Star Trek and who watches it.

[jschild]

Originally Posted by Cavalier

That is basically what they created. In having the time travel take place, certain events were shifted out of their original paths, most notably Jim Kirk changing from being raised by a strong father figure to growing up without one. His change in childhood affects his relationship with the known players, but it doesn't completely change who he, or any of them are. So you still have Kirk's brash disrespect for authority (he reprograms the Kobayashi Maru is both continuities), Bone's cynicism, Spock's battle between his 2 halves. But you also have a Kirk that Spock is initially unable to respect, etc.

I love the Re-imaging, personally.

The entire point of the reboot is to unshackle themseves from TOS. The game has changed dramatically so that they don't have to simply redo the exact same stuff from TOS. It was a brilliant game-changer. They no longer have to obsess with all the baggage that came before while keeping the stuff that was the most important. The characters themselves.

[TGRF]

What? No love for Deep Space, Voyager or Enterprise?

Well, I haven't watched those. I'll put them in the poll though. Oh, by the way, lefton4ya, thanks for the essay. That was out of the blue... as are "a great many things" (emperor).

[TGRF]

Oh, whoops, I can't add to it. That's weird.

[chas]

If you accept The Reboot (which I don't, although it had its good points as I noted above) there are many other problems with the script. For example, they just give a starship to a brash young fellow. Yes, and in the real world, if you are 18, join the US Navy, and show some promise, they give you an aircraft carrier to command right away--it might be fun.

In this culture, without mentors for the young, and existential nausea up the wazoo from the fear and loathing of the atomization of social relations for everybody, the last thing we need is another Teenagers Conquer the Universe movie as the 'new start' of a major franchise. In the older series, there were important relationships portrayed between people of different ages, and a personal evolution that came with aging itself. The new film shows that adults are silly and unimportant, so you might as well "live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse." This is exactly the opposite of Gene Roddenberrys attempt to show a postive model of how society might work in the future--which was why Trek developed into a substitute religion for lost young souls. Another icon exploded--congratulations to all hands. Too bad.

End of Lecture From Old Guy
***

[jschild]

If you accept The Reboot (which I don't) there are many other problems with the script. For example, they just give a starship to a brash young fellow. Yes, and in the real world, if you are 18, join the US Navy, and show some promise, they give you an aircraft carrier to command right away--it might be fun.

Yes, and in real life, if you cheat, you'll get a commendation for original thinking and not punished or kicked out. It's a movie dude. If you are seriously gonna try this as an argument, then we have to bring up every stupid thing in Trek history. Spock's Brain anyone?

The new film shows that adults are silly and unimportant, so you might as well "live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse." This is exactly the opposite of Gene Roddenberrys attempt to show a postive model of how society might work in the future--which was why Trek developed into a substitute religion for lost young souls. Another icon exploded--congratulations to all hands. Too bad.

Yeah, it shows how stupid George Kirk is. I mean what a stupid adult. And Spock's parent's? What idiots! And Captain Pike, god, he's such a moron.

[KERTHWAPPYSMACK]

Originally Posted by jschild

Why would you watch Trouble with Tribbles in a Biology class. Real science is non-existent in the episode and there is nothing useful to learn from it in terms of biology (a field science fiction shows and movies consistently get very, very, very wrong).

That said, it's a wonderfully funny episode as well is DS9's tribute to it.

Worf: We don't talk about that.

I know Thats what Im sayin, but at least it wasnt a total waste of time

[kolakoski]

Does anyone besides me remember the multi-episode "The Thing" plotline in Next Generation, where some alien slugs infiltrated the highest levels of Starfleet, that was never resolved?

[RabSheila]

Originally Posted by kolakoski

Does anyone besides me remember the multi-episode "The Thing" plotline in Next Generation, where some alien slugs infiltrated the highest levels of Starfleet, that was never resolved?

Conspiracy.

That old guy was tough.

[KERTHWAPPYSMACK]

I like the one where a war was being fought on comp and the casualties were incinerated I believe it was called A Taste of Armageddon

[RabSheila]

jschild,

Something you said kept picking at my subconscious demanding that I go back and look. So I did. I’m not trying to get into a heated debate. I know you like the Reboot. You know I don’t. I’m just trying to figure this out.

If this statement

The entire point of the reboot is to unshackle themseves from TOS.

were true and they were trying to do this, then why use the same characters. If the powers that be want characters who are so different and edgy from TOS and they want to have new origins or histories or whatever, why even bother with using established characters? That doesn’t seem like unshackling to me. Couldn’t they just come up with some different names? Did they not have enough faith in themselves in creating new characters and they wanted to go for the sure money draw of the Kirk! Spock! McCoy! names instead of the Bob! Ralph! T’chip! names?
(Yeah, I’m hoping they could come up with better names than those.)

[jschild]

Originally Posted by RabSheila

jschild,

Something you said kept picking at my subconscious demanding that I go back and look. So I did. I’m not trying to get into a heated debate. I know you like the Reboot. You know I don’t. I’m just trying to figure this out.

If this statement

were true and they were trying to do this, then why use the same characters. If the powers that be want characters who are so different and edgy from TOS and they want to have new origins or histories or whatever, why even bother with using established characters? That doesn’t seem like unshackling to me. Couldn’t they just come up with some different names? Did they not have enough faith in themselves in creating new characters and they wanted to go for the sure money draw of the Kirk! Spock! McCoy! names instead of the Bob! Ralph! T’chip! names?
(Yeah, I’m hoping they could come up with better names than those.)

What I mean by unshackling themselves from TOS was the stories, not the characters. This way they don't have to do a Khan story if they don't want. They don't have to do any of the stories from TOS - because they simply might not end up in the same place due to the changes.

They should NOT abandon the characters though, that would indeed be a massive mistake. It seems they wanted to use the original crew, but with all new stories and not trapped or tied down to TOS timeline.

There is an entire generation now that not only barely knows the TOS crew, but knows nothing at all of TOS (and mostly will never because TOS is so dated that it just doesn't hold up well to todays standards for the most part - though City on the Edge of Forever still does very well).

I think this was a way to bring the characters that so many know and love to the current generation. Was it the best possible choice? Who knows - I'm just glad Berman is out of the picture because he ruined Trek more than any Reboot movie ever could.

[RabSheila]

Thanks for clarifying.

I'd still like to see Captain Bob and Lt. Commander Ralph make it to a movie sometime, though.