Massive Star Trek & Star Wars fan here. Involved in fanzines of both fandoms. Seen all the episodes, movies. Read a lot of the books, comics even the tech manuals, roleplaying sourcebooks. I can tell you the names of both unnamed Federation presidents in Star Treks 4 and 6. I can tell you a Clone Turbo Tank actual in-universe production name.

I have a novel way of dealing with this news. Bear with me. It's a bit crazy. Might be a bit of a long shot:

How about everone just watch the movie once, assess it to see if you like it or not. If you like it good for you. If you don't just ignore it. If you believe you'll hate it nevertheless, then don't watch it.

Just an idea.

Infernalist
Honestly, I don't see the reason for the hatred for the new Star Trek.

Because Trek is supposed to be deep, thought-provoking social commentary exploring ethical dilemmas against the backdrop setting of optimistic high futurism, not shallow and forgettable action movies?

Imagine the lens flares you can get from two suns!

Confabulat: Of all the things to complain about, the age of the characters? WTF?

It's a valid complaint, and here's why:
Apart from the absolute ridiculous premise that a universe that is split two decades prior would end up with the same exact bridge crew, the crew all originally went to the academy, graduated, and had other ship assignments first because...they were all different ages. Now a person who is 12 years younger is in the same academy class? Kirk would have been approximately 26 (given four years at Star Fleet Academy) at the time he takes over as captain of the Enterprise. That means that Chekov is 14. In the altverse Chekov is 17 and a prodigy, which is why he is where he is. That means that Chekov's parents and their sperm/egg combination was exactly the same 3 years later in the altverse.

There are so many holes in the idea of who the crew of the Enterprise is in the altverse, but even if you can suspend disbelief to say that the universe did indeed split at time "x", all events prior to time "x" should have been the same. Like people being born certain places, or being born at certain times. Eventually it all comes back to the fact that the premise is profoundly retarded. The further (timewise) you get from a Genesis point of a time-split, the more differences there will be between the original (which did exist since Old Spock was still around) and the new timeline. This is not a mirror universe (lack of goatees), but a deviation of the original timeline. It is, at its core, stupid.

Honestly, I don't see the reason for the hatred for the new Star Trek. The whole premise for the original series was 'action' combined with a morality play where the emotional(McCoy) clashes with the logical(Spock) with Kirk in the middle to weigh both sides and then save the farking day somehow or another.

Pretty much what I saw in the last Star Trek movie. All three sides of the equation were nailed by their respective actors and I look forward to seeing what they do with the next movie.

tallguywithglasseson: Didn't care for Abrams' take on Star Trek. Take existing franchise, make some winks to the original material, turn into dumb action movie.



/And nothing of value was Lost

I've kind of come to detest JJ Abrahms. Lost and Super 8 are the work of a carnival barker who teases you with a web of mysteries and then forgets you after you're inside the tent. Super 8, especially. I saw the movie and thought it was okay, but then later i saw the infamous preview that didn't say a peep about aliens -- it was a scintillating montage of mystery, nostalgia, childhood, magic, spiritual awakening, my god, what unfathomable secrets are buried in this film? It's so tremendous it would burn our faces like the Ark of the Covenant if we dared release it! That! What was that?!

...and then it turned out to be an alien. Kind of a cousin of Cloverfield. Blah. It made me mad. It was a scam.

As for his Star Trek movie, it was slick and fun but now i don't ever think about it and don't really feel like watching it again. Disposable. So now he gets to recreate Star Wars too? Both? That's too much power for one competent but visionless huckster. I don't like it. Oh, god, i can see him now, in interviews, rattling on about how "we wanted to streamline the Star Wars universe, kind of get away from all the mythology and tragedy, and create a new paradigm, something sleeker and hipper, more in tune with today's zeitgeist, with really sharp and penetrating dialogue... i looked at the lightsaber and asked myself, what really is it? Who made it? Probably some 11-year old supergenius from the suburbs of Coruscant, sort of a proto-Steve Jobs, a kid with a lot of spirit and snark, and that was the genesis of the Joe'h Baumer character..."

