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ORIGINAL: Darkfeather

What we are trying to say is, Abrams is not trying to shoe-horn his version of Star Trek into the 21st century. He took his own take on them, hence the alternate universe schtick. Sure its tried and cliche, but what can you do. He made them younger, hipper, and what the hell, he even made spock sleep with Uhura fer chrissakes. But be honest, do you really think any, and I mean ANY of the old Shatner episodes would hold up in a movie today? Even the movies were on the thin side. I mean we had Uhura dancing with feathers buck naked at one time, a giant holographic god head, klingons quoting shakespere? Abrams did not do any worse to the Star Trek genre, believe me

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ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake

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Darkfeather
But be honest, do you really think any, and I mean ANY of the old Shatner episodes would hold up in a movie today?

To be honest, a movie is a bit longer than a TV show.

But even so, what could be done with a Klingon star cruiser packed to the gunnels with disgruntled souls and a few metric tons of Tribbles? Done well, in the style of the original era (CAMP) I think it could be very funny.

It starts just as they go into warp out of K-7, and an alarming report reaches the bridge. It ends 110 minutes later, shortly after the four surviving Klingons beam down to a barely habitable rock and look skyward to catch a glimpse of the fireworks where their ship used to be.

Then there is the dead race that built the planet with the cute doll whose touch made all your cells explode. What sort of adventures did those guys have, before they accidentally killed every single fucking one of themselves?

Then there is the dead race that built the androids Dr Cory found. Androids that wiped 'em out, for the best of all possible reasons. Not a movie in that?

Then there is the androids that found Harry Mudd. How did THEY come to be at loose ends? Might be a story, there, too. About a dead race.

Then there is the Gorn. A race of spacefaring reptiles. With doubtless a different take on things. And bad table manners (DO NOT be taken prisoner). Is there a movie in that?

Then there is the three folks found in glass beach balls, half a million years old. If you want, you could make a movie about those guys, without reusing any of the names Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura, Scott, Sulu, Checkov or Enterprise. And I think THAT is what the problem is. It is said, Abrams was creative. He reinvented. If so, what is with all the crutches?

What? Is there a rule that says the starship has to be one of ours? That it HAS to be named Enterprise? Is there a rule that says there even has to be a starship? The movie could occur at the academy. Or at Starfleet Command. Or it could focus on the adventures of a battalion of 24th century Marines in a war over a forgotten planet. Or a team of operatives for Starfleet Intelligence (one of whom is a counterspy).

If you are going to make a science fiction movie, you have to break new ground or be accused of plagiarism. Going over the same patch of dirt over and over, year after year, is for farmers. And to be honest there is an enormous amount of new ground to cover in any imaginary universe you care to shake a stick at. It does take a little talent, though, to tell a new story. TOS was new, even though it was 'Wagon Train' in space. Many of the movies were not new. Some didn't even have a plot. But some did extend DIRECTLY out of the original series. TNG was new. To hover where no one ever hovered before, except for the Cardassians, was new. To get the hell back from who the fuck knows where was new too. So was Enterprise. But JJ was CREATIVE, and it isn't new. It's rolled over and recycled. The plot seems awfully familiar. He didn't even come up with his own names.

Clear cut example. If Luke Skywalker was named Buck Rogers, would that be OK? Or would that have been the last we heard of him?

Y'know. Just saying.

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ORIGINAL: Level

Well, when business men overrule the creators, that's what we get.

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ORIGINAL: MistressZaraUK

I'm frankly amazed how precious some people get over Star Trek. I was around to watch the original series the first time around on UK television and have enjoyed the follow on set of series to a greater or lesser extent over the years. Over time the concept has got bogged down more and more as each successive series has had to keep to the internal structure and time line laid out in the original series. This to me has always been a negative aspect of the franchise as it has restricted writers further and further as the years have gone by simply to please the 'fanboy' element of Star Trek fans who will shout blue murder against anything that is not considered cannon within the Star Trek universe. Ultimately this has not worked in Star Trek's favour, producing more and more bland series and films that catered increasingly to the fanboy element, and less and less to people who want to be entertained by well written drama

So was the JJ Adams reboot perfect, far from it, but has produced two very entertaining films that have pretty much rescued the Star Trek franchise from the tar pit it has been stuck in for a number of years now.

