What do older fans think?

[jmidnight_99]

Almost exactly what my journey was. When I was a kid, I watched the hell out of TOS, TAS (reruns- I was born in the mid 70's) and, even though I thought it was a major step down in "entertainment value," TNG. I couldn't hold on to DS9, despite my thinking that the pilot episode was brilliant. I tried to come back around "Way of the Warrior," but the serialization killed it for me, as I felt like I had missed too much. VOY didn't last 6-7 episodes and I bounced on that. ENT I barely watched. Since the 2009 timeframe, I've since gone back and watched (and loved) all of DS9 and really liked ENT as well (although not as anything other than casual comfort food). VOY I still can't do. And God knows I've tried.

I'm older, I was in my early teens when I discovered TOS re-runs in the early 70's. Like you, watched the hell out of TOS and TAS during that decade. I bought all of the James Blish and Alan Dean Foster adaptations and anything else I could get my hands on. I remember mowing lawns to save for the full James Blish novel collection from the little book shop in my middle school before school closed for the summer.

Then the movies. I was thrilled to see the crew back in action, each movie better than the last.

When TNG came out, I was a little resistant... who was this new crew? I was worried people would forget about TOS, but it was respectful of the original and Gene's vision, and it eventually won me over. I loved everythig about the show. The updated ship, the computer graphics,and the special effects were great, and the stories were great. I liked that they didn't talk down to the audience, or dumb down the technology the way the network insisted they do on TOS.

I don't know why you didn't like DS9 and VOY.

TNG, DS9 and VOY didn't really hit their stride until they were at least two seasons in. DS9 had quite a few top notch stories and an good serialized plot. Voyager eventually became my favorite Star Trek series. As good as TNG was, it often reminds me of a safe luxury cruise ship in space, but Voyager felt more "raw" like TOS, and Janeway was a more direct captain.

None of the series are perfect including TOS... TOS didn't really develop the middle tier characters very much, and there was so many stupid inconsistencies in the backstory and plots. In Voyager's case I think "B'Elanna" and "Neelix" could have been cast better. Roxanne Dawson played 'B'Elanna' too self-loathing and hateful, and 'Neelix" and Ethan Phillips weren't a particularly good fit, either. But you have to look past the inadequacies of every one of the series...

I honestly can't wrap my head around "I only lasted a few episodes, or barely watched". You are missing out on some really great science fiction stories... maybe because you didn't give yourself time to get to know the characters? We watched every episode of TOS 60 times in re-runs because there was only 3 seasons...it took me a couple of times through before those other crews were as beloved to me as the TOS crew, but the point is it took an investment in time.

I don't care for the "Kelvin" movies. I don't think Gene would have been OK with them, I don't think we needed to re-imagine TOS, and after two decades of great original series and new characters, it seemed cheap to go back to the TOS well instead of coming up with something new and original. When I was a kid, Star Trek fired my imagination; The final frontier might be our greatest adventure. It's not the same when the story takes place in an alternate universe. That was ALWAYS the difference between Star Trek and Star Wars. On second thought, never mind that.

Star Trek is to Star Wars as Braveheart is to Lord of the Rings.

Others may not agree, but whatever.

 

[fireproof78]

I honestly can't wrap my head around "I only lasted a few episodes, or barely watched". You are missing out on some really great science fiction stories... maybe because you didn't give yourself time to get to know the characters?

The same reason why you don't care for the Kelvin movies. I know this wasn't directed at me but I'll bite-I don't like VOY or TNG because I never cared about the characters. And, that's the biggest reason why I watch TV shows is for characters.

I don't think Gene would have been OK with them, I don't think we needed to re-imagine TOS

I think is is completely inaccurate.

 

[fireproof78]

I agree, in that it's almost (always?) Kirk or Spock coming up with the mission saving idea, but at least anyone who comes up with an idea in TOS owns that idea. Kirk and Spock also have the rank and experience to go with those ideas so it feels natural.