Maybe i'm wrong. I don't know. I just wish they'd given control of Star Wars to an older, more ponderous director. Ridley Scott or someone.

imgod2u: Krazikarl: imgod2u: Then you didn't understand Star Trek. It was terrible acting, plot, effects and dialog. What makes Star Trek memorable instead of just another in a long line of examples of campy sci-fi is that it was political and social commentary. It was a platform to dissect issues of racism, the cold war (hint: Klingons were the Russians), religion, vanity, etc.

The reason that TNG has aged so badly is that its fairly difficult to have consistent social/political commentary when the series is set in some kind of post-scarcity economy with no money, no real religion/spirituality, and where essentially all the characters are ridiculously idealized with near perfect morals. Don't get me wrong, there are a few great TNG episodes that still hold up, but most of the series simply does not.

Erm, you may have missed the point then. The focus was not on the morally idealized, perfect Federation but the aliens and planet-of-the-week they ran into. Picard and the like were the lens of idealism through which we were supposed to view the rest of the world and all the events that were happening. The Ferengi was uncontrolled and rampant mercantilism, the Klingons were war-hawks, the Cardassians were backs-against-the-wall imperialists, etc.

There were no "villains" of TNG per se. Yes, they may have appeared as such through the formulaic storylines of heroes-triumph-over-evil and without a good actor (Stewart) at the head of it, it may even have come off as such. But even the worst of conflicts (see: Chain of Command, The Wounded, etc.) were presented superbly not as "look at these bad guys and how the good guys won" but resolve with an understanding of why each side did what they did; how the Cardassians devolved into such a militaristic state due to starvation and lack of resources; how the Klingons were almost a slave to their own militaristic culture; how the Ferengi discard anyone amongst them who isn't seeking profit -- including one who's seeking revenge for the death of his son.

This is also why DS9 is, by far, the ST series that holds up. It loosened some of the restrictions that Roddenberry put on things, which allowed a more serious exploration of political and social issues.

No, it didn't. It loosened what the Federation could represent; it didn't loosen what the entire mythos and universe presented. They simply made the human characters take on the characteristics of what was supposed to be represented by the "alien" characters. It was equivalent to making Gulliver start fighting wars over which side of the egg to break. But in doing so, it dramatically narrowed the scope of what could be explored; people didn't like seeing other humans doing terribly inhumane and bad things; they could tolerate it if an "alien" did it.

So much of TNG just likes rather trite when held up against the more modern sci-fi series.

Of course. That's not the point. The point isn't to look gritty with shaky-cams and all bloodied up and saying "frak". That's faux-insight. It's superficial crap that is just dramatic enough to appear deep and insightful but in reality, isn't really communicating anything. You tell me DS9 or Battlestar God-did-it ever came anywhere close to tackling the underlying motivations and issues of torture the way Chain of Command did. Or presented imperialism and the cold war anywhere near as well as Star Trek 6. Or hell, even something as personal as how difficult it is to communicate with a foreign culture and how much both sides want to.

I actually enjoyed the Abrams movie, but I agree that it wasn't very Star Treky. But I didn't expect that going in, so whatever. The old ST series are in the grave. Just don't expect 90s Star Trek, and the movie really isn't all that bad.

It isn't. Like I said, I'm not specifically calling out Abram's Star Trek. In terms of quality, it's still leagues ahead of Enterprise-has-a-joystick or KAHNNNN-redone-with-Picard Star Trek. Still, you can't help but miss what it was.

The funny thing is that Enterprise -- despite all its failings -- tried the most to be like Trek of old and tackle contemporary issues like terrorism, racism and fear of the unknown enemy.

DS9 had some of the best episodes of Trek on television. I loved "In The Pale Moonlight" and "Far Beyond The Stars." Hell, what made DS9 so great was that it showed the Federation as flawed. I can't believe utopias, so having a flawed Federation, and a flawed station commander in DS9, helped me to enjoy the stories without having to suspend too much disbelief.

ryant123: COMALite J: What Abrams did was destroy the entire Star Trek universe and replace it with his new version. This is the first time that the alteration of the "past" was not undone and the changes reset (a la "City on the Edge of Forever," "Yesterday's Enterprise," etc.).

[images3.wikia.nocookie.net image 656x492]

Forgot about that one, but it still isn't a splinter universe / divergent timeline like Abrams said. It's more of a case of an alteration done to the past that became the known already established history of the present, a time loop in a sense (like Kirk's glasses and the "invention" of "transparent aluminum" in ST:IV, and the "invention" of Velcro® in Enterprise).

