Shatner Responds To The New ‘Star Trek’ Trailer
Posted by Dirty Harry on Thursday, November 20th, 2008
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Anyone remember the episode A Piece of the Action from season two of the original series?
You know, the episode where much is made of the fact that Kirk doesn’t know how to drive an automobile?
Just saying.
Bastards.
Thanks to Reader James for the link.
Filed in General |
Kenn Christensonon 20 Nov 2008 at 5:25 pm 1Hey, the movie isn’t even out, yet. Give it a chance!!!
(Yes, I was paid by Paramount to say that.)
Wayfareron 20 Nov 2008 at 5:26 pm 2People said that Tolkien fans were bad…
Kenn Christensonon 20 Nov 2008 at 5:28 pm 3This is one movie that I will actually be disappointed if it turns out to be half-ways descent.
NCCon 20 Nov 2008 at 5:37 pm 4Actually, in the trailer he ends up driving not so well, either.
HARRY HERE: He drives like a stunt driver making the curve and then shifting the car into a spin at the edge of the cliff. What trailer are you watching?
Buck Turgidsonon 20 Nov 2008 at 6:04 pm 5Harry, you of all people should have picked up on NCC’s joke.
Stephanieon 20 Nov 2008 at 6:08 pm 6HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nearly throwing up now laughing too hard. Stomach hurts. Have muscle cramps from inability to breath! HAHAHAHAHA!
Kiton 20 Nov 2008 at 6:25 pm 7No, I’m Captain Kirk.
(Spartacus
amzarakon 20 Nov 2008 at 6:47 pm 8I had forgotten that Kirk didn’t know how to drive a car. So, it looks like they have decided just to use the names of the characters and throw out any of the mythology or history from the show. If that is the case, I will not be watching this.
misterdon 20 Nov 2008 at 7:01 pm 9Of fer… People are going to walk out on the movie because in one scene in one 40 year old episode he couldn’t drive a car, and the writers forgot? Please please please tell me that you refuse to watch Wrath of Kahn, too.
NCCon 20 Nov 2008 at 7:03 pm 10“He drives like a stunt driver making the curve and then shifting the car into a spin at the edge of the cliff. What trailer are you watching?”
The car goes off the cliff, he barely escapes with his life, and the 23rd century version of Odo is not amused. That is, in the actual trailer. If you watched it.
HARRY HERE: We’re reading this completely different. The kid looks to like he’s in completel control of the car, straight down the road, around the corner, and pushing himself in a game of chicken. You obviously see it as a car out of control going over a cliff, but nothing prior indicates that to me in any way.
pageivon 20 Nov 2008 at 7:07 pm 11Well if he was such a great driver, Harry than he would’ve knew were the break pedal was!!!!!! Looks to me he knew how to power slide from years of playing Grand Theft Auto XCIV, duh.
Scotton 20 Nov 2008 at 7:20 pm 12I’ve read my share of complaints about how continuity obsessed Star Trek fans are. Indeed, the snide dismissal of their observations is that they are into “continuity porn.”
Well, while not a “trekker” but someone who watched the show as a kid, saw the films in my teens, watched TNG in university, caught most of DS9 and went through a period of unemployment that left me depressed and watching way to many eps of Voyager, these bits of continuity, to my mind, are not that hard to maintain. If those who have merely shown a continuing interest in the show over the years can spot these gaps in the knowledge of the writers, why the hell can’t producers, writing partners, anyone associated with the Trek franchise not spot them? Is it too much to ask those in charge of the Paramount milch-cow to put people on their writing team who actually watched the show? I mean, for chrissakes, the original show is in reruns somewhere on cable or satellite every frikkin day of the week!
Whether I ever wanted to or not, I have a lot Trek trivia floating around in my head, and not the obscure DS9 Bajoran stuff, but things connected with the main characters that just about everyone I know also have (and only one of my circle would I call a trekkie, err, trekker). They would catch something like “Kirk doesn’t know how to drive a standard - it was in that show where the planet was made up of gangsters.”
I think this is just sloppy. But the whole Kirk thing as a troubled teen also irks me. There is nothing in the old show to indicate he was anything but a reasonably well-adjusted man in his thirties of exceptional qualities that suited him to command a starship.
