Star Trek: 90210
by John Nolte
What to resent more? The fact that they’re raping my childhood or that they’re forcing me to use the term, “raping my childhood?”
Here you have these larger-than-life, legendary characters to work with and what are they doing? Making the Starship Enterprise look like a casting session for “High School Musical: The Pouty Prom.”
The original “Star Trek” is iconic and timeless because of the characters. Yes, there was some great storytelling involved, but the best stories always involved the characters — those actors in those roles and the warm, real, complicated relationship that existed between them. No operatic nonsense, no hyper-effects, and no WB Channel-ing can tart its way through that.
And they’re messing with the mythology. In the first trailer, looking for Emo thrills, young Kirk expertly handles a sports car. But if you remember the episode, “A Piece of the Action,” Kirk can’t drive. (This matters) And how do you do Kirk without William Shatner? Shatner is Kirk. Kirk is Shatner. Why not just ask someone to do Rooster Cogburn or Will Kane or Jim Rockford or Fred Sanford? Not to take anything away from the creators, writers or directors, but iconic characters are the creation of the actor. And there’s a reason Shatner’s a legend. There’s a reason he’s been in four hit television shows, written a number of best sellers, and won two Emmys. He’s an honest to goodness star, and the people who laugh at him are generally those whose careers haven’t lasted a quarter as long as his.
To end on a positive note, I see Bruce Greenwood’s been cast as Christopher Pike. Greenwood’s a marvelous and under-appreciated actor.
Other than that, I got nothing.
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320 Comments
Being Kirk drove the car off a cliff, I'd hardly say he had expert driving skills.
Thank goodness someone's finally got round to thoroughly refuting that "conservatives are a bunch of stuffy, stodgy, traditional-minded dweebs" meme.
(j/k)
The Star Trek people have been pillaging that franchise for years. They've never respected the history of the show or even understood what made the original series so good. Nothing about this movie can be accurate. Whoa, I sound like a Star Trek geek. Nothing to see here people… move along.
I hope you’re wrong. I’d love to see another Star Trek flick, we’ll see?
Hey look Lawhawk, I'm not feeding the troll!!
Maybe they could call it "Star Fleet Academy: The Musical"
I for one am looking forward to it. Mainly because when I was a kid I dreamed of the day they could do big SF movies with effects like that, which had imaginative scenery and aliens. It looks like they are going for that and not the boring TV movie type plots of many Star Trek films.
I don't mind new actors doing the roles. It depends on how it's written and acted. Yes, most remakes suck. So this might t. But at least it's based on TOS and not the PC shows that followed. It doesn't look PC either, but we'll see.
A friend of mine, the late Steve Gerber, worked on a Next Generation episode when Roddenberry was still alive. Apparently Roddenberry wanted to the Trek shows to me more PC. Ugh.
The old show was more fun and it looks like this movie may be too.
Gawd! I'm proud of ya.
As for the movie, I'll give it a chance, but only because I just got a new big screen TV to go with my surround sound system. Who needs a plot, or characters? I got sight and sound!
DFTT
Thought I'd forget, didn't ya?
the 'Trek' trailer is resolutely awful- and worse it's all B roll stuff, so apparently Abrams (admittedly not a fan)
figures lots of bling and flash and they will come… the casting seems terribly weak; the trouble with US casting is the sheer lightweight quality all of these people bring. When Spielberg did 'Private Ryan' he toyed with casting the entire film with Aussies and Brits; they at least looked like they've done something other than drink smoothies and cheat on exams… one can hope this film isn't the mess it appears, but as someone totally underwhelmed by JJ Abrams don't hold your breath…
Oh c'mon, I said I was just kidding.
Poke one Trek guy with a pointy stick and the whole hive comes out and labels ya.
I'm still going to see it
He's intentionally driving it off the cliff, in the shot before he takes that corner like an expert and even shifts gears.
And besides, Simon Pegg's in it. Simon. Freakin'. Pegg.
That might be worth the price of admission all by itself!
