Tarantino Trek - what could we expect?
- Thread starter Danlav05
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I didn’t take his comments that way at all. As far as I can tell, he has no idea what the Kelvin timeline is, and he wants that cast to play their Prime counterparts.
I'd think extremely blood thirsty Klingon fight scenes with lots of swearing. I thought this was a joke when I first heard of this, as Quentin Tarantino movies are generally not representative of the culture of Star Trek.
A ton of humor, lots of jokes and script references to obscure things in the Trek world. Cameos (maybe even by some of TOS crew) and I wouldn't be surprised to see Samuel L Jackson as a Star Fleet Admiral.
A fun soundtrack with an interesting holodeck scene as a byline. Possibly leading to the aforementioned cameos
A ton of humor, lots of jokes and script references to obscure things in the Trek world. Cameos (maybe even by some of TOS crew) and I wouldn't be surprised to see Samuel L Jackson as a Star Fleet Admiral.
A fun soundtrack with an interesting holodeck scene as a byline. Possibly leading to the aforementioned cameos
The statement was that Abrams didn't follow the established time travel rules of Star Trek. Do you dispute that?
Did you see ST09? If you did, then you clearly know that Abrams used Scotty as a bumbling idiot merely for comic relief. And that Spock/Uhura romance? Pulled from one scene that had zero romantic connotation?
If the fans have to do the writers' work for them, then that's bad writing. To an extent you're right for little things, but for the big stuff, the writers need to do their jobs for the big stuff.
Why ‘dispute,’ when you can just laugh hysterically before going about your day?
Wanna add on a few guffaws by bringing up Trek’s ‘established rules’ re. travelling to alternate universes?
Yup. Because time travel is not consistent in Star Trek, as well as the whole "Parallels" thing, as well as alternate universes/timelines, etc.
Saw the comic relief. Didn't see the bumbling idiot part.
I must have watched a different scene than you, since Uhura has indicated some interest in Spock with the Vulcan lyre scene, as well as her talking with him about being an attractive young lady and wanting Spock's attention. Yes, they are brief moments but the idea of an alternate universe is to take characters in different directions than their prime counterparts. To recognize, as Spock, notes:
UHURA: An alternate reality?
SPOCK: Precisely. Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted, our destinies have changed.
They are exploring possibilities. Why not let them?
It's gonna' be so fuckin' awkward if we suddenly have a prime-timeline show (Picard) that heavily deals with the events of ST09 (the destruction of Romulus) - and then the Kelvin timeline itself starts to completely ignore ST09.
The clusterfuck would be complete!
The clusterfuck would be complete!
Some people bringing their 2009 problems into 2019...
Time travel in Trek has always been a device in service of whatever story was to be told at the time. How time travel behaved was variable even in its earliest appearances in the original series, and that only grew increasingly murky with the addition of each new time-travel story. It's best not to concern oneself overmuch about established rules when there really never were any to begin with. Whatever way a given story defines time travel to work, that's how it should be assumed to work until the conclusion of that story.
I've seen it, and know that Scotty, while he did have some amusing lines, was A) not there "merely for comic relief" and B) anything but a bumbling idiot.
The job of a writer is to tell a story. Part of the job of the audience has always been to take what's provided by the storyteller as a framework and for each member of that audience to use their own imagination to fill it out.
That's what's implied by the term "suspension of disbelief": the storyteller suggests, and the listener's imagination takes that suggestion and runs with it. That's the contract, and no two people listening to the same storyteller will hear the story in exactly the same way.
With film, obviously, the nature of the framework is different from that of a strictly verbal form of storytelling, but it remains a framework nonetheless, and the audience's imagination is still an integral part of the equation.
It's not gonna be like that. QT is a huge Trek fan and he knows the rules.
And it's not like famous filmmakers like him can only make one kind of movie. Anybody of his caliber is going to have a wide variety of work.
Also, I believe he once said that he'd like to do a sort of big-screen version of "Yesterday's Enterprise". Now THAT I'd like to see. (ST4 could do the same thing, but with the Kelvin...)
