The 90's Golden Age.

[Viper78]

Berman Trek lives and dies by 'The Best of Both Worlds". That moment, that summer of 1990, was the height of Modern Trek. Everything else that came after it in the Berman Era built off that moment. Period.

Trek began to wane in popularity by TNG's 7th Season. Personally, I loved DS9. But I cannot ignore the fact that less people were interested in Trek. Berman Trek had great moments in the 90s, but it was hardly "forward thinking". The shows had the same pacing, music and style. The stories were, for the most part, blocked out the same and became bland. It became "Star Trek paint-by-numbers". Good, but like pizza is good. By ENT, Berman Trek was stagnant.

Like him or hate him, Abrams brought life back to Trek, like Harve Bennett did with TWOK.

Abrams has breathed life back into Star Trek but I wouldn't call trying to reinvent old characters & rehashing old stories from previous movies as "forward Thinking". I would say there was a lot more originality from the Trek in the 90's compared to what we have seen in the last 2 films.

 

[oddsigve]

The 90's was the peak of Star Trek, but I would argue it also had the best of Star Trek but also some of the worst. I think this "Golden Age" will never be brought back or revived, for I think J.J. Abrams movies are pretty embarrassing, especially Into Darkness. They aren't Star Trek for me, they're dumb action movies, which is fine except I'm not looking for dumb action in Star Trek.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[R. Star]

Action is fine in Trek so long as there's a purpose to it. TNG, by it's movie days, wasn't immune to the dumb action syndrome either. Unless you call a 60 year old man in a dune buggy chase with space orcs, quality writing.

The 90's were the golden age of Trek to me as well, it's the stuff I grew up on. TNG was a hit every week. DS9 was the high water point of the franchise to me in terms of quality. Voyager was good, but used technobabble and rehased TNG styles way too much, the TNG movies were rather hit or miss, mostly miss, and Enterprise... well that was the show I quit watching in season 2. A pity, if they had the quality of writing they had in seasons 3 and 4, the show might've made it.

Honestly I think people were just burnt out on Trek by the early 2000's. Not the hardcore fans, but the casual viewers who do make up most of the income. So it's not a bad thing we went a few years without any to revitalize interest. I just wish the NuTrek was more than we've seen right now. Mindless action does seem to describe it at times.

 

[WhateverMan]

The characters are all hyper charged for the sake of stereotyping.

They're simply younger versions of the characters we saw in TOS. How dare they actually show people who will grow and change. I know I'm the same exact person I was ten years ago. How about you?

Uhura is promoted to the third main character, a change I will never forgive.

How dare they upgrade her from "Hailing frequencies open" and "Captain, I'm scared".



Go watch early TOS and you'll see exactly where the idea comes from.

Poor Bones has been demoted to nothing.

I'm not for shoe-horning characters into the spotlight just because I like the character. The last two movies haven't needed McCoy to be front and center so he hasn't been.

All this aside, Into Darkness was a new level of awful. All it did was rip off from all other Star Trek films into a convoluted stupid mess. The laziness of the writing, the stupidity of the story (super blood that brings people back from the dead??????????) and the endless references (rip offs) were just cheap and unnecessary. Why not make a very good original story with interesting developments which makes the audience think? The reason is obvious, because these films are made to only make money. There is no real interest in making a good movie with an interesting story, just something safe that will make money. Which is why they used all the cheapest tricks to draw in all the Star Trek nerds to see it. I was one of them.

You do know that both TOS and TNG had episodes that brought folks back from the dead? TNG has an episode where Crusher brought three people back who had been dead for three-hundred years.

I'm sure you believe that Roddenberry and Berman were making Trek for free from the goodness of their hearts and that Paramount gave all profits to the Little Sisters of the Poor?

What non-sense. Star Trek has always had money as its driving purpose. Studios don't invest tens to hundreds of millions of dollars into a product just for the hell of it.

With The Butler, Into Darkness is the worst film I've seen in theater this year.