Kazan: COMALite J: All Trek series except (gag!) Enterprise are undone.

gag? enterprise was better than freaking voyager. unfortunately they cancelled it right after it 'grew the beard' [season 4]

I had already given up on Enterprise long before that. I heard that it was just starting to get good. <speak voice="captain_hindsight">I should've given it more of a chance. After all, remember how bad "Encounter at Farpoint" was?</speak>

I agree that Voyager was worse. I lost all interest in that with the episode "Threshold," arguably the single worst canon episode of any continuity-type TV series I've ever seen.

not true. nothing that involves vulcan can happen, the other things you listed still CAN happen. picard CAN happen.

How? If Picard's ancestors of the movie time period even hears the news about Vulcan's destruction (and how could they not?), it would alter what they would do, say, think, etc., to at least some degree over what they did in the original time continuum. The same sperm would not meet the same ovum.

It's remotely possible that a baby boy would be born to French parents surnamed "Picard" that they name "Jean-Luc" around that time, but the odds against him being genetically the same and thus having the same talents and personality as the Jean-Luc Picard of TNG is about as remote as the odds of two identical snowflakes forming and landing in the same spot, perfectly aligned, exactly a year apart to the nanosecond accuracy.

mjbok: Confabulat: Of all the things to complain about, the age of the characters? WTF?

It's a valid complaint, and here's why:
Apart from the absolute ridiculous premise that a universe that is split two decades prior would end up with the same exact bridge crew, the crew all originally went to the academy, graduated, and had other ship assignments first because...they were all different ages. Now a person who is 12 years younger is in the same academy class? Kirk would have been approximately 26 (given four years at Star Fleet Academy) at the time he takes over as captain of the Enterprise. That means that Chekov is 14. In the altverse Chekov is 17 and a prodigy, which is why he is where he is. That means that Chekov's parents and their sperm/egg combination was exactly the same 3 years later in the altverse.

There are so many holes in the idea of who the crew of the Enterprise is in the altverse, but even if you can suspend disbelief to say that the universe did indeed split at time "x", all events prior to time "x" should have been the same. Like people being born certain places, or being born at certain times. Eventually it all comes back to the fact that the premise is profoundly retarded. The further (timewise) you get from a Genesis point of a time-split, the more differences there will be between the original (which did exist since Old Spock was still around) and the new timeline. This is not a mirror universe (lack of goatees), but a deviation of the original timeline. It is, at its core, stupid.

This post is a prime example of why, pre-JJ, people mocked and ridiculed the riduculous 'trekkies'.

You're so wrapped up in the minutiae of a series that had ground to a halt due to lack of fans...that you can't see the delights in a new Trek that brings in a new crowd of fans who don't care how the Enterprise is designed, or the paradoxes illustrated by comparing notes on exactly what was said three years apart in a comic book adaptation of a bad screen play.

Who gives a crap about all your little details? Shut up and enjoy your movie.

I'd love to see Ron Howard directs a Star Wars. He has experience with big FX but I think his strength lies with the character development and getting a good performance from his cast

mjbok: This is what Spock being logical in the new version is

I absolutely understand your criticisms of Abrams' reboot, but this is a totally inappropriate screenshot to support your point - you're showing precisely the point in the movie where Spock loses control of his emotions, for which he (logically) declares himself unfit to command. While I agree with your points by and large, this 'example' is patently ass-backwards.

Honey, Hollywood is made up of whores. Abrams never really liked you, he just liked your money. Now he's got your money, and somebody in a Boba Fett costume is waving a roll of twenties.

mjbok: It's a valid complaint, and here's why:
Apart from the absolute ridiculous premise that a universe that is split two decades prior would end up with the same exact bridge crew, the crew all originally went to the academy, graduated, and had other ship assignments first because...they were all different ages. Now a person who is 12 years younger is in the same academy class? Kirk would have been approximately 26 (given four years at Star Fleet Academy) at the time he takes over as captain of the Enterprise. That means that Chekov is 14. In the altverse Chekov is 17 and a prodigy, which is why he is where he is. That means that Chekov's parents and their sperm/egg combination was exactly the same 3 years later in the altverse.