Another great thing about having Tarantino making the movie. He can get just about anyone he wants simply by asking.
See here's the thing--before Abrams, every single time travel Trek story had one thing in common. If you change the past, you change history, and can alter your future. Because of that, time travel was considered dangerous, and our characters, as well as the temporal police, took it very seriously. Episodes and movies were crafted on this issue. Were there slightly different takes on it? Sure. But why have the temporal police at all and why care if time travel merely creates new universes? McCoy accidentally causes the Nazis to win WWII? Who cares? Doesn't affect us!
I don't think there was one time travel episode/movie in Star Trek that didn't have these high stakes.
Abrams changed that.
You bring up parallel universes. That is a much different animal. Time travel and parallel universes are two different things, and in Star Trek, whenever our characters traveled to a parallel universe, we knew it and it was crystal clear.
Abrams had total control over the franchise. He CHOSE not to make what happened clear. He wrote the ambiguous line. He never came back to the prime universe. The only statement was the use of the term alternate reality, but think about it--if you travel in time, change the past, and don't change it back, that's an alternate reality too. Your original reality no longer exists.
So that's the problem I had with Abrams.
He could have solved it with ONE LINE. But he didn't. He knowingly made that choice.
It's a fixable choice, even today. You could easily establish a prime universe/ Kelvin universe crossover. Discover and Picard take place in the prime universe, but they could have taken place before Nero wiped it out. A timeline, before it is altered, should have a past/present/future. Wiping the prime universe out doesn't mean it NEVER existed. It just means it no longer exists.
I would love to see some kind of story that actually establishes that Nero and Spock did indeed switch universes as well as travel in time. It would end this problem, and I would think it would be a great story too.
Maybe that's what Tarantino is doing, and why he has issues with what ST09 did.
Do competent people end up in that weird beer factory?
It wouldn't matter if Uhura had interest in Spock, and that's very debateable--Spock was incapable of returning those affections. This was established in This Side of Paradise.
As for the alternate reality line--see above.
The problem is that all time travel stories had stakes. If you go with what Abrams is saying, all the time travel stories of Star Trek really were much ado about nothing. ST09 was not so good that it should invalidate some of the best stories in Star Trek history. Where Abrams made a mistake was simply not establishing Kelvin as a separate and distinct universe. He had the chance. Ironically, this can still be dealt with, and doing so might make a great movie.
I get what you are saying, but having the audience fill in blanks is not really a good excuse for sloppy writing. It really depends on the blank you have to fill in.
I'll give you two examples--one that illustrates your point, and one that illustrates mine.
First you. In TWOK, Khan recognized Chekov. That isn't too hard to reconcile. There were 430 people on the ship, we didn't follow Khan for 24 hours, and maybe Chekov was in the lower decks and met Khan off camera.
Now me. In STVI, there was a character on the Excelsior named Valtane. At the end of the movie, he was in the background when Sulu was saying goodbye to Kirk. In the Flashback episode of Voyager, that character was killed. All the writers had to do was watch the movie and see flat out that the character didn't die. Same episode takes place over a few days, when it was stated in ST6 that months passed.
There are other examples, but I think the point is made.
To an extent yes, but when dealing with an established rule in a longstanding franchise, a writer violating that rule must make it crystal clear in how he reconciles it. Abrams easily could have kept ST09 consistent with everything else. He made a conscious choice.
Maybe Tarantino will deal with this. That's a big reason I am curious about it.
In my fan-fantasy, Tarantino could put NuKirk and the Federation into a desperate and dire situation, maybe even extinction level. NuKirk uses time travel (insert MacGuffin here) to change the past to prevent this situation and save his father (Chris Hemsworth) from death (circa 2233), thus "restoring" the prime timeline (with the exception that NuKirk is introduced). NuKirk lives on in prime timeline similar to Old Prime Spock who lived on during the Kelvin timeline. Move forward in restored prime timeline from the Kelvin event about 50 years. William Shatner can be cast as old NuKirk in current prime timeline along with Chris Pine as the restored prime Kirk circa 2282 (with a Wrath of Khan scene prior to Spock's death). Insert a touching reunion scene between old Kirk and Spock (Zachary Quinto). End movie.
