I’ve found Trek is usually better when they keep fans away from writing and directing.
TOS Prequel #4
- Thread starter Khan 2.0
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I’ve found Trek is usually better when they keep fans away from writing and directing.
Actually, it's a foolish remark, a non sequitur. I can never tell whether these comparisons are intended to diminish professional work, or elevate fan fiction in some pretentious fashion
Who knows for sure or really cares? Apparently his idea of clever new antagonists were the fucking lame Ferengi.
Whatever creative spark Roddenberry had was clearly gone by that point.
The constant references and call backs to Things the Fans Love. More Spock! Let's throw Kirk in. Bring Data back again on PIC and kill him off Again! Be sad! It's all very fanfic-y. Oy, Riker's badass tough talk at the end when he is magically reinstated and in charge of the Most Important Fleet Ever!!
Yknow what wasn't too fanficcy for awhile was DSC 1, which eventually did with the whole mirror xhitstorm. Maybe DSC 3 will finally escape it and go do its own thing. I've been disappointed so many times, I bet Admiral Jane way gets disco vered in stasis, signals the Fenris rangers and a deaged Shatner comes out of the nexus to save the day. In a red suit. Married to McCoy's daughter, Joanna.
I'm looking forward to Pike, but this tying everything into old stuff is small universe and a sign of a decadent culture like studios making just the same movie over and over and over . . .
Yknow what wasn't too fanficcy for awhile was DSC 1, which eventually did with the whole mirror xhitstorm. Maybe DSC 3 will finally escape it and go do its own thing. I've been disappointed so many times, I bet Admiral Jane way gets disco vered in stasis, signals the Fenris rangers and a deaged Shatner comes out of the nexus to save the day. In a red suit. Married to McCoy's daughter, Joanna.
I'm looking forward to Pike, but this tying everything into old stuff is small universe and a sign of a decadent culture like studios making just the same movie over and over and over . . .
Corniest moment in movie history, Lawrence Luckinbill throwing back his hood and laughing like noone really laughs, in the movie's teaser. Now THAT's Star Trek. Really a pretty fun movie. Like Cats, and I'm not joking. Just stupid fun. Yknow, I should have liked JJTrek better: he was aiming for fun. Hm.
I'd think expecting each new show to cater to my exact whims is the sign of a spoiled, decadent culture. What ever happened to enjoying things for what they were, rather than hating them for what they aren't?
If you lost all your memories of TOS, do you think it would hold up to a first time viewing today? Would you become frustrated at the shifting characterisation, continuity errors and inconsistent backstory? How much of your love for it is comfortable nostalgia?
Tying everything into what came before by incessant name dropping and revisiting previous elements didn’t start with DSC or the forthcoming SNW. ENT did it by the truckload. Fanfic and fan productions often wallow in it as well given it’s easier to regurgitate the familiar than come up with something new.
Well, fans don’t seem to want “new.” If it’s a prequel series (and there’s no harm in setting a series in a familiar timeline), they want the same sets, the same uniforms, the same styles. And if you do try “new,” fans complain because those concepts were never mentioned in the previous series. So, forget about new races and conflicts. Seems that if you do want to make a series based in the 23rd century or earlier, you’re f’ked. Ya know?
So you have to go forward (like Picard- results mixed) and if you’re not a fan of that point in time or make the fates of Your favorite characters dark, interest is limited.
Or you can create a concept that is so different from before you might as well create a wholly original property.
Or base it in the Bad Robot timeline. Apparently nobody cares if you screw around with that.
So you have to go forward (like Picard- results mixed) and if you’re not a fan of that point in time or make the fates of Your favorite characters dark, interest is limited.
Or you can create a concept that is so different from before you might as well create a wholly original property.
Or base it in the Bad Robot timeline. Apparently nobody cares if you screw around with that.
If fans want new, why make it Star Trek at all?
Some of them complian of the lack of continuity, but many of them -- and many here -- are totally fine with it. A vocal minority is just that.
Also, we don't really know if a majority of the fans will take to "new," since we haven't gotten it since DS9.
