Topic: New Ship in Trek Into Darkness

[knightstorm]

Lol but Supernovaes do happen overnight. Fast. Whoosh. Civilization gone.

Let me rephrase that.  They don't happen without warning.  The star's behavior would have been noticeably unstable for centuries before it blew.

[knightstorm]

Sorry, I missed the sarcasm.

[TAnimaL]

Being that all of the movies came out while I was functionally an adult (driving age for STTMP), I've looked forward to them with varying parts excitement and fear. In the early days, info was limited and sketchy, so one could only guess at what was coming. In the internet age (ST6 and onward) it became easier to search out, peruse and parse various tidbits about what was in the next movie. I've played a game with myself for years now, trying to glean what I could from trailers and photos and put it the order I might want to see. Not long ago I re-read what I thought was going to be in ST6, and while I was clearly overly optimistic, I wasn't horribly wrong, either (If only they had asked for my advice...) Even with the uber-secrecy that JJ threw up for '09, I knew this was not going to be anything like my Star Trek, and not in a good way...

Just saw another little teaser clip for ST12. Where, once again, the character named James T Kirk says things I can't imagine William Shatner ever saying over his 29 year  career playing Kirk. And, it seems fairly certain that Cumberbatch is Khan, or another member of the Botany Bay. I now have extremely lowered expectations for this movie.

[Age]

It sort of looks like this.

https://ssl-sto.s3.amazonaws.com/store/081612/regent_2.jpg

[TAnimaL]

Yeah, "Remmick" was a douche, but he wasn't a Captain, he was a Lt. Commander. And controlled by a little slug thing in his neck..


Check out this clip
http://www.thetrekcollective.com/2013/04/harrison-drops-subtle-massive-hint.html

I'm taking bets - Cumberbatch is Khan or one of his supermen from Botany Bay

[Norsehound]

I just miss Trek that was about high brow ethical concepts and challenging established beliefs. Exploring morality, ethics, and the human condition in the changing face of knowledge and technology.

I'm not a big fan of Michael Bay's Star Trek. (That's what it feels like.)

Uh, when was any of that happening? You mean that time in the 80s where they were all wearing pajamas and deciding to huddle on the holideck every other week and cry about their feelings? Or how about being paralyzed by the latest moral dilemma and/or political allegory? Or the love triangle between the alien Samurai, the alien therapist, and the expy captain Kirk?

Trek to me is about hopping over the rocks on alien planets, zapping said aliens, and boldly going into adventure. To me it was never about the highbrow naval gazing super space superiority future-ness that happened in TNG. I plugged into Trek for the adventure and was waiting so long for them to escape the stale next generation era (and it's near-clone) that JJ Trek is a great breath of fresh air after the saga got moldy. I welcome JJ trek because it makes Star Trek fun to watch again. I also look forward to the way they re-invent many popular concepts and ideas that have been stagnant and neglected from Trek's origins by subsequent series. The new Gorn are fantastic!

TNG has commanded the franchise for the past twenty years, it'll never go away (unfortunately). I think it's about time we returned to bringing TOS and all that it was front and center and ditch the high-minded humanist part of Trek that's dominated the picture since the mid 80s. Time for something new.

Now, the Venegnce.

I like the ship. While it reminds me of the April Fools' Enterprise (and how loudly people were bitching about that design), I like the dark matte plating, coloration, and the blue highlights. I like bigger starships and she conforms to perfect circles and straight lines common in TMP designs. Her engines are slatted like the TMP versions and also resemble jet intakes in a way that I was doing with some of my Trek redesigns. Some have also pointed out that the deflector here looks like the Wave Motion Gun from Space Battleship Yamato... which I think is a good thing, seeing that Yamato and Trek are both spaced-out adventures with intrepid crews.

Not only do I want to see her in action but I kind of want to get my mitts on a physical model of some kind. Can't wait to figure out what she's all about and where her place is in this Trek universe.

[TAnimaL]

Well Norsehound, to each his own opinion, but TOS did a fair share of political allegory, moral dilemmas, emotional exposition and navel gazing, too. To ignore that part of TOS history is to miss the point of "Arena," "Devil In The Dark," "Balance of Terror," "Naked Time," "Amok Time," "A Private Little War," "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield," etc. etc. A list that is quite long, and all done in soft, brightly colored velour. At the end of a rousing, dramatic, fisticuffs episode like "Arena," Kirk pauses with his knife at his enemy's throat and shows some introspection that stays his hand.

In addition to making a show that would draw in viewers and keep themselves employed, the makers of TOS repeatedly said they wanted to do more than just another TV show. In my own opinion, I like to think of TOS as "Twilight Zone with a recurring cast," with shades of "Forbidden Planet" thrown in. I think JJ-Trek is nothing like this and is just another popcorn selling "action" movie with no soul, and one that "cheats" by leaning heavily on characters well-fixed in the public consciousness and not really doing anything on it's own with them. I can't argue that JJ-Trek 09 wasn't well made and very popular, but it wasn't Star Trek to me.

