Brian Rogers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
subplotkudzu) wrote2009-05-14 11:45 am
subplotkudzu) wrote2009-05-14 11:45 am
"Could this Ness guy be a teenager?"
That line is, of course, from Brian Michael Bendis' "Fortune and Glory", the story of his attempt to pitch his screenplay based on the true crime saga of Elliot Ness taking on the Cleveland Torso Killer. It also includes one source of of my still present disdain for the new Star Trek movie.
No, I haven't seen it yet. Yes, I know it's getting good reviews. But let me unpack my primary complaints:
1) there is no reason why this movie has to be about Kirk, Spock et al.
2) there is no reason why this movie has to play hob with the existing Star Trek history.
I just don't see it. I don't see that the original show characters are so iconic that they have to be revamped, modified and then recast. The Trek universe has been re-examined from different angles for decades now, and there was no mass exodus from TNG because it didn't feature the original characters. Ditto the other series. (There may have been a mass exodus because the scripts and plots weren't particularly good, but that's a whole other issue.) I just do not see a compelling reason why Paramount couldn't have spent the degree of money and advertisting pushing a new Star Trek movie with a different crew in a different time period.
After all, they're already messing with the existing characters beyond minor tweaks - from what I have heard there's a romantic rivalry with Kirk and Spock after the same woman for example (!?!) - so there's no overwhelming reason to apply the old names to them. By making all of them younger we trample into the realms of the absurd - Trek canon went to great lengths to explain how Kirk got to be a Star Ship captain as young as 30, with Roddenbery coming as he did from the actual military, but now he's captain right after his Cadet cruise. Because younger is better, apparently, disregarding how the 'aged' Captain Picard became a bit of a 90's sex symbol.
I have also heard that there are a half dozen or so references from the characters about how their future isn't writ, so there will be no attempt to hew to the continuity of the old show - in which case why bother even worrying about it?
As for not playing hob with history, why not set the movie say, 75 years after the events of Voyager where the Federation has been upended and is starting from relative scratch, with the fanboys itching to find out what happened to get to this point rather than looking for the things that are being ignored? Or have it be in the Christopher Pike era but make the characters the crew of the USS Constitution, so we aren't tied to a pre-existing set of character concepts.
I know that in Hollywood there is a strong, strong preferece for redoing what has been done (a Footloose remake? Footloose?!?) rather than breaking new ground. But Trek is one of the few franchise entities that has successfuly broken new ground, so falling back shows a fundemental lack of faith in their material. This has been evident for some time - with Enterprise eschewing all constraints of what has gone before and relying on Vulcans in belly shirts to draw viewers - but I don't understand it. And this movie - which might be a lot of fun and enjoyable - is just another part of it.
On a seperate rant, I also don't get the tossing aside of established things as being unecessary constraints. I have always found that putting limits on your setting will channel and boost creativity rather than hinder it. I look at Enterprise as a massive failure in this regard, and if I had been in charge of the show it would have played out much like this.
Season 1: Humans chafing under Vulcan oversight as they meet the dozen or so other, slightly larger races in the immediate vicinity. End with humans tossing off Vulcan control and being willing to go it without protection. Introduce new, relatively minor threat race.
Season 2: Tensions brewing between Vulcan and Andorian spheres of control, with the human viewpoint being ciritical to prevent these groups from going to war.
Season 3: Earth colonies formed on various planets, with threats from new minor threat race. Tensions rise, Enterprise and other Earth ships in flashpoint battles before Enterprise manages a Trump maenuver that slows the enemy war machine.
Season 4: Romulans appear as spooky dangerous, all but unseen foes. It shouldn't be hard to make them as scary as the Borg or the Shadows from B5, since we never even get to see one face to face. Ever. Minor threat race all but wiped out by Romulans, humanity arranges diplomatic ties, pledges aid.
Season 5: Earth-Romulan war. This lasts 5 years, but the show can readily compress this down to a single season, or plan for multiple seasons of this conflict as the show's guiding force.
No, I haven't seen it yet. Yes, I know it's getting good reviews. But let me unpack my primary complaints:
1) there is no reason why this movie has to be about Kirk, Spock et al.
2) there is no reason why this movie has to play hob with the existing Star Trek history.
I just don't see it. I don't see that the original show characters are so iconic that they have to be revamped, modified and then recast. The Trek universe has been re-examined from different angles for decades now, and there was no mass exodus from TNG because it didn't feature the original characters. Ditto the other series. (There may have been a mass exodus because the scripts and plots weren't particularly good, but that's a whole other issue.) I just do not see a compelling reason why Paramount couldn't have spent the degree of money and advertisting pushing a new Star Trek movie with a different crew in a different time period.