In "A Piece of the Action", Kirk couldn't drive an antique Tin Lizzie. That doesn't mean he couldn't drive a souped up futuristic sports car. Being a Trekkie requires little leaps of faith like that from time to time, John. I'm surprised at you.
OH PLEASE!
TOS is the epitome of extreme camp and angst so deep that the main problem in comparison to High School Musical is that the singing kids are obviously shown to be second rate posers.
That goes for most of the franchise that followed, too. Ugh, ptewie.
As for the "new" Kirk (and Spock and…) I think we should just get over this silly notion of "cannon" and go for the Asian model (Japanese?) of copious do-overs. Let someone else make the character theirs, and it will be different, and it won't make the old one go away, and new things can happen that didn't happen the first time through, perhaps radically different things in radically different directions.
Give some love to those of us who spent so much time watching in horror and shouting at the television set, "That is so wrong!"
"the boring TV movie type plots of many Star Trek films"
And we were just starting to become friends…
Unless, he's surrounded by Zombies, no thanks… And I didn't even get around to complaining about whats-his-name as the villain.
"conservatives are a bunch of stuffy, stodgy, traditional-minded dweebs"
How can I be that and a nerd?
I know they did a little too much tweaking over the years. But, from "Wagon Train to the Stars" to "Start Trek Goes Back to Basics" to "Star Trek Wonders if Androids are Human, Too" to "Star Trek Goes Into Therapy" to "Star Trek Now Has a Really Big Space Satellite," I've pretty much enjoyed them all. Except "Voyager." For some reason, I just couldn't get into it. And I think I liked "Enterprise" because I always felt there was the chance that Scott Bakula would walk into a vortex, show up on the other side in diapers or a dress, only to discover he was still starring in "Quantum Leap."
DFTT
His specific issue with the tin-lizzy is the clutch and if you watch the first trailer, you can hear young Kirk expertly shift gears, as well as driving.
Well, yes. And he's probably not going to have much screen time.
I'm just looking for anything redeeming besides flashy graphics, and I'm not seeing it in the remainder of the casting choices.
You are wrong. That is all.
LOL! I just wanted to show Lawhawk my powers of restraint!
Dude, do you want to pay for the CGI effects, not to mention the girdle, for JJ, Orci, Kurtzman, ILM and Paramount to roll Fat Shat into that Captain's Chair on the iBridge? You must be kidding me!
Trek needed to be remade for a new generation of viewers. You can't just get kids excited over Johnathan Frakes. No, kids will only get excited over a bad boy-especially if they are rebooting this series so that Uhura is the main love interest.
Now get a clue. At least Tori Spelling isn't on the bridge. I'll be in line on May 8th, bub.
Voyager had the best theme song of any of the series, give it that much.
"more PC"? How? Unless they were planning to just do an hour of apologies for Western crimes against the noble people of the rest of the Earth, I don't see how.
Congratulations Nolte, you're the '09 Whiner 'Ward Winner. You can put yourself right up there with the fat basement-dwellers who were texting death threats to Michael Bay because he turned Megatron into a jet instead of a handgun. How do you do Star Trek without Shatner? Oh I don't know, maybe pick someone who's NOT an 80-something B actor? Calling Pine's performance in the trailer "HSM-esque" is a desperate far cry, and even if it weren't, it would be better than "Oh NO Spock, the ALIens are COMing and the PHAsers are ONLY at half POWer! We MUST get DOWN to the TORPEDO bay!" Any human being who watches the new Star Trek trailer and actually misses the old show over it CLEARLY does not remember this scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1eFdUSnaQM
And I promise you that fifty to sixty years from now, Chris Pine won't be hosting Rescue 911 or doing Priceline commercials just to keep his face in peoples' memories. Have a glass of warm milk and get to bed.
"Oh NO Spock, the ALIens are COMing and the PHAsers are ONLY at half POWer! We MUST get DOWN to the TORPEDO bay!"
I don't care who y'are, that's funny right there.
Well, it's a relief to know I wasn't the only one upset about Megatron not being a handgun.
And Bumblebee wasn't originally a Camaro, he was just more bad@$$ that way. Cry about it.