In hindsight, I wish they had gone with the April Fool's Enterprise instead 

[knightstorm]

Trek to me is about hopping over the rocks on alien planets, zapping said aliens, and boldly going into adventure. To me it was never about the highbrow naval gazing super space superiority future-ness that happened in TNG. I plugged into Trek for the adventure and was waiting so long for them to escape the stale next generation era (and it's near-clone) that JJ Trek is a great breath of fresh air after the saga got moldy. I welcome JJ trek because it makes Star Trek fun to watch again. I also look forward to the way they re-invent many popular concepts and ideas that have been stagnant and neglected from Trek's origins by subsequent series. The new Gorn are fantastic!

If that's your opinion of Star Trek, I think you need to watch the original series again.  As TAnimal pointed out, TOS had a lot of depth that was missing from Abram's work.  If anything TNG had less depth than TOS, but that was balanced out by not having the veneer of 1960s campiness that the network thrust upon TOS.  The only Trek episode that the last film measures up to is Turnabout Intruder which was not only the worst episode of TOS, but arguably the worst Trek episode of all time.

[Starfox1701]

I think the new bad guy is section 31 or was and I think we will end up with some variant of the "start the war to end the Klingons conspiracy again". I also think we are going to get left with some kind of cliffhanger ending.

[Norsehound]

Strangely I'm one of those people who doesn't detect the campiness and dated effects in TOS. I was busy having too much fun enjoying it?

"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" is in my opinion the second worst episode of the original series (after "The Alternative Factor") largely because it was being so obstructive with the political allegory. This wasn't a fun adventure story; this was us getting brained by the moral anvils of WHY RACISM IS BAD!

I also don't understand the political allegory in some of your examples. What was "Amok Time" supposed to teach us? I was too busy watching character development on Spock. And actually Knightstorm, one could point out "Turnabout Intruder" had a moral parable on sexism in organizations, since Lester's motivations were partially because she felt women were denied command position roles like ship captaincy.

I also ask where the allusions and messages were in Star Trek 2? Super weapons are Bad (duh)? Because Star Trek 2 was a rousing adventure to save Star Trek after poor results from The Motion Picture (and the slow gawking at space). There wasn't anything about the human condition or deep exploration in that film, and it was a roaring success! I think I can equate the JJ movies to Wrath of Khan's imapct on Trek... a return-to-roots space adventure makes Star Trek accessible to everyone and makes it fun to watch again.

I can understand some of the pain you guys are going through when I look at the Doctor Who fandom, and see how hip and trendy Who has become compared to it's roots, but I try to enjoy the new flavor as well and not be so harsh on the new fans who are trying to make Doctor Who their own. I know I'm not going to convince either of you guys to look at Abrams trek in a different way, I just ask that you're less profuse about it in threads dedicated to talking about the new film?

Because I wanted to gawk at the Vengeance here, not read two pages of complaining why this fun direction of Star Trek is an abhoration. What, Trek fans aren't allowed to have fun action movies? Please don't sound like those guys from

The Onion's parody report

.

[Starfox1701]

Actually I have to disagree with one thing you said. There is a big moral in ST 2, that actions have consequences. This is told mainly through the notion of playing out a "No Win" scenario but can also be seen in the fact that Kahn is there at all and that Kirk has never met his son. In the end the message is that it is how we deal with the consequences of our actions that will define us.

[TAnimaL]

Oh Adam, you have nothing to apologize for; you're certainly not the first, or last, to bask JJ Trek.

Lesee Norsehound, you can opine about disliking and discounting 85% of Trek (TNG etc) but can't bear to hear someone else's opinion? How terrible for you.

No one here is complaining about the effects in TOS, and I think Knightstorm is wrong about the "campiness." "Campy" is Lost In Space or Batman-1966; like the effects, TOS might seem dated because it's  a TV show but we're not bashing that either. (Watch "Gunsmoke" or "Mission Impossible" - it was the style of the times) The point isn't that every episode must be allegorical, but the point is that Trek has always been more than just "adventure." You complained about "navel gazing," which is why I mention "Amok Time," full of actor-ly worry over Spock's health and life choices, and themes of friendship vs duty. "Naked Time" exposed inner feelings of the characters, the chinks in Kirk's persona and Spock's love for his mother; more of the namby-pamby, un-macho moments that you disdain in TNG. I wouldn't call "Let This be  Your Last Battlefield" a great episode either, but it's not "TV to teach you something," but "let's see an alien species that takes it to the extreme." Might I add, that most of these  allegorical/moralily episodes were still a blast to watch - we wouldn't stil be talking about this show today if it wasn't good.

I personally don't think ST2 is all it's cracked up to be either. It's another comic-book-plotted Star Wars clone; it has the TOS characterizations that were missing from STTMP but with silly ship's bells and a super-evil bad guy that isn't much like the dude in "Space Seed." For my money, the first real "Star Trek" movie was ST3. I think you can make a action-filled, blockbuster type movie but still stay true to the characters from the TV show, pleasing fans and non-fans along the way - it's called Star Trek First Contact and it's probably the best "true" Star Trek movie made to date.

