My favorite treks (movies or episodes) are the ones that do not involve a good vs. evil plot line. Look at TMP and TVH, as well episodes such as TOS's "City on the Edge...", TNG's "Inner Light" and "Tapestry", DS9's episode about Bennie Sisko (cant think of the name, where he and the rest of the crew play sci-fi writers in the 1900's), VOY's "11:59". Great stories that were smart and entertaining. Im tired of trek following the tired good vs. evil model for the sake of making money and attracting new fans. I would love to see "smart" trek again.
Why do we need a villain?
- Thread starter Jeffe63
- Start date
I agree 100%.
We don't really need a villain, and it's proven that a trek movie can do with out one. But on the other hand, there is no real reason why the movie shouldn't have a villain. Not every Villain is a good vs. evil plot, just look at the Romulan commander in the balance of terror.
BTW, I always Thought that TMP might have benefited from an adversary. Perhaps a Klingon ship that would race the Enterprise to the heart of V'Ger in hope of learning it's secrets. God knows that there was plenty of room for more plot and action in that movie...
BTW, I always Thought that TMP might have benefited from an adversary. Perhaps a Klingon ship that would race the Enterprise to the heart of V'Ger in hope of learning it's secrets. God knows that there was plenty of room for more plot and action in that movie...
Wow, that's original. And of course, the fact that Nemesis sucked big fat llama dick didn't have anything to do with its performance.
They don't necessarily need a villain, but if they do have one, it should be a villain the audience can respect and even sympathize with -- sort of an "honorable enemy" character like Mark Lenard's Romulan commander from "Balance of Terror," or Khan in "Space Seed." Abrams should avoid the mustache-twirling variety at all costs, though.
An antognist is needed (after all, the story needs conflict -- even the probe in TVH was an antagonist).
But I think it's too easy to fall into the old it needs to be "the best Trek baddie since Khan," trap. In TWOK he became the benchmark of comparison for all subsequent Trek movie villains, for good or for ill.
But I think it's too easy to fall into the old it needs to be "the best Trek baddie since Khan," trap. In TWOK he became the benchmark of comparison for all subsequent Trek movie villains, for good or for ill.
Only if you have personal definitions of those terms. An antagonist is just the character who opposes the hero, and therefore the antagonist is the "villain." It's perfectly possible for any given audience member to like the villain, maybe more than they like the hero. The "hero" is the main character and doesn't necessarily have to be right or sympathetic to every audience member or in some cases, even the writer.
Scorpius is a good example. In the course of the story, the audience finds out enough about Scorpy that it's very possible that he, and not Crichton, is objectively in the right. Yet Crichton remains the main character and therefore the hero. Scorpy is still placed in opposition to him and is therefore the villain.
That's a more sophisticated level of storytelling than we usually get in a sci fi TV show and I wouldn't mind seeing it in Star Trek, tho it would probably have to wait for the longer format of TV. Two or three hours of movie time just isn't long enough to develop a complicated hero-villain relationship like Farscape managed.
To get back to the topic of the thread, no we don't "need" a villain, but why not? One like Scorpy (or Dukat, Baltar or Sylar to give some more examples) could be a great asset to any story. You might as well ask, why do we need a spaceship? Why do we need characters who are aliens? They're just elements that can go into creating a great story.
An antagonist is not "a villain with a hidden identity." An antagonist is simply the character or force placed in opposition to the hero. If it's a complex "real" type character, the antagonist is a "villain" and if it's more of a Freddy Krueger or Borg-type force of nature, it's a "monster." Moby Dick was an antagonist, but being an animal, he's not a villain; instead he was a monster. That's the difference between "antagonist" and "villain." All villains are antagonists but not all antagonists are villains.
Oh, I know. I'm familiar with the spectrum of conflict, from villains to monsters and so forth. That was more of an unrelated thought than an explanation of my previous sentence.
Abrams' favourite antagonist for his heroes — I don't know if this fits the standard literary definition of an antagonist or not, but I've always thought of it as doing so — is themselves. God knows how many episode of Alias and Lost focus primarily on a character's struggle to defeat their own demons. He's good at it, too, which bodes well for this film.
