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Why no reboots until now?

The Alien Nation TV series changed a lot more than that. In the movie, George had a 4-year-old son named Richard but in the series he has a teenage son named Buck and a daughter named Emily. Sykes' daughter got married in the movie, but in the series she is still a teenager and definitely unmarried.

Yes, but those are still just minor tweaks in a story whose conceit is that it's a direct continuation of the film's story -- even to the point that the main plot of the pilot episode arises directly from the murder of Sikes's former partner in the movie. It's not intended to be a "reboot" in the sense of something that starts completely from scratch and ignores the original continuity. Its pretense is that it's a direct continuation of the movie continuity -- but, like virtually every TV series adaptation of a movie in history, it maintains that pretense even while intentionally changing aspects of the movie continuity to fit its needs. As I said, it's a mistake to assume that a continuity has to be absolutely consistent in actuality in order to count as a single continuity. The issue is whether the storytellers intend to pretend it's still the same continuity.

Look at Galactica 1980 versus Moore's Galactica. In the original BSG, it was very strongly indicated that the "Eastern Alliance" bad guys encountered toward the end of the season were spacegoing descendants of Earth humans, placing the series some centuries in our future. But in order to make the sequel series cheap enough to help amortize the expense of the original's sets and effects (which was the only reason G1980 was made at all), that was changed so that it was 1980 when Galactica reached Earth a generation after the original show. But in other respects, G80 was clearly meant to be a direct continuation, with the same sets and technology, older versions of several of the same characters (in some cases played by the same actors), and even a sequel episode revealing the fate of Starbuck. The continuity change constituted a retcon, not a reboot (even accepting the vernacular sense of "reboot" as a Moore BSG-style continuity restart).

And that's what the changes in Alien Nation were -- not a reboot, merely a retcon.
 
For one thing, the Daniel Craig Bond films change the Bond continuity simply by setting Bond's first missions in the 2000s rather than the late 1950s.
Plus there's the issue with Dame Judi Dench's "M," who becomes the new "M" in Goldeneye, making comments about what an old-fashioned warhorse Bond is, and then in Casino Royale, she's the "M" who recruits Bond. Makes one dizzy, it do...

All that's solved quite handily if we assume Bond's most recent regeneration occurred during the Time War, and that his assignment was to track the Cult of Skarro in their Void Ship, and that in the course of those events he was marooned, either in Pete's World or another alternate universe, and decided to stick with what he knew and restart his career as 007 from day one in his new surroundings. :p
 
ST09 confused me at first because the 9th movie was Insurrection, but it has started to grow on me. Why not just STXI?

On 007: I always just assumed that "James Bond" was a cover/code name, and they just promoted/recruited agents to become a new "Bond" whenever the previous one dies/retires. The same with M, Q, and Moneypenny. And in my mind, when someone became "James Bond" they would be given the designation 007.
 
I'm pretty sure that that is the case with M. If I remember correctly, there was a minor subplot in Goldeneye dealing with the fact that the new M was a woman now.
 
ST09 confused me at first because the 9th movie was Insurrection, but it has started to grow on me. Why not just STXI?

The producers have shied away from calling it that, because it would obviously undermine their efforts to present the movie as a fresh start if they keep referring to it as the eleventh instalment of a franchise. Same reason it only says "Star Trek" and lacks a subtitled. Of course, we here needn't go along with that and can call it STXI for being far clearer a referrent (I, too, initially believed 'ST09' referred to INS).

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
 
ST09 confused me at first because the 9th movie was Insurrection, but it has started to grow on me. Why not just STXI?

On 007: I always just assumed that "James Bond" was a cover/code name, and they just promoted/recruited agents to become a new "Bond" whenever the previous one dies/retires. The same with M, Q, and Moneypenny. And in my mind, when someone became "James Bond" they would be given the designation 007.

That's can't really work because what's special about James Bond if it's simply anyone?

Anyway it's not supported by...well anything. I know it's a popular fan fiction by people who want it to all fit together but people have to accept us brits aren''t (well unless we are Star Trek fans) as anal about our films and we just hand-wave around the changing times and changing actors - it's always the same guy and he lives in the eternal present.
 
