This was as close to perfection as a trek movie could possibly have. I had a smile on my face from beginning to end. I loved every second of it.

A lot of stories end with the bad guys losing, but a significant defining characteristic of Star Wars is fighting the Big Bad Empire -- those in power are corrupt. Most of the Star Wars stories deal with not being corrupted by evil (A New Hope is slightly different as it's more "trust your instincts"). Star Wars isn't a DYSTOPIAN or necessarily even dark, but it's certainly not promoting the idea of there being inherent goodness in us like most of Star Trek.


No, I'd probably pin parts of TOS and TNG, such as the TNG episode dealing with torture. Yes, all the series had some BAD episodes, and I have no doubt that TOS was influenced by the times that it was produced, but they must have done something different -- what sci-fi shows, movies, books, etc. from then have remained as culturally relevant? And even if it was the norm then, it's not the norm now, which I find over-saturated with DARK and GRITTY and HUMANS ARE THE SAME AND/OR SUCK. DS9 I feel legitimately pushed the darkest edges of the Star Trek universe that it could, and even then, I'd much prefer something like Undiscovered Country over, yes, Wrath of Khan. I like Star Trek BECAUSE of its corny optimism. Tell me where else I can find a good sci-fi series that encourages hope for humanity.

Also, I think Enterprise should be given more credit for showing the transition into the more utopian side of Star Trek, like where Dr. Phlox talks about trying to teach his kids to not hold prejudices against another race that he himself still holds some against them.

I wrote 'Wraith' of Khan

I'll admit, I really enjoy the "mirror universe" episodes of TOS/Enterprise. I find some kind of pleasure seeing all of humanity the scourge of the galaxy.

I still don't agree. In the OT of Star Wars (though less so in the EU and the prequels), it's made pretty clear that the light side of the force is, ultimately, more powerful, and that the dark side is a corruption and perversion of the light side. Those in power are corrupt: the word itself implies something fundamentally good that has been tarnished by an external evil. Star Wars doesn't hold Palpatine up to say "Look at this man: he is evidence that human nature contains great evil." It holds up Palpatine as an embodiment of pure evil; we get no sense of interiority from him, nor really any complexity or humanity. The person we do get this from is Vader, in whom good ultimately triumphs.

Getting back to Star Trek:

1) My main quibble is with the idea that what made Star Trek unique was its optimism. Historically, I just don't think this is true. TOS's staying power had more to do with the exciting visions of technology (& the special effects, however terrible they look now), and powerfully memorable characters. The recent series are uncharacteristically optimistic for their time, but they aren't examples of "good Star Trek." In fact, you suggest (and I agree) that "Chain of Command" is an example of Star Trek at its best, and yet CoC is one of the darker episodes of Trek. This would suggest that optimism is not a necessary condition for "Trekky goodness". (I doubt that it's sufficient, either.)

2) Chain of Command is really dark. It shows a humanoid (who we surely can envision as human) torturing another humanoid out of malice, more sadistic than pragmatic in intent. It suggests that even the most admirable human we know can be broken by torment and betray himself out of self-interest. (This is more me being a fanboy than actually making a point.)

3) I'm with you on the matter of having too much grittiness in our scifi. (I love BSG, Firefly, DS9, etc, but I think we could use a little more balance.) I still think that Star Wars is quite a hopeful tale. The Matrix has elements of hope (some things never change; some things do). Nausicaa is terrific (but from 1982, and probably none of us had anime in mind...). I guess if you're looking for cornball optimism, the 80's has lots to offer: Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Robocop (basically), and so on.

It's been a while since I've had the chance to read good scifi, but something like Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) isn't wholly negative (and isn't gritty at all): in the long run, maybe things don't change, but on a local scale, human nature is capable of overcoming its challenges.

4) Your overall point, which is that Star Trek's optimism is a likable characteristic? Absolutely. The new movie had neither optimism nor intelligent grittiness, which might be why I thought it was a letdown.