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Yep. Just as Chris Hemsworth walked away from Trek 4 because he didn't think the script was any good, he'd surely go back for a Tarantino project (although I doubt Tarantino would need him if it were about the Kelvin cast being set in prime).
I thought it was crystal clear...at least, when I watched it.
Really? That's the evidence? He's beaming across large distances but apparently has to get it perfect or he is incompetent?
"Incapable?" Even though it is established that Vulcans have deep emotions, and can be in relationships, as established by Sarek and Amanda?
I appreciate your write up but all of this is predicated on a very strict interpretation of what Star Trek has presented, rather than a willingness to explore where the story went. The elements are there, from time travel, alternate realities, and the like. Abrams choose to take it a different direction, but that doesn't make him out of step with prior Trek.
Don't know if anyone already posted any of this ('cause I'm too lazy to read 16 pages right now), but here's a copy of what I just wrote in the TarantinoTrek thread over in Future of Trek.
Yeah, he did a complete uncredited rewrite of all of Crimson Tide's dialogue. Much like how Joss Whedon did with Speed. Here's that scene.
Tarantino's always had a lot of passion for geeky properties. I've always been curious how that would play out with an actual IP that wasn't his own.
Here's Kill Bill's famous Superman monologue.
And Tarantino talking about the moral complexity of Xena.
Tarantino's work itself is surprisingly optimistic given the violence and subgenres. Maybe he wouldn't be such a bad fit after all. Here's what TV Tropes says about it.
Yeah, he did a complete uncredited rewrite of all of Crimson Tide's dialogue. Much like how Joss Whedon did with Speed. Here's that scene.
Tarantino's always had a lot of passion for geeky properties. I've always been curious how that would play out with an actual IP that wasn't his own.
Here's Kill Bill's famous Superman monologue.
And Tarantino talking about the moral complexity of Xena.
Tarantino's work itself is surprisingly optimistic given the violence and subgenres. Maybe he wouldn't be such a bad fit after all. Here's what TV Tropes says about it.
I don't get why people hate the alternate reality thing so much.
The most sci-fi elements of trek (and not only trek) had always been influenced by what was contemporary at the time. There were certain trends, even, among different 'futuristic' products consistently drawing inspiration from each other.
Concepts like time travel have evolved well past the "back to the future" narrative because quantum mechanics is more contemporary now and is considered a tad more realistic.
We can't fault a creative team of our era for taking inspiration from what they know now, and ostensibly expect them to be..outdated.
Now, putting aside the fact that it is all moot points if you are making excuses for what Tarantino is saying, because it doesn't matter what happened in tos since he'd write for this trek and he must thus follow THIS canon, jj&co didn't invalidate previous iterations, anyway.
They didn't really contradict the time travel device used in previous trek, they just used another device. No one says there can only be ONE device.
Parallel realities aren't new to trek either, if anything this reboot is just using one of the possible explanations of how they might be created or you can access to them (through a black hole. There are actual theories about that).
As for spock/uhura...man, I don't get why romance and characters having sexual agency is so ostracised by some. Some fans aren't even that bothered by the destruction of vulcan but they can't get over two fictional characters being in love.
This is another tiring topic but jj&co did not pull it out of their asses. The reboot isn't saying they were an item in tos too, anyway, just that the hints in tos are enough to imagine that, had they met under different circumstances, it's possible they'd become a couple.
Kelvin trek is another reality so pointing up that things didn't happen in tos is a contradiction. Saying 'I don't like it's another reality so I'm going to ignore that because tos did time travel differently' isn't an argument, it's being dishonest by deliberately ignoring the thing that invalidates your main criticism making it pointless.
Besides, it's disingenuos to ignore the fact that it's mainly the context of the 60s that made a romance impossible in the original thing.
Roddenberry had tried to set it up from the get go himself, but racism wouldn't make it possible for them to have an interracial couple in the series.
