Star Trek

[Reg]

You can't really have it both ways.

Sure you can. They're using the many worlds time travel paradigm. You can have it an infinite number of ways.

I just hope the all the time travel nonsense happens in the first and last 10 minutes to explain why things are different and doesn't interfere with the actual guts of the story.

[Velorath]

I'm not sure how you'd be able to have a villain who has traveled to the past to alter time, and only have the be the focus of the first and last 10 minutes.

[Reg]

If he just stays put and Kirk and the gang don't need to travel through time chasing him that should be good enough.

[Ironwood]

Tempted to use the word 'wank' here.

[Reg]

Like you aren't planning to camp out for a week before it opens so you can be the first nerd in your neighbourhood to see it.

[Ironwood]

You're offering to babysit ?  How sweet.

Haven't watched one of these at the cinema since generations.  You're reaching REALLLLLY hard, aren't you ?

[Triforcer]

Good.  I hope this is used as an excuse to reboot the entire franchise in future TV series, movies, etc.  Ditch the Federation, make Earth and Vulcan enemies (cold logicians who believe emotional races should be destroyed, etc) and make all the other races cranky and Star Warsy.  Every Star Trek since the TOS could be named "The Democratic Senate Caucus Tries To Find A Way To Peacefully Resolve Things But Then Is Forced To Defend Itself With Plucky Human Ingenuity: The Series."

Just turn it into the Starfleet Battles universe...

[Reg]

So you want the Federation replaced with a bunch of Republicans then? Scary.

[Triforcer]

So you want the Federation replaced with a bunch of Republicans then? Scary.

Yes.  Completely aside from what is the best way to govern irl, Republican ideals make for much more entertaining television 

[Ratman_tf]

Good.  I hope this is used as an excuse to reboot the entire franchise in future TV series, movies, etc.  Ditch the Federation, make Earth and Vulcan enemies (cold logicians who believe emotional races should be destroyed, etc) and make all the other races cranky and Star Warsy.  Every Star Trek since the TOS could be named "The Democratic Senate Caucus Tries To Find A Way To Peacefully Resolve Things But Then Is Forced To Defend Itself With Plucky Human Ingenuity: The Series."

Just turn it into the Starfleet Battles universe...

You wish. This is gonna be one big "reset button" movie. Shit will blow up, Kirk will die, the Borg will show up, and old Spock will hit the big red button and it'll all be Janeway and Picard discussing the timeline over tea and crumpets.

[DraconianOne]

You wish. This is gonna be one big "reset button" movie. Shit will blow up, Kirk will die, the Borg will show up, and old Spock will hit the big red button and it'll all be Janeway and Picard discussing the timeline over tea and crumpets.

Don't the Borg send an Infiltrator unit back in time to kill Kirk's mother before he's born but Spock is sent back in time by the Kirk of his era to stop it doing so and in a plot-twist that defies temporal causality, shags Kirk's mum and becomes Kirk's dad?

[Evil Elvis]

Time-travel as a Star Trek plot device?  How deliciously absurd!

[Triforcer]

Thanks for making me spray my glass of water all over my monitor, ass 

[Simond]

Good.  I hope this is used as an excuse to reboot the entire franchise in future TV series, movies, etc.  Ditch the Federation, make Earth and Vulcan enemies (cold logicians who believe emotional races should be destroyed, etc) and make all the other races cranky and Star Warsy.  Every Star Trek since the TOS could be named "The Democratic Senate Caucus Tries To Find A Way To Peacefully Resolve Things But Then Is Forced To Defend Itself With Plucky Human Ingenuity: The Series."

Just turn it into the Starfleet Battles universe...

Better idea: Turn it into what the Federation should really be like with the technology they've got i.e. The Culture.
Also, Ironwood is as wrong as it is humanly possible to be about DS9, even though it's only a copy of B5.

