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(SPOILER) new "STAR TREK" 2009 spoiler thread (SPOILER) — Page 3

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PSYCHO_DAYV said:

WHIC HAS MORE CONTINUITY FLAWS STAR TREK OR THE STAR WARS PT?


I'll answer that after 28 combined seasons of a "Star Wars" related live action T.V. series, as well as 5 more live action movies, and Spread over 41+ years. Also after "Star Wars" dogma has had at least the input of 4 or more production teams and producer regime changes to deal with, and also hundreds of story writers input to shape it.

But truth be told, It's all just Apples and Oranges.

I think "Star Trek" has done a great job in using the best parts of it's own history and changing some things to fit as well as they could to keep the story fresh and exciting over 41 years. Sure there are big errors in continuity, but I feel they are acceptable to most fans.
The big ones in Trek that I can think of off the top of my head are the ones like Zefram Cochran in The film "First Contact" was from Earth, but in the original series he was said to be from Alpha Centauri. Or Khan knowing who Chekhov was in "The Wrath of Kahn" when Mr. Chekhov did not show up on the Enterprise until the second season of the 60's series, and Khan's "Space Seed" episode was in the first. Stuff like that is forgivable to a lot of fans because they made the movies story's better at the time. I can live with it, but I know there are some fans that can't. But, they still say they are fans. Funny that.

The way I see it "Star Wars" had 3 kick ass films, and "Star Trek" had 3.
So far...

FF

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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I'm a big fan of some Star Trek (TOS, TNG, & a few of the films). I didn't follow the DSN, Voyager, or Enterprise shows. I never saw a full episode of any of them.

After the last 3 films, I lost interest in following Star Trek anymore. In fact, Insurrection was so terrible that I never bothered seeing Nemesis. Star Trek and I had officially parted ways. For me, that's when Star Trek settled in at TOS, TNG, & a few of the films

That said, this new film has definitely piqued my interest. It looks to be back to the basics. Here's hoping.
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Anchorhead said:


In fact, Insurrection was so terrible that I never bothered seeing Nemesis.


Interesting. To me, Insurrection is the best (or at least second best to Khan) Star Trek movie ever made. The reason for that is because Insurrection actually captured everything that I find best about Star Trek. Perhaps that doesn't make the movie enjoyable from certain movie-going perspectives, but I would argue that it was very good in its own way.

Nemesis, on the other hand, is easily the worst Star Trek movie ever made in my mind. The reason is because it crapped a large turd over everything I find best about Star Trek. :(

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Nemesis isn't that bad. It's got some kind of... well, stupid is the only word for it... plot elements, but it's sort of like a Next Generation Wrath of Khan with better special effects.

I've not seen Insurrection, but I can't imagine it being better than First Contact or Kahn, especially when I've heard almost nothing positive about it.

4

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Nemesis was a huge let down to me. I'll watch it from time to time, there are some things I like about it, but it did disapoint.

Insurrection is often complained about, but I liked it. It essentially felt like an extended, cinematically filmed episode of TNG. It didn't go all out with tons of huge space battles, the Enterprise didn't crash or almost get assimilated by Borg. It was almost an "Elevator Episode" of Trek films, I think that is why it was kind of a let down to people, they wanted something epic like time travel and big space battles, and instead they get a pretty small stakes story about the fate of a small community.

As for ST continuity, I agree with most of what FF said about it. They change things at their convenience as the story goes on to make things work better. Fair enough. One of the things I really hated about the series Enterprise was when they would try to explain plot wholes throughout the series. For example we have the augmented Klingons loosing their head ruffles to explain why they did not have ruffled heads in TOS. A much easier explaination is a limitation on makeup back when TOS was filmed and a decesion to make the Klingons look more interesting in ST:TMP. We don't need to know why Klingons have pink blood in STVI, but red blood everywhere else, in the real world we know it was done to make the film less violent. Any series than spans the period of time ST has and has as much material as ST has, writen by various writers I might add, is bound to have holes. It is better for the story to continue and pretend there are no holes than to try to go back and cover them up, especially if the holes originate from a forty year old TV show.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Nemesis is a very weak film, but it's not god-awful. It just does not feel like a "Star Trek" film to me. Most of the problem was due to the director and producer. The director did not spend too much time on the "Trek" type moments as other directors had. The story just felt like it was a re-hashed version of a few passed episodes mixed together. The "Mad Max" style dune buggy chase/fight felt out of place in "Trek".

