TOS Purists of TrekBBS - Unite!
- Thread starter TOS Purist
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That sums it up for me as well!
I like watching any Trek but TOS will always be my first choice.
I like watching any Trek but TOS will always be my first choice.
I've always felt TOS had a certain something to it. Nimoy once said he felt it had an elan about it. It's much like that one particular girl who in your eyes stands apart and above any other. Yes, you know she isn't perfect, but to you she just glows in such an ideal way.
Folks can trot out its missteps and less-than-stellar moments, but that really only serves to illustrate that Star Trek got a lot more right than wrong.
I can point out the faults of the later shows, but in the end I really don't give a damn because they really don't matter to me. In my eyes they're all pretenders trying to reinterpret something they'll never really be able to stand in the same room with.
If I were crafting my own new SF series I'd also study and understand what certain other shows that came before did right. Star Trek would be on that short list, but none of the spinoffs.
Folks can trot out its missteps and less-than-stellar moments, but that really only serves to illustrate that Star Trek got a lot more right than wrong.
I can point out the faults of the later shows, but in the end I really don't give a damn because they really don't matter to me. In my eyes they're all pretenders trying to reinterpret something they'll never really be able to stand in the same room with.
If I were crafting my own new SF series I'd also study and understand what certain other shows that came before did right. Star Trek would be on that short list, but none of the spinoffs.
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They could, and did, and are part of the "fictional history" such as it is.
If the internal contradictions of TOS itself are allowed, nothing is too unlikely.
This has caught my interest.
Is this rejection of post-TMP Star Trek an issue of quality (i.e. a simple matter of taste) or is this merely due to continuity problems in a fictional universe?
I think it's a matter of both. Continuity issues might not really matter to you if you feel you're being sufficiently entertained. If you're disappointed with something then every little thing looms even larger in your eyes.
That's NOT what I started the thread for, though...I thought I made it clear in my first post. It was just a place where I could gather all the other purists like me in one place, that's all...lol.
People read stuff into things too much, sometimes! And dammit, I said I was going back into lurker mode..."every time I try to get out, it just drags me back in again!"
You might have gotten The God Thing on your side. He only accepted TOS seasons 1 and 2, and TMP, as canon. He doesn't seem to be around anymore, though....
Interestingly, in Nimoy's I Am Spock, he discusses the fact that when Paramount put together the Harve Bennett production crew there was the intention NOT to build upon TMP but to reject it by ignoring it. Even though Bennett claims to have watched all of TOS before starting on TWOK, he apparently skipped over TAS and TMP in his prep time. Granted, Nimoy also admits to struggling with how Spock was written in TWOK-TUC stories as compared to TOS. Nimoy did not care for TMP either although he did have a fondness for TAS.
^^ Interesting because I've long felt that TWOK was intended to be some sort of restart as if TMP had never happened. Doesn't work for me though because while fixing some things they also fixed things that were never broken and in fits and starts it's went south from there.
Agreed.
I myself value the internal continuity within a body of fiction highly.
I was just curious because I have read quite a bit about "canon", "continuity" etc from this particular member but nothing along the lines of "Not only does Star Trek: Spinoff Number 345 suck, but it does not even manage not to contradict TOS." and therefore got the impression that TOS Purist does not enjoy the later movies and spinoffs purely on the base of continuity issues.
Canon is what has been committed to film regardless of inconsistencies with whatever has been established previously. And so all six series and all eleven films are canon. And none of it has to do with quality or entertainment value.
Continuity is something else. It deals with internal consistency across all series and films and this is from where a lot of discussion, debate and argument really stem. The two basic sides of the debate are whether the Trek franchise across the board is one big honkin' happy continuity (rationalized with serious squinting and brain cramp) or whether we are actually seeing different continuities (alternate realities or whatever) that happen do bear similarities to each other while diverging in other respects.
You can believe were seeing different continuities and still enjoy other series and films in whole or in part. From that you can accept that while ENT is just as much canon as TOS it doesn't have to mean ENT is canon in regards to TOS' continuity and vice versa.
I accept everything post TMP as a different continuity or continuities even though I've enjoyed aspects of the later films as well as parts of TNG and DS9.
Your mileage may vary with each individual.
Continuity is something else. It deals with internal consistency across all series and films and this is from where a lot of discussion, debate and argument really stem. The two basic sides of the debate are whether the Trek franchise across the board is one big honkin' happy continuity (rationalized with serious squinting and brain cramp) or whether we are actually seeing different continuities (alternate realities or whatever) that happen do bear similarities to each other while diverging in other respects.