Abrams' favourite antagonist for his heroes — I don't know if this fits the standard literary definition of an antagonist or not, but I've always thought of it as doing so — is themselves. God knows how many episode of Alias and Lost focus primarily on a character's struggle to defeat their own demons. He's good at it, too, which bodes well for this film.
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Vice Admiral
No, I'm just going by the dictionary definitions. 'Villain' derives from vile, and there's the related word "villein" (evil, nasty) in my language. A villain is a character we're meant to resent.
An 'antagonist', on the other hand, is just an opponent.
Wikipedia backs me up on this. Webster's dictionary backs me up on this. Common sense obviously backs me up on this.
I'm not opposed to having a villain. What I am opposed to is recasting the crew of the real orgininal Enterprise and completely starting over and revamping the entire franchise. I almost feel betrayed. What on earth have I been putting so much of my time into for the past 15 or so years, for it to all just be revamped and forgotten with a rehash of TOS, another prequel that takes me away from where I left off in the 24th century?
Does this mean that Picard, Sisko, the Dominion War, Archer, Janeway...everything that happened in Trek since its inception...none of it ever existed? That's what this revamp in the form of the next Trek movie signals: the end of all that was. Wait, not just a mere ending, it's actually erasing all that was.
Does this mean that Picard, Sisko, the Dominion War, Archer, Janeway...everything that happened in Trek since its inception...none of it ever existed? That's what this revamp in the form of the next Trek movie signals: the end of all that was. Wait, not just a mere ending, it's actually erasing all that was.
Kruge... awful?! Christopher Lloyd practically created the modern Klingon! His portrayal of Kruge set the tone for every Klingon that followed. He may have been less elegant than Chang and less honorable than TNG-era Klingons (though other than with Worf the honor of Klingons has always been more of a pretense), but he broke the ground that led to what most people now think of as "Klingon."
Lumping Kruge in with Shinzon and Ru'afo is just dumb.
Arn't we jumping the gun a little? Nobody says it means Janeway won't be sipping cappichino after the events of XI -- just that this is the setting. It might be good, it might be bad, but I figure wait for the trailer at least.
But that is NOT happening - its the same universe simply with new actors in the roles. Picard ect are all safe it still happened. We know this because Nimoy is also playing Spock.
The 24th Century is over, and I expect for Spock's time placement as played by Nimoy to be vague at best. 24th Century Trek is over for now... there's nothing to tie up. Data is dead, Picard is on the Enterprise Riker married Troi and actually got his own ship. You weren't left off anywhere.
Sharr
Firstly i have a issue with TSFS movie. It revolve around planet(Genesis) who scouldnt be there. Genesis device wasent meant to create planet from a nubula but rather a lifeless planets or earthzise moon.
Regarding Kruge he is a bad ass but he was dumb babarian.
How on earth could he be captain is beyond me.
His decison were idodic, violent and his performane made Klingon look like Neanderdalmen on a spaceship.
Christopher Loyld has to be credited how made Kruge persona still work inspite off this bad writing.
Kruge behaved very much like human captains were behaving not much more than a century ago... right here on Earth. And I'll guarantee that you'll find people who act very much like that today. It won't take you long, AT ALL, to find examples of that. Just turn on the news.
One other suggestion... SERIOUSLY... please use a spellchecker in the future. Your posts are so filled with typos that they are practically unreadable. Yes, I know English is not your first language, so I'm not insulting you, please realize that. But english-language spellcheckers are easy to get, and are built-in to most web-browsers (mine has one right now, and half of your quoted post, above, is underlined in red... meaning "wrong.")
You don't like Kruge. His one "act of savagery" that stood out... shooting a subordinate... was actually VERY much in-character for someone whose authority was challenged. He gave a very specific order, and his subordinate disregarded it... effectively challenging his authority as leader.
Here on "more civilized" earth, a "tall ships era" naval commander who gave an order who was disregarded, would have had that man flogged to death, or keelhauled, or hanged by he neck from one of the ship's yardarms. That sort of discipline seems barbaric to us today, but it was only 100 years ago that this sort of thing was still common.
Don't let your pretense of civilization distract you from reality. We're killers, from a race of killers. The best we can claim is that we're not going to kill today. That's classic Trek.