I dunno, John–The early trailers stunk, but this one, this one drew me in. The other captain (Pike?) challenging Kirk to be a man. The futuristic military training. And yeah, the flashy space battles. I need some splashy space battles in my sci-fi. Ever since I got suckered into watching SeaQuest–Cool submarine action in the pilot, then nothing of note until the season finale… Flashy space battles make stuff worth watching!
After this trailer, my only reservations are that I don't recognize the aliens (They might be the Remians from the Nemesis movie, but even that is weak–Give me Klingons!) and that the alien ships look like they ripped off the Shadows from Babylon 5.
My biggest problem is that they are changing things that don't need changing. It may be minor, but look at the "new" design for the Enterprise. The saucer section looks great, same basic shape, just more detail for the screen; but the rest of the ship looks goofy and wrong. It doesn't have that, dare I say it, iconic outline. What's more, Abrams has said that he's a Star Wars fan. I kinda like Star Wars for mindless fun (in the old series) but I expect at least an attempt at more from Star Trek. I suspect that the new movie will be a cheap cash-in like the new Star Wars movies, with no respect for the history of the series or the long time fans.
I hate the "Wagon Train to the Stars" put down. Star Trek dealt with all kinds of tricky social issue in complex and interesting ways. The people who labeled it Wagon Train, just lack the creativity and depth to see beyond the phasers.
Also, I suspect there is a bit of leftist hate in the term. Kirk definitely fought for a patriotic, "classical liberal" view of the world — very inconsistent with their dope smoking, anti-establishment, America is the enemy garbage. Lousy hippies.
I wish they do an opera…in Klingon!
I wish they'd do an opera…in Klingon!
"The early trailers stunk"
Disagree, the teaser trailer was outstanding.
"the alien ships look like they ripped off the Shadows from Babylon 5. "
True enough.
It was okay that Megatron didn't turn into a hangun…..It was unforgivable that Megatron didn't have a giant lazer cannon on his arm when he was in robot mode! Every Megatron has the giant arm cannon! Even the animal-Megatrons found a way to do it!
I was excited about DS9 because it was supposed to be "dark" and "edgy" and really get into a new, more serious "dark" science fiction… disappointment only makes it hurt worse. I think that the last straw on that show for me was the daring lesbian worm-parasite love when out of a universe of possibilities the black base commander only falls for a black commercial transport captain.
And Voyager was utterly pitiful. When it was first announced Geordie's mother and ship had just disappeared and I was so hoping that Voyager would be about her and her ship. She was a fabulous character. Granted, it wasn't the actress, it was the writers, that gave us the "I'd rather none of my crew every see home again than marry Q" amazing moral fortitude. Yeah, moral fortitude!
Bah. It was fun for the three episodes it took for the Bajoran rebels to fully adjust to their "point at the stars" Star Trek uplift bras.
Revaling myself as no great fan of TOS here, but: weren't the starships constructed in orbital drydock? I thought they weren't intended to be used in the atmosphere.
What's the Enterprise doing sitting on the ground?
I wouldn't categorize this as a "remake" per se as it follows the Lucas formula of going "back to the beginning" before the originations of the TV series. I like the idea of the "how, where and when" the original characters hooked up. It will be interesting to see if the writers put together something as good as Ralph Ellison's [author "The Invisible Man"] work on the original TV series.
I agree. I loved the teaser. Between that and JJ Abrams involvement, I was excited about the idea. Then the cast photos leaked.
Now, no reason to hate on Shatner. There's room for everyone.
I might have meant "canon." Dang… always get those wrong. You all know what I meant!
Synova — I looked at our banning policy, and for some insane reason trashing the original Star Trek series isn't on it, but I am convening a board meeting asap.
Don't even go there. If you want to start talking about history, we know how and when these characters met, and this ain't it. We knew all about Kirk's past, and this ain't it. Arrrggggghh……..
I am surprised this dweeb even knows what apotheosis means. You do don't you?