As a life long Star Trek fan myself, I have to say



Seriously, it is not in any way critical, or even remotely important, to the plot what their birthdate is. Who their parents are? Sure, that could be important. If some characters had a vast difference in age that defined their relationship? Yeah, it would suck if what was supposed to be a much older and wiser character became a same-age wise cracking sidekick.

But the characters are all generally the same age in the source. Chekov being 3 years older in the new one?

You aren't arguing about actual plot or characterization, you're arguing about trivia. Yes, I understand it is highly nerdly to care deeply about trivia, but you need to understand that trivia does not make a story good or bad.

GreenAdder: Your first mistake was actually liking what Abrams did to Star Trek. You should be glad he's moved on to a different franchise and will no longer be ramming his sans-lube hand into Trek.

More of my nerdrage is focused on what Berman & Braga did to Trek than Abrams...

/ although I did like DS9

nulluspixiusdemonica: Star Wars/Star Trek/Who Cares... Its all mindless low-brow entertainment with all the cultural depth and entertainment value of a dissatisfying bowel movement.

Both sides are bad, so vote republican?

Star Trek caught on because it was precisely NOT mindless low-brow entertainment. Star Wars caught on precisely because it was mindless low-brow entertainment, but a very well done example of it.

"The point I'm making is that, laugh all you want, Star Trek isn't just a show (and movie series and books and games and comics and bulletin boards) - it is a part of my life. I am closer to it than to some of my cousins."

Much like furries and those 'special' individuals who froth at the brain over My Little Pony, this behaviour should not be tolerated when exhibited by adults. It should be taken as a desperate plea for castration.

Star Wars/Star Trek/Who Cares... Its all mindless low-brow entertainment with all the cultural depth and entertainment value of a dissatisfying bowel movement.

imgod2u: Then you didn't understand Star Trek. It was terrible acting, plot, effects and dialog. What makes Star Trek memorable instead of just another in a long line of examples of campy sci-fi is that it was political and social commentary. It was a platform to dissect issues of racism, the cold war (hint: Klingons were the Russians), religion, vanity, etc.

The reason that TNG has aged so badly is that its fairly difficult to have consistent social/political commentary when the series is set in some kind of post-scarcity economy with no money, no real religion/spirituality, and where essentially all the characters are ridiculously idealized with near perfect morals. Don't get me wrong, there are a few great TNG episodes that still hold up, but most of the series simply does not.

This is also why DS9 is, by far, the ST series that holds up. It loosened some of the restrictions that Roddenberry put on things, which allowed a more serious exploration of political and social issues.

So much of TNG just likes rather trite when held up against the more modern sci-fi series.


I actually enjoyed the Abrams movie, but I agree that it wasn't very Star Treky. But I didn't expect that going in, so whatever. The old ST series are in the grave. Just don't expect 90s Star Trek, and the movie really isn't all that bad.

My exact thought when I read this headline:



/Give it a rest guys, the franchise has been dead for 14 years

Kazan: mjbok: ...

This is Spock being logical in TOS:
[www.call-with-current-continuation.org image 391x353]

This is what Spock being logical in the new version is:
[popreflection.files.wordpress.com image 790x444]

Abram's splinter universe is not the same as the original. things are different. Spock is a bit less in control of himself in this one, and given the circumstances it is even more likely that this was just a temporary lapse of control.

It's not a splinter universe. He may call it that, but under the long-established rules in the way Trek handles time travel, it isn't.

Star Trek has had several time-travel stories in which characters traveled into the past, and they traveled to the past of the main Trek timeline and drastically altered the present. They did not spin off an alternate timeline!

Parallel timelines do exist in Trek (Mirror Universe, "Parallels" TNG episode, etc.), but not as the result of time travel.

What Abrams did was destroy the entire Star Trek universe and replace it with his new version. This is the first time that the alteration of the "past" was not undone and the changes reset (a la "City on the Edge of Forever," "Yesterday's Enterprise," etc.).

Kirk, Spock, etc. only exist in the Abrams universe because they had already been conceived before the alteration, so the circumstances leading to said conception remained unaltered. But everything past that, starting with the birth of Kirk, was altered at least slightly, and drastically indeed once Vulcan was destroyed.

