Why does Abrams keep playing it safe?

[horatio83]

You cannot compare a reboot with totally irrelevant continuity goofs that nobody notices anyway. Nobody here is whining about the changes or seeking for some stupid in-universe explanation which the writers tried to give us. We are arguing for giving no explanation at all, for a clear cut.
I mean, gee, there is a reboot and Spock senior talks about all this fate bullshit. There is no dramatic point in saying that the characters will be virtually identical to the first version, it is just creatively self-restricting. The only point of such stuff was to appease some potentially worried hardcore fans. I do not like writing that hedges itself against every potential criticism and prefer bold writing. Do not try to satisfy anybody but yourself and the script will be far better.

 

[DonIago]

Heh. If not doing a clean reboot is responsible for causing such fan speculation, as opposed to fans being prone to such speculation regardless, then that would seem to be another argument in favor of TPTB -not- having played it safe.

I maintain that no matter how TPTB had handled the film they would have dissatsfied a portion of the population. Only the nature of the complaints would have been different. Kobayashi Maru.

 

[Dukhat]

Heh. If not doing a clean reboot is responsible for causing such fan speculation, as opposed to fans being prone to such speculation regardless, then that would seem to be another argument in favor of TPTB -not- having played it safe.

I maintain that no matter how TPTB had handled the film they would have dissatsfied a portion of the population. Only the nature of the complaints would have been different. Kobayashi Maru.

QFT.

 

[shapeshifter]

The problem I see is, although there is nothing wrong with discussing the issues, (and from my POV the Proponents of the Nuverse do a damn fine job of knocking down complaints either logically or within established continuity) the opponents need to allow the given explanations to sink in and take root! Instead I see much sticking of fingers in their ears, closing their eyes and chanting LALALALALA, I cannot hear you!

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi2669519129/

 

[M'Sharak]

No idea what you don't get.

I can only guess, but I think this might be part of it:

The continuity obsession of the franchise is a structural problem which is independent of individual writers and the big budget of the movie which warrants risk-averse creative choices was a decision of the studio.

You've talked before about "continuity obsession" being a "structural problem" for Star Trek—in the prior instance, I think you were saying something to the effect that you thought that a clean reboot would have ended or negated any (or all?) continuity arguments—but I'm still not sure I've got any clear idea of what you mean by "continuity obsession of the franchise is a structural problem". I suspect I may not be alone in this.

 

[horatio83]

If you view STXI alone it seems like an isolated incidence but if you view it together with the previous stuff, i.e. the fourth season of ENT (I might have to add that I like ENT-4 as well as STXI lest somebody mistakes this criticism as bashing), it seems less like a coincidence and more like a structural problem. So not single writers are responsible but everybody, the writers, the producers and the fans. That's the nasty thing about systemic problems, you cannot easily solve them.

 

[Set Harth]

Why does everything look different in TMP? Not some BS handwave "refit" but the shift from a 60's TV series to a big budget movie in the late 70's. The same applies to STXI in the late 00's.

Robau wears blue? So did Archer! And maybe the colour codes changed?

The Kelvin in bigger than the TOS Enterprise? They built them bigger in those days.

A window at the front? Whim of the designer.

Vulcan's sky is blue? Watch ENT's "Strange New World" where Archer asks if Vulcan has blue skies, and T'Pol replies, "Sometimes."

Narada looks different? It's a mining ship, when every other Romulan ship we've ever seen has been a military vessel.

Pike's age is a major TOS goof - watch "The Minagerie" - they say Pike is "about [Kirk's] age." Now do the math. 13 years pior is "The Cage" and Spock served under Pike for 11 years. Pike thus became captain of the Enterprise at roughly nine years old! (lets see that origin story!)


Look at the vide in my sig. Despite what sites like EAS would want you to think, STXI is not the first time Trek has made a ton of MAJOR changes for the sake of the current story. Stuff like warp speed's massive slowdown between TOS and Voyager cannnot be explained except to say those is charge rewrote the Trek universe. 99% of the stuff in STXI is simply the result of it being made in 2009 and not 1969. The actors look different, so does the technology.

Where's a Like button when you need one?

 

[Greg Cox]

Why does everything look different in TMP? Not some BS handwave "refit" but the shift from a 60's TV series to a big budget movie in the late 70's. The same applies to STXI in the late 00's.

Robau wears blue? So did Archer! And maybe the colour codes changed?

The Kelvin in bigger than the TOS Enterprise? They built them bigger in those days.

A window at the front? Whim of the designer.

