The Saga's End

[Vader47000]

What I came to love about Star Trek over the years was the complexity of the universe it created.

If you look at it, the shows and movies are really a complex saga about the potential future of humanity.

TOS dealt with the exploration of space and diplomacy
TNG was about the peak of humanity and maintaining that status
DS9 was about defending that status

Look at the enemies. The Klingons and Romulans were bitter enemies, eventually allies by the end of DS9 against bigger enemies, who ultimately were defeated by that unity.

Voyager was a disappointment because it didn't quite fit this narrative. It was kind of an outlier.

But Enterprise had so much potential as a beginning of this grand story of mankind. The early steps of exploration, reaching to the stars and forming the Federation. It should have been about the Romulan War and how this led to the alliance that formed the Federation. But it only did this in its last season, and by then it was too late. Voyager and early Enterprise detracted from the "saga" too much, and I think turned off the fans. Nemesis did the same thing, by ignoring the progress with the Romulans made during DS9 (thanks a lot, John Logan).

Enterprise could have been done correctly. Even a new movie could have served as a real prequel to TOS, with the younger versions of Kirk and Spock, etc.

Instead, with the new movie, the slate has been wiped clean. It's like reading a 1000 page novel, getting to page 900 and then being told nothing that happened so far actually counted. What a bummer.

And I don't buy the argument that a reboot was necessary to draw in new fans. The storyline involving a man from the future was just as complicated as anything that would have been set in the actual Trek universe, so it's not like that argument would hold up. A few lines of exposition would fill the audience in. There are ways to do it correctly. First Contact managed to do it. Star Trek 2 managed to do it.

These are movies. Marketing draws the crowds in. You don't need them to be "fans." Star Trek has never been marketed properly, until this movie. And suddenly it makes a huge amount of money. Shocking.

 

[Thrawn]

Marketing is not enough. Just look at Waterworld.

Trek had a cultural stigma that had to be overcome. Resetting it was a brilliant way to do that.

And lemme tell ya, if you want more exploration of this gigantic fascinating universe, you need to hit up the novel series. They're doing so much more to make this a consistent, unified, ongoing universe of stories than the TV shows ever did. Genuinely. They're fantastic these days.

 

[T'Paul]

Marketing is not enough. Just look at Waterworld.

Trek had a cultural stigma that had to be overcome. Resetting it was a brilliant way to do that.

And lemme tell ya, if you want more exploration of this gigantic fascinating universe, you need to hit up the novel series. They're doing so much more to make this a consistent, unified, ongoing universe of stories than the TV shows ever did. Genuinely. They're fantastic these days.

I agree that a reset was a good idea, but I think that they should have done an actual reset instead of this alternate timeline nonsense.

 

[Thrawn]

Marketing is not enough. Just look at Waterworld.

Trek had a cultural stigma that had to be overcome. Resetting it was a brilliant way to do that.

And lemme tell ya, if you want more exploration of this gigantic fascinating universe, you need to hit up the novel series. They're doing so much more to make this a consistent, unified, ongoing universe of stories than the TV shows ever did. Genuinely. They're fantastic these days.

I agree that a reset was a good idea, but I think that they should have done an actual reset instead of this alternate timeline nonsense.

Whatever. Same concept, just a difference in execution.

He's arguing against ignoring the huge Trek history, which would've happened either way.

 

[ALF]

O, let us bow our weary heads in sadness.

 

[Vader47000]

Marketing is not enough. Just look at Waterworld.

Trek had a cultural stigma that had to be overcome. Resetting it was a brilliant way to do that.

And lemme tell ya, if you want more exploration of this gigantic fascinating universe, you need to hit up the novel series. They're doing so much more to make this a consistent, unified, ongoing universe of stories than the TV shows ever did. Genuinely. They're fantastic these days.

I agree that a reset was a good idea, but I think that they should have done an actual reset instead of this alternate timeline nonsense.

Whatever. Same concept, just a difference in execution.

He's arguing against ignoring the huge Trek history, which would've happened either way.

No, I'm arguing against trying to pretend you're respecting the Trek history when you really have no idea how deep it really is, which is what the writers of this film are guilty of. Reexamining the archtypes is one thing, but they are trying to connect this to the existing saga, and getting it wrong.

Imagine for example if Ron Moore actually tried to connect his Galactica storyline to the original series.

Granted, the end real-world result is the same. Hit the reset button. From a creative standpoint, I just lament the abandonment of certain story opportunities.

 

[Praetorian]

The saga's beginning! Again!

 

[Therin of Andor]

From a creative standpoint, I just lament the abandonment of certain story opportunities.

Who's to say, in a decade's time, someone won't do a TNG era reunion trilogy with all surviving TNG, DS9 and VOY cast members?

Please list your "abandoned" opportunities that weren't already rejected by fans' non attendance at "Nemesis"?

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Instead, with the new movie, the slate has been wiped clean. It's like reading a 1000 page novel, getting to page 900 and then being told nothing that happened so far actually counted.

It's more like having 716 TV episodes and ten movies followed by one more movie.

 

[Vader47000]

Marketing is not enough. Just look at Waterworld.

Trek had a cultural stigma that had to be overcome. Resetting it was a brilliant way to do that.

And lemme tell ya, if you want more exploration of this gigantic fascinating universe, you need to hit up the novel series. They're doing so much more to make this a consistent, unified, ongoing universe of stories than the TV shows ever did. Genuinely. They're fantastic these days.