Zara

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It is a long since proven theorem in the theatre that an audience will adjust its suspension of belief to the degree that the opening of the presentation leads them. When a curtain rises on two French maids in a farce set discussing the peccadilloes of their master, the audience is now set for an evening of theatre in a certain style, and are prepared to accept having excluded certain levels of reality. And that is the price difference in the styles of theatre, both for the actor and the writer--the degree of reality inherent. Pure drama and comedy are closest to core realism, slapstick and fantasy the farthest removed. It is also part of that theorem that one cannot change styles midstream. How often do we read damning critical reviews of, let's say, a drama in which a character has "hammed" or in stricter terms become melodramatic. How often have we criticized the "mumble and scratch" approach to Shakespearean melodrama, because ultra-realism is out of place when another style is required. And yet, any of these attacks could draw plaudits when played in the appropriate genre.

Television falls under exactly the same principle. What the networks in their oversimplification call "sitcoms" actually are quite diverse styles except where bastardized by careless writing or performing. For instance:

M*A*S*H....comedy
The Paul Lynde Show....Farce
Beverly Hillbillies.....Slapstick
Batman......Satire
I dream of Jeannie....Fantasy

And the same rules hold just as true. Imagine a scene in M*A*S*H in which Arthur Hill appears playing his "Owen Marshall" role, or Archie Bunker suddenly landing on "Gilligan's Island" , or Dom Deluise and his mother in " Mannix." Of course, any of these actors could play in any of the series in different roles predicated on the appropriate style of acting. But the maxim implicit in all this is: when the first-act curtain rises on a comedy, the second act curtain has to rise on the same thing, with the actors playing in commensurate styles.

If it isn't already clear, not only does the audience accept a certain level of belief, but so must the actor in order to function at all. His consciousness opens like an iris to allow the proper amount of reality into his acting subtext. And all of the actors in the same piece must deal with the same level, or the audience will not know to whom to adjust and will often empathize with the character with the most credibility--total reality eliciting the most complete empathic response. Example: We are in the operating room in M*A*S*H, with the usual pan shot across a myriad of operating tables filled with surgical teams at work. The leads are sweating away at their work, and at the same time engaged in banter with the head nurse. Suddenly, the doors fly open and Batman appears! Now the scene cannot go on. The M*A*S*H characters, dealing with their own level of quasi-comic reality, having subtext pertinent to the scene, cannot accept as real in their own terms this other character. Oh yes, they could make fast adjustments. He is a deranged member of some battle-fatigued platoon and somehow came upon a Batman suit. But the Batman character cannot then play his intended character true to his own series. Even if it were possible to mix both styles, it would have to be dealt with by the characters, not just abruptly accepted. Meanwhile, the audience will stick with that level of reality to which they have been introduced, and unless the added character quickly adjusts, will reject him.

The most generic problem to date in “The Brady Bunch” has been this almost constant scripted inner transposition of styles.

1. A pie-throwing sequence tacked unceremoniously onto the end of a weak script.
2. The youngest daughter in a matter of a few unexplained hours managing to look and dance like Shirley Temple.
3. The middle boy happening to run into a look-alike in the halls of his school, with so exact a resemblance he fools his parents.

And the list goes on.

Once again, we are infused with the slapstick. The oldest boy’s hair turns bright orange in a twinkling of the writer’s eye, having been doused with a non-FDA-approved hair tonic. (Why any boy of Bobby’s age, or any age, would be investing in something as outmoded and unidentifiable as “hair tonic” remains to be explained. As any kid on the show could tell the writer, the old hair-tonic routine is right out of “Our Gang.” Let’s face it, we’re long since past the “little dab’ll do ya” era.)