In contrast, the episode where Mudd time loops to the destroy the Enterprise, all of that is on Stamets to save the ship, but the episode feels like it did backflips to make it looks like it was all Michael. When Tilly comes up with an idea (twice?) Michael corrects her to make the idea work. After Saru called Michael a predator several times, and likely feared or hated her all first season, in the second season he calls her his only friend.

I get the show is intended to be one person's story, I think maybe it should have been Saru's, but I have the impression it is the story of Michael being better than everyone as apposed to an evolution of characterization. Regaining her rank had nothing to do with her becoming a good officer, and was actually about her proving she was good enough all along just as she was. The second season is about Micheal being critical to the survival of all life in the galaxy, thanks to genetic coincidence.

Again, it all feels very much like Kirk and Spock, or Spock and McCoy with the predator comment.

And, yes, I do think the point is that she is a good enough officer all along, unburdened from her own fears and insecurities.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I don't care for the "Kelvin" movies. I don't think Gene would have been OK with them

Gene wasn't okay with Wrath of Khan and gave away that the Enterprise was being destroyed in STIII because he didn't like that, either. If he'd remained in control after TMP, Trek would have evolved very differently.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Star Trek is to Star Wars as Braveheart is to Lord of the Rings.

All 4 are big favourites of mine

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

At almost 58, I guess I qualify as an "older fan." The biggest issue with me is probably the whole idea of the spore drive. While the notion that the universe is moldy may explain a lot of what's going on these days, it still seems a bit far-fetched.

 

[Morpheus 02]

Sorry...kinda jumping in here

I was bornin 1972, so my first exposure to Trek was as a 4 year old watching them Tuesdays and Thursday on WGN channel 9 in Chicago... and then TAS soon afterward. TMP was one of my first movies (though I fell asleep during it), and followed everything but didn't jump into Discovery until I was "forced" to use All Access to get a Twilight episode for my child to watch for school.

Klingons were among my favorite things, particularly the TNG/DS9 episodes.

So I wound up watching all of Picard first , and am now in the middle of episode 8 of season 1 (though have seen spoilers for some things)... so I will add more thoughts later.

But a couple initial thoughts... like others... what is up with the Klingons???
Having seen Picard, where they have a mix of "old school" and "new school", I felt these Klingons were way off base. The speaking... is that the Klingon language that has been established? The actors sound like they are being told the lines , and they are taking time to think how the sound... doesn't sound natural. The acting from Klingons seem like from a bad fan film.

think someone had mentioned... they might be cool - if it were another race.

And what I appreciate about Picard is that it CONTINUES what was already established (though a few issues with it, but I can work through those).

But Discovery feels like it is kinda shoe horning things for no reason other than familiarity for Trek fans.. yet not respecting THEIR knowledge of it. It is kinda like what I didn't like about the first 3 seasons of Enterprise -- dropping things in early in a way that felt too advanced. So things like the Klingons having cloaking technology already.

If this hadn't been advertised as being in the "prime" universe, but rather be in the "Kelvin" universe, I would appreciate it more (i.e. the updated technology.... which looks great. But again, with Picard, it makes a lot of sense, not for this time period, this universe). I haven't gotten to the Mirror Universe part...but again, seems out of place being BEFORE Kirk. (Unless there is a good explanation) .

Also, not sure if things feel "in synch: with TOS... Harry Mudd as a callous murderer? Umm.. no.. A scoundrel finding any opportunity to manipulate? FOr sure. But seems a little callous to be the one we know.

I also don't get the character who looks like a Borg (or I guess a couple of them). I like the alien diversity, but need some help with integrating a Borg like alien in this time period. (Again, in Picard, that would feel "normal").

I definitely will max out my free month and watch everything. But not quite feeling it the way I do with Picard.

I do like the imperfect characters that still show potential and encourage each other... Though not sure why the doctor, who comes off as very gentle and caring, would be with the engineer who seems VERY callous at times, then flips on a switch to being nice and respectful.