NCCon 20 Nov 2008 at 7:21 pm 13If we are going to complain about something - and actually I look forward to this movie, despite all the gloom on this and other blogs - what is this “James TIBERIUS Kirk” business? In TOS he usually identified himself as “James T. Kirk” or “James Kirk.” I cannot even recall him using Tiberius, though its been a while since I saw all the episodes.
I do recall him suddenly preferring “James Tiberius Kirk” in the cartoon series. But I wrote it off as I did most of Alan Dean Foster’s contributions.
I always thought that “Tiberius” bit made him sound uncharacteristically pompous. Can you imagine “My name is Sherlock TIBERIUS Holmes.” Or “Bond. James TIBERIUS Bond.”
Scotton 20 Nov 2008 at 7:33 pm 14Yes, in the old show there was some emphasis put on the “T” as in “James T. Kirk” but I always figured that somewhere there was another captain James Kirk and they were always getting each others subspace mail.
Oh, and here’s a bit of trivia, in the episode “Where no man has gone before” there’s a scene toward the end of the ep where Kirk’s grave is being prepared for him by his best friend turned megalomaniacal demi-god. A headstone is set up and the middle initial is “R”.
Lexingtonon 20 Nov 2008 at 7:36 pm 15Man. Seeing clips from the original “Star Trek” always makes me wonder how anyone saw enough promise in that show to make the infinitely-superior “Next Generation.”
Really, though, Trek does enough of it’s own continuity-breaking to make the car issue a fairly moot point. Look at Klingons in the original series vs. those in the later series and films, and tell me that there’s any reason J.J. Abrams shouldn’t feel free to run roughshod over the canon without actually “going where no man has gone before.”
(yes, yes, I had to do it. :P)
Stickwick Staperson 20 Nov 2008 at 8:05 pm 16…the infinitely-superior “Next Generation.”
Lex, you have no soul.
Lexingtonon 20 Nov 2008 at 8:12 pm 17Sure I do. I have a soul that tells me that “Next Generation” is ten times the show the original “Star Trek” was.
John Drakeon 20 Nov 2008 at 8:14 pm 18Next Generation was a PC-laden show that seemed okay when it was first aired, but has aged horrifically. TOS is better than TNG in every way imaginable.
Enderon 20 Nov 2008 at 8:19 pm 19For Trek: TOS Rodenberry had no budget but lots of ingredients with which to cook (the stellar cast, a fresh idea, his fertile imagination).
For Trek: TNG he had an unlimited budget, a gigantic kitchen… but nothing to cook with.
While the Borg arc was absolutely fantastic and perhaps the best stretch of Trek ever created, TOS far outstrips TNG.
dirty harryon 20 Nov 2008 at 8:21 pm 20We’re reading the driving scene completely different. I see a kid pulling a stunt not losing control. In my eyes that kid knows exactly how to drive that car. Right down the middle of the road. He’s a thrillseeker pushing himself to an extreme. The car doesn’t look for a second like it’s out of control.
ArchiCrashon 20 Nov 2008 at 8:22 pm 21>>Really, though, Trek does enough of it’s own continuity-breaking to make the car issue a fairly moot point. Look at Klingons in the original series vs. those in the later series and films, and tell me that there’s any reason J.J. Abrams shouldn’t feel free to run roughshod over the canon without actually “going where no man has gone before.”
You do realize that Enterprise actually did do a two-part episode that explained the look of the TOS Klingons. This after poking fun at the old-style Klingons in the “Tials and Tribble-lations” episode of DS9.
…That has no real bearing on anything, I just felt the need to point that out.
Templaron 20 Nov 2008 at 8:27 pm 22I have a soul that tells me that “Next Generation” is ten times the show the original “Star Trek” was.
A non-soul, in other words.
Lexingtonon 20 Nov 2008 at 8:34 pm 23“You do realize that Enterprise actually did do a two-part episode that explained the look of the TOS Klingons.”
I didn’t, actually! Never gave “Enterprise” much of a chance (though, y’know, much love to Scott Bakula).
However, that was, what? A score of films and hundreds upon hundreds of episodes later? I say we at least give Abrams that long to retcon in his own continuity errors, which aren’t nearly as large.
misterdon 20 Nov 2008 at 8:42 pm 24Scott,
The writers are first and foremost concerned with telling an entertaining story to the masses, not satisfying the needless nitpicking of obsessed fans.