(* and I'll point up the attraction was MUTUAL as evidenced by his reactions, not to mention the scene where Kollos not only confirmed that Spock saw Kirk and Bones as friends, he also found Uhura beautiful and he was enough interested about her to look for the meaning of her name in her African idiom AND he read poetry thinking about her)
As for Spock being incapable to have relationships or feel love...I agree with @fireproof78 : it seems rather inconsistent as a headcanon by itself because we know that even the vulcans have relationships and love, so it's a mystery why some fans want to believe that a half vulcan guy cannot do that 'because he's vulcan' .
Roddenberry, anyway, had wanted to end it all with him getting married, they never intended or suggested Spock was asexual and/or aromantic.
If this part of Spock's story was left ambiguous at best or, more correctly, severely underdeveloped, it's no doubt because of the influence of the time as well eg. main guys couldn't have girlfriends because women made them less 'cool'. The fact Spock was the nerdy friend of hero trapped him into annoying clichés too (nowadays writers aren't scared to show that nerdy guys and introverts can have relationships too and thus a life outside their best friend, even if the latter is the main guy. Characters can be more layered than alien=weird and human=conventional and normal )
I think Spock had issues with love just like he had with admitting his other feelings too. It wasn't about him not being able to experience them, but more a matter of him being on denial about his real self and having to accept that he wasn't this unfeeling, cold logical guy he wanted to pretend he was.
He didn't admit friendship either but still, he clearly experienced that (funny those who think he can't have a romance because he's vulcan don't realize friendship is him experiencing feelings too, btw. Nice double standards, bro)
Kelvin Spock evolved sooner because of his life experiences. He is positioned more as the Spock you saw later in the movies than the delusional guy you see in tos. The result is a man who is more honest with himself and he doesn't pretend he has no feelings. He also is more defensive about his human side because he genuinely respects humans thank to the influence of his mother (and later Uhura). He is more contemporary as that biracial guy allegory he always was, tbh.
Tl dr: it seems like some hate JJ&co because their trek isn't. .outdated.
And yet, the main purpose of a reboot is to upgrade things. And I don't mean just the special effects, clearly.
The 'anti alternate timeline' arguments also seem to paint the most conservative fans into a corner: a reboot clearly cannot be a copy of the original thing, the writers need to change some things a bit to make the story more unique and unpredictable, and if you don't make it another reality then you need to retcon the old thing ..and fans don't like that either.
The most sci-fi elements of trek (and not only trek) had always been influenced by what was contemporary at the time. There were certain trends, even, among different 'futuristic' products consistently drawing inspiration from each other.
Concepts like time travel have evolved well past the "back to the future" narrative because quantum mechanics is more contemporary now and is considered a tad more realistic.
We can't fault a creative team of our era for taking inspiration from what they know now, and ostensibly expect them to be..outdated.
Now, putting aside the fact that it is all moot points if you are making excuses for what Tarantino is saying, because it doesn't matter what happened in tos since he'd write for this trek and he must thus follow THIS canon, jj&co didn't invalidate previous iterations, anyway.
They didn't really contradict the time travel device used in previous trek, they just used another device. No one says there can only be ONE device.
Parallel realities aren't new to trek either, if anything this reboot is just using one of the possible explanations of how they might be created or you can access to them (through a black hole. There are actual theories about that).
As for spock/uhura...man, I don't get why romance and characters having sexual agency is so ostracised by some. Some fans aren't even that bothered by the destruction of vulcan but they can't get over two fictional characters being in love.
This is another tiring topic but jj&co did not pull it out of their asses. The reboot isn't saying they were an item in tos too, anyway, just that the hints in tos are enough to imagine that, had they met under different circumstances, it's possible they'd become a couple.
Kelvin trek is another reality so pointing up that things didn't happen in tos is a contradiction. Saying 'I don't like it's another reality so I'm going to ignore that because tos did time travel differently' isn't an argument, it's being dishonest by deliberately ignoring the thing that invalidates your main criticism making it pointless.
Besides, it's disingenuos to ignore the fact that it's mainly the context of the 60s that made a romance impossible in the original thing.
Roddenberry had tried to set it up from the get go himself, but racism wouldn't make it possible for them to have an interracial couple in the series.
