NeverarGreat said:
Yeah, the thing about Star Trek that made it different than Star Wars was that Trek was actually a utopian (or dystopian) future, a look at a possible destiny of mankind. The travel to alien worlds was often used to be a mirror for the virtues and vices of humanity, and almost every episode tried to tell us something about human nature through this lens.
Star Trek the Motion Picture did this in spades, but there is a balance to be had. The Wrath of Khan swung a little in the opposite direction to compensate for this heady cerebral installment, and ended up being the most popular entry in the franchise. The writer of Wrath of Khan didn't actually care that much for Star Trek, and so stripped out some of the utopian elements of Trek in favor of a more military aesthetic, something which remained for the rest of the original crew movies. Plot points such as the Genesis Device felt very much like TOS, however, so it was a hybrid of old Trek and a new more mainstream aesthetic.
Trek 09 went far beyond this, and stripped out almost every hint of human reflection and utopia, depriving the universe of its first best destiny: a commentary on human nature. Is it fun? Sure. Accessible? Absolutely. Thought provoking? Nope.
JJ's writers don't seem to understand Star Trek, and Abrams seems not to have cared. I only hope that he cares for both the style and the substance of Star Wars, that mythic story set in a well worn universe populated with archetypal characters.
Here's the thing, though--what happened to Roddenberry is essentially the same as what happened to Lucas--Roddenberry became typecast as "Mr. STAR TREK", and eventually began to believe the fan-hype being thrown at him about TREK featuring a "perfect future".
People really assume a lot about the original series, based largely on what came after. TREK is not really about a "perfect future". It's essentially a show about 20th-century people living in a future setting. Things may have improved ("We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes." ), but the characters still wrestle with moral and personal problems.
James Kirk is one of the great heroes of sci-fi; the perfect Captain, who is brave, loyal, dignified, introspective, romantic, funny, and inspiring. Yet, he's plagued by loneliness and a strong sense of duty--he really feels the burden and responsibilties of command, and the lives in his charge. He was "a stack of books with legs" at the Academy, and clearly something of a Wunderkind who worked his way up through the ranks.
He was not a smartass, bar-fighting womanizer who went from Cadet to Captain in a matter of days.
And we laugh with him, not at him.
For me, the fundamental difference between NuKirk and Real Kirk comes down to this:
NUKIRK: "Nuh-tung!"
vs.
(from "Court Martial")
KIRK: Firstly, I am at a loss to explain the errors in the extract from the computer log. We were in an ion storm. Everyone here in this court knows the dangers involved. I was in command. The decisions were mine, no one else's. Charges of malice have been raised. There was no malice. Lieutenant Commander Finney was a member of my crew, and that's exactly the way he was treated. It has been suggested that I panicked on the Bridge and jettisoned the ion pod prematurely. That is not so. You've heard some of the details of my record. This was not my first crisis. It was one of many. During it, I did what my experience and training required me to do. I took the proper steps in the proper order. I did exactly what had to be done, exactly when it should have been done.
COGLEY: You did the right thing, but would you do it again?
KIRK: Given the same circumstances I would do the same thing without hesitation, because the steps I took in the order I took them were absolutely necessary if I were to save my ship. And nothing is more important than my ship.
Anyway, STAR TREK is essentially the Navy In Space. It's all about drama and character, not razzle-dazzle effects and heavy-handed metaphors.
Unfortunately, much of the public's (and, clearly, Abrams') perception of TREK comes from the third and final season, which is largely a campy, ill-conceived mess--almost a parody of the brilliant first two seasons.
By the 70s, Roddenberry started to take in what the fandom was feeding him, and decided that TREK was IMPORTANT--a show about a perfect future. STAR TREK- THE MOTION PICTURE was the result of that; a story about the perfectability of humanity, with little of the acton, fun, or characterization that made TOS so great. And, the creative failure of that film got Roddenberry kicked upstairs to a toothless Executive Producer position.
Nick Meyer and Harve Bennett, charged with making the sequel (with a very low budget, and under the wing of Paramount's TV--not feature--department), didn't really know TREK all that well.
But, because they weren't fans of the show, and didn't have the myopic view that Roddeenberry had developed, they studied it objectively, and saw straight through to the core of TREK. Meyer, in particular, totally got it: the intelligence, the fun, the humor, the characters, the action, the whole "Navy In Space" vibe. And, as a result, they crafted THE WRATH OF KHAN, which is rightly hailed as an all-time-great TREK story.
Roddenberry, meanwhile, upset that TREK had essentially been taken away from him, went and made THE NEXT GENERATION for TV, which was essentially THE MOTION PICTURE, Version 2.0. No conflicts between the characters, and a lot of pretentious talk about the nature of humanity and how perfect the future will be for us. Many of the cast and crew on the show felt hamstrung by this.
A good comparison between the original series and TNG's approaches would be this:
For Jim Kirk, the Prime Directive of non-interference was something that needed to be overcome to solve a story's problem in a dramatic and satisfying fashion. Because Kirk is a hero who always tries to do the right thing, the moral thing.
For Picard, the Prime Directive was a reason to say, "There's nothing we can do. On to our next heading. Engage!", and end the episode.
So, as with Lucas, Roddenberry got caught up in his own press about how IMPORTANT his creaton was, and, as a result, lost sight of what made it work.
It is no coincidence, I'm sure, that both TREK and WARS began to decline right when their creators had their respective "epiphanies". TREK became boring and pretentious, and WARS became an increasingly-convoluted "SAGA" that made the first film a square peg in a series of six round holes.