If you don't mind, I will drop in with updates, so I can talk more intelligently on the show.

 

[Lord Garth]

So I wound up watching all of Picard first , and am now in the middle of episode 8 of season 1 (though have seen spoilers for some things)... so I will add more thoughts later.

I'll wait 'til you get through it.

 

[Vger23]

I'm older, I was in my early teens when I discovered TOS re-runs in the early 70's. Like you, watched the hell out of TOS and TAS during that decade. I bought all of the James Blish and Alan Dean Foster adaptations and anything else I could get my hands on. I remember mowing lawns to save for the full James Blish novel collection from the little book shop in my middle school before school closed for the summer.

Then the movies. I was thrilled to see the crew back in action, each movie better than the last.

When TNG came out, I was a little resistant... who was this new crew? I was worried people would forget about TOS, but it was respectful of the original and Gene's vision, and it eventually won me over. I loved everythig about the show. The updated ship, the computer graphics,and the special effects were great, and the stories were great. I liked that they didn't talk down to the audience, or dumb down the technology the way the network insisted they do on TOS.

I don't know why you didn't like DS9 and VOY.

TNG, DS9 and VOY didn't really hit their stride until they were at least two seasons in. DS9 had quite a few top notch stories and an good serialized plot. Voyager eventually became my favorite Star Trek series. As good as TNG was, it often reminds me of a safe luxury cruise ship in space, but Voyager felt more "raw" like TOS, and Janeway was a more direct captain.

None of the series are perfect including TOS... TOS didn't really develop the middle tier characters very much, and there was so many stupid inconsistencies in the backstory and plots. In Voyager's case I think "B'Elanna" and "Neelix" could have been cast better. Roxanne Dawson played 'B'Elanna' too self-loathing and hateful, and 'Neelix" and Ethan Phillips weren't a particularly good fit, either. But you have to look past the inadequacies of every one of the series...

I honestly can't wrap my head around "I only lasted a few episodes, or barely watched". You are missing out on some really great science fiction stories... maybe because you didn't give yourself time to get to know the characters? We watched every episode of TOS 60 times in re-runs because there was only 3 seasons...it took me a couple of times through before those other crews were as beloved to me as the TOS crew, but the point is it took an investment in time.

I don't care for the "Kelvin" movies. I don't think Gene would have been OK with them, I don't think we needed to re-imagine TOS, and after two decades of great original series and new characters, it seemed cheap to go back to the TOS well instead of coming up with something new and original. When I was a kid, Star Trek fired my imagination; The final frontier might be our greatest adventure. It's not the same when the story takes place in an alternate universe. That was ALWAYS the difference between Star Trek and Star Wars. On second thought, never mind that.

Star Trek is to Star Wars as Braveheart is to Lord of the Rings.

Others may not agree, but whatever.

I stopped watching DS9, ENT and VOY because they didn't appeal to me at the time, and I had a lot going on in other places of my life (college, sports, etc). I'm not one to spend time on something that doesn't interest me or entertain me.

When I revisited them later in life, as I said, I appreciated ENT more, loved DS9, and still couldn't get into VOY. And it was cool because I got to see some Star Trek for the first time.

I have no issues staying engaged with PIC and DSC. I find them enjoyable and they have what I'm looking for at this time. If they didn't, I'd give them a few episodes, and I'd put them away and try again later in life. Just like before.

No big deal. No big loss.

 

[fireproof78]

No big deal. No big loss.

Exactly.

 

[The Realist]

It's the show I wanted ENTERPRISE to be: a bold attempt to reinvent STAR TREK for the 21st century.

As an "older fan," I can say: Yeah, pretty much this.

BermanTrek's unremitting stodginess and creative conservatism ultimately killed all my enthusiasm for a franchise I had loved since adolescence. By the time the leaden-paced, outdated tedium that was Enterprise rolled around, I was done.