5) You know what's really bleak? TOS told us things will keep getting better. The cyberpunk aesthetic tells us that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Tolkien, on the other hand, tells us that things just keep getting worse and worse, and the best we can do is cling onto what we've got and preserve our memories of a better time. (It's no coincidence that the whole story is presented as if it were a book written by Bilbo/Frodo/Sam that JRRT then "translated".)

(I hope I don't come across as being too combative--this is just an interesting discussion.)

Is it just me, or am I the only one that thought ST:TMP was a pretty good Sci-Fi movie?

Just you.

No one thinks this. Not even you.

ST:TMP is horrid.

I so do, It's not 2001 or anything, but it was a passable film.

I think if there wasn't some sort of excuse the fan boys would be confused and angry that JJ Abrams was rewriting their precious history.



The changes would be far more extensive than you indicate. See Wikipedia and take note that the influence on the timeline is far more than a bufferfly's wings. 6 billion Vulcans have been killed, plus the fatalities from the USS Kelvin and the 7 starships sent to Vulcan before the Enterprise. And don't even start with how the paths of the everyone's lives have changed.



IIRC he is supposed to be the record holder of the youngest Starfleet officer to be promoted to captain. Same record, different circumstances helped him make it even earlier I guess.

Though I found it a bit odd Pike promoted him to first officer when he wasn't even supposed to be on board. Guess Pike was impressed with Kirk's detection work about the Romulans.

Tuvok from Voyager is probably effectively non-existent now.

But that was integral to the plot.

What plot? It's a reboot. NEW PLOT!

Vornskr: Actually, I think we might be on the same wavelength now, or at least close enough for my likes. Still, I'll try not to drop the ball here and actually try responding to your stuff.



Hrm... while it does certainly show inner good winning in the end with Vader, there's a different dynamic than what I had in mind. In that case, it's dealing with overcoming evil and redemption. The sort of conflicts that I was thinking about, concerning Star Trek, I suppose was more the good people being able to overcome the temptation in the first place. The Drumhead comes to mind, where wrongs sneak in through presumably good intentions, and Picard eventually exposes it for what it is. Bit of the cornball, which is avoided more in a DS9 episode because the line is actually crossed.



I suppose optimistic is misleading, if not inaccurate. You pin it down better in your later points about it being likeable though not necessary or even sufficient, yet I then think about the new movie (which I still need to see) -- I don't doubt that I'll find the movie enjoyable and good on its own, but rather how "Star Trek" it is, and I have difficulty thinking of many other characteristics of the series I'd care about. I rather dislike nostalgia, and have no qualms with them scraping the dependence on technobabble and time travel, for instance, but perhaps there's something else eluding me. Or maybe I'm just thinking about it too much.


While we can envision the Cardassian as human, I think the audience is supposed to identify Picard more with "us" than the Cardassian. In a strange way, I think it does its job to de-glorify torture from its "good vs. evil" to something...well, I don't know how to describe it honestly. Admittedly, while some distance in identification can be a useful literary tool, the Star Trek universe is also known for glorifying the "human" element too much at times. The "optimism" in this case, if present, would be on a more meta-story level -- its take on torture itself.


Sadly, I don't think any of the examples listed from the 80's there really have much on the social commentary. Seems difficult to have both in a story, even including the Star Trek series (where they'd often cop-out by having other species have those issues). As for Star Wars and Matrix, I'd still put those as examples of worlds in conflict, oppression, etc. and having to bring the good out of it, instead of an overall "good" world that has to confront potential rising wrongs. I definitely have my likes for other sci-fi series as well (I rather love stuff like the Alien and Terminator series for example)... I just want to be able to continue to mix things up with my sci-fi and fantasy.

I'll have to keep an eye out for the story you mentioned.


Hrm... :/ Perhaps the characters themselves will salvage it for me then, or I'll see something you didn't.


I think there might be a missing thought or two there, but in any case, I definitely hear you there.

Unless Spock and Uhura have a child

Star Trek: The Motionless Picture?

Just got back from seeing it:

Not knowing anything about Star Trek, I really really liked it. It was really cool to learn the backgrounds of the characters.