Well, PIC was new-ish: not a space-navy show, though it was louse-y with callbacks and in-references. Since this is what's been given fans in CBSTrek, we don't know how they'll react to really-new. We'll find out with DSC 3, though you'd hate to base your results on one season of "new," there can be so many variables. What if they really liked it but an economic downturn made them cancel their CBSAA? Or what if it sucks, and they WOULD have taken to a new era/concept if done well? We really (I, anyway) don't know what 51% of "the fans" want.
I don't want or need callbacks. I thought, with a name like DSC, it was going to, y'know, venture forth and . . . discover, and be itself. It turned into two years of visually dark, shipboard, inside baseball. Amanda and Sarek magically appearing across light years with a message. In the whole universe, there are about like seven people who matter. Yish.
And who said I expect any show to cater to my whims?
And yes, one sign of decadence is to stop producing new and just reproducing the old and having nostalgia circle-jerks. I read that Forbes article elsewhere on the BBS about Paramount and all its "franchises." (I don't go to movies.) GI Joe (60s/80s); MI (60s - ); Teenage Turtles?! I couldn't believe what I was reading. I mean, recycling is good in some areas, but like wow. Even the concept of a "franchise" (business world) imples just creating more, similar content.
Whatever -- I don't even care that SNW is "Pike." If Mount's character had been called "Dorf," I still would have welcomed a new, episodic series. My $.02.
Also, we don't really know if a majority of the fans will take to "new," since we haven't gotten it since DS9.
Well, PIC was new-ish: not a space-navy show, though it was louse-y with callbacks and in-references. Since this is what's been given fans in CBSTrek, we don't know how they'll react to really-new. We'll find out with DSC 3, though you'd hate to base your results on one season of "new," there can be so many variables. What if they really liked it but an economic downturn made them cancel their CBSAA? Or what if it sucks, and they WOULD have taken to a new era/concept if done well? We really (I, anyway) don't know what 51% of "the fans" want.
I don't want or need callbacks. I thought, with a name like DSC, it was going to, y'know, venture forth and . . . discover, and be itself. It turned into two years of visually dark, shipboard, inside baseball. Amanda and Sarek magically appearing across light years with a message. In the whole universe, there are about like seven people who matter. Yish.
And who said I expect any show to cater to my whims?
And yes, one sign of decadence is to stop producing new and just reproducing the old and having nostalgia circle-jerks. I read that Forbes article elsewhere on the BBS about Paramount and all its "franchises." (I don't go to movies.) GI Joe (60s/80s); MI (60s - ); Teenage Turtles?! I couldn't believe what I was reading. I mean, recycling is good in some areas, but like wow. Even the concept of a "franchise" (business world) imples just creating more, similar content.
Whatever -- I don't even care that SNW is "Pike." If Mount's character had been called "Dorf," I still would have welcomed a new, episodic series. My $.02.
Most people don't ask for something they're not familiar with. They will ask for more or variations of what they are familiar with. There were not multitudes of viewers crying for a new SF series before TOS. Many might have been thinking about what could be done with Lost In Space,Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea or Twilight Zone or Outer Limits. More literary SF fans might have longed for something like Star Trek. But then TOS came along and the rest is history. Yes, there were familiar elements to it (more familiar to SF devotees), but it was fresh and dynamic and devoid of callbacks to anything previous. And in all of TOS there wwas very little reference to past events in previous episodes. The most blatant callback in TOS was, of course, "The Menagerie" which allowed them to salvage the expensive unsused first pilot.
Callbacks didn't really get going until TAS particularly with its silly followup stories to previous TOS episodes. TMP was wonderfully spare with callbacks and those were generally vague. Then TWOK was one huge calback being a direct followup to "Space Seed."
TNG felt all new with few and mostly indirect callbacks until past characters started showing up. And TNG became immensely popular.
To non fans all Trek can be dismissed as just all the same stuff. But those who know Trek know that isn't true until you get to the later productions and it gets to be a lot of same done the same way. VOY and ENT are pretty much rederessed versions of TNG. DSC is a darker, moodier, edgier version of DS9. JJtrek was rife with callbacks in addition to being dumb as shit.
To say viewers don't want new is a dismissive way of rationalizing what we've benn getting. To paraphase: make it good as well as fresh and they will watch.
Callbacks didn't really get going until TAS particularly with its silly followup stories to previous TOS episodes. TMP was wonderfully spare with callbacks and those were generally vague. Then TWOK was one huge calback being a direct followup to "Space Seed."
