Where are we right now??
- Thread starter Captain_Nick
- Start date
- Status
Well, same thing goes on TV as well. Lack of an audience is precisely what prevented 24th Century Star Trek from staying on the small screen, too. Here you can watch the ratings of every post-TNG TV series nosedive towards having too few viewers to keep the lights on.
Why is that cynical? Spell it out. A reboot doesn't mean cynical. The connections to or lack there of to older versions of Trek doesn't make it cynical. The time between Enterprise and ST09 doesn't make it cynical.
I've never visited this thread until right now. Somebody clued me into a little of what's been going on, though. Sheeeesh, people...this thing is on the verge of going over the cliff and into the Grand Canyon. What a damn mess. Lemme see if anything I say helps...
I don't think the timeline change/reboot was cynical. TREK simply needed fresh blood and a fresh approach after almost thirty straight years of new TV episodes and movies ranging from TMP all the way to "TATV." The movie preserves the original timeline we've all grown to love and follow while creating a new temporal events sequence wholly independent of the Prime universe. Our beloved TREK of 1966-2005 still exists, we just no longer see it because of Nero's actions and creation of a brand new reality. The change in the timeline allows for new actors to play the familiar characters, new ship designs, new uniforms and a new chain of events that doesn't have to follow the exact pattern of the Prime timeline. TREK is preserved, it's just been given a glossy new coat of wax for a newer generation of fans and filmgoers. It is still TREK, and it is not more cynical. After all, the heroes win, Earth and mankind are saved, Kirk gets to be captain of the Enterprise 7 years earlier than he did in the Prime reality and the spirit of adventure and exploration are preserved.
(*Whew*)
There. Better?
I don't think the timeline change/reboot was cynical. TREK simply needed fresh blood and a fresh approach after almost thirty straight years of new TV episodes and movies ranging from TMP all the way to "TATV." The movie preserves the original timeline we've all grown to love and follow while creating a new temporal events sequence wholly independent of the Prime universe. Our beloved TREK of 1966-2005 still exists, we just no longer see it because of Nero's actions and creation of a brand new reality. The change in the timeline allows for new actors to play the familiar characters, new ship designs, new uniforms and a new chain of events that doesn't have to follow the exact pattern of the Prime timeline. TREK is preserved, it's just been given a glossy new coat of wax for a newer generation of fans and filmgoers. It is still TREK, and it is not more cynical. After all, the heroes win, Earth and mankind are saved, Kirk gets to be captain of the Enterprise 7 years earlier than he did in the Prime reality and the spirit of adventure and exploration are preserved.
(*Whew*)
There. Better?
Last edited:
I just don't get the whole "cynical" appellation. TREK, even in the new timeline, is still the same basic TREK...just a little more expensive and shinier. And as much as I adored and followed shows like ENTERPRISE the 1987-2005 television franchise had simply reached a point of oversaturation. I'd have loved to have seen at least one more year of ENT to witness the beginning of the Earth-Romulan War that we've heard about ever since "Balance of Terror(TOS)" all the way back in 1966, but we didn't and that's that. Rick Berman and Brannon Braga---with all due credit and respect for the many good things they did with the franchise---simply let things get too predictable and rusty, and the cellar-dweller ratings for ENT in its last season helped prove that. People just weren't watching anymore. TREK needed a kick in the pants and a fresh zap of energy if the franchise was going to survive well into the 21st century. J.J. Abrams and his team provided that zap of energy. Is the film perfect? No. But it's damn good in my opinion and brought life back into STAR TREK after Les Moonves and Paramount basically left it for dead a few years before.
According to Christopher (I think, IIRC), executives higher up than Braga were responsible for at least some of the elements that made ENT less of a prequel to TOS and more of a continuation of 24th Century Trek, in particular such as time-travel guy. I don't really know what the inside scoop is, but I thought I'd just throw that out, that the oft-repeated narrative which lays the franchise's devolution into staleness entirely on the shoulders of Berman and Braga *might* not be entirely fair.
ETA: Yes, here is his post where he says that.
ETA: Yes, here is his post where he says that.
It's far more of a "wagon train to the stars" than a NuBSG. I think we will see less cynicism than was dabbled in during ENT and DS9.
Oh, I agree. The suits at Paramount played a role in wanting to make ENTERPRISE more appealing to those who preferred the B&B-era shows to classic TOS. They cajoled and pushed Rick and Brannon into adding elements like Future Guy and the Temporal Cold War. The suits were probably afraid that a STAR TREK prequel without any connections whatsoever to Jean-Luc Picard, the Borg or time travel wouldn't be well received or accepted, but to tell the truth many if not most of ENT's best stories had little or nothing to do with Future Guy, the Temporal Cold War, Daniels, etc. "Shuttlepod One" and "Cogenitor" still stand as shining moments in the series and neither story had anything whatsoever to do with time travel or the ships and captains that would follow in Jonathan Archer's footsteps during the next 200+ years. I just think B&B got sloppy, repetitive and rusty at times and if writers like John Shiban, Manny Coto and the Reeves-Stevenses hadn't come on board the show would have dragged and suffered a lot more than it did. I've poked my share of fun and criticism at the Beebs, but they've never been villains in my eyes.