After all, they're already messing with the existing characters beyond minor tweaks - from what I have heard there's a romantic rivalry with Kirk and Spock after the same woman for example (!?!) - so there's no overwhelming reason to apply the old names to them. By making all of them younger we trample into the realms of the absurd - Trek canon went to great lengths to explain how Kirk got to be a Star Ship captain as young as 30, with Roddenbery coming as he did from the actual military, but now he's captain right after his Cadet cruise. Because younger is better, apparently, disregarding how the 'aged' Captain Picard became a bit of a 90's sex symbol.
I have also heard that there are a half dozen or so references from the characters about how their future isn't writ, so there will be no attempt to hew to the continuity of the old show - in which case why bother even worrying about it?
As for not playing hob with history, why not set the movie say, 75 years after the events of Voyager where the Federation has been upended and is starting from relative scratch, with the fanboys itching to find out what happened to get to this point rather than looking for the things that are being ignored? Or have it be in the Christopher Pike era but make the characters the crew of the USS Constitution, so we aren't tied to a pre-existing set of character concepts.
I know that in Hollywood there is a strong, strong preferece for redoing what has been done (a Footloose remake? Footloose?!?) rather than breaking new ground. But Trek is one of the few franchise entities that has successfuly broken new ground, so falling back shows a fundemental lack of faith in their material. This has been evident for some time - with Enterprise eschewing all constraints of what has gone before and relying on Vulcans in belly shirts to draw viewers - but I don't understand it. And this movie - which might be a lot of fun and enjoyable - is just another part of it.
On a seperate rant, I also don't get the tossing aside of established things as being unecessary constraints. I have always found that putting limits on your setting will channel and boost creativity rather than hinder it. I look at Enterprise as a massive failure in this regard, and if I had been in charge of the show it would have played out much like this.
Season 1: Humans chafing under Vulcan oversight as they meet the dozen or so other, slightly larger races in the immediate vicinity. End with humans tossing off Vulcan control and being willing to go it without protection. Introduce new, relatively minor threat race.
Season 2: Tensions brewing between Vulcan and Andorian spheres of control, with the human viewpoint being ciritical to prevent these groups from going to war.
Season 3: Earth colonies formed on various planets, with threats from new minor threat race. Tensions rise, Enterprise and other Earth ships in flashpoint battles before Enterprise manages a Trump maenuver that slows the enemy war machine.
Season 4: Romulans appear as spooky dangerous, all but unseen foes. It shouldn't be hard to make them as scary as the Borg or the Shadows from B5, since we never even get to see one face to face. Ever. Minor threat race all but wiped out by Romulans, humanity arranges diplomatic ties, pledges aid.
Season 5: Earth-Romulan war. This lasts 5 years, but the show can readily compress this down to a single season, or plan for multiple seasons of this conflict as the show's guiding force.
no subject
It is fun and enjoyable. It's even, IMO, Star Trek.
It bears about the same resemblance to TOS as the Gold Key comics did. (Not a judgment of quality, just of contrast.)
There are things that ring true, even things I wouldn't have thought of. There are things that seem to have been changed just for the hell of it, because no one but us would notice, "because we can" - I admit those bug me.
I've heard people comparing it to the BSG reboot, but I reject that comparison - let's face it, BSG 78 was goofy. (It was also at least 50% ripoffs of then-current movies and older Westerns by volume.) TOS could be, sometimes intentionally (Trouble with Tribbles, I Mudd), sometimes unintentionally/in hindsight, but there's not that same level of contrast in tone. It doesn't need to be remade to be serious and of higher writing quality... nor does the new movie do so, again IMO.
The bit about time travel changing everything is no more than a convenient excuse, one that doesn't hold up to any scrutiny - if that were the point of divergence, the Kelvin's bridge should have looked like Pike's Enterprise. Nero can't change anything until he actually arrives. It's really just a continuation of what ENT did, and you're welcome to lay the blame at the feet of the Temporal Cold War if you like.
I will note, however, that this sort of retcon is hardly new - consider the first movie, where Gene finally got a makeup and costume budget and changed the whole look of the Klingons while declaring they'd always looked like that. Fans and the shows danced around that one for years before ENT finally gave us an official explanation in its only decent season. Some felt we shouldn't even try, just go with it.
It sucks to be on the losing side of history and generational change. But here we are. And we do still have our DVDs. Even if we never see anything else from that other universe (as seems very likely), we still have what we've always had.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2009-05-15 12:48 pm (UTC)(link)But, hey, this is a new age of youth, right? Hope triumphing over experience, and all that. It's just the zeitgeist haunting you.
JLC