The NEXT Generation?
- Thread starter Whill
- Start date
Perhaps some are, but I'm not forgetting that. The retronym "TOS" is a much better name for the original 60's Star Trek series than "The Next Generation" is for TNG. The Next Series would have been better for TNG because you can't view it as even partially implying an incorrect in-universe meaning. I would have rathered the title to have no in-universe meaning like TOS, than for it to suggest a false one.
I'm glad "TNG" works for those of you who it does. But it is not the next Enterprise or the next generation, at least by human standards. And the show was made by humans to be about humanity, so you can't say that it is Vulcan generation or some such. No matter how long humans are living in the 24th century, I'll bet they still don't normally wait to start having kids until they are 78 years-old!
I still enjoy TNG no matter what you call it. Just sayin'!
I'm glad "TNG" works for those of you who it does. But it is not the next Enterprise or the next generation, at least by human standards. And the show was made by humans to be about humanity, so you can't say that it is Vulcan generation or some such. No matter how long humans are living in the 24th century, I'll bet they still don't normally wait to start having kids until they are 78 years-old!
I still enjoy TNG no matter what you call it. Just sayin'!
Who cares if it didn't have an in-universe meaning? The term was never used in-universe anyway.
You've posted here before, right?
Now that would have driven a few TOS purists I know around here up the wall!
I still refer to TNG as simply "Star Trek".
The show was set so far into the future because the technology in our world had changed so much. It would have been crazy to set it 10 years after TOS. Enterprise and the galaxy looked vastly different, and they needed to if Gene was going to tell stories different from the original stories.
And the next generation is a good title, it is next, not just new. Next in terms of them being completely different from 23c. humans. Everything has changed. Different stories can now be told.
And the next generation is a good title, it is next, not just new. Next in terms of them being completely different from 23c. humans. Everything has changed. Different stories can now be told.
I think a lot of this is coming up now because of the time we're in now. I remember watching TOS for a couple years before TNG was on so for those you who don't its probably pretty hard to think of ST as anything less than 5 tv series and almost a dozen films.
When TNG started people were FURIOUS that after fighting for all those years to get ST back on tv they weren't going to use the old crew. What was the point? How could they possibly recreate the magic of the old show? Are they going to recast people as Kirk, Spock, etc, or some new crew altogther? You can't do ST without Shatner!
That was attitude. History has taught us that with TNG they (arguably) bettered the original in all ways. And naturally that lead to several (less) successful spin offs. But at the time it was impossible to imagine.
So they named it TNG just to distinguish it from the original. The series set that far in the future to stop the pressure of having the old crew come in for cameos and because special effects had come along so far it would be difficult to set it in the world of TOS. You'd end up with the issues the new film had if you did that.
When TNG started people were FURIOUS that after fighting for all those years to get ST back on tv they weren't going to use the old crew. What was the point? How could they possibly recreate the magic of the old show? Are they going to recast people as Kirk, Spock, etc, or some new crew altogther? You can't do ST without Shatner!
That was attitude. History has taught us that with TNG they (arguably) bettered the original in all ways. And naturally that lead to several (less) successful spin offs. But at the time it was impossible to imagine.
So they named it TNG just to distinguish it from the original. The series set that far in the future to stop the pressure of having the old crew come in for cameos and because special effects had come along so far it would be difficult to set it in the world of TOS. You'd end up with the issues the new film had if you did that.
Plus a few years earlier Pepsi had their "choice of a new generation" ad push, which as I recall was still kind of big around then. It was the zeitgeist.
Probably for the same reason they named the original show "Star Trek"...it was never uttered IN the show until ST:First Contact, but it has a lot to do with exploration and the show. In Next Generation's case, they wanted to separate it from the original show in real time.
Thanks for all the discussion guys!
So how about Star Trek: The Next Century ?
