Tobar said:
DominicCobb said:
The other thing people forget is that they are MOVIES. With a TV show you have more time to explore those things.
Most Star Trek episodes are self-contained stories. They have about 45 minutes after commercials to tell a complete story and were easily capable of doing so. With a movie you have anywhere from 90 to 120 minutes to tell a story.
That excuse does not compute.
I'm not saying that you can't tell a philosophical story or whatever in a short amount of time. Just by nature of there being multiple episodes of TV show, you have far more time and chances to explore all those big ideas. With a movie, obviously there are movies that explore big ideas and what not (the film that my avatar comes from touches on a lot of those points, for example), but the thing is, when you have a MOVIE, it needs to be something big. There's a reason why people hate Insurrection. A MOVIE needs to be exciting so you have to dial in, and you can't necessarily focus on all of those ideas.
DominicCobb said:
What I always loved in the original Star Trek was the adventure and the character dynamics. As far as I can tell JJ's got that, so I am satisfied.
TOS had a charismatic captain that adamantly believed in what the Federation stood for and strived to follow its laws and edicts to the best of his ability. It had a half-Vulcan First Officer who quietly struggled with his humanity. Lastly, it had an honorable if ornery Chief Medical Officer who found joy in taking jabs at his green blooded friend.
JJ Trek has a reckless maverick with a complete disregard for the rules who skirts by on the seat of his pants. It has a pointy eared psychopath who regular pummels others when he loses control of his constant seething rage. Lastly it has an ornery Chief Medical Officer who doesn't get to do much.
JJ Trek just takes the pop culture stereotypes of the characters and turns up the dial.
Yes the characters are not exactly the same. That's kind of the point. They're permutations on the existing characters. Firstly we're seeing them in their early years, and secondly there are some huge differences between the timelines. I don't want to see the cast play the exact same characters, because those aren't there characters. (notice how each Bond is really a different character in many ways.)
Which brings us to McCoy, who is pretty much exactly the same as his TOS counterpart. This is where I'll concede, you're right, he doesn't get to do much, which annoys me because he's one of my favorites.
But they supplanted him with a monumentally more interesting Uhura than in the show so it wasn't just all the boys club (people like to talk about Star Trek's diversity, but please, female characters were never given anything to do on that show).