Writers first and foremost concentrate on the story at hand. If confronted with a scene 90% or more of the audience will not recall spontaneously (and of the several sites I frequent, this was the ONLY one to mention the “flaw”, so I am guessing most people didn’t catch it), and having to chose between continuity and story, they will chose the story every time.
Lexingtonon 20 Nov 2008 at 8:44 pm 25“A non-soul, in other words. ;)”
Oh, piff. *Having* a soul was what lifted TNG so far over it’s predecessor.
misterdon 20 Nov 2008 at 8:44 pm 26Actually, Lex, I think it was a 3 part episode, and it seemed terribly pointless. DS9 handled the Klingon issue much, much better.
However, I must give props to Enterprise for the two part Mirror Universe story, which was a successful prequel to Mirror, Mirror AND a sequel to The Tholian Web.
John Drakeon 20 Nov 2008 at 9:20 pm 27TNG didn’t have a *human* soul, though. It pretended to have transcended humanity, which is what makes it so damned insufferable.
Lexingtonon 20 Nov 2008 at 9:26 pm 28“TNG didn’t have a *human* soul, though. It pretended to have transcended humanity…”
That seems like an odd thing to say, given, y’know, Data.
Scotton 20 Nov 2008 at 9:38 pm 29misterd,
Let me put this another way. Star Trek has baggage. Baggage that is not so easily gotten rid of as Abrams did with Battlestar Galactica. BSG was never deeply embedded in the popular culture the way Trek is. A lot of people who hate Trek can name the principal characters and, if pressed, give a few episode synopses. There will be inevitable comparisons, and being human, they will note the differences and, perhaps, come to dwell on them inordinately (gee, why the heck did they do that?). They will note the references to the old show, and have water cooler discussions of the sort that are brief and based upon impressions they’ve accrued over decades of watching the old show for five minutes at a stretch, making fun of Shatner, pointing out the hapless special effects, and occasionally becoming absorbed in the better episodes. This will be a universal baseline upon which the new movie will be judged.
Abrams has not made a clean break from the old Trek. He’s put Nimoy in it as Spock. In BSG he did bring back one old cast member, but in a completely different role. He turned the whole thing on its head. This Trek bears more than enough resemblance to the old that it invites comments on continuity because it is quite obviously playing on a connection to what has gone before.
I would have made the break complete. Sure, keep the character names, but have whole new characterizations, cast against expectations, change the design of the ship, the political context, the cultural backdrop. Then there’d be no whingeing over continuity. Because as it stands we’re left to wonder is this a reboot or a prequel or a confused combination of the two.
Lexingtonon 20 Nov 2008 at 9:49 pm 30Scott,
While it’s not really central to your argument, it should be pointed out that the re-imagined “Battlestar Galactica” is not an Abrams production, but rather the brainchild of producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick.
Scotton 20 Nov 2008 at 9:56 pm 31Thanks for the correction. Argument still stands. Maybe they should have brought Moore in on this. We could have had a female, alcoholic, cigar-smoking Spock!
Forlournedon 20 Nov 2008 at 10:06 pm 32That movie really is trying to pull in the game playing teens. What with all them there explosions, fighting flying disc jets in space with more explosions, GTA hooker beating style fights with Spock and nameless guy (Kirk?), and Uhura stripping (Hot Coffee scene?). I won’t forget to mention that there’s a easily identifiable villain with a pointed stick!! It has it all!!!
Don’t worry to all you old codgers from the dusty past, them writers didn’t forget you! See how all them ‘ol guys & gals are building a space flying vehicle in an old WWII dock with all them welding going on about! See, a job for a welder isn’t out of fashion Four hundred plus year in the future.
If you paused the trailer, you all get to see those classic arcade fighter joysticks on some of the consoles in the mac store in the movie! I wonder when that will happen? Did I forget about all them explosions?!
This will be a great Netflix rent and I’ll be the first to put it in my queue. The power of the remote in strong in me…
Floyd R. Turboon 20 Nov 2008 at 10:43 pm 33I’m sure there’s some time travel thing to salve the wounded continuity feelings of the vestal virgins known as trekkers. I like Star Trek too — vastly superior to Star Wars — and the movie looks good in its own right.
