Where are we right now??

[F. King Daniel]

Well obviously it would be a problem for people like myself who appreciate the rich lore of Star Trek and would resent a television show that bears the name of said franchise but resembles it in very few ways.
And you don't need to say something like "well your opinion doesn't matter", I'm well aware I'm just a single fan and you're insignificant overall, I don't see why people around here are so fond of pointing that out to people like in some communist nightmare.

What I don't understand is the spinelessness of people who don't want to defend a beloved franchise because they're too busy trying to look accepting, up to date and open to change as that's what they've been conditioned to see as good traits.

I thought the last Star Trek movie resembled classic Trek quite closely. I certainly don't see this "rejection of Trek lore" you're talking about (Vulcans are the same as ever, Klingons, Humans, Orions, Starfleet.... all immediately recognizable - and the branching timeline the story's based on means they would be the same anyway) and calling people spineless for not "defending" classic Trek (why does it need defending? I love classic Trek and I even read the novels continuing Next Gen, DS9 and Voyager) ... that's lame. It sounds like "Stop liking what I don't like!"

 

[xortex]

Superimposing TOS is stupid. That's like if the state labotomized your spouse and then wondered why you loved him or her less.

Continuity clutter was only a concern for sequals.

 

[Greg Cox]

And perhaps entertain the notion that Star Trek doesn't play by different rules than any other iconic pop culture creation. If you can reboot Galactica or Planet of the Apes, you can reboot Star Trek.

Once again, really inappropriate comparisons.

How so? Galactica and Trek are both star-faring space operas. Planet of the Apes is another science fiction saga with its own elaborate continuity and history.

But clearly I'm just fooling myself . . .

 

[xortex]

I'll try to answer that, Mr Cox. Trek is not about something specific like Galactica or Planet of the Apes. Galactica was about robots attacking displaced Humans (survivors?) looking for home - Earth. Planet of the Apes is a singular story about apes taking over a post apocoliptic Earth. Very specific and transmutable. Reinterpreting Trek as an alternate universe is basically erasing it for those who love TOS. It certainly wasn't redefining it. Changing the universe is akin to changing Sherlock Holmes into something else or changing the story of Galactica. It's a rip off and breaks the form and tradition that was already broken with Trek. Breaking the bank doesn't interest me.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Yeah, BSG and Planet were specific stories to be told and later expanded. Star Trek is an open arena - a universe that has been created and fleshed out fantastically read for any number of stories to take place. The fact that nu-Trek ignores all of that hard work and goes off in a completely new direction yet calls itself "Trek" isn't real to me. Trek is that distinct, rich sci-fi universe the writers created for us, its not simply a show set in space that has some familiar names being thrown around.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Where and how does it "ignore all that"? Unlike BSG or Apes, nuTrek is the same ficticious world as the prior series and movies. Old Spock lived through all that happened in it.

 

[Greg Cox]

But you don't actually need all that accumulated world-building and continuity to tell an exciting or thought-provoking Star Trek story, any more than you need to read seventy years of back issues to enjoy a fun Superman story. Star Trek is a space opera, not an encyclopedia.

When I got hooked on TOS in the sixties, it wasn't because there was forty years of world-building attached to it. I was just captivated by the characters and the relationships and cool gadgets and aliens. And, to be honest, it's not like TOS worried too much about world-building or "canon." They were just making it as they went along . . . and yet we're still watching it forty years later. And we're still making movies about Kirk and Spock and the crew of the Starship Enterprise.

A complicated shared universe is all very good, but it's not the only thing Trek has going for it, or even the most important thing. Star Trek is bigger than that.

 

[xortex]

Now it's the same world but a different universe.

 

[Greg Cox]

And, honestly, Planet of the Apes seems like a good comparison to me. It's not just one story. By the time the original series wrapped up, you had a convoluted saga set in multiple eras, involving multiple sets of characters and a variety of storylines. Add the TV show, the animated series, novels, and comic books and you've got a whole history, not just a single narrative.

It's not like every movie was about gorillas hunting Charlton Heston!

 

[xortex]

An astronaut that gets thrown forward in time to an Earth ruled by apes. How was that rewritten? Buck Rogers has the same premise without the apes.

 

[Greg Cox]

An astronaut that gets thrown forward in time to an Earth ruled by apes. How was that rewritten? Buck Rogers has the same premise without the apes.

That's just the first movie. In the later films, you have a bizarre mutant religous cult, a doomsday bomb, talking apes becoming celebrities in modern-day California, an ape messiah leading a revolt against a totalitarian regime, gorillas attempting a military coup against their chimpanzee ruler . . .

And that's just the first five movies. Never mind the expanded Ape universe of the TV shows, comics, etc.

Saying that PotA is just about an astronaut thrown forward in time is like saying that STAR TREK is just about a heroic space captain fighting a salt vampire!

 

[Andymator]

Reinterpreting Trek as an alternate universe is basically erasing it for those who love TOS.

Star Trek is an open arena - a universe that has been created and fleshed out fantastically read for any number of stories to take place. The fact that nu-Trek ignores all of that hard work and goes off in a completely new direction yet calls itself "Trek" isn't real to me. Trek is that distinct, rich sci-fi universe the writers created for us, its not simply a show set in space that has some familiar names being thrown around.