Waterworld is a bad example. Its costs were too high. There comes a point of diminishing returns. But it still made $264 million worldwide on a budget of $175 million

On the other hand, Star Trek Nemesis made $67 million worldwide on a budget of $60 million. Had it received half the marketing effort this latest film did, it might have made $100 million worldwide or more. Instead, it lost to Maid in Manhattan opening weekend.

An aggressive marketing campaign to build hype, which is what Paramount has been doing brilliantly with Star Trek, and did with Transformers two years ago, will get a film its first $100 million in box office domestic, maybe $150 million worldwide. After that, the fate of the film rests on word of mouth.

This new Trek seems to be generating a lot of positive buzz on the action fantasy scale, so that will probably drive it. So that reset you speak of to erase the "stigma" was essentially turning Star Trek into a Star Wars-style space adventure. That's a good business move for Paramount. Whether it's bad for the core ideals of the franchise remains to be seen.

 

[martin]

The reset was a neccessary act when you truley explore it.

The series has a 40 year history, and there is no natural jumping in point. TOS didn't have a traditional opening episode, introducing the characters and the universe they exist in. We just saw them working on a starship, and over the 40 years, the universe has fleshed itself out and we have grown to understand it.


Now someone who has never seen Star Trek may remember the exagerated view of trek fans, and will undoubtably know that:

Kirk was the captain who slept with all the alien women;
Spock was the ponted ear alien with no emotions;
The Doctor, McCoy was alwasy grumpy and complaining;
The Black woman with the thing in her ear;
The russian and the japanese guy at the front;


Now before you can get new fans into the series which is the ultimate goal, they needed to introduce these characters, whilst challenging or explaining the expectations of the audience.

Now look what the movie taught us:

Kirk was not just a womaniser, he has a complicated past and was intelligent

Spock and all "Vulcans" have strong emotions, but they surpress and control them

Dr McCoy has lost out in the divorce, is uncomfortable in space, and is loyal to his friends. This explains his grumpy nature.

The Black Woman is called Nyota Uhura, the thing in her ear is to do with communications and she is an expert in languages.

The Russian is called Checkov, and is a kid genius.

The Japanese guy is called Sulu, and he is trained in fencing, and is a trained pilot.


Now it took us the whole 79 episodes and first few movies to understand that, and it was a passive act, we picked up on these things slowly. But now for new viewers, they learn all this in one 2 hr movie, and they don't feel too bad about not knowing all this stuff.

It is quite an achievement to distill all this in one film, but it is at the expense of the subtleties. But now everyone knows these characters, future films can take a different approach. And for anyone taking their first steps into the series, you have to admit its a very good start!

 

[MaquisTrap]

Marketing is not enough. Just look at Waterworld.

Trek had a cultural stigma that had to be overcome. Resetting it was a brilliant way to do that.

And lemme tell ya, if you want more exploration of this gigantic fascinating universe, you need to hit up the novel series. They're doing so much more to make this a consistent, unified, ongoing universe of stories than the TV shows ever did. Genuinely. They're fantastic these days.

I agree that a reset was a good idea, but I think that they should have done an actual reset instead of this alternate timeline nonsense.

Spock/Leonard Nimoy was one of the big selling points that got people to the theaters. This was as close to a total reboot as we were going to get. Without Nimoy... this movie wouldn't have been as good as it was.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

Every end has a beginning.

 

[Shatterhand]

Perhaps later I'll be able to post a more detailed explanation of what I am about to say here, but for now I will just say this: I have never, EVER been more disappointed in fellow Star Trek fans than I've been in the past few days. The level of negativity among these forums has been horrific, to say the least. How unrelentingly sad.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

 

[erebus]

The advantage as they have pointed out is that the characters and whole star trek infrastructure can now undergo real peril since it can't be taken for granted that they will survive as in the other timeline. And they've shown us they are capable of introducing radical change (e.g: blowing up vulcan).

 

[El Chupacabra]

And lemme tell ya, if you want more exploration of this gigantic fascinating universe, you need to hit up the novel series. They're doing so much more to make this a consistent, unified, ongoing universe of stories than the TV shows ever did. Genuinely. They're fantastic these days.

Do me a favour, stop telling people that are unhappy to go and read the books, ok? Reading a non-canon novel on a black and white page simply isn't a subsitute for a fully realised adventure on screen, no matter how good it is.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Do me a favour, stop telling people that are unhappy to go and read the books, ok? Reading a non-canon novel on a black and white page simply isn't a subsitute for a fully realised adventure on screen, no matter how good it is.

You're right of course, but he's still got a point. For people who are mainly interested in the Star Trek universe (as opposed to those who are mostly interested in Trek's character, technology, storytelling, visual design or whatever), reading the books is a viable alternative.

 

[El Chupacabra]

Please list your "abandoned" opportunities that weren't already rejected by fans' non attendance at "Nemesis"?

Why is it that so many of you gushers seem to think that those of us who had mixed or negative feelings about the movie also thought that Nemesis was a cinematic triumph?

In my eyes pretty the majority of Trek after First Contact, outside of DS9 and ENT's 4th season, was a let down as it lost some of the key elements that TOS, TNG and DS9 had. With that in mind please don't patronise people like the OP just because he wants to see more of the 40 year universe.

 

[El Chupacabra]

Do me a favour, stop telling people that are unhappy to go and read the books, ok? Reading a non-canon novel on a black and white page simply isn't a subsitute for a fully realised adventure on screen, no matter how good it is.

You're right of course, but he's still got a point. For people who are mainly interested in the Star Trek universe (as opposed to those who are mostly interested in Trek's character, technology, storytelling, visual design or whatever), reading the books is a viable alternative.

Of course it's an alternative, but I always looked at the books as a filler for times when no Trek was being produced. I don't see them as a replacement.