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Post by finarvyn on Oct 26, 2010 21:37:41 GMT -5
I know that the Star Trek reboot isn't technically on-topic, but I don't know of any better place to discuss it so here goes....
I watched this again today and had several thoughts.
(1) The first 10 minutes or so brings a tear to my eyes every single time I see it. Even though I know what is going to happen.
(2) I have to applaud any Trek that can capture the attention of the newer generations. My daughter (15) thinks that the movie is great, even though she has never really watched TOS. She loves the blend of humor and action and actually asks to watch it again with me every so often.
(3) [glow=red,2,300]SPOILER WARNING:[/glow] JJ Abrams really messed up a few details of time and space. For example, older Spock gets stranded on a planet close enough to Vulcan so he can witness its destruction, yet when Kirk gets stranded on the same planet the Enterprise has been travelling through warp space for several minutes. If it's close enough for Spock to see, it would be at best a few warp-seconds away. Several things like this are convenient for the plot but really are messed up.
(4) In spite of the annoyances of #3, I still love the movie. I've seen it about a dozen times now and it's still fun!
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Post by szieser on Oct 26, 2010 22:02:46 GMT -5
I really really like that movie. Yeah, if you think too hard about it, parts of if fall to bits, but I really just like to watch it instead. There are just too many good bits in it, and Bruce Greenwood as Pike was just perfect. As an Iowan, I also like the fact that they will be building starships outside Riverside someday.
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Post by aramis on Oct 29, 2010 20:55:01 GMT -5
I find that I love the movie despite those technical glitches.
I find that the characters are very well done.
I wish the sequel was being shot.
It's Old School Trek... in the same way that Hero Trek is... New tools to tell classic type tales.
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Post by ghoyle1 on Dec 27, 2010 9:39:06 GMT -5
Sorry, I just can't get past a few things that really spoil it for me. Kirk goes from a disgraced cadet awaiting charges to commander of the fleet's finest ship in a matter of days? Seems like he should have been court-martialed. Also, what's with promoting an officer to captain whenever the captain leaves the ship?
Also dislike getting all the officers together right out of the Academy, all at the same time. Lots of story potential wasted delving into elements of the cfrew's past. How many episodes had somebody Kirk or another officer they knew or served with getting them involved in an episode?
I hate the new Enterprise, but I don't think that would have spoiled it for me.
OTOH, I did like the first few minutes.
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Post by finarvyn on Dec 29, 2010 7:05:03 GMT -5
Sorry, I just can't get past a few things that really spoil it for me. Kirk goes from a disgraced cadet awaiting charges to commander of the fleet's finest ship in a matter of days? Certainly a valid point, but consider that Pike had been watching Kirk long before he ever hit the Academy and that Kirk went through a 4-year program in 3 years. It's possible that the whole "fast track" thing was because of a natural aptitude that Kirk showed.
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Post by blackbat242 on Dec 29, 2010 23:26:33 GMT -5
Which is in violation of 99% of established Trek canon... at least in the best-known of the many alternate universes (indicating the movie is about a different universe than was TOS).
OK, I'm showing my opinion of the movie.
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Post by finarvyn on Dec 30, 2010 9:16:22 GMT -5
Which is in violation of 99% of established Trek canon... at least in the best-known of the many alternate universes (indicating the movie is about a different universe than was TOS). OK, I'm showing my opinion of the movie. Well, the movie is supposed to be in an alternate universe, which makes it not quite the TOS universe, anyway. Once you establlish this fact, I'm not sure how much of the established Trek canon you can apply anymore. You're not alone in your opinion of the movie. I happen to like it and my non-Trek teenaged daughter fell in love with it, which is awesome since she's never shown any interest in ST at all. Certainly it's different from TOS.
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Post by Falconer on Dec 30, 2010 13:37:14 GMT -5
I guess I just don't like what movie as a medium has become, and am resigned to the fact that I will never enjoy a new movie again--at least, not any adaptation/retelling. I came out of Star Trek XI and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with similar emotions. I knew to expect something movie-ified (action and effects cranked way up, fast paced, minimal storytelling), and came out with the same reaction: FOR a movie it wasn't half bad. It's just a shame I couldn't love it.
It's kind of an interesting paradox, though: as long as a franchise keeps turning out movies or whatever, even if they suck, they keep the franchise alive. It's like Star Wars with the crappy prequels: people love the originals more than ever.
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Post by finarvyn on Dec 31, 2010 12:53:41 GMT -5
It's kind of an interesting paradox, though: as long as a franchise keeps turning out movies or whatever, even if they suck, they keep the franchise alive. And I wish I had a good answer for this paradox. The early Trek movies were okay (at least the even numbered ones were) but progressively they got worse and worse. The franchise needed new blood, and some folks hate it even more becasue of it, but it certainly would have died without it. I got to the point where a new ST movie would come out and I wouldn't even bother to see it at the theatre. The re-boot rejuvinated my love for TOS, but not so for many Trek fans. The early Trek novels were decent enough as well, but eventually there was such a flood of them that I quit looking. The Vangard novels are about the only new TOS stuff I've liked at all in the past decade or so. That's not helping the Trek franchise, either. And for whatever reason the Trek TV series aren't helping as they slowly got less and less TOS-like, and new fans don't seem interested in the TOS shows from the 60's. I thought that Enterprise was the closest thing philosophically to TOS, being action-packed and having an emphasis on exploration and tech that sometimes broke down, but the universal reception for Enterprise has been lukewarm at best. (I happen to like it a lot, but I'm clearly in the minority.) Fans couldn't even keep it alive through the full 7 seasons that Voyager got. That's too bad, because at least it was Star Trek. So we don't seem to want/enjoy new Trek. The old Trek seems to fade with time. Fewer and fewer scifi fans have any interest or enthusiasm over Star Trek. It just fades away? I agree with your take on the Star Wars franchise. The newer movies make the older ones look even better, and the cartoons make the newer movies look even better. The only good SW fiction is the stuff written by Timothy Zahn. Another great scifi franchise on the brink of becoming irrelevant. Just makes me sad.