Nothing past that point can happen the way it did. Anyone with any connection to the Federation who was conceived after the destruction of Vulcan would be unlikely to ever exist, as the odds of the circumstances leading to the exact same sperm meeting the exact same ovum still happening unchanged would be miniscule indeed, and getting exponentially smaller as time passes from that point.

So, Picard, Riker, Data, Wesley (hi, Wheaton!), LaForge, O'Brien, etc. never existed (actually, for similar reasons, Wesley shouldn't've existed in "Yesterday's Enterprise," either, but I digress). Lwaxanna Troi might have, but not Denna's father and thus Denna herself. Worf might've been conceived (unlikely given the Klingon Empire's relationship with the Federation), but would not have been raised by humans and would never join Starfleet. Of course Guinan existed, but never met Picard and so never had reason to be a bartender on a Starfleet starship.

None of the main human (including part-human) characters of Deep Space Nine would exist either. Ditto Voyager. The characters native to the Delta Quadrant, yes.

All Trek series except (gag!) Enterprise are undone. The TOS characters exist, but as Old Spock himself said, their destinies are irrevocably altered. The same things will not happen to them as happened in TOS.

Even most of the novels are undone ― even novel series such as Peter David's New Frontier books that are tangential to the Trekverse and Federation are undone. Warlord M'k'n'zy of Calhoun would exist, but would never have become Captain Mackenzie Calhoun. Ditto Zak Kebron, Burgoyne 192, Ensign Janos, Si Cwan, Moke, etc.. The more Federation-connected characters (Elizabeth Shelby, Robin Leffler, Selar, Mark McHenry, Soleta, etc.) would never exist (even though those last two were novel-only characters, they were both conceived in the Federation long after when the destruction of Vulcan would happen in the Abrams-altered timestream).

Trek fans realize this. Sales of Trek novels dropped so drastically following the Abrams movie that the novel franchise itself is in danger. Why bother to read stories that "never happened" even in the fictional universe?

I still think they should have hired Woody Allen to do Star Wars.

It's more like he went to the prom with two dates while you stood awkwardly in the corner and acted all angst-y and mad that you got friend-zoned by both of them.

mjbok: Thanks for the first part. In TOS (and TNG plus movies) how many times did Spock lose his shiat? The only time I can remember was on the planet with the flowers and that was a result of the spores influencing him. A better example for the new movie would be him getting Uhura out of her panties, because outside of PonFar (sp?) this wouldn't have happened for any Vulcans in the original universe. While it is logical that she gets his Vulcan dick hard, that's not the way it works in the established universe. Look at Spock's dad's relationship with Spock's mom. Loveless (in the way we understand it) and more of a marriage of understanding than any marriage of passion.

Absolutely, as I said before I definitely agree with most of your points. I think, ultimately, I'm just more forgiving of a 'reboot' than many other people, but I think I can almost-kinda-sorta understand some of the logic behind it.

My feeling has been that many reboots are motivated by the need to recalibrate of lot of emotional, political, or other content, for a new, younger, and differently-wired audience. You even hint at this with the words "Loveless (in the way we understand it)". Lovelessness could have a very different meaning to those who grew up in post-Leave it to Beaver era than those who grew up in the plastic 80s to those growing up today, and this is probably true of any cultural, emotional, psychological 'element' of a story, character, or world. As an example, the first film that popped into my mind for the word "lovelessness" was Ordinary People, whereas I would assume a younger person's first association would be something quite different. Perhaps if we explored it, that younger person and I would discover we have very different definitions of lovelessness, precisely because the nature and social mores of love are so different for each one of us. The times they are a-changin' and all that...

I think reboots become necessary when the emotional contexts of the audience have changed enough over time that the implications, undercurrents, and feel of a movie/world are no longer quite in line with their original intentions. For what it's worth, I think Abrams actually did that rather admirably with Star Trek... but I would have to admit that's because I also feel, as all old farts do, that the next generations of audience are necessarily more small-minded and emotionally stunted even than my own. (Which, of course, is always wrong and never fair. But ain't that the fun of being an old fart?)

In other words, the old Spock, if he were to preserved absolutely true to his 'original' form, would simply not mean the same to today's audience, because their very understanding of logic, emotionless, and all the mind/heart dichotomy and debate that Spock's character represented to the older generation is not and cannot be interpreted in the same way by people who grew up in a vastly different world, with vastly different social rules of interaction and exposure.

