What exactly is "Star Trek" about the Martian?
Could you slap a Star Trek coat of paint on
The Martian? Probably, but I don't think it would translate very well.
I grew up on
The Original Series. Where Kirk fought Gods, Pizza Burgers and a guy dressed in a lizard suit. Star Trek, for me, was about big, brash fun on the Final Frontier.
Pulp sci-fi is in its DNA. Where the good guy punches the bad guy, saves the day and gets the girl. Kirk and Spock are every bit as much comic books superheroes as Superman, Batman or Captain America. It is a shame some fans can't or won't wrap their minds around that.
I'm not denying that pulp science fiction is at the heart of TOS, just recognizing that TOS is the third most watched series of the franchise behind both TNG and VOY (hey, look, science and science fiction, gasp), that making a generic space action movie with the TOS characters doesn't stand out in the rehash happy movie landscape, and that Star Trek as a franchise isn't
just about pulp science fiction yet that's all we've got so far with these movies. It's a shame some fans can't or won't wrap their minds around that.
TOS is the third most watched? OK. I have watched EVERY incarnation of Trek ever made. The only ones I own, the only ones I watch over and over: TOS. With the exception of specific episodes, (TNG: Yeterdays Enterprise, Unification 1 and 2,The Inner Light, Relics, Chain of Command 1 and 2, The Wounded, and Family, DS9: Trials and Tribble-ations, In the Pale Moonlight. I never watch Voyager ever, Enterprise if it happens to be on) Are there some stinkers in TOS? Absolutely (Spock's Brain comes immediately to mind) but the Characters are well drawn, well acted, and the stories are, gasp: "FUN".
Kirk has always been obsessed with the past, should I be surprised he would know something of twentieth century music, or even like it?
There's a reason they went back to TOS for this series of movies, it was the best of the series. It wasn't bogged down by Gene Roddenberry's imagined "vision" which he retroactlvely thrust upon us. It doesn't take anything away from the ground that was broken both visually and culturally by TOS. At it's heart though, it was about three guys exploring the universe with their crew, and striving to do the right thing even when it meant breaking starfleet regulations to do it.
Why do I like TOS: If Picard would have been in command of the original Enterprise:
The children would have died off on Miri's planet,
Spock and McCoy would never have made it back from the Galileo 7,
The Archons would still be under the control of Landru,
Kahn would have been taken to a federation Penal colony,
The People of Eminar 7 would still be walking into disintegration chambers,
and Vaal would still be in charge on Gamma Trianguli VI.
Starships out beyond reach of regulations, practicing "cowboy diplomacy", That's my Trek.