Vulcan's sky is blue? Watch ENT's "Strange New World" where Archer asks if Vulcan has blue skies, and T'Pol replies, "Sometimes."

Narada looks different? It's a mining ship, when every other Romulan ship we've ever seen has been a military vessel.

Pike's age is a major TOS goof - watch "The Minagerie" - they say Pike is "about [Kirk's] age." Now do the math. 13 years pior is "The Cage" and Spock served under Pike for 11 years. Pike thus became captain of the Enterprise at roughly nine years old! (lets see that origin story!)


Look at the vide in my sig. Despite what sites like EAS would want you to think, STXI is not the first time Trek has made a ton of MAJOR changes for the sake of the current story. Stuff like warp speed's massive slowdown between TOS and Voyager cannnot be explained except to say those is charge rewrote the Trek universe. 99% of the stuff in STXI is simply the result of it being made in 2009 and not 1969. The actors look different, so does the technology.

Where's a Like button when you need one?

Seconded. Sometimes changes in art direction are just, well, changes in art direction. And not every minor inconsistency in the umpteen different Trek movies and episodes requires some sort of in-universe explanation. Sometimes producers and directors and writers and art directors just tinker with things from one episode or movie to the next . . . and that's all it means.

 

[Set Harth]

In other news THE ROBAU was on Burn Notice tonight.

THE ROBAU CONQUERS ALL.

 

[Devon]

Now, perhaps some of these can be explained away,

And have been... three years ago.

but the point is, however petty they may be, they ARE being debated and discussed when they shouldn't have had to be debated or discussed in the first place.

The things aren't being debated and haven't been talked about in 3 years! Absolutely no one was debating any of that. The only reason it's being talked about now is because YOU brought it up. The fact someone still brings them up 3 years and still needs the answers after they were debunked suggests A.) They are too lazy to do the research to answer these questions B.) They are too lazy to think for themselves. These are not meant to be swipes, but things like "Why is a uniform a different color" is not unique to this film at all.

It would have been much easier and they could have avoided these issues

These aren't issues to anyone, though.

 

[Mr_Homn]

You cannot compare a reboot with totally irrelevant continuity goofs that nobody notices anyway. Nobody here is whining about the changes or seeking for some stupid in-universe explanation which the writers tried to give us. We are arguing for giving no explanation at all, for a clear cut.

Precisely. Everytime I try to say that though, someone starts in with a bunch of explanations that nobody cares about. I don't care about the explanations. They don't matter. The point is the new movie would have been better (or artistically "free-er") if it just started completely fresh IMO. Missed opportunity.

It claimed to be different and new, while still needlessly clinging to the old continuity in an attempt to "legitimize" itself with hardcore trek fans. That's called playing it safe. Trying to please everyone instead of just trailblazing a new path. For some reason they were too afraid to just let all that go, and start completely fresh.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I agree with the points that TMP, TNG, and nuTrek are all reboots in spirit, even if not according to the letter of the definition.

 

[Mr_Homn]

I agree with the points that TMP, TNG, and nuTrek are all reboots in spirit, even if not according to the letter of the definition.

I don't really see how TMP and TNG are a reboot "in spirit" though. They completely embraced the established continuity and built upon it. Sure they wanted to be unique and make their own distinct mark, but that's not the same as rebooting. Even "in spirit"

I do agree that "in spirit", nutrek was a reboot. But at the same time, as you said, it wasn't. Nutrek went out of it's way to make clear that "This isn't your father's star trek" and was marketed as a reboot, when it really wasn't. Although Orci and Abrams said "it's not really a reboot" in some interviews, that's not the message the advertising or the marketing was conveying. They wanted to please everyone, and to an extent they seemed to have accomplished that. But it was still playing it safe IMO

 

[CorporalCaptain]

In the case of TMP, see Klingon foreheads. It was a foregone conclusion that everything would have to have an updated look for the big screen, and to put Star Trek on the big screen, this would have been so even if Phase II had never been considered.

In the case of TNG, there were numerous examples of the show going out of its way to demonstrate concretely that many of the things that made TOS tick had been rethought. The subtext was that these changes were considered improvements. Examples include: Picard saying to "Shut off that damned noise," when the red alert klaxon first came on, making a big deal out of Picard not normally going on landing parties - err - I mean away missions, renaming landing parties to away missions, not firing the ship's main phasers (as a weapon) until almost the end of the first season, downplaying the military organization of Starfleet, recalibrating the warp scale. In many of these cases, walking back these creative decisions was correlated with an increase in the show's popularity. In addition, it's also painfully clear that defining attributes of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were spread out among the main cast of TNG. Heck, on the second episode out, they remade a TOS episode. The message was, "This time we're doing Star Trek right!"