[/QUOTE]


Watch out, you're almost putting words in my mouth. I have no illusions about the profitability of Star Trek, but there exist ways to be true to the source and make money. Something which I don't feel Abrams has done. It's completely fine to like these films, but they should called what they are. I sort of liked the 2009 movie, but it still isn't a great movie and certainly not a good Star Trek movie.

I can't see how Into Darkness can be considered a good movie. It's awful Star Trek and it's awful as a plain movie. And yes there have been some revivals in Star Trek, but never done as stupid as Into Darkness. They use the genetically engineered blood as a magic serum to cure death. Now they can literally cure almost everything at all times. To quote a greater critic than myself: "Plot convenience equals Movie suck." Most movies use this to some degree, but Into Darkness was nothing but this.

I'm familiar with the Spock/Uhura thing from TOS, but it doesn't change the fact how chemistry free and boring they were in the film. I'm also familiar with character arcs, but having characters with no nuances and subtleties is childish. I'll agree that Spock was by far the most wholesome character in the new films and has more complexity than anyone else. But he still pales to the original Spock.

I think you enjoy Into Darkness for all the same reasons I hate it. But let's not kid ourselves, I enjoy a lot of crappy movies, but I never forget they suck. I guess time will tell how Into Darkness will be regarded in the future by fans and non fans alike. So I'm not saying my opinion is holy and written in stone for all eternity.

 

[sonak]

The "Abrams movies are dumb action flicks" chant gets tiresome. Anyone whose watched them without preconceived notions about what Star Trek is, knows this simply isn't true.

The Abrams films hold up quite well when compared with what the franchise has produced before.

agreed-also,Trek has done straight action stuff from long before Abrams came along


"Balance of Terror"
"Best of Both Worlds"


Wrath of Khan
Star Trek First Contactn

 

[Praetor]

I generally agree with the OP in that the 90s were a "Golden Age"-type heyday and there was a lot of Trek, but I don't necessarily think that everything we got during the modern era was awesome, and indeed as time went on the franchise began to look more and more threadbare.

 

[BillJ]

...

All I can say is go look at the poll, done here in the Trek XI+ forum:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=209857

56% of poster here gave it an 'A-' or better.

Or Rotten Tomatoes, where 91% of viewers out of 231,000 gave it an average rating of 4.3 stars:

 

[R. Star]

I love it when people bring out the "other people think I'm right" argument when discussing what's good or not. Just silly, unless you actually think people are as a whole mindless sheep going with the herd without thinking for themselves.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I love it when people bring out the "other people think I'm right" argument when discussing what's good or not. Just silly, unless you actually think people are as a whole mindless sheep going with the herd without thinking for themselves.

No, people being "mindless sheep going with the herd" is the argument trotted out against popular opinion.

 

[BillJ]

I love it when people bring out the "other people think I'm right" argument when discussing what's good or not. Just silly, unless you actually think people are as a whole mindless sheep going with the herd without thinking for themselves.

I believe in proving or disproving statements with facts and numbers:

These are stupid action films, which is why many Trekkies call them stupid action films. Because they are... Stupid... Action... Films.

Judging by the results gathered on this board, many Trekkies do not feel that the Abrams films are "Stupid... Action... Films." Out of 668 votes, 530 ranked the movie a 'B-' or better.

For me personally, I like the film and that didn't change when 100 Trekkies in Las Vegas voted it the worst Trek movie ever.

 

[Hober Mallow]

To each his own. For me the Abrams Trek films are mediocre entertainment for an illiterate culture. But they're no worse than any other Hollywood action film.

Just because something is popular doesn't make it good -- unless one really considers TRANSFORMERS a great film.

But getting back on topic, I would argue that most of the Trek of the 90s wasn't really any better.

 

[BillJ]

To each his own. For me the Abrams Trek films are mediocre entertainment for an illiterate culture. But they're no worse than any other Hollywood action film.

I consider myself quite well-versed in multiple types of literature (I have and continue to read a lot) and I thought the films were great fun.

Part of the reason that many people's views get ignored or blasted is because they come in with exactly the same language and attitude you used above. No one likes to be called 'illiterate' because they enjoy a certain piece of entertainment.

It's fucking insulting.