I moved on to other geek obsessions, and really the only "Trek" I retain much enthusiasm for at this point is TOS. (The one thing to revive my dormant inner Trekkie in recent years was the splendid and unjustly maligned Star Trek into Darkness.) But I've watched Discovery, and I enjoy it as casual entertainment. It looks great, it's well-acted, the pace is modern and exciting, and it's not just another faded xerox of an antiquated style and format. I'm not obsessed with it, but I can watch it with enjoyment and engagement, which is more than I can say for a lot of older "Trek" at this point.

 

[jmidnight_99]

Gene wasn't okay with Wrath of Khan and gave away that the Enterprise was being destroyed in STIII because he didn't like that, either. If he'd remained in control after TMP, Trek would have evolved very differently.

I've read Gene's letter, and I agree with it, for the most part. He wasn't OK with parts of the story, not the whole story. Star Trek was always about optimism for the future. I'd rather see this than watch it disintegrate into crap like everythig else is.

"I" didn't like the fact that the Enterprise was being destroyed. But I've learned that you have to go big and do things to get attention to draw people to the theaters. A couple of the TNG movies taught us that what makes great TV episodes doesn't always make great movies. I hated the whole death of Spock, the destruction of the Enterprise, and the fact that the crew was often dispersed instead of all together on the bridge of the Enterprise where they belonged. I hated that they travelled back in time in a Klingon ship instead of the Enterprise. But it was what it needed to be for the big screen.

 

[jmidnight_99]

As an "older fan," I can say: Yeah, pretty much this.

BermanTrek's unremitting stodginess and creative conservatism ultimately killed all my enthusiasm for a franchise I had loved since adolescence. By the time the leaden-paced, outdated tedium that was Enterprise rolled around, I was done.

I moved on to other geek obsessions, and really the only "Trek" I retain much enthusiasm for at this point is TOS. (The one thing to revive my dormant inner Trekkie in recent years was the splendid and unjustly maligned Star Trek into Darkness.) But I've watched Discovery, and I enjoy it as casual entertainment. It looks great, it's well-acted, the pace is modern and exciting, and it's not just another faded xerox of an antiquated style and format. I'm not obsessed with it, but I can watch it with enjoyment and engagement, which is more than I can say for a lot of older "Trek" at this point.

You know... Out of college, I worked in a recording studio as sound engineer. Eventually I learned enough about the business to become a producer, and I produced several albums in the 80's. As I got better and better at it, something strange happened. I became very critical of other albums, even ones I used to enjoy.

I criticised everying I didn't like about the sounds of other albums. The drums are weak, the mix is wrong, the acoustic guitars sound like shit. The vocals are too far up in the mix. The vocals are too far down in the mix. The bass has no punch. The bass has too much punch. There's too much reverb on the drums, there isn't enough reverb on the drums. The rhythm section isn't mixed right. the mix is muddy, etc. etc. etc. I stopped liking just about everything about music, because it wasn't recorded or mixed the way I would have done it, or it didn't sound the way I wanted it to sound. It got so bad I couldn't stand listening to music anymore.

Thankfully, time taught me not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I mean this very constructively: Get over yourself.

 

[Lord Garth]

Thankfully, time taught me not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I agree not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but I'm re-watching ENT right now, and there are some good episodes, but a lot of it really is tedious, like @The Realist says.

I've been a fan for 30 years, but DSC and PIC are now my favorite Trek series. By the early-'00s, I really thought it was time for a change in regime. And I'm glad we have it now. The Star Trek we have now is the Star Trek I wanted back then, but didn't know it yet.

 

[dinzy]

At almost 58, I guess I qualify as an "older fan." The biggest issue with me is probably the whole idea of the spore drive. While the notion that the universe is moldy may explain a lot of what's going on these days, it still seems a bit far-fetched.