You can believe were seeing different continuities and still enjoy other series and films in whole or in part. From that you can accept that while ENT is just as much canon as TOS it doesn't have to mean ENT is canon in regards to TOS' continuity and vice versa.
I accept everything post TMP as a different continuity or continuities even though I've enjoyed aspects of the later films as well as parts of TNG and DS9.
Your mileage may vary with each individual.
I just finished the book last weekend; the premise of which was Nimoy's development of the character of Spock from The Cage through Unification.
He didn't care for the way Spock was written in TMP. The whole "kolinar" apparently did sell Nimoy on the cause of Spock's stoicism during much of the film.
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I'll have to agree with you regarding TWOK-TUC being a reboot; in fact, I think I've discussed that before somewhere around here. The whole death, resurrection, and reeducation plotline was a bit more than I could swallow...and those were my college years when I imbibed in a lot of intoxicating crap. Don't take me wrong; I found parts of those five movies entertaining. However, they have been IMO from another alternate Trek universe.
Since there's around ten years (in-universe) between TMP and TWOK, there really isn't any real contradiction. Lots of time for events and choices to meander from one to the other, from the technology to the uniforms to the personalities of the assorted characters.
Considering that ENT is about a hundred years before TOS, there's even more wiggle room, especially with that Temporal Cold War mucking things up, and Archer hitting the reset button on the aforementioned TCW to wave off any lingering irreconcilable nits.
ST09 is, by its own admission, an alternate timeline, and is thus irrelevant to the whole thing.
Considering that ENT is about a hundred years before TOS, there's even more wiggle room, especially with that Temporal Cold War mucking things up, and Archer hitting the reset button on the aforementioned TCW to wave off any lingering irreconcilable nits.
ST09 is, by its own admission, an alternate timeline, and is thus irrelevant to the whole thing.
Couldn't disagree with you more. ST:TWOK has the most "feel" of an episode of TOS of any Star Trek movie made. Star Trek 2009 (despite my rejection of it from my Trek timeline) comes 2nd closest.
Feel has little to do with it when you're examining elements of continuity. Although I will say that TWOK could possibly be of the same continuity as TOS (although I don't think so). But it's such a turning point I'm inclined to doubt it.
And CRA I'm surprised by your change of mind since I believe you were once a sharp critic of ENT. But to each his/her own. I still and will always reject it.
Okay, I can see a couple of points where there might be a conflict, but would someone explain where TWoK diverges sharply enough from ST that it becomes a different continuity?
What continuity errors? If anything, it's a linear continuation of the original series. TMP is 2-1/2 years after the end of TOS. TWOK is nearly 10 years after that...
I certainly can't. I don't see any conflict. This whole argument smacks of the Gene Roddenberry=Star trek sort of thing I rejected more than 30 years ago after being disappointed with ST:TMP.
Things like the TMP-era cargo containers and Khan having a TWoK-style emblem are anachronisms and the things which immediately come to my mind, but aren't deal breakers for me. Khan's "two hundred years before you were born" doesn't work, but if we take the show as always having been set in the late 23rd century as is now generally accepted, none of the many "200 year" and "couple of centuries" references in the series make sense. They only work with a late-22nd or early 23rd century setting, making TMP's "over 300 years ago" date for Voyager 6 the outlier.
Khan's 200 year reference can be rationalized (with some squinting) when you figure that the time frame would be more like about 270 years or a bit less if one considers Khan might have been in hiding for awhile before getting off planet rather than taking flight exactly in 1996. One could also squint and consider that the Botany Bay would have experienced some measure of time dilation during its sublight starflight.
The events of TWOK-TFF happen within a period of a few months at most, and there are elements in the other films that do have contradictory issues of continuity. And since TWOK is so evidently part of the same continuity as TSFS, TVH, TFF and TUC then I consider the whole shebang a different continuity from TOS.
The real nitpicker for me is the so called planet of galactic peace referenced in TFF. It's said this planet has had representatives from the UFP, the Klingons and the Romulans for twenty years. If TWOK is supposed to be fifteen years after "Space Seed" and TFF takes place only a few months after TWOK then how can Romulans be part of this planet of galactic peace when no in the UFP knows anything of the Romulans before "Balance Of Terror" only a few months before the events of "Space Seed?" This planet is established five years before the events of "Balance Of Terror?" The other eyebrow raiser is the reference in TSFS that the Enterprise is twenty years old and ready to be decommissioned.