Driving a car??? Who cares? It’s a ‘vette and a cliff and a chance to make a car go boom. If he hasn’t driven a car, much less seen one in 20 years or so he might get rusty. It’s a reboot… anyone who reads any mythology knows there are a lot of different versions — and they usually all jibe. Trek is a myth — not scripture — it’ll be OK. Come on trekkers, put down the Spock doll with Vulcan neck pinch grip and take a deep breath.
The most effective way to tell if this film will blow? Is this an even numbered or odd numbered film in the sequence?
maatkareon 21 Nov 2008 at 12:25 am 34Great video. Arthur Conan Doyle had quite a few continuity errors across the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels (The location of Watson’s bullet wound the most famous). Of all the faults the movie may have, Kirk’s ability to drive is the least of them, and I still think it looks like it could be fun.
Brendanon 21 Nov 2008 at 12:32 am 35So, Kirk drives a classic car off a cliff. Do you really think he wouldn’t get that on his record? Possible theft, destruction of property, resisting arrest. Half a dozen new laws that have been invented since then. Any of which alone are enough to almost certainly keep him out of the Academy. Like today, they take the best of the best. Juvies need not apply…
Overall, it looks like it sucks. I’ll watch it when it comes out on video.
David Marcoeon 21 Nov 2008 at 12:48 am 36So, Kirk drives a classic car off a cliff. Do you really think he wouldn’t get that on his record? Possible theft, destruction of property, resisting arrest. Half a dozen new laws that have been invented since then. Any of which alone are enough to almost certainly keep him out of the Academy. Like today, they take the best of the best. Juvies need not apply…
In that scene, he’s about 13. And considering the lack of violence in the crime, that’s textbook example for leniency if he gets his act together. Moreover, records can be expunged or sealed. There are numerous examples of people with childhood problems who go on to have very successful careers. In fact, military service is traditionally a place where that happens (and if anyone gives me that “Starfleet isn’t a military service,” I’ll flog them with a wet noodle).
whiskeyon 21 Nov 2008 at 12:51 am 37Next Generation had the same problem as Star Wars: Pouty Teenage Angst Villain did.
Which was terminal PC-stupidity, creative stunting, lack of any human dimensions, and replacement of the vigor and imagination of the original with the derivative stupidity of the past.
While the South Park guys were possibly in bad taste, they nailed what Spielberg and Lucas did to Indy. Nuked the Fridge.
TOS worked because of a simple element: Spock represented the stoic, duty-bound philosophy of the Roman stoics that depends on expressing emotion. McCoy the more emotional, Christian philosophy of compassion first and emotional demonstration. Kirk as the man of action must decide between his two advisors and take his own shots.
THAT is the core of Star Trek. Devoid of the Sci-Fi elements, most of the original scripts center around decisions Kirk must make. Duty (Spock) or Compassion (McCoy).
Next Generation posited some problem, which was always solved by generous applications of Uber-PC. It’s why Next Generation failed because there was no dramatic tension, merely uber-PC ladeled onto the audience in full-preach mode. One not conversant btw with reality. DS9 had conflict, but often lurched into PC-preach mode, and had no strong characters representing philosophical opposites. Voyager was a total PC-preach mess, and Enterprise even worse.
This version seems like all the sucky stuff Abrams comes up with — two young guys butting heads, over who gets to lead, something totally absent in TOS. Which as noted had the dramatic device of the lead being forced to act and choose between his advisors.
Danielon 21 Nov 2008 at 3:47 am 38As everyone reads DH’s posts slamming Star Trek because of its trailer, just keep reminding yourself how much praise was heaped on QoS because of its trailers.
I will not let you forget that, DH.
Maybe when “Piece of the Action” Kirk’s brains were scrambled from a bad transporter beam. Hey, it could happen; see video linked above.
Danielon 21 Nov 2008 at 3:48 am 39I will admit that the clip, above, is pretty funny.
NCCon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:37 am 40“Arthur Conan Doyle had quite a few continuity errors across the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels (The location of Watson’s bullet wound the most famous).”
Yes. Watson was also a bit fuzzy as to the number of times he’d been married. Though this is probably an uncommon phenomenon in Hollywood.
Rodon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:58 am 41Seeing the trailer again, he was only driving 80 on a ‘vette-he could have done the same stunt in a VW and saved his parents a lot of money.
Chris Pine…
Not ready to lead.