[Ratman_tf]

Good.  I hope this is used as an excuse to reboot the entire franchise in future TV series, movies, etc.  Ditch the Federation, make Earth and Vulcan enemies (cold logicians who believe emotional races should be destroyed, etc) and make all the other races cranky and Star Warsy.  Every Star Trek since the TOS could be named "The Democratic Senate Caucus Tries To Find A Way To Peacefully Resolve Things But Then Is Forced To Defend Itself With Plucky Human Ingenuity: The Series."

Just turn it into the Starfleet Battles universe...

Better idea: Turn it into what the Federation should really be like with the technology they've got i.e. The Culture.
Also, Ironwood is as wrong as it is humanly possible to be about DS9, even though it's only a copy of B5.

I think showing the Federation as an emerging "Culture-like" society would be more interesting than what we get lately. It's the next logical step instead of going back and doing prequels like Enterprise.

[Reg]

I thought that DS9 did a pretty good job of showing that at the very highest levels the Federation was much like the culture. ie. A lot of the naive idealism is gone and they're prepared to do whatever it takes to win.

[Margalis]

If this is supposed to be a reboot why does how it fits with Trek canon even matter?

[Ironwood]

Trailer came up yesterday and I explained the Time Travel Stuff.

Wife looks at me and says 'Why won't they let it die in peace?'

Every now and then you're reminded with sharp clarity why you married someone in the first place.   

Oh, and Babylon 5 was awesome stuff.

[Reg]

The whole time travel aspect of the movie is their attempt to explain the differences from canon to their most OCD fans.

12 of my closest friends totally agree that we should go see the movie before rushing to judgement on it. "Why don't we go see the movie before rushing to judgement?" they said. And naturally, I felt compelled to agree.

[Velorath]

The whole time travel aspect of the movie is their attempt to explain the differences from canon to their most OCD fans.

Exactly, which is why it's a shit idea.  It's not organic storytelling.  It's "well we have to reboot the franchise, but also connect it to established continuity, so what story can we tell that's within those boundaries?".  And then they came up with time traveling Romulans.

[Arthur_Parker]

I hate the time line idea being used to explain why a movie made in 2008 won't be the same as a tv series from the 1960's.  It's not a good sign for them to be worrying about this trivial shit, if the make over is good enough then you don't need to justify why you did something.  Starbuck being a girl worked out ok.

[Ironwood]

Totally.  Why the hell would you be worrying about a reboot when you look at what BSG did ?  Nods and winks to the fans all over the shop but compelling stand alone fare.

It's odd and it stinks.

[Reg]

BSG is nothing more than a critically acclaimed niche IP playing on a specialty cable channel and won't even have had the longevity of Enterprise when it finishes this spring. And the  series it was based on was a single short-running series from decades ago that spawned nothing after it was gone - hardly to be compared to Star Trek.

And honestly, Star Trek geeks are famous for obsessing over trivial points of canon. Is it really such a shock that the movie producers would want to avoid pissing them off?

[Arthur_Parker]

Oh yeah, what about Galactica 1980?  That was terrible enough to be right up there with some of the worst Star Trek spin off episodes.

[Ratman_tf]

If this is supposed to be a reboot why does how it fits with Trek canon even matter?

It's not supposed to be a reboot.

[Triforcer]

If this is supposed to be a reboot why does how it fits with Trek canon even matter?

It's not supposed to be a reboot.

Are you certain about this?  I didn't read anything in that article that indicates future Trek TV and movies won't flow from the new timeline. 

[Riggswolfe]

Upon reading that time travel is an important plot point in the upcoming movie, I am somewhat less enthusiastic.

The only part about that article that pissed me off was the constant "Quantum Mechanics is the latest, best, most awesome scientific theory ever!" stuff spouted by whoever was being interviewed. It made me want to strangle him with his entrails, while using his own still beating heart for a gag.

[Merusk]

After Enterprise flopped in such a fantastic way, didn't they say "no more trek on TV for at least 5-10 years."   The feeling was that Trek had been overloaded into the consciousness, being constantly around since '88.   Which would be why there's no indication of 'future' episodes not flowing from this.  No need, since there are no plans for future ANYTHING.

I know dollars trump this, but they seemed to really believe it at the time.