The Romulans are very under used, and the new Reman guys are not explained very well or used. Come on, fans have wanted to see more of the Romulans as kick ass as bad guys for years, and when they had the chance they blew it. They could have had Denise Crosby return as the half Romulan Sela once more, and we could have seen her fate. But no...

The Remens felt like nothing more then space vampires to me. They sucked.
The B-4 Data twin thing was something done way better in the past with LORE, and I feel it would have been much better just to have had the great evil LORE come back. B-4 was foolish. They did not even talk about LORE in the move in regards to finding B-4, and that was strange to me. The Troy mind rape was not something that helped the story at all, and was something done much better in a past STNG episode. It was as if it was put into the film just to give Troy some extra screen time. The Picard clone did not look like Picard. It did not feel or act like it was a clone of him, so it did not work for me. Patrick Stewart should just have had a duel role. More Patrick Stewart is never a bad thing.

We get like zero character development in this movie. Ok, Riker and Troy do tie the knot, but we saw that coming for years. It would have been nice to show a development of Picard and the Doctor love relationship once and for all. At least that would have taken that story full circle. Star Trek Five had much better Character Development then Nemesis.

They knew this was going to be the last movie for this cast, and they just blew it.

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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Darth Chaltab said:

Nemesis isn't that bad. It's got some kind of... well, stupid is the only word for it... plot elements, but it's sort of like a Next Generation Wrath of Khan with better special effects.


I'd go way beyond word "stupid" for that brainless movie's plot elements. Whoever wrote the story apparently thought Star Trek was a futuristic action series where spacemen fought goth vampires while flying around in little space pods that can maneuver through a ship's tiny walkways. The absolutely ridiculous story about the Picard clone was idiotic enough, but then the movie just got worse and worse from there.

Wrath of Khan dealt with science, ethics, and politics in neat ways. It also dealt with love, loss and revenge in ways that gave us a ton of great drama. And then the emotional death of Spock?! That was so great that they shouldn't have even brought him back. There was absolutely nothing in Nemesis that allows me to compare it to Khan, so I would like to know your reasoning behind that.


Darth Chaltab said:

I've not seen Insurrection, but I can't imagine it being better than First Contact or Kahn, especially when I've heard almost nothing positive about it.


Those people complained about the movie for every reason I loved it. They hated its leisurely pace (which I found relaxing and contemplative), they hated how little action there was in it (which I think enhanced the other aspects of the story), and they hated how small-scale and non-epic the main threat was (which I loved). For once the crew of the Enterprise wasn't out to save the entire, damn universe for the umpteenth millionth time and I was glad about that. The story revolved around teamwork, scientific exploration, and doing what was right. The characters were normal people again and weren't expected to be intense action heroes at every turn. The slow, deliberate nature of the main struggle was also very interesting to me in the sense that the bad guys weren't ultimate bad guys out to annihilate everything for once, but actually had goals that were more subtle.

I liked Insurrection quite a bit more than First Contact. The latter was definitely one of the better Star Trek films, but all in all it was too superficial and unthinking for my tastes. It was more about having the crew experience a fun adventure in the past and have them fighting intense battles with Borg. There was nothing really meaningful in the film in terms of thought or drama (beyond the "line must be drawn here" bit), unlike in Khan (which provided both) and Insurrection (which was at least competent with its concepts).

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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My personal take on Nemesis is that it was basically a re-write of Wrath of Khan. Couldn't we of had something original for this?

