Sorry, but that's nonsense. The fans have nothing to do with it. JJ and gang were simply trying to get away with a sloppy sleight-of-hand and a lot of us could see what they were blatantly doing.
Things you'd like to have seen in a movie...
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
No, they knew their audience. They knew there was a broader mainstream audience that they wanted to attract to Trek, but they also knew they had an already-existing fanbase that got downright fanatical about any change to what they liked. The alternate timeline scenario enabled them (and the fans) to have their cake & eat it too. And some fans are STILL bitching.
Personally, I think that they were thinking along those lines but that it backfired in a way. The Trek fanbase might have been happier had NuTrek just been presented as another Alternate Universe rather than it being tied to existing continuity/rules.
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
I know I would. The problem is that they tied it to the prime universe and altered it even though the movie wasn't set there. No more Spock on Romulus. No more Romulus. And they're still sharing the past pre 2233 so that they can still contradict what has gone before. Good idea badly executed. Make a clean start of it and say it's an alternate universe that wasn't seen before.
Yeah, because they did SO MUCH with that plotline in the previous 18 years...
That's what they should have done.
Time travel often seems to be a sticky trade off with unintended consequences. Remember, before Jake Sisko altered time to save his father in "The Visitor," there was an alternate timeline where Jadzia Dax lived to a ripe old age rather than dying in Season 6.
And then there's the recent novels, where it seems like Admiral Janeway's temporal interference in "Endgame" has caused billions of deaths in the Alpha Quadrant. After infecting the Borg with a deadly pathogen, the Borg finally got pissed off enough to invade the Alpha Quadrant in force. While the invasion was eventually repelled, many significant planets were either destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, like Pluto, Betazed, Andor Prime, and I think maybe Vulcan. Plus, I recall seeing Admiral Janeway & B'Elanna Torres among the casualties listed in one of the books. (Although that may later be retconned away as either a mistake or deliberate disinformation for some reason.)
So maybe there was a concern that, if they did go back in time and try to save Vulcan, they might inadvertantly cause something even more disastrous. Perhaps they would somehow tip the balance of power so that the Enterprise would fail to destroy the Narada before it managed to destroy Earth or some other major planet.
But then, I've always thought that Spock has kind of a funny attitude towards time travel and preserving time lines. In "Tomorrow Is Yesterday," for some reason, he thinks that it would be less disruptive for the timeline to remove a whole human being from history than to release him back into the past with very vague knowledge about the 23rd century.
Considering some of the writers were hardcore Trekkies themselves, I wonder if this wasn't also perhaps a compromise within the production team.
Personally, while I would have preferred a pure, straight-up prequel to the original timeline, I think I like this time travel compromise better than a pure reboot. At least this way they're prevented from changing things too drastically. Like, they can't change the genders of established characters. (I can only imagine how pissed off the classic Battlestar Galactica fans are.)
While I knew about the time travel element early on, I was surprised at how drastically different they made the new timeline. I figured they were just going to use it as an in-universe explanation for minor, nitpicky differences like redesigning the Enterprise or having Chekov be a member of the bridge crew far earlier than he previously was. I didn't realize they were gonna friggin' destroy Vulcan or kill Amanda!
Not to mention some of the actors: http://www.dirkbenedictcentral.com/home/articles-readarticle.php?nid=5
While I knew about the time travel element early on, I was surprised at how drastically different they made the new timeline. I figured they were just going to use it as an in-universe explanation for minor, nitpicky differences like redesigning the Enterprise or having Chekov be a member of the bridge crew far earlier than he previously was. I didn't realize they were gonna friggin' destroy Vulcan or kill Amanda!
I remember when I figured out what they were going to do to Vulcan. I was reading an advanced review a day or two before seeing the film, and it mentioned that Spock dealt with "a Superman-like dilemma." I immediately thought, "Oh, shit, they're going to blow up Vulcan!" And really, what better way to drive home the fact that the new timeline is a whole new ballgame?
Who do you suppose Dirk Benedict would rather be reincarnated as-- Katee Sackhoff or Bradley Cooper?
Who do you suppose Dirk Benedict would rather be reincarnated as-- Katee Sackhoff or Bradley Cooper?
I'm not sure if I'd want to speculate.
That said, I did think the A-Team movie captured the male bonding aspect of the show pretty well.
Considering how thoroughly the Alien movies have pervaded pop culture, when I saw AVP: Requiem was set in the present day, I kept expecting one of the characters (probably one of the bums in the sewer) to remark, "It was like something out of one of those Alien movies!"
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
You really want to make it different? Stand it on it's ear. Destroy Earth. Make the humans the ones dealing with being the minority. Spock was already the outsider in the prime universe.
I would've liked that.
For the reason stated above, but also because Earth is usually the most boring planet they ever visit.
I dunno. Sounds a little too "Battlestar Galactica" to me.
I think Brandon Routh should be in the next Trek. Maybe a redshirt on an away team to a new planet's surface who, well... Routh could pass for security, is a nice, dare I say "Federation" guy - he'd fit. Plus the shock of seeing Superman in red get pwned by some alien whatnot...it's like Drew Barrymore bit it in the first scene of the original Scream. Shit just got real.
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
In what way? In BSG all the planets were destroyed and they were all humans. Imagine Trek is humans were in the minority. No more would every admiral be human. Lots of possibilites there. Not sure how destroying Earth would make it more BSG than destroying Vulcan did.
There's a Captain America comic in Iron Man 2. That threw me at first, but then I decided that in the Marvelverse it's OK for there to be a comic book based on a real person.
In that Earth is the main base of Starfleet and the Federation. The Enterprise would be a lot more nomadic and have way fewer means of support. Kinda like BSG.
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
Nope, it would just report to a different base and have to deal with a Federation that's less human centric. It's not like they'd suddenly wander away. If San Francisco were destroyed in an earthquake, the ship stationed there wouldn't just wander the pacific. They're relocate to San Diego or Hawaii.
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