!"
Then the prequels come out, and all of a sudden the fanatics are dismayed because it did not turn out how they would write it. And since there are millions of fanaticals out there, that's millions (or maybe thousands...or even hundreds, depending on how the hive mentality works) of ideas that suddenly got lost in the sea of mediocrity and obscurity because "the suits" went with this idea that, because it did not settle in jackbooted lockstep with the fanatics, completely flies in the face of fan(atic)dom, and the established properties in question.
"Oh please, don't take my Star Wars(Star Trek) awaaaayyyy...I wrote the next paaaart.". "Whaaaat?! Anakin/Starfleet did this instead of what I thought to be that and became Darth Vader/The Federation?! My childhood is now raaaaaaaaped!"
And yeah, it also likely doesn't help that at the time the casual viewer didn't give two fraks about the prequels either, since they likely weren't interested in the current run.
Then the prequels come out, and all of a sudden the fanatics are dismayed because it did not turn out how they would write it. And since there are millions of fanaticals out there, that's millions (or maybe thousands...or even hundreds, depending on how the hive mentality works) of ideas that suddenly got lost in the sea of mediocrity and obscurity because "the suits" went with this idea that, because it did not settle in jackbooted lockstep with the fanatics, completely flies in the face of fan(atic)dom, and the established properties in question.
"Oh please, don't take my Star Wars(Star Trek) awaaaayyyy...I wrote the next paaaart.". "Whaaaat?! Anakin/Starfleet did this instead of what I thought to be that and became Darth Vader/The Federation?! My childhood is now raaaaaaaaped!"
And yeah, it also likely doesn't help that at the time the casual viewer didn't give two fraks about the prequels either, since they likely weren't interested in the current run.
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You make some good points. I think everyone is prone to this line of thinking, at least a little bit. I know that as a Star Wars fan, I had my own ideas about how Darth Vader arose, so that when the prequels came out I was less than satisfied. By the end, I was just dumbfounded by the direction they took.
I had this great, awesome backstory for Darth Vader in my head, and the official reason ended up being:
Kid born into slavery, discovered by other Jedi, grows up to be a moody, insecure teenager who impregnates a Naboo senator, who becomes his wife, and because of dreams he has where his wife dies, he vows to protect her, and then gets angry and kills... his wife. Then he fights Obi-Wan who slices off his arms and legs and leaves him next to a lava pit. Wait, what?
It annoyed me, though I got over it, and I found lots of things in the prequels that I ended up liking upon later viewings. So yeah, I get why people get upset, and I think we all do to a degree, but I think it's the level of investment, too. See, I'm a Star Wars fan, but if they made Han Solo a woman all of a sudden, I wouldn't hate it, but I would expect them to make it work. If it did, I'd be fine with it.
Others, though. Oh, well I'm sure you can imagine how many other fans would take that kind of news. The same applies to Star Trek. When you mess with someone's continuity, something they've grown up considering to be fact (even though it's in a fictional universe that contradicts itself constantly), then when even the smallest detail is changed, or not made to dovetail smoothly into the next chronological event, those people have epic meltdowns.
Of course, most casual fans would miss all of that. Hell, my mom's a fan of the original Star Trek, and it took two viewings of Star Trek (2009) for her to realize that the Enterprise looked different from the original. She loves Kirk, and Spock, and all the rest (and she ended up loving the movie), but some details that we nerds would latch onto immediately, just passed her by (for the record, I love the new design).
It's all about investment, and a willingness to flex a little when things don't go one's way. That many don't is due to the nature of fandom, I guess.
In the case of ENT as a prequel for TOS, there is a cluster of additional problems.
TOS was written 35 years before ENT. When TOS was produced, the views for how science fiction should play on television were radically different than what they were when ENT was produced. Also, since TOS was the first Trek, it was much more of a work in progress than the later Treks. For both of these reasons, what appeared on screen in TOS requires quite a bit of tweaking just to get it to be internally consistent, not to mention to get it to have a level of consistency with the real-world approaching what the TNG+ Treks enjoy.
Therefore, it was a practical impossibility, e.g., to return to the Romulans in prequel without generating multiple canonical conflicts with "Balance of Terror." There was always going to be a circle to square. The only way to avoid the problem was not to do the Romulans at all, or the Klingons, or anything else in TOS, but then what would you have that's Star Trek-y about a prequel?
For there to be a Star Trek prequel, there literally had to be choices and sacrifices that the hardcore fans would notice.
TOS was written 35 years before ENT. When TOS was produced, the views for how science fiction should play on television were radically different than what they were when ENT was produced. Also, since TOS was the first Trek, it was much more of a work in progress than the later Treks. For both of these reasons, what appeared on screen in TOS requires quite a bit of tweaking just to get it to be internally consistent, not to mention to get it to have a level of consistency with the real-world approaching what the TNG+ Treks enjoy.