Without belaboring the inequities of the script, which are varied and numerous, the major point to all this is: Once an actor has geared himself to play a given style with its prescribed level of belief, he cannot react to or accept within the same confines of the piece, a different style.

When the kid’s hair turns red, it is Batman in the operating room.

I can’t play it.

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

The problem is that JJ Abrams has rewritten two key characters' personality.

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ORIGINAL: erieangel

It's like nobody in Hollywood has any imagination anymore.

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however when Roddenberry and his crew had control of the franchise, it at least attempted to obey the laws of physics

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The point I was making was that the new version of Spock seems about as emotional as a 16 year old.

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ORIGINAL: Darkfeather

Need I remind you that in TNG they were able to dodge phaser fire... DODGE phaser fire??? That blows any reference to actual physics right out the god durn window (and why I love busting on TNG so much)

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ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake

The problem is not that I'm some sort of juvenile throwback Trek fan. The problem is the movie was bad.

Think about it. Why did Kirk join? How did he get on the ship? Why did he have to do that? How did he get thrown off the ship. What the fuck was Spock mark one doing on the planet Spock mark two marooned his first officer on? What the fuck was Scot doing, on the same planet? And why didn't Kirk reboot get beamed directly to the SAFE facility Scot #2 was semi- marooned on... ...for losing an admirals dog in a transporter (the idiotic genius!) instead of being set in front of several improbably large predators on a planet with no prey?. Excepting, of course, for the occasional wayward Star Fleet officer. And so on for the rest of the movie.

I am not saying the movie was bad because it 'didn't conform to canon' or because it 'could have been better'. I'm saying it was bad because it was bad. Bad in the sense of, even if the rest of the Trek cinema set had never existed, this movie, on the merits, is a gagger. It reminds of the time my stepmothers mother became offended because I had picked the fat out of my meat. And so of course I had to eat it. Or sit there the rest of the night. Of course, I puked all over the antique tablecloth.

I just could not swallow it. I seriously wonder about you guys who lapped it up. I wonder what you thought was good about it.

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ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster

It started with Matrix. In the second we learned that the extraterrestrials were keeping the humans alive to use ... their brains... as energy source. *Slapface*

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ORIGINAL: ResidentSadist

Jeff Jeff Jeff . . . I am all with you on dragging JJ out into the bushes and flogging him. But as he counts down the lashes, at least be able to look him in the eye and correctly tell him why he is being punished... so far, you haven't hit the nail on the head once.

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however when Roddenberry and his crew had control of the franchise, it at least attempted to obey the laws of physics

Really . . . perhaps we watched different shows/movies or physics is different in your universe. The shit I saw on Star Trek has never been more than fiction and almost nothing is based on real physics. Some of the script borrows real words from physics but not the laws of physics as we know them here on Earth. Nor did the show ever proclaim to be scientific. It has always be a "soap opera western set in space". It's not like this was written by Isac Asimov ya' know.

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The point I was making was that the new version of Spock seems about as emotional as a 16 year old.

Maybe you don't really watch Star Trek? Spock, his seven year itch, the fight with the prophet, his on running emotional flare ups with McCoy . . . seriously, you do watch Star Trek don't you? That is Spock's appeal. He makes people feel human by his emotional flaws. Dude, you opened a thread bitching about a movie you never saw, claiming the ship crashed but you only have what you glommed from previews. Now I wouldn't put it past to you to critique character changes for a show you haven't even seen.

What's up with that Jeff?

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ORIGINAL: Darkfeather

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ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster
It started with Matrix. In the second we learned that the extraterrestrials were keeping the humans alive to use ... their brains... as energy source. *Slapface*

I hate to nitpick, but in the Matrix, it was not extraterrestrials... It was a plain old human based AI that grew to self aware, and decided that humanity needed to be wiped. They fought back. And they didn't use the brains for power, they used bio-energy, the whole body. The brain was what got you inserted into the matrix