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Post by aramis on Dec 31, 2010 16:20:17 GMT -5
What Star Wars needs is a good fallow period, then a complete reimagining, droping all but the first three movie scripts.
The Trek movies I enjoyed, until the TNG derived ones. Trek really didn't have a long enough fallow period, tho, to make a reimagining work well.
Enterprise had several big mistakes... 1) No "Star Trek" in the title. Bad marketing decision 2) the metaplots sucked 2.1) The Temporal Cold War was just a pain; it was lost on most casual viewers 2.2) The Xindi War was too much like DS9's dominion war, and hot on the heels of it. 3) too many episodes were metaplot focused. 4)Look wasn't trek-like enough. 5) Casting an openly homosexual actor in a key role. (Let's be honest... the average american still is a homophobe. It reduced the viewer base by offending the religious right.)
STXI changed the look too much for such a short fallow period. That it got the humor and character interrelationships working was good; that it wasn't a story about the human condition, not great. It worked, and like Finarvyn, it rekindled my trek-love, and did so in a way Enterprise hadn't.
ST XII is slated for late 2011... we'll see if it actually makes it... and I'm not excited about it, but am interested. I'd much rather see nothing for 10 years, and a total reimagining/restart, ala the Straczinsky proposal.
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Post by blackbat242 on Dec 31, 2010 21:15:41 GMT -5
The re-boot rejuvinated my love for TOS, but not so for many Trek fans. It did for me as well... in the same way that the emergence of a deadly enemy force energizes an apathetic populace to renewed patriotism and a fevered defense of their nation. I thought that Enterprise was the closest thing philosophically to TOS, being action-packed and having an emphasis on exploration and tech that sometimes broke down, but the universal reception for Enterprise has been lukewarm at best. (I happen to like it a lot, but I'm clearly in the minority.) Just makes me sad. The problem is that many of the most-exited fans were TOS fans looking for both a return to the earlier time period and an exposition of the history of the forming of Starfleet, etc that they already had a decent grasp of due to both TOS itself and the novels set in the TOS/Pre-TOS eras. What they got was a show that immediately started bringing in races and systems that TOS fans KNEW weren't encountered by the Federation until long after the time period of Enterprise... and which seemed to be heading in a different direction, one that would never end up in the TOS they loved. Thus, the show quickly lost its most energized fan-base... something the creators never seemed to grasp until it was too late. I never even learned about the "The Temporal Cold War"... I had quit watching long before.
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Post by aramis on Dec 31, 2010 21:27:33 GMT -5
Blackbat: Temporal Cold War arc started in season 1... Season 1 Episode 1, with Archer's first encouter with a Suliban.
Time travellers make for bad TV shows.
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Post by Falconer on Jan 1, 2011 3:08:01 GMT -5
The advantage that Star Wars has is that no matter what drek gets added to the brand, the Original Trilogy will always be the core that all fans have in common, all fans have memorized and can easily watch at will, and will never get swept under the rug by the new stuff. It’s more tricky with Star Trek. To me, TOS is the core of Star Trek, but there are many Star Trek fans who prefer some other offering of the franchise. Of course there are many people who just haven’t seen TOS, or who can’t get past the dated effects and sets. I think the best solution would be ever-better remasterings to keep it accessible to the kids (as long as the originals are still available to us old guys).
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Post by aramis on Jan 1, 2011 4:16:25 GMT -5
The advantage that Star Wars has is that no matter what drek gets added to the brand, the Original Trilogy will always be the core that all fans have in common, all fans have memorized and can easily watch at will, and will never get swept under the rug by the new stuff. Not true in the least... I've met many a young fan who thinks they (eps IV-VI) suck. Further, the remastered versions change a number of things. I remember when I first saw it, it was the day before the revised prints arrived in Anchorage... there was no crawl text, no "Episode IV"... The version I have on Laserdisk isn't the version available on DVD. The DVD version isn't the one I remember. I should take the old 12" disks to a conversion house, and get them put onto DVD... so my kids can see the REAL Star Wars that forged a legend... off topic footnote It sounds like a freaking warzone here. Gunfire, fireworks, screaming people... and it has for the last 30 min or so... it's 0016 1-1-2011 as I write this.
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Post by finarvyn on Jan 1, 2011 8:36:21 GMT -5
The advantage that Star Wars has is that no matter what drek gets added to the brand, the Original Trilogy will always be the core that all fans have in common, all fans have memorized and can easily watch at will, and will never get swept under the rug by the new stuff. I have to agree with Aramis on this one. 1. George Lucas continues to change things, so few current fans have actually seen the real Star Wars movie. Heck, you can't even find the original anywhere anymore. 2. Many younger fans prefer I-II-III to IV-V-VI. It’s more tricky with Star Trek. To me, TOS is the core of Star Trek, but there are many Star Trek fans who prefer some other offering of the franchise. Of course there are many people who just haven’t seen TOS, or who can’t get past the dated effects and sets. I think the best solution would be ever-better remasterings to keep it accessible to the kids (as long as the originals are still available to us old guys). I think that most Trek fans I encounter nowadays prefer some version of Trek other than TOS. I think that the special effects of TOS is too large a hurdle for many of them to clear, and they tend to watch whatever is on prime time TV rather than oldie reruns on at some obscure time of night. While they may be vaguely aware of Kirk/Spock/McCoy/etc I think their exposure is mostly through the movies and not through TOS.
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