Mrs. Happy Housewifeon 21 Nov 2008 at 5:33 am 42If I was directing or writing a film in a franchise which had had millions of viewers over several decades, I would live, eat, and breathe that franchise pior to getting down to work. Isn’t that just common sense? If the brand has enough followers for the company to greenlight a film, why stray so far from the brand? And, yeah, I’ll see this movie, but I wish the movie makers had more respect for those of us who love Star Trek.
Growltigeron 21 Nov 2008 at 5:35 am 43Once again, the problem is CASTING. You can get by with a halfway good script, great special effects, even a non-existent plot, however, you CANNOT get away with someone who looks like one of the aliens in their human form from “Galaxy Quest” (Quinto) playing Spock and a girlie-man playing Kirk.
It just won’t work.
“Star Trek” worked because women were attracted to Spock even though he was a half-alien and Kirk was a horny dog who kept thinking the bridge of the Enterprise was the Oval Office. Men because when it got down to action, Spock and Kirk could hold their own even against gigantic lizards, Hortas, Romulans and even Klingons (who, according to one wag “fart in the airlocks”).
Tell me ANYBODY is going to believe Quinto can neck pinch a villain and have the pinchee fall down unless s/he falls down laughing.
Shatner has become a parody of himself in his older years and one rarely sees Nimoy anymore, but both were excellent actors when cast in “Star Trek” and just as importantly, were expertly cast. By the way, so was the rest of the cast. Even guest actors - think Jeffrey Hunter as Pike.
Actors today are BORING. Not only can most of them NOT act, they’re all clones of each other.
And yes, I’m a “Star Trek” nerd though I’ve never taken the step into being an actual “Trekkie”.
Jimbo2on 21 Nov 2008 at 5:52 am 44It’s really very simple, In “A Piece of the Action”, Kirk could not drive a manual transmission. He only knew how to drive an automatic. A lot like today’s “kids”.
Enderon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:08 am 45Maybe it was all a hologram.
NeoConJedion 21 Nov 2008 at 6:35 am 46Paramount should’ve brought Manny Cota on for continuity purposes — at least it would’ve cooled off the fanboys.
Cota was responsible for the awesome Xindi War, which encompassed the end of season 2, and all of season 3 of Enterprise. An obvious conservative (the guy wrote 24 when it was good), he made the Xindi conflict an allegory to the War on Terror — right down to a 9/11-like attack.
There was nothing PC about Enterprise — its last two seasons were the best Trek since TOS.
Anyway …. Cota was responsible for a lot of the continuity stuff in Enterprise, including the Klingon backstory about the forehead ridges.
PerfectTommyon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:44 am 47“If I was directing or writing a film in a franchise which had had millions of viewers over several decades, I would live, eat, and breathe that franchise pior to getting down to work. Isn’t that just common sense? If the brand has enough followers for the company to greenlight a film, why stray so far from the brand?”
Was that directed at George Lucas, Happy?
And Growltiger, Jeffrey Hunter wasn’t just meant to be a guest star. His Capt. Christopher Pike was intended to be the star of the show in the original pilot (that was re-edited into a two part episode).
Dougon 21 Nov 2008 at 7:06 am 48Regarding continuity of Kirk’s driving, um, this is Sci Fi — where the dead can come back to life, where they travel through time routinely, where they can meet their ancestors or even friends centuries before, where god-like aliens or technology appear as a “dues ex machina” saving the crew/planet/galaxy from oblivion.
It’s easy to accommodate Kirk stating he can’t drive a car.
Surely it was some retrovirus, subspace anomaly, or even StarFleet conditioning that either erased or blocked the memory from his mind. I’m sure that will be in the postscript of the official movie book.
Isn’t the point of the scene to speak to Kirk’s character more than details of specific happenings in his childhood? Heck, there were stunts I pulled in my teenage years that I’ve forgotten, and some I remember, and many I regret as being really, really dumb and very dangerous, coupled with constant and tireless reminders of rising to my “potential”. Isn’t that what adolescence is about?
Dougon 21 Nov 2008 at 7:17 am 49One more thing… if you went twenty to thirty years without driving a car - and not even seeing one, except maybe in a museum-, it’s likely you’d forget how to drive one also.
The real objection to this movie is, like the Star Wars prequels, it’s messing with people’s emotional fondness of the canon of the MIND developed decades ago, particularly the beloved TOS. It’s like people moaning about the “good old days.”
Like anything else, we make buying decisions based on emotion, and then find reasons to justify the decisions and so naysayers will find countless reasons to reject the new film, when the real reason is emotional.