Like McCoy, Spock and Scotty? I'm sorry, but the evidence is strongly against that being true. McCoy, the second oldest TOS character, has a cameo in the very first TNG episode. Then they go on in the series on to have episodes featuring Spock and Scotty. I used to be mad that TNG never had old Admiral Chekov, so the show being set far in the future did not work as a way to prevent me from wanting even more TOS characters to have cameos in it. Spock is longer lived. And look at how they brought Scotty and (in the first TNG movie) Kirk into the 24th century at their 23rd century ages. This is sci-fi, so the show being set 78 years in the future of the TOS movies offered no pressure whatsoever to prevent TOS cameos.
I'm sorry, but even the effects in TVH blew the entire TNG series away. TUC was even better. I don't see how setting a TV show farther in the future of the movies would somehow serve as explanation for why the special effects are much worse. As a Star Trek fan I just accept that TV effects, no matter how great they are for TV, will never compare to movie effects. It's that simple. I think most fans understand the difference of special effects budgets. I have a really hard time imagining any Trek fan actually thinking that the reason the TV show doesn't look as cool as the movies is because it was done intentionally to demonstrate that it is set farther in the future.
So how about Star Trek: The Next Century ?
Like McCoy, Spock and Scotty? I'm sorry, but the evidence is strongly against that being true. McCoy, the second oldest TOS character, has a cameo in the very first TNG episode. Then they go on in the series on to have episodes featuring Spock and Scotty. I used to be mad that TNG never had old Admiral Chekov, so the show being set far in the future did not work as a way to prevent me from wanting even more TOS characters to have cameos in it. Spock is longer lived. And look at how they brought Scotty and (in the first TNG movie) Kirk into the 24th century at their 23rd century ages. This is sci-fi, so the show being set 78 years in the future of the TOS movies offered no pressure whatsoever to prevent TOS cameos.
I'm sorry, but even the effects in TVH blew the entire TNG series away. TUC was even better. I don't see how setting a TV show farther in the future of the movies would somehow serve as explanation for why the special effects are much worse. As a Star Trek fan I just accept that TV effects, no matter how great they are for TV, will never compare to movie effects. It's that simple. I think most fans understand the difference of special effects budgets. I have a really hard time imagining any Trek fan actually thinking that the reason the TV show doesn't look as cool as the movies is because it was done intentionally to demonstrate that it is set farther in the future.
Thanks for all the discussion guys!
So how about Star Trek: The Next Century ?
Like McCoy, Spock and Scotty? I'm sorry, but the evidence is strongly against that being true. McCoy, the second oldest TOS character, has a cameo in the very first TNG episode. Then they go on in the series on to have episodes featuring Spock and Scotty. I used to be mad that TNG never had old Admiral Chekov, so the show being set far in the future did not work as a way to prevent me from wanting even more TOS characters to have cameos in it. Spock is longer lived. And look at how they brought Scotty and (in the first TNG movie) Kirk into the 24th century at their 23rd century ages. This is sci-fi, so the show being set 78 years in the future of the TOS movies offered no pressure whatsoever to prevent TOS cameos.
Well McCoy I think was a send off for the series, kind of like a blessing. Then to me they take a very long time before anyone else turned up. If it was set in the timeline as TOS movies were by then we'd have them running into all sorts of characters constantly, don't you think? At least by having that gap it precludes it from being a daily occurrence, making them do some sci-fi plot trick to get it to happen.
Spock I thought was very well done, and although I enjoy Scotty's episode I thought they might have been pushing their luck at that point. You can't continually have the old crew showing up, not only because of practical plot reasons, but because if they're not careful is cheapens the old characters memory and also alienates new fans. I know a ton of people who are TNG fans but nothing else.
I like Generations but I'm massively in the minority there. And part of that is mess that's required to get Kirk into it. They could have had Kirk die at the beginning, then jump ahead to TNG's timeline and had Picard save the day. That would have been fine with me.
Actually it would be really interesting to know the precentage of fans that each series has, and the crossover. Maybe someone here should start a poll
Similar threads