As a soon to be 44 year old with a Ph.D. in physics the spore drive helped me fully let go of any notion that the tech in Trek is something that could be possible. Growing up with TOS reruns then TNG, Trek, along with my curiosity and love of nature pushed me into a science education. But as a kid, I thought that a lot of it was possible. It is not and the spore drive is just as ridiculous as the transporter. It's all space magic. Knowing that is is absurd is different from being able to shrug it off and the Spore drive forced me to shrug it off.

I still have a hard time with the Super Engineers who know everything, can immediately come up with ideas to exploit available resources and test more than 1 in an episode. This shit drives me nuts as someone who actually developed some technologies to fabricate CPUs before moving on to a role in "operations." It takes a long time to develop the most basic piece of tech even to just put together a demo. The Super Engineers in fiction are not believably smarter than us normal people. They are as smart as dozens of people who spent dozens of years becoming experts on a subject matter and can execute 100s of times faster than a team of developers. It pisses me off because it cheapens science by showing it all as trivial as going to the lab for a few hours and winning. Again, space magic.

 

[F. King Daniel]

A universe where all aliens are human with pointless silly head bumps, think in our terms, there's sound in space, time is a constant throughout the universe irrespective of velocity and space fungus is the cutoff point? I guess it's odd how fans compartmentalise this stuff.

 

[Vger23]

A universe where all aliens are human with pointless silly head bumps, think in our terms, there's sound in space, time is a constant throughout the universe irrespective of velocity and space fungus is the cutoff point? I guess it's odd how fans compartmentalise this stuff.

 

[AresB]

Also, in TNG we have already seen a life form that lives in subspace, so why not a fungus?

 

[fireproof78]

A universe where all aliens are human with pointless silly head bumps, think in our terms, there's sound in space, time is a constant throughout the universe irrespective of velocity and space fungus is the cutoff point? I guess it's odd how fans compartmentalise this stuff.

I know the threshold is different for each fan. But this line with the spore drive still baffles me.

 

[EnderAKH]

I came to Star Trek primarily through the movies. I watched TOS in syndication as a kid, and thought of it as that silly show with the primary colors and the truly silly things like space Lincoln, space hippies, giant space hands, talking babies, etc. TMP bored me to tears at 6, having discovered the glory of Star Wars. But then came what I considered to be the holy trilogy: WoK, SfS, and tVH. I loved how they were an interconnected story weaving throughout multiple movies. I loved that there were real stakes, and they tackled subjects like the actual aging of the crew in believable semi-serious ways. I was SO EXCITED for TNG, I rushed home from a marching band competition to watch Encounter at Farpoint, and watched every episode. I remember watching Best of Both Worlds Part 1 with a group of friends and we audibly gasped at "To Be Continued." Then came DS9, and it never engaged me. Then the same with Voyager. And Enterprise. I WANTED to like them, but they just never connected. They felt bland, safe and very much in the exact same storytelling language that TNG used.

In later years, I have gone back and now I can barely sit through an episode of TNG. The over the top serious Shakespearian acting that comes nowhere close to what actual people sound like. The very static camera usage. The bland, 80s set design. Everyone having bumpy heads but were basically human. The shakey SHAKEY science of it all. You cannot just thrown in the word tachyon and everything turns out ok.

When I think of my experience with TNG these days I am reminded a lot of Lewis Rothschild's speech from The American President, so I will paraphrase it here: They don't have a choice but to watch The Next Generation! The Next Generation is the only one showing science fiction! People want science fiction, and in the absence of genuine science fiction, they'll watch anything that shows up on their screen. They want science fiction. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.

I honestly can't wrap my head around "I only lasted a few episodes, or barely watched". You are missing out on some really great science fiction stories...

They really aren't, though. Farscape. The Expanse. Firefly. Babylon 5, excusing them for set design and some unnatural dialogue. Battlestar Galactica. Orphan Black. Humans. Man in the High Castle. Stranger Things. Westworld. We've now seen what good sci-fi can look like, and no longer have to drink the sand. For me, Discovery fits into that list. Berman Trek belongs nowhere near it.