TNG felt all new with few and mostly indirect callbacks until past characters started showing up. And TNG became immensely popular.
To non fans all Trek can be dismissed as just all the same stuff. But those who know Trek know that isn't true until you get to the later productions and it gets to be a lot of same done the same way. VOY and ENT are pretty much rederessed versions of TNG. DSC is a darker, moodier, edgier version of DS9. JJtrek was rife with callbacks in addition to being dumb as shit.
To say viewers don't want new is a dismissive way of rationalizing what we've benn getting. To paraphase: make it good as well as fresh and they will watch.
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I think there's a difference in nostalgia being there for the eagle-eyed fan, or following up on something if you have a really great story to tell versus nostalgia being the driving point of the whole enterprise. It seems that nostalgia is the driving point of everything All-Access does right now, and honestly it is tiresome. I'll sample Strange New Worlds, but if they just feed us prequels to TOS episodes, then I'll likely bail pretty quickly.
I remember watching Westworld season one, and seeing Yule Brenner's gunslinger behind some frosted glass in the lab where they built the androids. It made me smile because it was blink and you missed it. It didn't affect the story, it wasn't the story, it was just a subtle nod to what came before.
Enterprise looks like a brand new IP when compared to the All-Access stuff.
...McCoy was literally in the first episode, and the second episode was a direct sequel to The Naked Time.
No. i think it's spot on as a statement about the types of stories being told. Fan fic has generally been about connecting all the dots and coming up with convoluted stories to promote favorite characters. That is of course a generalization. But a story I would consider fan ficy would be V'GER having been reprogrammed by the Borg. In TMP we get this sense of awe at a robot planet that the Voyager Probe encountered. But nevermind, there was nothing cool about that it was just the Borg.
The JJ Films are complete fan fiction. Mainly becasue they play into the pop culture understanding of the characters rather than how the characters were actually portrayed in Star Trek. Kirk was never sleeping with every alien chick he met, he wasn't an arrogant idiot. But that's what the pop culture perception of him is and that what we got on screen in the JJ films.
I disagree. I think there is plenty of room for new in the Star Trek franchise, even in prequels.
The ground work, though, is making sure it fits what has already been established. Once you have that you have a lot of room to work. Bring in new aliens, new planets, new ships and characters etc. But of course there is a limit too. You can't have a galaxy wide war in the middle of the 23rd century. Or some huge alien superpower that mysteriously doesn't exist later. Or...I don't know...I giant interstellar mushroom network that enables instantaneous teleportation to any location. So there's an upper and lower limit at play but there's plenty of room in the middle for new stories, alien, characters, etc.
Picard could have worked, if they had bothered to tell a good story that actually made sense. But even going forward in time doesn't free you from what has already been established.
Like the idea of there being no Romulan cyberneticists, even though it was previously explicitly mentioned that there are.
And you're still going to have an upper limit, not about what characters should have previously mentioned, but about what logically could be a thing.
For example you can't have a super race of android that will wipe out all biological life forms as soon as they get the call that there are android that need help. And the bad guys of the series are trying to prevent that call from being made. But they fails so that call does get made. but then conveniently the super androids don't destroy all life becasue they closed the portal. So the bad guys were right all along.
So going forward in time isn't a magic pill either. In order for stories to make sense they have to utilize the established parameters of the universe in which they are set.
Sure, okay.
This is really dignifying fanfic, which is usually pretentious enough as it is.
I actually agree with your disagreement. My thoughts were based on observations of fans who complain about details over story quality.
I’m fine with the prequels. What I don’t like are things that are created that are so monumental that a bullshit reason needs to be created in order to explain why 1) there’s no spore drive in the 23rd century 2) and why Spock never mentioned his sister. Neither of these details were necessary to create good drama. Anymore than Sybok needed to be anything other than a mentor or, hell, the guy Spock pretended to be in “Yesteryear.”
Enterprise was a solid show if you considered it a prequel to Berman era Trek and that the original series was an alternate timeline. Actually they missed a great opportunity to make Enterprise a altered timeline through the Borg going back to stop First Contact. When they found the drones in the second season of Enterprise, that was the end of the timeline as we knew it. And it would go a long way toward explaining the changes in tech in Robau’s era. But that’s a different discussion.
Sure.
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