I didn't like the first two much, but I'll defend the third one, Star Trek Beyond. I really liked it, and thought it was on a level with the best of the pre-reboot films, with a great story worthy of the original series. It helped that the movie ignores the "alternate timeline" stuff which dragged down the first two (among many other problems). Beyond is the movie the first film in this trilogy should have been.
BS. There's stuff to like, stuff to not like, and stuff that I wish JJ and Orci/Kurtzman/Lindelof had never touched with a 10-foot pole purely because of all the whining I've had to hear over the last decade+ My point is bad Star Trek is still Star Trek. If I can watch Warp 10 turning human beings into salamanders (or whatever the hell These Are The Voyages was), you can handle a little white!Khan or magic blood The alternate reality setup was intended to throw long-time fans a bone and hopefully avoid a bunch of complaining about how much Pine and Quinto didn't look like Shatner and Nimoy. A lot of good that did anyone But it also served as a good excuse to bring Leonard Nimoy back, which is only a good thing.
And again, I call BS on that -- my point is that I would take ANY of your so-called "bad Trek" (as would a myriad of fans) over the Abrams reboot dog ****. No -- and it has nothing to do with Khan being "white," so don't even go down that road. The whole setup with Cumberbatch was RIDICULOUS, and most fans are in agreement.
No....the best dialogue in that episode was when Kirk was like "And you have the GAUL to make love to that girl.....does she know what she's getting, Spock? A boy who should be squatting in a mushroom instead of passing himself off as a man? You belong in the CIRCUS, Spock, not on a starship....right next to the dog-faced boy!"
That mystified me. Why not just tell a new story with a new cast, and just let the new actors be the same characters? Every new Batman or Spider-Man movie (well, with one exception) doesn't bother trying to justify why there are new actors playing the same characters. The alternate timeline business ate up much of the plot of the first film, too, from what I remember.
Because it was more of JJ Abrams' garbage -- he had zero clue regarding what Trek was all about to fans, from the interior design of the ships to the comraderie between the major characters. And the whole "let's throw the kobayashi maru test in to show how cocky Kirk was and appease original series/films fans" thing was beyond stupid.
I enjoyed those Abrams Trek movies for what they were, and my kids thought they were a blast. I guess I don't pass the real fan test.
my wife and I never tire of the Star Trek original series...soon we will be digging into the BD box set.
It was going to be an issue with Trek. I don't blame them for doing what they did. The movies were great for what they were. Very similar to the second pilot, Where No One Has Gone Before. Good relatable sci fi. I think they wanted something more visceral and not bogged done in a very well developed universe. Having to pay heed to all of that backstory was becoming a limitation.
funny, she bugs me to watch Star Trek. I am lucky in more than just movies and TV shows...she is an amazing woman...amazing singer, creative, kind, generous, beautiful inside and out...I love her so much...: ) we've been through much together.
They're not my favorite Trek movies either (that would be TMP and Final Frontier, if you must know) ...but that doesn't make them "not Star Trek" I mean it was literally whitewashing of a character that was racially miscast to begin with (Mexican actor playing a named-in-dialogue Sikh character, recast decades later as a "stiff-assed Brit", to steal a quote from another franchise). So that was part of the problem, like it or not. But the fact remains that Into Darkness was the worst of the three and I don't think anybody can argue that, even me. ' Case in point. Damned if they did, damned if they didn't.
Metamorphosis was a subtle, overlooked episode—not to look at visually, but was a moving retelling of a Polynesian folk tale about a man surviving on a desert island. Way to go, Zefram! (If anybody can name me the illustrated children’s book of this folk tale, I’d be grateful. And no, it’s not The Giving Tree, though that derives from it as well.)
Part of my issue with the reboot of Trek was the way early Kirk is written. TOS Kirk is more duty oriented. Arrogant yes, womanizer yes, but you never doubted his loyalty to the ship or his ability to be a leader. Part of it of course is Shatner’s general demeanor. Chris Pine’s Kirk comes as way off too juvenile. Confident is one thing cocky is another. In addition, as dumb as it sounds, it annoys me that he’s always getting the crap kicked out of him. It’s so un-Kirk. Anyway this is a TOS appreciation thread not an “I hate the reboot thread.” And yes Into Darkness was a terrible idea. I thought TNG did a great job in casting Patrick Stewart in the follow up. Again, a confident duty bound captain. Not as flashy as Kirk, but the kind you would totally take orders from no questions asked.
I've loved TOS since I was a kid watching re-runs on a grainy station out of Buffalo. Blockbuster used to have a couple episodes on VHS that we rented as well - I remember my grandparents being mystified when I said I'd rather rent an episode of an old TV show than a new feature film. I bought the blu-ray set specifically so I could rip all the episodes with the original effects intact. The CGI crap they threw together in the 2000s already looks dated, and it doesn't mesh well at all with the film footage from the 60s. If I'm going to watch dated special effects, they might as well be the period-correct ones. Yeah, some of them are pretty bad, but others hold up surprisingly well. As for the new films and series, I don't have any interest in them. If you ask me, Star Trek peaked with TNG and started going downhill from there; anything beyond Enterprise is unwatchable. JJ Abrams took the franchise and lobotomized it: it's Star Trek in shape and form with none of the intellectual spark that made the shows worth watching. Yes, the original series was campy and ridiculous at times, but the stories it told (the good ones, anyways) made you think, and sometimes even made you question the way you see the world. Star Trek hasn't even attempted to do that in the last two decades, it's just dumb entertainment now. I would give anything to see a new Star Trek series where they take on hard sci-fi and philosophy. Give me a show that's all about imagining the wonders the universe might contain, and what those wonders might mean for the human race. Give me exploration and derring-do in service of science. Screw all these stupid wars and evil supervillains, all the dumb explosions and light shows. I want a show that thinks.
Watched Mirror Mirror last night. While the plot makes no sense (the evil world would clearly be very different by now) you just go with it as a concept and it was great.
Strange new worlds, Prodigy, and Lower Decks have had some fantastic episodes so you're really missing out a lot by writing everything off like that. And the third season of Picard has been really good too.
I get that, but the action element was pursued because the alternative was all of the "inside baseball" stuff. Having to pay homage to every prior character, race, concept etc. is deadening to the big concept story. Mostly the original show was just making it up as it went along. Not sure that it's possible in the Star Trek brand to reset the clock. Or even that style of sci fi in general. You want to tell stories, come up with a new art form.
I tried Strange New Worlds but the first episode started with a Spock sex scene, which left a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe the show has improved since then, but after the disappointments of the Abrams movies, Discovery and Picard, I really didn't feel very generous with my time. I suffered through the whole first season of Picard before I gave up on it. I kept expecting something more from it, but it ended up being another dumb action show with a plot that I didn't care about. I might watch the third season just to see the TNG cast again, but I'm not expecting anything worthwhile in terms of storytelling. Prodigy and Lower Decks are both cartoons. Tonally neither one appeals to me - the first is aimed at kids, the second is a comedy. What little I've seen of each didn't interest me.
I gave up after Enterprise myself. I didn't mind the reboot movies but those look dead now. Too many other good shows to watch these days than wasting time trying to enjoy another take on Star Trek
Of course your kids would have thought they were a blast; they didn't grow up on the far superior original content. Obviously, you're not part of the original rabid fan collective I was referring to.
Going to end this argument right here, right now, ignoring the psycho-babble regarding the skin tones and racial makeup of the Khan character out of the gate -- why? Because one of your favorite Trek films is The Final Frontier? Now I know what kind of Trek "fan" I'm dealing with.