Or perhaps you'd agree with me on this: the old Spock, it was all the years of the character's 'coldness' and logic that made the great phrase, "I have been, and will always be, your friend" so powerful. Coming from a character who never expressed things in this way, these were immensely powerful words (to me, the definition of the early series in a lot of ways). The new Spock... those words would not be so unusual, so telling, simply because they are not quite so against the grain of the character's already-established behavior.
/yes I've been drinking, I don't write this much about Star Trek otherwise

>Trekkie explains why he's butthurt over the Star Wars directing announcement

Because "butthurt" is the reflexive reaction to ANY news about Star Wars.

MusicMakeMyHeadPound: Don't get me wrong, there's plenty to make fun of in the new Trek: The USS Apple Store with its Clearly-A-Warehouse Super Mario Brothers Engine Room and the campy script. Spock losing his cool after being provoked over a larger-than-life personal loss was one of the better touches.

The bigger issue with the engine room scene was being able to transport from huge distances onto a ship traveling at warp speed.

Honestly I'm not the biggest Trek fan (liked TOS some, thought some of TNG was brilliant, and didn't really see much of the others), but like with Doctor Who it bothers me when something has literally decades of established stuff and someone new takes it over and shiats all over it.

Hitomi Tanaka's Paperweights: I absolutely understand your criticisms of Abrams' reboot, but this is a totally inappropriate screenshot to support your point - you're showing precisely the point in the movie where Spock loses control of his emotions, for which he (logically) declares himself unfit to command. While I agree with your points by and large, this 'example' is patently ass-backwards.

Thanks for the first part. In TOS (and TNG plus movies) how many times did Spock lose his shiat? The only time I can remember was on the planet with the flowers and that was a result of the spores influencing him. A better example for the new movie would be him getting Uhura out of her panties, because outside of PonFar (sp?) this wouldn't have happened for any Vulcans in the original universe. While it is logical that she gets his Vulcan dick hard, that's not the way it works in the established universe. Look at Spock's dad's relationship with Spock's mom. Loveless (in the way we understand it) and more of a marriage of understanding than any marriage of passion.

slayer199: If anything, Abrams has shown he has a love of the source material.

If by love of the source material you meaning changing everything BEFORE the split to the dumb as hell altverse (ages of characters, where characters were born, the way the science of Trek works) then I agree. You hated how Lucas changed stuff about the Force? Wait until you see how JJ farks with the existing mythology. Don't worry though, he will tell you that he knows where it is all going and he isn't making it up as he goes.

Infernalist: Honestly, I don't see the reason for the hatred for the new Star Trek. The whole premise for the original series was 'action' combined with a morality play where the emotional(McCoy) clashes with the logical(Spock) with Kirk in the middle to weigh both sides and then save the farking day somehow or another.

Pretty much what I saw in the last Star Trek movie. All three sides of the equation were nailed

This is Spock being logical in TOS:


This is what Spock being logical in the new version is:

FTFA "Imagine a bunch of CW actors running around an uninspired Enterprise bridge. (Joke that it looks like the Apple Store, joke that it's chock-a-block lens flares, it still looks cool.)"

The bridge was never my problem, the engine room was. I don't know what kind of look they were going for, but having what looked like 20 households worth of oversized clear household sewer pipe looked dumb as hell. What's all that water for? Why do the pipes need to be clear? Just for the scene with Scotty floating in them? Why so gods be damned many of them? Hell the engine room of ST: Enterprise was better than that.

dogboy360: Ok, I have to say it.
ST:TOS brought scifi mainstream. Without it SW never could have come about to become what it was.
SW did have an impact on scifi. It helped make scifi stronger in the non-nerd world. Now, scifi is all around us, and has several sub-cultures within it.

/BTW, ST:TOS nerds had NASA name a shuttle "Enterprise". What has SW got?
ST >SW. I still like both.


Yeah.. keep telling yourself that was because of Star Trek, and not a 200 year old Navy tradition. They may have gotten the ball rolling, but if Benedict Arnold had named his ship the Millenium Falcon, I think we all know what that shuttle would have been named.

Confabulat: dogboy360: BTW, ST:TOS nerds had NASA name a shuttle "Enterprise"

Yeah, but that shuttle boldly stayed on Earth.

Well, it did fly (just never left the atmosphere).