Will Lack Of Consistency Really Impair Your Enjoyment?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

No.

As far as I'm concerned, ST XI won't have to be reconciled with continuity.

Continuity will have to be reconciled with *it*.

Any discrepancies can, and will, be dealt with, without reboots or any crap like that.

I don't care how different ST XI looks from TOS. Being the latest, I consider XI to be definitive. As far as I'm concerned, history always looked like that.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

If the characters are glaringly different, it might. Then again, I might declare reboot, and settle in to enjoy the new, improved, boner inducing Star Trek. Things like how the ship looks in exterior and interior, uniforms, the look of weapons and technology, etc. change in Star Trek from series to series, movie to movie, year to year. So, it won't bother me in the least if Kirk's phaser isn't made from a thread spool, and other craft store doo dads.

 

[Kinnison]

Wow. A lot of brave souls here, I guess.

When I'm watching a film set in a historical period, anachronisms and such impair my enjoyment. Star Trek is such a well-documented setting that there are certain things that I consider to be essential to that setting. Major deviations from that setting (Vulcans are emotional, Kirk is married, Sulu is a girl) will indeed be distracting. Minor deviations (the tricorder's buttons are the wrong color, the Enterprise looks different, etc.) won't bother me; in fact, they'll provide a chance for some interesting discussions over the years.

 

[Michael]

Kinnison said:
Major deviations from that setting (Vulcans are emotional, Kirk is married, Sulu is a girl) will indeed be distracting. Minor deviations (the tricorder's buttons are the wrong color, the Enterprise looks different, etc.) won't bother me; in fact, they'll provide a chance for some interesting discussions over the years.

And major deviations won't?

 

[VOODOOXI]

Lack of consistency hasn't bothered me since I was a kid in the late 70's.

Why should I start to care now?

 

[Garth Rockett]

Tralah said:
If I go to this movie and find myself absorbed in a compelling, entertaining, well acted story, I should be able to ignore almost any inconsistencies unless it's something particularly glaring like the Enterprise being painted pink. Since I doubt we'll see any radical fundamental changes to the Star Trek universe, unless the story and acting just plains sucks, I doubt I'll let the small stuff bother me, or even notice it much.

My feelings exactly. Unless there's something completely out of left field about it, I'll be able to enjoy it in the context of Star Trek as a whole.

On the other hand, if there is something radically different about the film that I'm not expecting, it may impair my enjoyment of it the first time I see it, but I doubt it would bother me on subsequent viewings once I know to expect it.

 

[EnsignRicky]

This is Star Trek, lack of consistency is our business.

 

[Wowbagger]

Depends. If the bridge is unrecognizable, that's okay. I mean, I just saw "The Ultimate Computer" for the first time, and they were clearly in combat at multi-warp velocities, which is impossible. But my mind noted it, filed it away, and I went on to see the best Star Trek episode I've had in years.

(Incidentally, TOS-R is really a great way to see a few of those episodes for the first time if you've still got a few left you've not seen.)

Now, if Spock comes on the screen and turns out to be a transgendered quarter-Andorian, that's going to throw me for a serious loop, and I don't know that I'll be able to get back into the story.

I think the limit of my tolerance for continuity-busting would be if they made Kirk married to Carol and he was raising David. I could deal with that and not have it affect my enjoyment of the movie. Any more radical changes than that and I'll be in trouble.

And, no, there is no aspect of design whose alteration would constitute "radical changes". I'm talking major deviations for characters and races only.

 

[MANT!]

hmm TOS ..Inconsistant even to itself
TNG.. Inconsistant to itself and TOS
DS9 Inconsistant to itself, TNG and TOS
Voy..Inconsistant to itself, DS-9 TNG and TOS
Ent..Inconsistant to everything that went before..

I'm not too worried..if the story, actors, music, sets and special effects are great..

I simply don't give a tinker's damn how consistant to Canon it is..as long as it's good...

 

[xortex]

Consistancy is a conglomeration of things, mostly artistic and aesthetic.

 

[DeafPoet]

As long as I get a good movie I don't really care. Same reason I can enjoy Enterprise more than most people here. I don't get hung up on canon stuff. It's nice when it all hangs together, but a production stringently concerned with canon is often boring as far as Trek goes.

 

[richpit]

I agree with everyone who said "no".

I love TOS and TNG. I liked ENT at the end...it actually got good. But, I've always been a proponent of the so-called "reboot". To stick to 40 years of 'canon', Trek would collapse under it's own weight.

Stick to the basic Trek concepts and I'll be fine.

 

[BTX]

I find the 'consistency' arguments irrelevant. This Star Trek will have little to do with previous continuity. Reboot, Remake whatever, it will have to stand or fall on its own merits. The previous 40 or so years of continuity (and their inconsistencies) will stand on its own separate 'universe'. No need to explode your brains trying to 'fit' this Trek into what has gone before.

BTX

 

[Basil]

Probably. There are plenty of sci-fi movies and television shows about spaceship crews and their adventures -- if I tune in for "Star Trek," that's what I want to see. If not, I can watch one of them. For me, that means consistency within a universe established for 40 years. I think it would make a pretty interesting story to have Abraham Lincoln go hand-to-hand with John Wilkes Booth at the Ford Theatre, and win with Mary's jujitsu, but no matter how compelling, I wouldn't call it U.S. history. The notion of "a good story" trumps everything else seems silly if this film is supposed to fit into the universe we've seen many times before; on the other hand, if it's an out-and-out reimagining, that's different. I'll just stay home and catch it eventually on cablevision.

 

[Kinnison]

Belar said:

Kinnison said:
Major deviations from that setting (Vulcans are emotional, Kirk is married, Sulu is a girl) will indeed be distracting. Minor deviations (the tricorder's buttons are the wrong color, the Enterprise looks different, etc.) won't bother me; in fact, they'll provide a chance for some interesting discussions over the years.

And major deviations won't?

Well, of course they will... after they've impaired my enjoyment! I'm confident, from what I've read so far, that there won't be any major continuity problems that will bother me. As long as it's better than any of the other Trek movies ever made, I'll be well-content.

 

[Dane_Whitman]

Since comments from Orci and Abrams have more or less convinced me that this film will be roughly consistent with established Trek, any minor inconsistencies that will appear will not bother me, because they can be rationalised upon subsequent viewings of the movie.

Not that minor inconsistencies are that important anyway, since they have been part of Trek since the earliest days.

 

[erifah]

Obsessions over a "Lack Of Consistency" is a hobgoblin of obsessive minds.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Won't make any difference at all.

 

[xortex]

Slingshoting around the sun is also a dealbreaker for me.

 

[Noname On A Naughty List]

I LOVE TOS; and it's my favorite Star Trek series. That said, it was full of inconsistencies - from the reuse of old shots of the model with no nacelle caps to shots of it with the nacelle caps within the same episode. The series itself never nailed down the actual timeframe during its orifginal run (they nailed it down in the original cast feature films later); and on screen references gave a time frame of anywhere from 200 years (Space Seed) to 3000 years (Who Mourns for Adonais) in our future.

So, mu God; the film will not be 100% consistent with what came before in TOS? What a SHOCK!

So, no, this won't impair my enjoyment at all.