Templaron 21 Nov 2008 at 7:27 am 50Oh, piff. *Having* a soul was what lifted TNG so far over it’s predecessor.
Right, because having a “soul” means adopting an explicitly Social Darwinist stance towards those cultures not fortunate enough to have yet developed space-faring capabilities.
Look, I love TNG as much as the next fellow, crazy Leftist Utopianism notwithstanding, and the fondest memories of my younger years will always include the hum of the Enterprise D and my father referring to me as “Number One” in a fair approximation of Patrick Stewart’s signature bark, but it cannot be denied that so far as “soul” is concerned, TOS is generally the superior of the two series.
nightflyon 21 Nov 2008 at 7:31 am 51It’s prequelitis, people. Casting new actors in familiar roles is a dangerous game. Heck, people argue over whether Mike or Joel was better in MST3K even though they were two *different* characters, how is Zach Quinto going to get any love *replacing* Leonard Nimoy, who was uniformly excellent? Poor guy had to write a book titled “I Am Not Spock.” Zach will have to write one titled “No, Really, I WAS Spock that One Time and Why Won’t You Believe Me?” (Right after, “I’m Not Gonna Cut Open Your Head, Moron, that Was Just TV.”)
And hey, you want fun, wander into a Dr. Who forum and casually mention which of the Ten you liked best, and which of them was terrible. They wrote acting changes into the fabric of the show and people still go to war about it!
Abrams should have done the Enterprise B crew or something, not the original characters. (Alan Ruck needs the work anyway.)
Templaron 21 Nov 2008 at 7:31 am 52And I agree with misterd. If the movie itself is entertaining (rather like Transformers) I could care less whether they incorporate every last bit of minutiae from the last 40 years of continuity.
Growltigeron 21 Nov 2008 at 7:44 am 53“And Growltiger, Jeffrey Hunter wasn’t just meant to be a guest star. His Capt. Christopher Pike was intended to be the star of the show in the original pilot (that was re-edited into a two part episode).”
Knew that. In the interest of brevity, I went with how it ended up, not how it was intended. Whatever Hunter’s original part was supposed to be, the end result was that he appeared as a guest star — a very good one, at that.
Told you I was a “Star Trek” nerd. Not a lot about TOS I don’t know. I’ve probably seen most episodes five times each and owned a lot of them on VHS.
Danon 21 Nov 2008 at 8:05 am 54The very first episode I ever saw of Star Trek was A Piece of the Action. Kirk not being familiar, at all, with 20th Century cars is pretty basic.
It isn’t minutiae. It is a little like showing Indiana Jones playing with a pet snake.
Wouldn’t happen.
Also, since when are there cliffs in Iowa (Kirk’s home state)?
Templaron 21 Nov 2008 at 8:10 am 55The very first episode I ever saw of Star Trek was A Piece of the Action. Kirk not being familiar, at all, with 20th Century cars is pretty basic.
It isn’t minutiae. It is a little like showing Indiana Jones playing with a pet snake.
It is minutiae. A one-time, throw-away gag that has little bearing on the character in general.
Besides, you underestimate the power (if I might paraphrase a superior franchise) of the retcon.
Bubbaon 21 Nov 2008 at 8:15 am 56If the movie itself is entertaining (rather like Transformers) I could care less whether they incorporate every last bit of minutiae from the last 40 years of continuity.
First, it’s not just minor details: Star Trek (TOS) worked so well primarily because of the interactions between the “Big Three.” I disagree with whiskey that Deep Space Nine had no strong characters and “often lurched into PC-preach mode,” but it’s characters weren’t archetypal, where you see so starkly the struggle of duty vs compassion as embodied by Spock and McCoy.
(Arguably, Master and Commander had a similar dichotomy between the captain and the doctor. It is what helps that film soar even beyond its fantastic production values, and what helped Roddenberry’s show transcend its very limited budget.)
By making a young Kirk “angst-y” in a misguided attempt to “sex up” the movie, Abrams risks undermining the character relationships that made the show so special, and he does so far beyond the necessity of recasting the characters.
Look: Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins have quite a few characters in common, most notably Bruce Wayne, Alfred, and Jim Gordon. The former honored the comics’ relationship between Bruce and Alfred without making it really resonate, and it ignored the dynamic between Bruce and Gordon altogether. The latter is a far superior film in large part because it got these relationships right.