Dr Who is probably not the best analogy either - it's maintained a truer sense of it's roots than JJ-Trek has, and also has a long history of "reinventing" itself. Tom Baker and Matt Smith surely play the part differently, but when they say, "I'm the Doctor," you believe them. Nothing against Chris Pine as an actor, but when his car-stealing punk Kirk goes from cadet to Captain in 20 minutes simply because the audience know he's James T Kirk, that's poor scripting. Believe me, Dr Who fans are not nearly as divided over "new-vs-old" as Trek fans currently are. It's something that just has to be excepted these days that JJ Trek is going to illicit these reactions without apology.

[Age]

This is not a Gene Roddenberry Production and they say it is for the fans.

[Norsehound]

*shrug* to be fair It's not like I absolutely hate TNG. I liked the character interactions and, yes, It was a blast to watch in it's own way. "The Inner Light" was one of the best episodes of television I watched and "Darmok" was another really great episode of note.

But it misses the magic in TOS I felt since I was a kid, and I think the Abrams movies brought that back and in spades. But from the complaints you're hearing you'd think that Trek's only function is to be a Scifi Commentary of some sort, and damn to anything that doesn't have the deeper meaning. I guess there's a reason why Star Wars feels more enjoyable in my book than Star Trek as the years went on because it didn't take itself anywhere as seriously.

I'm also really tired of every Trek production being based in the TNG era from the same production crew. I'm tired of B&B's angle on Trek.

Anyway, since it looks like the cool new spaceship thread is just going to be JJ bashing I don't think I have much else to contribute here.

[Corbomite]

The only things I have against JJTrek are poor cinematography, bad science and hack fiction. Other than that, it's great!  Seriously, look at the movie from a film-maker's point of view and it falls apart very quickly. A friend of mine and I went to see the first one and when we left the theater we thought it was a good movie. We had walked to a theater close to my house and during the 20 minute walk home we started deconstructing the movie. By the time we got home, we decided that it really had sucked.

The main problem I had with the "New Trek" was that I thought the reboot idea was just lazy and insulting to what had come before. Many people worked for several decades to build an entire universe to play in and they just threw that out in favor of character branding. I was done with those characters and was content to leave them behind. It just seems lazy/hackish to me that they cannot create new charaters for us to get to know while still delivering the goods. If JJ decided to reboot Star Wars and redefine all those characters you don't think there would be a similar riot of disgruntled fans along with the people who think it's a great idea?

[FPF-Tobin Dax]

The only things I have against JJTrek are poor cinematography, bad science and hack fiction. Other than that, it's great!  Seriously, look at the movie from a film-maker's point of view and it falls apart very quickly. A friend of mine and I went to see the first one and when we left the theater we thought it was a good movie. We had walked to a theater close to my house and during the 20 minute walk home we started deconstructing the movie. By the time we got home, we decided that it really had sucked.

The main problem I had with the "New Trek" was that I thought the reboot idea was just lazy and insulting to what had come before. Many people worked for several decades to build an entire universe to play in and they just threw that out in favor of character branding. I was done with those characters and was content to leave them behind. It just seems lazy/hackish to me that they cannot create new charaters for us to get to know while still delivering the goods. If JJ decided to reboot Star Wars and redefine all those characters you don't think there would be a similar riot of disgruntled fans along with the people who think it's a great idea?

 

[TAnimaL]

To flip-flop a little, (and to continue going further off-thread   ), I don't really mind the "reboot" aspect, although I hate the word and it's implications. To me it was simply a  matter of time before someone recast TOS and started it over again, and to JJ's credit, at least he had the decency to immeditately and declaritively set it up in it's own timeline. Lazy in that regard would have been just to start over again AND ignore existing Trek, which he surely did not.

What is lazy and insulting is the movie he delivered, that banks on the audience knowing only a little about Trek. His movies are made for non-Trek fans. That's why fans are so divided. Some Trekkies see a expensive and (by Hollywood standards) well made action movie and like the "breath of fresh air." Others, like us thread highjackers, see plot holes and badly redone characters hidding in the glitz. It is not, not, because we "demand social commentary in our Trek," but because we feel lied to and betrayed.

But ok, saw some new angles on the Vengance. Still a cool ship, cooler than JJ-1701. I've almost gotten used to the exterior of the nuEnterprise but still cringe when I see the "engine room."

[Starfox1701]

I can deal with the brewery engine room, I like beer , its that Mac store of a bridge with a fracking window in the front that kills me.

[TAnimaL]

And while this new ship looks cool (and has a darker less Mac-y bridge), it's pretty clear that this ship does not survive the movie...

[TAnimaL]

I know "it" is so close to opening that we'll get plenty of views of this new ship, but I just saw these images of the Hot Wheels toy of the USS Vengeance. I still like it but less so when I saw the "hole" in the primary hull. It really looks more and more like they recycled the idea seen in the "April Fools Enterprise" from years ago...