TOS is NOT Star Trek

Forbidden Planet is Fake "The Tempest."

 

Indeed.

However, in the spirit of the thread, I cannot believe that Spock would try to kill Kirk! Don't these writers understand that we're all getting along in the future!?

 

"Star Trek" or TOS is quite simply the definitive Trek
It is the benchmark
Every other version of Trek is merely an imitation, some better than others.

 

The Youtube Music Video I just listened to is not my star trek.

 

This one is though

 

In all seriousness, I get why people would dismiss newer versions of things as not the thing they're supposed to be. It's good to remind yourself how silly that is.

 

With full understanding that this may be a threadjack, and with, er apologies for same, the third season is wildly entertaining to me. It also has far more pure science fiction in its stories than S2 and in fact has more of that than even S1.

 

Pretty much.

Some people limit Trek to only how Roddenberry had a hand in it (some even not excluding his hand in season one!!)

Others are more lax.

As long as it's not entirely generic and grafting names on it, and there's a point to it. For example, PIC has a point even if not everybody agrees with part(s) of it.

But the original Star Trek cannot be anything but Star Trek. Otherwise let's get a map to where his remains are and do something disgusting because that's what it metaphorically boils down to.

 

"Bunnicorns" sums that up...

 

The only real Star Trek is the Star Trek: The Motion Picture novelization.

Admiral Kirk even says so in his preface.

 

In all seriousness, I've noticed since I've interacted with online fandom on places like facebook, that there are a surprising amount of Trek fans who are all over TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT and the CBSAA shows, and maybe even the TOS movies, but who have almost no familiarity with TOS the TV show, haven't watched it, or can't get into watching it.

I find it quite puzzling. Personal opinions etc, but I can't understand why they can't or won't explore where it began. Yes, it's of its time, it's sometimes a bit outdated or etc, but those criticisms can apply to any old Trek. Look beyond it. Watch it in context. They're denying them selves some great television.

 

I think it's because they can't get passed the 1960s style of TV. I don't think that all things being equal, they'd want to ignore the series that came first, but it's too different from what they're used to. You see this on the other end too. People who don't like Discovery or Picard because it's too different from what they're used to. Some people only like things to be one particular way. They're missing out. No matter which end of it we're talking about.

 

Star Trek is a show that I grew up with in the seventies! It is the original, defining part of the franchise and the only part of it that is really Star Trek!!! The other series have varying degrees of interest to me but only Kirk's adventures are considered of the maximum interest!
JB

 

People also don't understand that the look and style of TOS wasn't realistic, it didn't even attempt to be. It was more theater-like with the use of color and light as set pieces. Here is a great article on Minimalism as it was used in the series.

The first couple of seasons of TNG used the same style, but gradually the sets have moved towards realism.

 

I am fine with Berman-era folks who don't care for TOS. Everything's a matter of taste.

I also have sympathy for people who have watched bajillion hours of pre-CBSAA Trek and discerned and generalized a basic, underlying is-ness to it all . . . and who find CBS trek really different from that ;
and who then believe that when something changes far enough away from what it was, it's ok to say that it is now something different. Doesn't make them reactionaries.

 

I agree. And if people really like one feature of one Trek show, and they dislike another show that doesn't have that feature, that's their prerogative. So it's fun to be light-hearted about it. And there is something funny in the statement that something with Star Trek in the name isn't Star Trek, so it's fun to be light-hearted about that too.

 

Realism? Show us where later series are more realistic. Forehead-of-the-week aliens are hardly realistic. Blond bombshell cyborgs are hardly realistic—they’re far more comic book. Ships with flapping wings and kewl lighting all around and visible beams for everything are hardly realistic. Lens flares saturating everything is hardly realistic. Crewman only a few years out of Academy being given command of capital ships is hardly realistic.

Don’t confuse different aesthetics with realism.

 

I'm not. I was talking about the look and style, and the way Trek has moved from minimalism to more complicated visuals.
And I certainly agree about lens flares and Cadets rising to Captain in a day.

 

At this point, I think the only thing that remains would be to open a "Star Trek is not Star Trek" thread in the general Trek forum, and just reach the logical conclusion that the only thing that can be reliably called Star Trek is that one episode of TNG I've only watched once 20 years ago and I don't really remember anything about it other than that it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling of happiness and freedom after a day of being bullied in school and my mom making me tidy up my room again instead of letting me play video games.

 

What do you think aesthetics are?