The importance of the relationships between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy cannot be understated.
–
More broadly, I resent the attitude that sees a Star Trek film as a success if it’s merely entertaining like Michael Bay’s Transformers.
It’s bad enough for any TV show to be turned into a maelstrom of explosions and special effects that betray or ignore what made the show special, but Star Trek isn’t another Lost in Space or Transformers.
At its best, the show is as cerebral and as artistic as Mission: Impossible, which is why I suspect the movie will be as atrocious as the M:I movies with Tom Cruise.
I hope I’m wrong, but it looks like a redux of the Lost in Space movie — from the needlessly dark and chaotic effects down to casting an actor from a popular NBC series — and Star Trek is too good for that kind of treatment.
Templaron 21 Nov 2008 at 8:35 am 57First, it’s not just minor details: Star Trek (TOS) worked so well primarily because of the interactions between the “Big Three.”
What makes you think I consider those interactions to be minor details?
Zsuzsaon 21 Nov 2008 at 9:45 am 58Doug,
Everything you said about the fact that the reasons for rejecting this movie will be emotional is true, but isn’t it also true that the only reasons the movie would be accepted are also emotional? While I may not be ready to throw this movie to the wolves based on the trailer, I also don’t see anything in it that suggests that it could succeed on it’s own without the built-in fanbase. Live by the sentimental fans yearing for the good old days, die by the sentimental fans yearing for the good old days.
Besides the decision to go to the movies is itself an emotional one. If Spoke were here, he would no doubt say that it would be more logical to toss my $10 into the Salvation Army kettles and catch this movie when it made it to free television.
Oh, and I also don’t buy the argument that says that “It’s sci-fi” and because there are aliens and the like, continuity can go out the window. That’s the world’s laziest argument, and those sorts of details are what tend to make the difference between good sci-fi/fantasy and the really bad.
kevin J waldroupon 21 Nov 2008 at 10:09 am 59make movie a Vorpal Blade II
The Galaxy at Risk!
Humans have come a long ways since the looking glass gates first appeared and an alien menace turned a motley crew of scientists, sailors and force recon Marines into battle-hardened space adventurers. Now with other species running scared, it’s up to humans to take the lead and mold a weapon capable of checking the Dreen—a galactic cancer that has so far proved unstoppable. Their arsenal? A hodge-podge of powerful technologies begged, borrowed and/or looted from across the galaxy and cobbled together on what has to be the strangest ship ever to ply the starways: the good ship Vorpal Blade II!
http://www.webscription.net/p-830-claws-that-catch.aspx
Kiton 21 Nov 2008 at 10:21 am 60nightfly,
“Abrams should have done the Enterprise B crew or something, not the original characters. (Alan Ruck needs the work anyway.)”
AMEN!
Douglason 21 Nov 2008 at 12:34 pm 61“Next Generation was a PC-laden show that seemed okay when it was first aired, but has aged horrifically.”
It was very PC-laden at times, but still overcame that with some themes that were downright conservative. The PC stuff usually fell to Riker, with a kind of macho-liberal character to him. I just wanna slap him when I hear things like “we don’t enslave animals for food anymore”. But Worff redeemed them in many of those situations. Replicated meat? Bah, give him a live Kholar Beast.
Brendanon 21 Nov 2008 at 2:54 pm 62It is true that they treat juvinile crimes individually. But you must be joking if you think that juvie records are hidden when it comes to the military. Considering that Kirk rides up on a motorcycle looking all “reckless” means he probably continued to be “wild” which means he wouldn’t be eligible to meet today’s standards.
(the following is just for prep school at the AFA, but do you really think this would change? And yes, Star Fleet was lined up on military standards.)
http://regulations.justia.com/view/83609/
Sec. 903.2 Eligibility requirements.
(4) Of high moral character. Applicants must have no record of Uniform Code of Military Justice convictions or civil offenses beyond minor violations; no history of drug or alcohol abuse; and no prior behaviors, activities, or associations incompatible with USAF standards.
Sorry, the Kirk shown in the clip doesn’t seem to meet these criteria. You can imagine what you want for the future, but I’d guess that “Starfleet” is as competitive as the service academies are, which means that its unlikely that he would get in, even if his dad was a military hero (which is one of the ways you get into the current academies…)