Just think of it as a new adaptation of STAR TREK, like all the umpteen versions of TARZAN or DRACULA. A ZORRO movie doesn't stop becoming ZORRO if they tinker with the details a little for dramatic effect. And a movie about Kirk and the Enterprise is still STAR TREK even if tweaks the continuity for dramatic effect.
Personally, I
do think of it as an "adaptation" of Star Trek. That doesn't really solve anything, though, because:
A) An adaptation is not
the real thing. There have been umpty-zillion screen adaptations of Sherlock Holmes — he may be the most-filmed character ever — but the real Holmes is the one who lives in Conan Doyle's stories. Period. Full stop. The real Tarzan is in Burroughs' novels. And the real Star Trek is the version we saw take shape on TV... which was a shared universe, not the work of a single author, but which was a single (relatively) internally consistent fictional construct, nonetheless.
B) It's not a particularly
good adaptation. What some see as glaring discrepancies others dismiss as nitpicks, but the fact remains, there are differences from the source material as well as similarities. To my mind, the similarities are superficial, while the differences greatly outweigh them... meaning that this new version doesn't get the benefit of the doubt I would extend to something featuring characters and concepts I could genuinely recognize as the ones I'd come to know.
C) Even setting aside all prior knowledge of the source material (not really possible, but for the sake of argument)... it's not a particularly good
film in its own right. The story is weighed down by plot holes and contrivances, the science is idiotic, the dialogue is full of non sequiturs, the characters behave in completely unmotivated ways, and so on.
So when all is said and done, the adaptation simply pales in comparison to the original. IMHO, of course.
these are the same characters, only in different circumstances
To folks just tuning in; this isn't a fact. Please do not treat it as such.
They have the same names, the same jobs, the same personality traits, the same quirks, they look the same, and the people writing them say they're the same characters. It's as close to fact as fiction is ever going to be.
Names and jobs, yes: the most superficial characteristics. But they
don't actually have the same personalities, or quirks, or looks... not in the film I saw, anyway. The writers instead reduced them to simplified caricatures of the characters we've come to know. Scotty was pure "comic relief." Spock was a foil for Kirk, with little of the internal gravitas that made the character so fascinating. Kirk was virtually unrecognizable, just a stock Hollywood "rebellious young hothead." To me, the only one who was really recognizable as his old self was McCoy... and even there, Urban was burdened with too many "cliché" lines.
If these are different people then for me the movie loses its emotional impact...
Same here. They're like variants or clones or evil twins of the characters I know... similar but not quite right.
I'm not sure quite how much of this to chalk up to my knowledge that it's not the "real" Trekverse, and how much to chalk up to the plain godawful writing. It's a little of both. I'm inclined to think that I
could've enjoyed (perhaps even come to love) a really smart, thoughtful, imaginative reboot... but this film didn't give me a chance to test that possibility.
The fact that they are alternate reality versions of the TOS characters and not the actual TOS characters I know completely negates the possibility of me giving a crap about them or anything that happens to them.
Okay, I suspect we're all starting to repeat ourselves at this point, but I confess that, on a fundamental level, I just don't get this.
Why does it matter if they're the "actual" characters or not? Why does one version of Kirk matter more than another?
Either the story works or it doesn't. (Which is a whole other issue!)
It's a different issue, but I think it's an intertwined one. If the characters and setting were recognizable, it'd be easier to give relate to them and thus give the benefit of the doubt to goofs in the story. (To a certain extent, anyway;
ST V was still crap, no matter what.) Conversely, if the filmmakers made lots of changes but the end result was something brilliant, a real improvement over what went before, that would pretty much justify itself as a creative exercise in its own right. This movie, however, had neither set of virtues to recommend it, no strengths on one side to balance weaknesses on the other.
Nothing looks remotely like TOS in terms of tech and aesthetics, even if TOS' designs were tweaked for feature film standards. The characters don't act the same. The history that led to the current state of affairs isn't the same. Where these characters are at this point of time is wildly divergent from what was already known. Characters that should be there (if it were the same universe) aren't there. TOS' universe (as fictional as it was) had a measure of credibility to it (with context of itself) that the Abramsverse totally lacks.
A reboot could still have worked for me, but they changed so much and invested nothing in anything familiar (particularly character wise) that I had no emotional empathy whatsoever for what unfolded onscreen.
Very succinctly summed up. Really, the only things marking it as Star Trek at all (besides the title) were a handful of character and ship names, a (very) few design elements, and a smattering of words like
Starfleet and
Vulcan. IOW, the most superficial elements that "brand" the "franchise." The actual substance was something different and far less satisfying.
Kind of like New Coke. Remember that?
I personally think old Spock in the new movie was poorly written, particularly in his choice of words. Seems like they purposely dumbed down his vocabulary so that stupid people could understand his otherwise usually intelligent speech.
That's one more good example. Thank you.
(On a related note, it puzzles me how so many writers—including obviously O&K—seem to think the only interesting thing to do with Vulcans is show their emotions bursting out. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that actors like to emote, and relatively few of them are good at playing "stoic"? Or perhaps it's just a little basic human chauvinism...)
No.