The ship is closer to thirty or more and it's already being decommissioned? Hell, contemporary naval ships like carriers can be in active service for more than forty years and counting. The carrier Enterprise CVAN-65 will be fifty years old next year.
The other thing that irritates me is the idea that the Enterprise having just been extensively refit a few years earlier was now relegated to being a cadet training vessel and no longer good enough for deepspace active service. I just hated the whole idea. Yes there were character moments and action and f/x sequences I liked in TWOK, but the whole story was riddled with logic flaws that pain me no end. But it's also the overtly militaristic tone of it that for me sets it apart from TOS. This was so obviously Bennett and Meyer's take on Star Trek that I found at odds with what had come before.
The events of TWOK-TFF happen within a period of a few months at most, and there are elements in the other films that do have contradictory issues of continuity. And since TWOK is so evidently part of the same continuity as TSFS, TVH, TFF and TUC then I consider the whole shebang a different continuity from TOS.
The real nitpicker for me is the so called planet of galactic peace referenced in TFF. It's said this planet has had representatives from the UFP, the Klingons and the Romulans for twenty years. If TWOK is supposed to be fifteen years after "Space Seed" and TFF takes place only a few months after TWOK then how can Romulans be part of this planet of galactic peace when no in the UFP knows anything of the Romulans before "Balance Of Terror" only a few months before the events of "Space Seed?" This planet is established five years before the events of "Balance Of Terror?" The other eyebrow raiser is the reference in TSFS that the Enterprise is twenty years old and ready to be decommissioned.
The ship is closer to thirty or more and it's already being decommissioned? Hell, contemporary naval ships like carriers can be in active service for more than forty years and counting. The carrier Enterprise CVAN-65 will be fifty years old next year.The other thing that irritates me is the idea that the Enterprise having just been extensively refit a few years earlier was now relegated to being a cadet training vessel and no longer good enough for deepspace active service. I just hated the whole idea. Yes there were character moments and action and f/x sequences I liked in TWOK, but the whole story was riddled with logic flaws that pain me no end. But it's also the overtly militaristic tone of it that for me sets it apart from TOS. This was so obviously Bennett and Meyer's take on Star Trek that I found at odds with what had come before.
That's an association fallacy, aka guilt-by-association or even honor-by-association. We're talking TWOK, not the other films. To me, to be fair to the cast and creative team behind them, each film should be viewed as an independent production. So unless you have a problem with TWOK, I see no reason to lump it in with others.
Not a problem with me. I never understand the need for Star Trek fans to accept lines like "20 years ago" as a HARD FACT. It could've been 16-24 years ago. Another thing is that characters sometimes misspeak or are completely mistaken, are ignorant, or even exaggerate (as in this case) or lie. Or even could be saying it's 20 years in ROMULAN terms.
The planet Nimbus III could've been settled shortly after the events of The Enterprise Incident as some sort of attempt at peace. 2284-2268=16 years. Not that far off in Human terms.
The other eyebrow raiser is the reference in TSFS that the Enterprise is twenty years old and ready to be decommissioned.
There's a big difference between a sea going vessel and a starship. Airliners last around 25 years. Space shuttles lasted around 30 years. Skylab lasted 6 years. Those are more likely to more relavent examples than a sea going vessel.
As far as Admiral Morrow, he's a dumbass. He's insulting the Vulcans with his use of the word "mysticism" to define their rituals. He's wrong about the Enterprise. Big deal. Ignore him.
There's at least a decade between TMP and TWOK. You have no idea what has transpired aboard that ship during this time. Something could've happened to the ship and rendered it suitable for a training ship. Could've been a political move on Starfleet's part. Could've been designed to force JTK to take a desk job.
I don't see any difference between TWOK and TOS in its handling of military decorum. Look at the first season of TOS and you'll see many of the same attitudes throughout. The Roddenberry said later on, "There's no true military, everyone's an officer," and a bunch of other BS that had no bearing on what we saw in the original series. If this is your argumentation, then TMP truly doesn't fit what we saw in TOS, and TWOK is a restoration of that vision. In fact, TMP has more in common with TNG than it does with TOS.
Further, if you have problems with the story in TWOK, then I suggest you list them here. It's a fine movie. It's very entertaining, it's engaging, and it's very well done.
That's revisionist history. TMP had less to do with TOS than TWOK does even though TMP's exceedingly weak story was basically a rewrite of "The Changeling."