As for continuity of ST, while I didn't follow it all closely, didn't Enterprise wreck quite a few things, such as bringing in Romulans when they were supposed to have not been heard from during this time? I know that I've heard many Star Trek fans blast Enterprise for this reason, among many others.
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They introduce the Ferangi, while they were not suppose to meet up with them until TNG. They introduced the Borg, while they were not suppose to have done so until TNG. They kind of "played it safe" with the Romulans by not letting anyone see their faces or know that they were Romulans or something along those lines, in order not to wreck continuity with TOS where they mention that Romulans had not been heard of for a long time.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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In preparation for this movie (since it may be a reboot, or revitalization, or anything else that means it's not in the same timeline), I am going to start watching the series and movies... all of them. I have a huge wad of cash saved up from tutoring and the like, and a friend of mine can get me great deals, so why not? This is a big thing for me, since I've never seen a full episode of Star Trek (just read about it), and I want to see what its like. I'll be following a hybrid chronological/order of release method, wherein I'll watch each series in the order it was released, but the episodes and movies of each series in chronological order according to a timeline I found on the 'Net. It's going to be a big undertaking, so I'm starting well over a year in advance. Wish me luck!

If any are curious as to my thoughts as I go through the series for the first time (unlikely, but you never know), I'll gladly post my thoughts roughly after each season.
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Huh, that is very interesting. Yeah, I think it would be cool if you posted your comments as you go along. One thing though, if you have never seen a whole episode of Star Trek before, I wouldn't recommend going nuts and diving in head first and unloading a wad of cash to buy everything. Sounds like some of your friends are ST fans, can they loan you any of the stuff? I grew up with Star Trek and I have always really liked it, but I will be the first to admit a good deal of it is pure cheese.

Every season has its good episodes as well as more than its fair share of crap. Also TOS and even TNG to a degree, are pretty dated and can get really ridiculous. It would be ashame for you to toss your hard earned cash away on something that you might not like. Having grown up with it I have a pretty good tolerance for the cheesiness that much of ST is, but I can imagine a new comer finding a lot of it painfully lame. Every episode is kind of hit or miss, same thing for the movies. The movies I like I really like, and the ones I hate I really hate. The Wrath of Kahn is one of my favorite Sci-fi movies of all time, while sitting through ST: The Motion Picture has been the way I always imagined hell.

Anyway, good luck on your quest to watch all ST. I will be looking forward to hearing your impressions of the franchise.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Johnboy3434 said:



I'll be following a hybrid chronological/order of release method, wherein I'll watch each series in the order it was released, but the episodes and movies of each series in chronological order according to a timeline I found on the 'Net. It's going to be a big undertaking, so I'm starting well over a year in advance. Wish me luck!



Can you post the link to that timeline? Thanks.

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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Your chronological timeline just corrects the episodes that were aired out of production order, right? ST suffered a lot from being aired out of order, and I think I remember hearing one of my friends complaining about the DVDs having the episodes in air date order instead of production/chronological order. I could be wrong on that though.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I say go for it, But I'll echo the other in saying be prepared for what you are getting into. It is a mixed bag and opinions vary.

Also there is no way you can really watch things in a true chronological order without your head exploding. Time travel crops up A LOT in star trek. ;)
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The timeline I'm using is located here:

http://www.thewellers.com/startrek/enttmln.htm

I considered starting with Enterprise and doing a true chronological order, but I hear that that's the least loved of the saga and may put me off. Oh, and don't worry about me buying the whole thing at once. I'm not that stupid. I'll be buying these one season/movie at a time, so I can quit whenever. I'll be breaking the series up into subsets, and the episodes of each subset will be viewed in chronological order. The subsets are as follows:

The Original Series + The Animated Series + Movies 1-6
The Next Generation + Movies 7-10
Deep Space Nine
Voyager
Enterprise

So, essentially, I'm breaking it down by crew.
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The Next Generation + Movies 7-10 & Deep Space Nine

Are the only two that I would try and look at in production order mixing the shows, as some of the story lines did merge at a few points.

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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I think if I were a new comer to the show I would absolutely hate TOS. I still find the majority of those episodes to be crap even though I grew up watching them. I could see an episode like "Spock's Brain" where the gogo chick aliens steal his brain and McCoy is controling his via remote control being a huge turn off to modern viewers.