[Reg]

My guess would be that the noise about "no more trek for 10 years" was coming mainly from Rick Berman and the gang who were responsible for the huge failure of Enterprise. I mean, geeze it couldn't possible have been THEIR fault could it? Who doesn't like mutant, vampire, time-traveling, space Nazis? The only possible reason that nobody liked Enterprise had to be that the world was just generally tired of all things Star Trek.

[Morat20]

I think showing the Federation as an emerging "Culture-like" society would be more interesting than what we get lately. It's the next logical step instead of going back and doing prequels like Enterprise.

A movie about extremely attractive hedonists, with sentient starships whose minds are best described as "quirky"? Whose warships, even the centuries old mothballed ones, can fuck entire solar systems? Whose assasins are composed entirely of nano-machines, so can look like anything from a person to a flock of birds -- and whose calling card (no use assasinating someone if no one gets the point) is anti-matter missiles 10mm long?

Fuck, I'd watch that. Throw up the Idrian War. Let me watch shit blow up, good looking people fuck, and starships with a fucking sense of humor.

[HaemishM]

If this is supposed to be a reboot why does how it fits with Trek canon even matter?

It's not supposed to be a reboot.

And therein lies the problem. If it wasn't supposed to be a reboot, why the radical change in direction? This is a lot of fuckheads at Paramount not wanting to face the reality that the franchise has been shagged to shit and back for at least 5-10 years (but really since they made the movie switchover from TOS crew to TNG). They recognized that the franchise needed fresh blood to make it still relevant, only they don't want to admit that they need a rethink of the entire concept because that means they piss off the Trekkies (who deserve to be fried in pig lard more than furries). They want to have their cake and eat it too.

I like the look of it, but this does weaken it a bit.

[Evildrider]

Star Trek is not dark and gritty enough to survive in the current entertainment environment.  If they would have had another series that went ahead with the "corruption" and stuff going on in the Federation and didn't reboot with Enterprise, they probably would have had a better show.

[Montague]

The whole time travel aspect of the movie is their attempt to explain the differences from canon to their most OCD fans.

This.

I have a friend of mine who runs a Star Trek RPG (GURPS system). I'm more than conversant with TOS and STNG, but most of the one game I played was filled with him saying variations of "Well you wouldn't do that because..." followed by the most anal lorewhoring that would put Forgotten Realms fanboys to shame.

As for me I'm just kinda meh on the whole thing. Good Star Trek characters take a period of time to settle in. If you watch the early TOS episodes Nimoy is still feeling his way around, he smiles at times and raises his voice. Encounter at Farpoint had more than a few cringe-worthy moments, and any episode where Riker doesn't have a beard is usually bad, and of course Sisko has been already mentioned. Despite the special effects Star Trek shines or fails on characterization, and I doubt whether this group will be up to the challenge on the first go-round.

[Ratman_tf]

If this is supposed to be a reboot why does how it fits with Trek canon even matter?

It's not supposed to be a reboot.

Are you certain about this?  I didn't read anything in that article that indicates future Trek TV and movies won't flow from the new timeline. 

I'm not certain about a movie I haven't seen yet, of coure. But you never hear them say "reboot" or somesuch. Just a lot of writer wank about quantum timelines.

[Venkman]

Upon reading that time travel is an important plot point in the upcoming movie, I am somewhat less enthusiastic.

The only part about that article that pissed me off was the constant "Quantum Mechanics is the latest, best, most awesome scientific theory ever!" stuff spouted by whoever was being interviewed. It made me want to strangle him with his entrails, while using his own still beating heart for a gag.

Yea, wtf is that all about? He writing a book or something? Why does it hafta be the "most tested" multiple times? It's not like this explains anything, but it's like he's soooo worried about getting egged on the street or something. They didn't like the name Farragut, they put Kelvin in because it sounded more scientific, Leonard Nimoy was available for a bit part, and they needed to justify a completely new casts. So they retconned the whole thing. Who gives a crap? Even the most ardent Trek fans are used to Paramount not giving a shit about consistency.

It feels like an overemphasis on explaining stuff nobody cares about.