ST09 confused me at first because the 9th movie was Insurrection, but it has started to grow on me. Why not just STXI?

Because that treats it merely as a continuation. It's like calling Batman Begins "Batman V."

More importantly, what we need is not a label for a single movie, but for the new continuity it's creating. There's already a second film in that continuity being developed, and there will probably be books and comics in that continuity as well. We need a term for the whole thing.

Not that "ST09" is any better as a label for that. I was just using it as shorthand in the absence of something better.
 
On 007: I always just assumed that "James Bond" was a cover/code name, and they just promoted/recruited agents to become a new "Bond" whenever the previous one dies/retires. The same with M, Q, and Moneypenny. And in my mind, when someone became "James Bond" they would be given the designation 007.
Die Another Day would have made that explicit had Sean Connery agreed to appear in a cameo. Pierce Brosnan's Bond would have tracked down the Connery Bond for a heart-to-heart.
 
ST09 confused me at first because the 9th movie was Insurrection, but it has started to grow on me. Why not just STXI?

On 007: I always just assumed that "James Bond" was a cover/code name, and they just promoted/recruited agents to become a new "Bond" whenever the previous one dies/retires. The same with M, Q, and Moneypenny. And in my mind, when someone became "James Bond" they would be given the designation 007.

That's can't really work because what's special about James Bond if it's simply anyone?

Anyway it's not supported by...well anything. I know it's a popular fan fiction by people who want it to all fit together but people have to accept us brits aren''t (well unless we are Star Trek fans) as anal about our films and we just hand-wave around the changing times and changing actors - it's always the same guy and he lives in the eternal present.

Plus it would be kind of weird for them ALL to have murdered wives, oh and why would Blofield be pissed at Moore Bond since Connery Bond was the one responsible for ruining his plans and his injuries.

On 007: I always just assumed that "James Bond" was a cover/code name, and they just promoted/recruited agents to become a new "Bond" whenever the previous one dies/retires. The same with M, Q, and Moneypenny. And in my mind, when someone became "James Bond" they would be given the designation 007.
Die Another Day would have made that explicit had Sean Connery agreed to appear in a cameo. Pierce Brosnan's Bond would have tracked down the Connery Bond for a heart-to-heart.

Where the hell did you hear that Connery was going to be in Die Another Day?
 
On 007: I always just assumed that "James Bond" was a cover/code name, and they just promoted/recruited agents to become a new "Bond" whenever the previous one dies/retires. The same with M, Q, and Moneypenny. And in my mind, when someone became "James Bond" they would be given the designation 007.
Die Another Day would have made that explicit had Sean Connery agreed to appear in a cameo. Pierce Brosnan's Bond would have tracked down the Connery Bond for a heart-to-heart.

This is an internet myth which has sprung up over the last few years. There is no truth to it.

At one stage, a supposed script for the then-next Bond movie called 'Beneath The Ice' appeared online. In this, Bond's parents, who were both spies, were seen to be killed by some SPECTRE-like organisation in the 1960s. Rumours abounded that they would be played by Connery and Honor Blackman. But this was never an official script, it was a fan one. Connery was never asked to appear in DAD in any form.

When Goldeneye was in production, there was a rumour that Roger Moore was going to appear as a retired 00 agent. These stories are simply cyclical.

At the end of the day, of course, there is no strict continuity between Bond movies. For example, Blofeld appears in 3 successive movies, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever, played by three different actors in three very different ways. None of those movies reference their predecessors and in OHMSS, Blofeld fails to recognise 007. The 'Bond as a codename' theory works as well as anything else in trying to reconcile the movies, especially given the retention of Judi Dench as M. But it's a mistake to suggest that it's in any way an officially recognised one.
 
^ Even the codename thing doesn't really hold up. For Your Eyes Only has Bond visiting the grave of his wife (killed in On Her Majesty's Secret Service). In Die Another Day, Bond is in the Q-Cave looking over all the old hardware, and he even asks "Does this still work?" before flipping the switch on the jet pack. And so on, the obvious implication being that Connery through Brosnan were all meant to be the same person, even if said person lived in "comic book time" with respect to the passage of time.

It's amazing the cartwheels we fans will put ourselves through to make stuff like this fit. :D
 
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