What is more Trek to you?

[Nerys Myk]

The future depicted in Roddenberry-Trek was a utopia. The future depicted in Abrams-Trek seems to be leaning toward dystopia.

Earth might have been a nice place to live, but it wasn't sunshine and lollipops elsewhere, what with the food shortages, genocidal governors, crop failures and planet wide epidemics. Then you have threat of attack from hostile and unknown aliens.

 

[Shazam!]

It's Star Trek because it has Kirk and Spock in it, a big spaceship called the Enterprise and it's called Star Trek.

I'm not put off because it doesn't look or feel like Star Trek. I'm put off because it looks like a million films I've seen before, very few of which were any good.

The action looks impressive but I'm not impressed by what they can do with computers. They make whole movies in computers these days so why would one or two shots impress me?

I have no investment whatsoever in these characters (nothing to do with the actors) because it is ACTUALLY STATED in the first movie that we're basically watching a parallel universe. I give as much of a shit about these characters than I do for evil beard Spock or that Riker who got blown up by the Borg.

I basically just don't care.

 

[ChristianBobak]

I loved the way it was done in the 2009 movie. It was a great film, and everything worked the way it was supposed to. It captured the essence of the Trek characters well, and so on. But now that they've gotten all that out of the way, it's time to put back some of Gene Roddenberry's vision, or else it will be just another regular, mindless CGI action flick like all the other stuff that's out there. Did anyone really go out and buy 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Twister, The Expendables, etc. and watch them over and over and over?

I agree with Shazam. Computer trickery doesn't impress me, nor does it carry a film by itself. If the upcoming Trek film turns out to be just another CGI revenge spectacle, then what's the point of calling it "Star Trek" other than to get more of an audience?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Because revenge and CGI (or any type of SFX) doesn't stop it from being Star Trek. If that were true, TMP and TWOK wouldn't be Star Trek.

 

[ChristianBobak]

It's not those things that stop it from being Star Trek, it's the absence of a human interest story to go with those things.

 

[ChristianBobak]

Compare Nemesis with The Voyage Home. Which one was better?

 

[Chronius Fawkes]

I really liked the Trekbabble they came up with and the amount of effort taken to attempt to explain the technology. They tried to make it seem at least possible. I winced when they ejected the "warp cores" in ST:2009. Is this important to the story? Nah. But the passion for perfection seems to gone.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It's not those things that stop it from being Star Trek, it's the absence of a human interest story to go with those things.

Kind of hard to gauge the level of "human interest" from a one minute trailer focused on action. The 09 film had a good share of "human interest" mixed in with the action, CGI and revenge. I think this one can do the same. I'd say the first five minutes of 09 are among the most emotionally impactful moments in Star Trek. Birth in the midst of death and destruction. Lovers parted forever. Heroic sacrifice.

Compare Nemesis with The Voyage Home. Which one was better?

I perfer TVH, mostly because I had a good time watching it. It was more of a comedy that a "human interest" story, though.

 

[-Brett-]

I'm struggling to understand why people are acting surprised that the sequel to a mindless action flick is a mindless action flick. Maybe the next cycle of hiatus and reboot will result in a more balanced approach, but this particular incarnation of Star Trek is a series of mindless action flicks. Accept it. Or don't. Either way, as long as it's successful, it's unlikely to change.

 

[Greg Cox]

Or has Trek simply evolved to the point where it shows you the good and bad of the universe?

Okay, I generally roll my eyes when it comes to debating degrees of Trekkishness, like this a matter of religious doctrine or something. But I couldn't let this one pass . . .

Trek has always shown the good and bad of the universe. Go back and watch TOS again . . . or the previous movies. Entire planets are wiped out, there are conspiracies and assassinations and genocide, plagues and famines and Doomsday machines. Countless lost civilizations that were destroyed by race wars or cataclysms. Kodos the Executioner. Mirror Universes. Jack the Ripper. Court-Martial. Renegade starship captains. Nazis. Con men. Swindlers. Slave traders. Mail-order brides.

Heck, remember when Khan tortured and killed the scientists on Regula One? "He slit their throats, Captain."

It's the final frontier, not some squeaky-clean utopia.