This is I guess what's really at the heart of the issue here; so many people have fooled themselves into believing these collections of fiction have actually somehow created a universe. As if it actually exists in some crazy meta sense...

No version of Star Trek is real. Not at all. It's fiction. Entertainment. Make-believe. None of it can be erased. People have been making these claims with every single new incarnation of Star Trek. Including those that you've enjoyed so much. While you were having a good time empathizing with characters like Archer and Trip, people like me were wailing and bemoaning the perversion of our beloved "universe"... And we were wrong.

I know that You_Will_Fail is most likely not going to be flexible enough to think critically about his or her own position after being so vocal about it, but I hope that at least some uninvolved spectator reading this might be.

 

[xortex]

The POTA movie dosn't disavow those other movies and step on them or make them inviable. The superstructure of a universe is it's history. If you lose that, you lose it's meaning and basterdize it. Uncoiling a slinky is turning it into something else. It wasn't a remake or all this wouldn't be necessary tossing the timeline out like thay did to have their cake and eat it to. Now they have neither a remake or a sequal on their hands but a hybrid insult. GR cared a great deal about canon and universe building which the whole reason TOS is so great in the first place. Canon being defined as only what appears on screen.

An astronaut that gets thrown forward in time to an Earth ruled by apes. How was that rewritten? Buck Rogers has the same premise without the apes.

That's just the first movie. In the later films, you have a bizarre mutant religous cult, a doomsday bomb, talking apes becoming celebrities in modern-day California, an ape messiah leading a revolt against a totalitarian regime, gorillas attempting a military coup against their chimpanzee ruler . . .

And that's just the first five movies. Never mind the expanded Ape universe of the TV shows, comics, etc.

Saying that PotA is just about an astronaut thrown forward in time is like saying that STAR TREK is just about a heroic space captain fighting a salt vampire!

But they are.

 

[Greg Cox]

Well, You_Don't_Fail wanted to understand why so many of us lifelong Trekkies aren't bent out of shape over the reboot. Let me try to explain one more time:

The way I see it, thinking that Star Trek is all about the world-building (or "the superstructure of the universe") is putting the cart before the horse. Don't get me wrong. I like Trek trivia as much as the next fan (look at my books!), but I don't think the "canon" is the be-all and end-all of what Star Trek is all about. World-building is not the point of the exercise; it's just a tool or side effect.

"City on the Edge of Forever"--or "Measure of Man" or "Duet" or whatever--are not classic episodes because they're building on forty-years of world-building. They largely work on their own terms. Picard and Sisko never mentioned the Guardian of Forever or Hortas or Gary Seven. Similiarly, Kirk and Spock never foreshadowed the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor or referenced the pioneering work of Dr. Soong.

Doesn't matter. It's about the characters and the situations and the story at hand, not servicing the canon. All that shared continuity and trivia is fun, but let's not overstate its importance--or put the cart before targ.

 

[xortex]

Once again, you're referring to world building and i'm referring to universe building. Two different things. A little bit of everything quickly changes into alot of nothing very fast.

 

[Greg Cox]

World-building, universe-building, "canon," continuity . . . whatever you want to call it.

 

[xortex]

Well you can't call it timeline-building now either, can you? so I wouldn't call it any of those other things then if they are in fact interchangeable.

 

[Greg Cox]

It just baffles me, and I'm not totally convinced that everyone who says they have no problem with nu-Trek is being totally honest with themselves.

You know I always told myself I loved NuTrek because, well, I wanted us to work out. We got together when I was needy, I hadn't had any Trek for a long time and I'll admit when NuTrek came along with all that bling in every scene I fell for it. I fell for it hard. It was just so great to feel like a fan again, you know? To feel cared about as though my desire to love actually mattered. To hear my beloved's name on everyone's lips made me feel young, relevant, not like some old groupie hanging onto the past. And you know that was great, it was teacake getting her groove back and I wanted it to last forever. I wanted it bad enough to spend these last 2 and a bit years fooling myself into thinking what I had was real, meaningful.. that I was boldly going into something that mattered.

And now that I know the truth, that the bling was cheap flare and the love the sad pining of a fan trying to hang onto her youth I'm going to have to say goodbye. It's okay, I'll be alright. I'll pop Amok Time into the vcr and let the fight music sooth me.

I might be too old for new love but I'll always have Vulcan which is more than I can say for NuTrek.

This is inspired, btw. (He says belatedly.)

 

[You_Will_Fail]

No version of Star Trek is real. Not at all. It's fiction.

Anyway.
I guess it all comes down to what your perception of what Trek is. I see it as a fantastically, fleshed out, distinct and unique universe against which many stories can take place. The universe of Trek IS Trek to me, its why I love the show. I had a great time watching Trek finding out all the little bits of information about the future that was being portrayed and all about the Federation.

Others here clearly see it as any story set in space made by Paramount with the name "Trek" on it I guess?

For me, the fact of the matter is nu-Trek is a different breed from TNG. There's no feeling of continuation of the series with it like there was with TNG. And if its not continuing a series I love, then its just making a new one that has very little to offer except one flashy, but pretty shallow movie. And happens to be using the same name confusingly.

 

[sojourner]

I don't understand how nutrek fails to stand up to:

I see it as a fantastically, fleshed out, distinct and unique universe against which many stories can take place.