To an extent, that is true. Future Guy and the Temporal Cold War were studio-mandated elements to the show. Also, Berman and Braga didn't want a transporter on the show, but Paramount overruled them stating "it's not Star Trek if there's no transporter."
Now, I'm not trying to say all of Enterprise's failings are the reult of studio interferance. The truth is, the first two seasons of Enterprise were a collection of episodes which were usually sub-par at best, painfully horrible at worse, and there were a lot of outright rip-offs of previous Trek episodes. The show had no direction until the Xindi storyline, and that was something else which was studio mandated. But Berman and Braga are hardly the criminals most Trek fans like to portray them as.
I thought "Horizon" was an excellent stand alone episode.
Honestly, that seems a bit melodramatic. And doesn't really address why doing a new version of TOS is somehow more "cynical" than just churning out yet another spin-off . . . not that there's anything wrong with that.
Heck, one could argue that overturning the apple cart and shaking things up is actually less "cynical" and more adventurous than just sticking to the same old universe for the sixth time . . .
(I'm not saying that's necessarily the case, but it's just as plausible as arguing that all reboots are corrupt by definition.)
All your arguments seemed to be based on the premise that rebooting STAR TREK was a bad thing, and that therefore there can be no possible justification for it outside of greed and laziness. Whereas, in fact, it was just one artistic choice out of many, and something of a calculated risk.
Again, we all have different priorities. You place great stock on preserving the continuity. I'm more of a TOS fan, so I'm just delighted to get back to basics. That doesn't mean either of us is cynical or delusional . . . .
STAR TREK means different things to different people.
Last edited:
Me too. Travis got a chance to shine for once. It was a laid back story about how 22nd century freighter families lived and worked and really helped flesh out some of Mayweather's background. I really liked it. "Daedalus" was also good. Nice, atmospheric and creepy. Plus, after forty years we finally learned who invented Earth's first transporter so it was a win-win for pretty much everybody unless they thought it was boring.
Enterprise did introduce a few interesting ideas which were never really properly captured. The space freighter culture and lifestyle glimpsed in Fortunate Son and Horizon were one. Others include the relations between Vulcans and Andorians and really Andorians in general. Yeah, I know, Andorians at least stuck around until the end of the series, but the first two seasons could have been improved if they were focused on more.
Personally, I would have preferred more episodes about Earth's space freighters and Andorians over seeing episodes featuring Ferengi or Borg. And actually developing the TCW might have been more interesting than seeing Trek VI get re-told on a TV budget, or an AIDS allegory featuring Vulcans, or an Enemy Mine remake.
And that was the last we ever heard about him.
Poor Travis. More people have seen and heard the Skunk Ape or chupacabra. They tried to give him some more background in the "Terra Prime" two-parter near the very end of the series... we met his former love interest, news reporter and professional Lindsay Lohan lookalike Gannett. But even then the connection between Travis and Gannett was relegated to little more than an afterthought.
She is way more beautiful than Lohan!
I liked Travis's wounded puppy scene when he thought she had betrayed him. Very clashy with all the muscles. Note I say clashy not slashy, unfortunately.
I liked Travis's wounded puppy scene when he thought she had betrayed him. Very clashy with all the muscles. Note I say clashy not slashy, unfortunately.
^
Yeah, that was a good scene. Montgomery doesn't have the strongest acting chops on the planet to be sure, but he carried off some scenes in the series quite well. His emotional conversation with Captain Archer following the news of his father's death in "Horizon" struck me as particularly effective and well-acted and made me really feel for Travis. Montgomery didn't get many chances to shine because the writers treated him like a third-class character and glorified paperweight much of the time, but at least a handful of scripts gave him meaty things to do. I was always happy after an episode where the writers gave Travis something of a purpose...a role that involved more than sitting at the steering stick of the helm console and looking back at where Archer or T'Pol were sitting.
Yeah, that was a good scene. Montgomery doesn't have the strongest acting chops on the planet to be sure, but he carried off some scenes in the series quite well. His emotional conversation with Captain Archer following the news of his father's death in "Horizon" struck me as particularly effective and well-acted and made me really feel for Travis. Montgomery didn't get many chances to shine because the writers treated him like a third-class character and glorified paperweight much of the time, but at least a handful of scripts gave him meaty things to do. I was always happy after an episode where the writers gave Travis something of a purpose...a role that involved more than sitting at the steering stick of the helm console and looking back at where Archer or T'Pol were sitting.
- Status
Similar threads