And we can't really judge any movie from the action-packed trailer. Of course, there going to play up the special effects and explosions in a teaser trailer, as opposed to the more quiet, character moments. Did anyone really expect a somber lecture about the Prime Directive in a movie trailer . . . ?

I'm willing to bet that the trailer for THE WRATH OF KHAN featured plenty of explosions, action, and vows of revenge . . . .

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'm struggling to understand why people are acting surprised that the sequel to a mindless action flick is a mindless action flick. Maybe the next cycle of hiatus and reboot will result in a more balanced approach, but this particular incarnation of Star Trek is a series of mindless action flicks. Accept it. Or don't. Either way, as long as it's successful, it's unlikely to change.

I didn't find XI to be any more mindless that the previous 10.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I didn't find XI to be any more mindless that the previous 10.

Absolutely Right(TM).

Making solemn noises about Big Ideas is not the same as being thoughtful in any substantive way. On the big screen - and much more often than not, as the years passed, on television - Star Trek has been about the former.

Anything new to do with Kirk/Spock and the TOS setting on TV or at the movies is automatically more interesting to me than the sequels.

 

[Greg Cox]

The future depicted in Roddenberry-Trek was a utopia. The future depicted in Abrams-Trek seems to be leaning toward dystopia.

Gotta disagree. It was a positive vision of the future, but it wasn't utopian. Especially not out on the final frontier.

And I'm not sure an attack on Earth means it's a dystopian future. I'm seem to recall the whale probe causing lots of destruction in TVH, including explosions, broken glass, and the possible end of life on Earth.

 

[RoJoHen]

To me, Star Trek has always been an exploration of the human condition in the context of crazy space adventures. This new trailer looks perfectly Star Trek to me.

 

[Kemaiku]

I seem to remember many monologues from Kirk at the ends of episodes pondering along the lines of how far humanity had to go, to improve, even in his day.

 

[Greg Cox]

I seem to remember many monologues from Kirk at the ends of episodes pondering along the lines of how far humanity had to go, to improve, even in his day.

Exactly. The general consensus in TOS was that humanity was still a half-savage, child race with a long way to go.

"We're not to going to kill . . . today."

 

[The Wormhole]

People really need to let go of the pretentious idea that action and combat are they very things Roddenberry didn't want to have in Trek. I'm not saying Trek has to be as dumb and mindless as Trek XI was, but at the same time people should stop putting it on a pedestal of being some kind of intellectual masterpiece that's not alowed to have action. Even TNG had action packed episodes, and they are among the more popular.

Of course, people should also let go of the pretentious idea that Roddenberry is God, but that's another discussion...

 

[47]

Keep the canon and go forward after Nemesis.

A reboot will never be Star Trek. Star Trek was TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY (and the first ten movies). Even ENT wasn't Star Trek, that's why it failed so miserably.

That being said, I liked the movie. But it's not Star Trek.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's not those things that stop it from being Star Trek, it's the absence of a human interest story to go with those things.

Erm... what about Spock? He basically came out of the closet as an "emotional" after a very conflicted life. There was more humanity in that than just about any of the other Trek movies.

I really liked the Trekbabble they came up with and the amount of effort taken to attempt to explain the technology. They tried to make it seem at least possible. I winced when they ejected the "warp cores" in ST:2009. Is this important to the story? Nah. But the passion for perfection seems to gone.

What was the problem with the warm cores ejecting?

 

[Greg Cox]

People really need to let go of the pretentious idea that action and combat are they very things Roddenberry didn't want to have in Trek. ...

Amen. As far back as "The Cage," Chris Pike was fighting a giant furry barbarian, threatening to break the Talosian's neck, and Number One and company were blasting away at the hidden gateway with their snazzy laser cannon . . .

Heck, "The Cage" begins with Pike mourning the deaths of crewmen who were lost in a recent battle on an alien world.

There's always been a hefty dose of action-adventure and special-effects eye candy in Star Trek. And that's always what tends to get played up in the trailers and teasers.

(I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that there weren't any debates about the ethics of terraforming in the WOK trailer, let alone any character-oriented scenes illuminating Kirk's midlife crisis.)