(* and I'll point up the attraction was MUTUAL as evidenced by his reactions, not to mention the scene where Kollos not only confirmed that Spock saw Kirk and Bones as friends, he also found Uhura beautiful and he was enough interested about her to look for the meaning of her name in her African idiom AND he read poetry thinking about her)
As for Spock being incapable to have relationships or feel love...I agree with @fireproof78 : it seems rather inconsistent as a headcanon by itself because we know that even the vulcans have relationships and love, so it's a mystery why some fans want to believe that a half vulcan guy cannot do that 'because he's vulcan' .
Roddenberry, anyway, had wanted to end it all with him getting married, they never intended or suggested Spock was asexual and/or aromantic.
If this part of Spock's story was left ambiguous at best or, more correctly, severely underdeveloped, it's no doubt because of the influence of the time as well eg. main guys couldn't have girlfriends because women made them less 'cool'. The fact Spock was the nerdy friend of hero trapped him into annoying clichés too (nowadays writers aren't scared to show that nerdy guys and introverts can have relationships too and thus a life outside their best friend, even if the latter is the main guy. Characters can be more layered than alien=weird and human=conventional and normal )
I think Spock had issues with love just like he had with admitting his other feelings too. It wasn't about him not being able to experience them, but more a matter of him being on denial about his real self and having to accept that he wasn't this unfeeling, cold logical guy he wanted to pretend he was.
He didn't admit friendship either but still, he clearly experienced that (funny those who think he can't have a romance because he's vulcan don't realize friendship is him experiencing feelings too, btw. Nice double standards, bro)
Kelvin Spock evolved sooner because of his life experiences. He is positioned more as the Spock you saw later in the movies than the delusional guy you see in tos. The result is a man who is more honest with himself and he doesn't pretend he has no feelings. He also is more defensive about his human side because he genuinely respects humans thank to the influence of his mother (and later Uhura). He is more contemporary as that biracial guy allegory he always was, tbh.
Tl dr: it seems like some hate JJ&co because their trek isn't. .outdated.
And yet, the main purpose of a reboot is to upgrade things. And I don't mean just the special effects, clearly.
The 'anti alternate timeline' arguments also seem to paint the most conservative fans into a corner: a reboot clearly cannot be a copy of the original thing, the writers need to change some things a bit to make the story more unique and unpredictable, and if you don't make it another reality then you need to retcon the old thing ..and fans don't like that either.
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Frankly I don’t understand Kelvin fans being so hung up about haters to the extent that any nod to the Prime films should be taken as an insult to Kelvin and an appeasement to haters. Whatever.
I just want a good Star Trek film. Whether it’s Prime or Kelvin, it makes no significant difference for me. A good Trek film is a good Trek film. Tarantino wanting to do it has me intrigued. I can’t claim he’s a good fit for Trek, but I find him a hell of a more interesting choice than a whole lot of others. Since I don’t really believe Trek has much of a future in theatrical films, fuck it, I wanna see what he does before Paramount puts the franchise on ice indefinitely.
I just want a good Star Trek film. Whether it’s Prime or Kelvin, it makes no significant difference for me. A good Trek film is a good Trek film. Tarantino wanting to do it has me intrigued. I can’t claim he’s a good fit for Trek, but I find him a hell of a more interesting choice than a whole lot of others. Since I don’t really believe Trek has much of a future in theatrical films, fuck it, I wanna see what he does before Paramount puts the franchise on ice indefinitely.
Again we dont know what Tarantino would do exactly. he is likely to play with parallel universes and time travel so lets wait for now and see how he executes it.
No one has ever brought up spock/uhura when talking about Tarantino's trek although I think it is safe to say this is what you fear most about QT trek. Spock/Uhura may break up for good this time since Tarantino may not like the idea of spock having a relationship. again, this is a big maybe. Has QT ever mentioned the romance? NO.So I don't see how your long analysis of the romance is actually relevant for now since QT has never spoken about it. sounds like is you getting paranoid.
Spock can feel love and all, why are you assuming Tarantino doesn't know that? Have you seen some of his movies like Django Unchained?
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