If you end of finding you have a hard time sitting through them, I would recommend just skipping through it onto the films, or watching some of the better loved episodes and skipping over the majority, then you could always go back and watch them later. Just a thought. The series really gets at its best during the TNG DS9 era. It would really be a shame for you to grow tired of the show while working your way through TOS and TAS and never make it to the parts of the series that are really worthwhile.

Good choice on not beginning with Enterprise by the way, it really doesn't have that Star Trekkish feel of the others, in fact the first season was officially just titled "Enterprise" it wasn't until season two that they decided to add the "Star Trek" above the title.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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My friend who is 35 and grew up in England, never saw the original series. He did see a few of the movies with that cast, but never an entire episode. I got the 3 box sets, and we watched them all. He liked it. He did think a few of the episodes are very dated and foolish ("Spock's Brain", "Catspaw", "Way to Eden"), but over all he was glad he saw it. If a person can remember when this show was made, and likes things with a flavor of the 1960s, then this show is not that bad. If you need everything to be new and state of the art, then you are going to hate it. In return, he showed me a few early seasons of The Avengers, and I love it!

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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I liked Enterprise. TOS has it's moments, and I love it for the nostalgia, but it has not aged well. But, it is a relatively short series, so just watch it for the background. The movies are pretty good all around, minus a few parts, and a couple of stinkers. The next generation is pretty awesome, minus some tiny things. Never really got into anything after that.

FE<3OT

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After thinking about Insurrection some more, I guess the movie wasn't very good in terms of making me care a lot about what was going on. That's actually an integral part of a movie, but since I liked the characters already (being a fan of TNG) I sort of already cared about what was going on through the decent performances from those familiar/likable actors/actresses. That combined with the fact that I was nicely interested in the conceptual nature of the plot (the #1 best feature of a successful Star Trek story) I guess I was able to overlook that flaw.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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insurrection was a very thinly disquised look back at the united states history, just replace the baku with american indians or native americans.

their was even a next generation episode with wesley crusher and indians living on another planet being killed and run off by cardassians and wesley wanted to help them, and picards ancestors on old earth had something to do with what happened to them.

add to that elements of the search for the fountain of youth, an eden like or heaven like paradise, a bit too much like the planet in shatner's ashes of eden. that would have made a better trek 7 than generations.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Johnboy3434 said:

In preparation for this movie (since it may be a reboot, or revitalization, or anything else that means it's not in the same timeline), I am going to start watching the series and movies... all of them.


Here's how I was introduced:

TOS: "The Enterprise Incident"
The Wrath of Khan movies
TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint" and "All Good Things..." (series premiere and finale)
Generations and First Contact

And later I saw Undiscovered Country (which I love), "The Trouble With Tribbles", and a handful of TNG Q episodes. I think being introduced to TNG in the manner I was has its flaws. The characters and how they interact with each other change over the series, so by the time we got to FC, I was wondering if I was watching the same people I met at Farpoint. Now that I'm over halfway through with TNG, I should probably watch those movies again.

fsb
I have a bad feeling about this...
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Number20 said:

My personal take on Nemesis is that it was basically a re-write of Wrath of Khan. Couldn't we of had something original for this?

As for continuity of ST, while I didn't follow it all closely, didn't Enterprise wreck quite a few things, such as bringing in Romulans when they were supposed to have not been heard from during this time? I know that I've heard many Star Trek fans blast Enterprise for this reason, among many others.


The Nemesis comment is spot on. That's exactly how I felt and I was at the damn premiere. I also have many friends who worked on Enterprise. I love these people but I would never tell them my true feelings about that show.

Enterprise is an abomination that should be wiped from the memories of every ST fan on the planet. I know a lot of Classic Trek fans are fond of saying "Gene wouldn't have done this, Gene wouldn't have liked that." For the most part I dismiss this sort of talk. However this is one case where the dissenters are right. Gene would have hated Enterprise.

PS: Rick Berman privately believes he did more for ST than Gene. Just throwing a little gossip into the mix.
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(possible) SPOILER pics from AICN. Starfleet Academy?

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/36031

(how do I make links in the new forum?)

FE<3OT