 

[Forbin]

Action is fine in Trek so long as there's a purpose to it. TNG, by it's movie days, wasn't immune to the dumb action syndrome either. Unless you call a 60 year old man in a dune buggy chase with space orcs, quality writing.

That's just it - I was hoping a new, non-Berman Trek would be better than the craptastic TNG films were. maybe a harkening back to the early, idea-driven episodes of TOS.

Oh well.

 

[WhateverMan]

To each his own. For me the Abrams Trek films are mediocre entertainment for an illiterate culture. But they're no worse than any other Hollywood action film.

Just because something is popular doesn't make it good -- unless one really considers TRANSFORMERS a great film.

But getting back on topic, I would argue that most of the Trek of the 90s wasn't really any better.

I mostly agree. My point was never "anything I say is right and fuck everyone else". The 90's did bring some of the best Star Trek and some of the worst, but overall I think the quantity of good it brought outweighs the bad. The episodes are far from perfect and some of them do include dumb action, but the films brought it to a higher level. By films I mean both TNG and Abrams films.

Using popular opinion is pretty useless on this topic. Transformers is a good example, a film I saw once in theater and fell asleep during the finale. Completely worthless movie, it's ok to like it but it's not a good movie. It's hard to pin down the "Ultimate standard" for movies, so why bother.

But back on point... I guess the point is kinda obscured now.

90's Star Trek : Yay!

 

[Viper78]

I love it when people bring out the "other people think I'm right" argument when discussing what's good or not. Just silly, unless you actually think people are as a whole mindless sheep going with the herd without thinking for themselves.

I believe in proving or disproving statements with facts and numbers:

These are stupid action films, which is why many Trekkies call them stupid action films. Because they are... Stupid... Action... Films.

Judging by the results gathered on this board, many Trekkies do not feel that the Abrams films are "Stupid... Action... Films." Out of 668 votes, 530 ranked the movie a 'B-' or better.

For me personally, I like the film and that didn't change when 100 Trekkies in Las Vegas voted it the worst Trek movie ever.

Nor should it! The fact that I don't care much for the Abrams films doesn't mean that I speak for the majority or anyone else for that matter. The only person I can speak for is myself.

 

[R. Star]

I believe in proving or disproving statements with facts and numbers:

So if we were discussing our favorite color, you'd be bringing out the percentage of people who like red as evidence? As if there's a right and wrong answer. Different people have different tastes regarding entertainment. That's the only fact I'm aware of when discussing personal likes and dislikes.

 

[Franklin]

I dunno. While I enjoyed TNG and loved DS9, I think the golden age of Trek was in the '70s, when it was in the hands of the fans and our imaginations ran wild.

Yeah. I'd agree. The TOS phenomenon in the 1970s was unique for its time. In less than a decade, the cancelled TV show became so popular the prototype of the space shuttle was named for its starship and a feature film was released. An audience was discovered, and everything came after that.

If not the golden years, the 1980s were probably more successful than the 1990s, too. There were TOS films that were popular enough to bring about trying TNG, which brought Trek back to TV as a big ratings success in 1987.

But the 1990s? No. By the mid-1990s the TV ratings for all Trek shows were going down precipitously, and other than FC and TUC (1991), the movies in the 1990s tended to disappoint fans and critics, alike.

 

[BillJ]

So if we were discussing our favorite color, you'd be bringing out the percentage of people who like red as evidence? As if there's a right and wrong answer. Different people have different tastes regarding entertainment. That's the only fact I'm aware of when discussing personal likes and dislikes.

It's not about right or wrong, it's about getting facts straight.

If someone said this: "blue is the best color and most people dislike red", I would be interested if there were numbers that backed up the statement or if that person was simply talking out of their ass.

I've seen no numbers anywhere that backs up the assertion that many Trekkies think the Abrams films are "Stupid... Action... Films."

YMMV.

 

[22 Stars]

I haven't been polled, and I didn't like STID either, so there. Add me to the number to prove your point... wrong.

 

[BillJ]

I haven't been polled, and I didn't like STID either, so there. Add me to the number to prove your point... wrong.

No one is stopping you from voting in the poll in the Trek XI+ forum.