ETA: The name Star Trek: The Next Generation broke the fourth wall to suggest that TNG was Star Trek, but updated. The Ent-D is 75 years or so in the future from the TOS era; that's much more than one generation. No, the "next generation" is not something in-universe, it's of the viewers of the show. The meaning, at least IMO clearly suggested to me, was that TNG was Star Trek for a next generation of viewers.

 

[Therin of Andor]

- Since when is the sky of vulcan blue?

Since when is the sky of Earth red?


Red sky by Therin of Andor, on Flickr

6.15 am, Planet Vulcan.

No, actually it's Sydney, Australia, after a night being buffeted by winds blowing in from drought-ridden regions around Canberra. Dust, dust, dust! The "red centre" is now on the east coast? 23 September 2009. Very eerie. It stripped blue out of the visual spectrum and everything looked bizarre. Many of us thought it was an alien invasion or nuclear holocaust.

Over most of New South Wales, our sky stayed this colour until about 2.30 in the afternoon.

Obviously, Nero attacked Vulcan on a calm day, when none of its usual red dust was suspended in the air.


Red sky over Sydney by Therin of Andor, on Flickr

 

[DAYoung]

Yes, very familiar skies, Therin of Andor.

 

[horatio83]

I do not remember the drill beam scenes but I guess that a red sky and a red drill beam wouldn't have worked together, hence the blue sky.
Of course in the absence of such colour issues Vulcan should have a red sky to signal to the audience that "we are not in Kansas anymore".

 

[BillJ]

I do not remember the drill beam scenes but I guess that a red sky and a red drill beam wouldn't have worked together, hence the blue sky.
Of course in the absence of such colour issues Vulcan should have a red sky to signal to the audience that "we are not in Kansas anymore".

I'm usually a stickler for such things but the blue sky didn't bother me.

 

[Jeyl]

So if, according to you, Star Trek isn't about Earth or Vulcan, then what does it matter which planet got destroyed? You make little sense.

Do I? Because if Earth was destroyed, we would no longer have any "Earth is in danger!" story lines that make up for almost half of the movies.

- Star Trek: The Motion Picture
V'Ger wants to destroy Earth.

- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
A probe is destroying Earth.

- Star Trek: First Contact
The Borg specifically target Earth to assimilate it.

- Star Trek Nemesis
Shinzon wants to destroy Earth.

- Star Trek 2009
Nero wants to destroy everything, but is stopped before he specifically destroys Earth.

For a planet that had no role to play in the original series (except for time travel), everyone seems to treat Earth like the center of the universe where if it goes, the whole existence of the Federation will go as well. I find that rather silly and counter-productive to a series who's focus has been on space exploration and unifying multiple races in the galaxy. You're not going to get a lot done if all we do is come back to the planet where we started. But now that we have no Vulcan, we have less alien worlds to explore and more predictable "Earth is in danger!" story lines that our brilliant writers have left future Star Trek writers with.

And I don't recall anyone being happy about Vulcan's destruction at the end of the movie.

Well they sure didn't seem bothered by it in the end. Of all the folks who I think would be most bothered by it would be Uhura. Her boyfriend just witnessed his his home world destroyed, his mother murdered and has now tasked himself to help the remaining Vulcans survive. I thought that if she was in any way that emotionally connected with him that she would want to lend her expertise to help out. But no. Instead she's on the bridge of the Enterprise with a big smile on her face gleefully calling Kirk Captain. And this was before Spock's surprise appearance.

I don't think Vulcan or the remaining Vulcans are going to be missed.

 

[CoveTom]

The guy from Year of Hell is the only tragic character in Trek.

Okay I'm admittedly late to this party but... what? You're contending that over the course of five live action series, an animated series, and eleven feature films, there is a total of one tragic character in all of Trek and it happens to be Annorax from "Year of Hell"? You don't think there's a single other tragic character anywhere in Trek's 45+ year history?

I understand why Trek fans feel the need to elevate a stupid character from a trashy sci-fi show but pretending that he is the equivalent of Macbeth is quite pathetic.

Again, what? I've never seen anyone claim that Khan is the artistic equivalent of Macbeth. But you honestly think he is a stupid character and that Star Trek is a "trashy sci-fi show"? Then I'm honestly not sure why you watch it or discuss it here.