Therefore, it was a practical impossibility, e.g., to return to the Romulans in prequel without generating multiple canonical conflicts with "Balance of Terror." There was always going to be a circle to square. The only way to avoid the problem was not to do the Romulans at all, or the Klingons, or anything else in TOS, but then what would you have that's Star Trek-y about a prequel?
For there to be a Star Trek prequel, there literally had to be choices and sacrifices that the hardcore fans would notice.
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As far as being tied down to the canon there's plenty of ways to loosen that shackle. Set a TV show with a branch of Starfleet so far away and alien that none of those details matter. It's Star Trek, they can pretty much come up with anything they want with some technology. Prequels and even the Abrams trek are more tied down than that would be. Enterprise always seemed like a bad idea to me.
If all these Marvel superhero shows are drawing viewers I can't imagine some crazy brand new Trek at some point wouldn't at least match them.
If all these Marvel superhero shows are drawing viewers I can't imagine some crazy brand new Trek at some point wouldn't at least match them.
Willing suspension of disbelief is an odd thing. Every TV show and movie franchise requires it to one extent or another. That some fans will blithely accept contradictions between some episodes and movies but not others has always amused me - and I've been guilty of it too!
It isn't so much about the 'details', more that in my view it's less creatively satisfying to watch a story whose conclusion you already know. "Revenge of the Sith" doesn't fail for me because of some pre-conceived notion I may or may not have had about the birth of Darth Vader, but simply because in the last twenty minutes it does this mad rush to try and tie itself into the beginning of the original trilogy with a sudden rush of fanwank. Which it has to do, because they spent the last three movies meandering around the subject.
If I know the ending of a movie, it makes watching the movie a chore. If I know the ending of a book, it makes reading the book pointless. Once I've seen the end of a story arc, rewatching that story arc becomes less rewarding unless there's something else there.
I feel the same way about prequels. We're all just playing connect-the-dots until things line up with what we already know, instead of truly expanding the universe in a new direction.
It's just a personal preference. I find prequels unsatisfying.
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Well, I'm not that knowledgeable.
I'd ask them to go after the rights to Forbidden Planet and let me do something with that instead. And then I'd ask Mike Okuda if he were willing to be the art director.
TVs and movies are a passive experience. But we're all creative people and it's natural for us to have that tension that comes from wanting the plot to go this way or that. Back-seat driving like this is why a lot of people go into showbiz in the first place. It's also why interactive forms of entertainment (i.e. games) are making as much if not more than passive ones, because they empower people to navigate through the plot themselves.
A large chunk of any discussion group in fandom is going to be of the back-seat-driving variety "Well, I would have done it THIS way!" Fandom that is nothing but blind kudos and praise is pretty boring.
A large chunk of any discussion group in fandom is going to be of the back-seat-driving variety "Well, I would have done it THIS way!" Fandom that is nothing but blind kudos and praise is pretty boring.
But if you're moving that far away from the core of what Star Trek is, then what's the point of it being Star Trek?
Other than using the name for publicity.
Star Trek has moved, over fifty years, from being an innovative hour of network television created by people who were personally invested in inventing the thing to being a big entertainment property owned entirely by a corporation worth billions that hires people to manage it with the goal of extending its profitability while protecting its current and future commercial viability.
There's not a path backward from that.
There's not a path backward from that.
Isn't what you're saying the core argument against JJ Trek? Since there's no way to impose your idea of what the core of Trek is on me or vice versa, this problem is intractable. It simply devolves into a marketing prediction for Hollywood to determine how people will vote with their wallets, and that's the direction the franchise goes. New directions are tried only after the gravy-train runs dry. For instance, Nolan wasn't allowed to take over the Batman franchise and push it into a more "serious" direction until we were subjected to dreck like "Batman and Robin" with male-nipples.
I am optimistic about the future of Star Trek, primarily because they are still making new movies, the novels set in the "Prime Universe" are absolutely fantastic, and STO has not shut down.
There is plenty of Trek out there, and while we may never see it on TV again, the State of the Franchise is strong.
There is plenty of Trek out there, and while we may never see it on TV again, the State of the Franchise is strong.
By the core, I'm referring to the core material. Kirk, Spock (big heroes) and the Enterprise out in space having adventures and encountering weird shit. You can move away from that to some degree, but there comes a point where you move too far away and your audience begins to abandon you.
When you move away from one version of Batman, you don't change the character into a doctor and have him battle corporate crime via his computer with just a little bat logo on his lapel. The core of Batman is still there. The darkness, the street fighting, the bad guys are all still there in every version. You're simply changing the tone.
For me, Deep Space Nine is Star Trek but it wasn't what I wanted from Star Trek. So I moved on. Voyager and Enterprise attempted to move back to space exploration, but the characters came across as so very flat most of the time that most no one cared. It's funny, the closest thing we had to the core material prior to the Abrams films was Firefly.
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