The graphics were really spectacular too. I see the concern about the lens flare (yea it was kind of annoying at points) but it did add some motion to the screen that was kind of cool I appreciated some of that attention to detail. (ie- cameras in space, no sound in space)

I just got back from seeing it as well, and being pretty familiar with Trek I still enjoyed it quite a bit... especially.... "I'll be monitoring your frequency :awesome:..."

I don't think we would have seen such powerful imagery from "Chain of Command" in TOS. I don't think anyone in mid 1960s would have had the stomach to watch Kirk dehumanized like that. Picard was probably moments away from cracking. Also, the network censors wouldn't allow that to be seen.

I think Star Trek's allure was the optimism. Humanity forsook their differences and united to set a common goal of exploration and bettering themselves. Tell me, would that not be really appealing to you as a black man in Alabama who had two sons in Vietnam? For others, it saw us united against a common enemy, the Klingons, who which to destroy our way of life. Again, equating to 1960s, Klingons = Soviet Union/Communism.

It made sense in my head!

Is that common at all in sci-fi? I haven't seen it in anything other than Firefly.

And by seen it I mean heard it. And by heard it I mean not heard it.

Yeah I loved that too, when the girl got sucked out the ship and it was just dead silent regardless of all the explosions going on.

There's been a few Sci-Fi movies with no sound in scenes where the camera is in the vacuum, yeah.

I saw it last night, as a huge fan of Star Trek I would say I am more than impressed. They are truly doing something bold with the franchise instead of the same **** that had been failing for the last decade or so.

This new alternate reality means ANYTHING is possible now, there are so many new stories to tell. The old Star Trek universe still exists, so this is a universe for a new generation of fans starting with this movie.

and btw...I think I said in a previous post that I heard that the music blew..I was way misinformed, Michael Giacchino's score was beyond anything I expected, fantastic new theme!

Going to see it tonight, im hyped.

*ahem*

He just wants to look at Vulcan-package.

Anybody who is still such a Star Trek fan after the last 16 years of disappointments and embarrassments that they would go ballistic if someone tampered with the ever-so-delightful "continuity" spun by those god awful hacks Berman and Braga should be executed by power drills to the face and genitals.

Yes, and? The plot is the weakest part of the movie.

The implementation of that plot was done exceptionally. Without peer, possibly. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a horrible, horrible plot that was only ever conceived of so the producers could forget the movie ever happened if there weren't enough "normies" who enjoyed it to balance out the mouthbreathing basement-dwellers calling for Paramount to be disbanded.

It was an action si-fi flick, not a psychological thriller. I think you're asking too much of it.

I would like to see movies with less generic bad guys though. Good villains tend to be the thing that really makes a movie memorable.

He tasks me. He tasks me and I shall have him! I'll chase him 'round the moons of Nibia and 'round the Antares Maelstrom and 'round Perdition's flames before I give him up!

I just got back from seeing it, and I have to agree with Vornskr. Not a bad movie, but not Star Trek. I'm a little disappointed.

I've done far worse than kill you. I've hurt you. And I shall continue hurting you.

Edit: One of my friends sent me this. It speaks volumes of truth: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/trekkies_bash_new_star_trek_film

I enjoyed the movie for what it was.. and what it brought ot he table.


BUT.

I defenitely did not like how it completely erased the Star Trek universe as we've known it for so long.

quoted from my post on another forum:

Since I am lazy and don't read most posts here...

My dad was a fan of the show, and I was born in 86 .. so I grew up watching TNG.

So that's all I know about ST.

But the movie was completely foreign to me.

It was kind of wtf ...

I'm not sure what to think of it yet ... The whole time travel thing ... I mean there was some TNG episodes with like a wild west flash back. .. but nothing like this that I can remember...

It was a totally different ST from what I knew..


/end post

I'll give a more complete and sober response tomorrow after a second viewing...

Someone clearly did not pay any kind of attention to the movie at all.

That was an amazing movie.
Kirk being an *** during the test was beatiful.

Kirk was an *** 99% of the movie.

Uh, I defenitely did. Why don't you "enlighten" me then?