As for the movie, I think I'll pass…that is Kirk with Ohura. You know getting a smattering of back story when the show was on was great but seeing a full blown SCENE sort of leaves a dry as dust taste in my mouth. And in no way am I a Trekkie but I remember fondly when the reruns were on and watching it with my Dad and brother.
I agree that’s funny. I hope John’s wrong on this movie.
It was Gene Roddenberry who sold the idea to NBC as 'Wagon Train to the Stars'- he was a writer for that series, as well as Have Gun Will Travel…
Pegg and Karl Urban aside, the cast looks incredibly weak. When Pine takes the center seat I can't tell whether he's taking command or taking a dump, his expression can go either way. Is be brooding or is he straining? Really, really hate that bit of casting.
I'm not opposed to a new cast. This is, after all, an origins movie. But the rumors about the plot do make my skin crawl.
**MAYBE SPOILERS**
Kirk is now a jerk because he was raised by a jerk of an uncle because The Villain went back in time and killed his parents (shown in preview, so I guess that's not too much of a spoiler).
What pisses me off here — and I do think that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are larger than life, legendary characters — is that all the joy's been sucked out. In the original series, love it or hate it, Kirk loved his job. He was nerdy in the academy and all the way up the promotion ladder because he obsessed with becoming a starship captain. Nothing pissed Kirk off like a threat to his crew or his ship. That very love is what made the best Trek, Khan, so damn good.
For this film, it's Top Gun and paternal envy syndrome (or whatever they called it in Hot Shots). Feh! This drips with angst, and it's impossible to see this Kirk taking a bite out of an apple and calmly saying, "I don't like to lose" while preparing to open a can of whup ass.
'Enterprise' was the best of the various follow up series; it's a shame it was on UPN where no one watched it. The 'Zindi' story arc was the best Islamic fundemetalist allegory I've seen yet; not surprisingly Brannon Braga and Manny Cotto wound up on '24'…
Why no, miss ma'am, but it shore do sound purty, don't it?
Yeesh.
So anyway, was a Kirk/Uhura hookup an actual element of the original? I thought that was just something else they manufactured for the movie.
For all the harrumphers, think of the movie as Dr. Who–different people can play the characters. Nothing will ever match the version of Star Trek that drew you in as a kid but think of this: the original series will be out on blu-ray right about when the movie comes out, along with blu-ray re-releases of the films, so you can buy those, crank up the big screen and geek out. (Pon Far! Khaaaann!! That…green chick) Personally, I'm looking forward to the film. It's not Hamlet. They can play with the mythos if they want to. I think Quinto looks perfect, and the effects look fine. I do agree Eric Bana isn't remotely villainous, even with the bald head. As far as the youth of the actors, well, they're playing recruits and I made peace with the realization that most soldiers and an increasing number of cops are younger than me now so it doesn't bother me.
I think there were things about TOS that were simply incredible. Did you think I meant camp and angst in a *bad* way?
But I do think that part of the reason that re-makes tend to suck so much is that we insist they hold to the original. The original is the original. It always will be. I think that re-makes would be better if we would allow them to be alternate History, something new, let someone say what if *that* happened instead, what if *this* were different.
mostly because everyone will have forgotten him quickly… love your phonetic Kirk, though…
All the new trailer did was turn me off even more. Right now it's only John Cho as Sulu that is making me want to see this movie.
They have ripped apart canon with this movie. Someone tell me where in TOS or the other movies it was even hinted at that Kirk was a troubled bad-boy in his youth. In "Where No Man Has Gone Before" Kirk in his Academy days was described as a stack of books with legs. Yes, he cheated in his Kobyashi Maru scenario – because he hated losing and didn't believe in a no-win siuation.
Not sure how much of the backstory you know about this movie yet. But the reason why there are changes in this movie as far as continuity with the original series is because the main villain of the piece. His name is Nero and he's actually a time traveller from the future. He's come back in time to alter the past to right a wrong in his future. But by altering the time line he's changing details. That's why the continuity of the characters or history is different from what we remember from the original series.
Oh, most of the shouting about wrongness was directed at TNG. Though I did like Wesley.
I know, but he did not mean that in an insulting way. But these days, it's become an insulting term used by people who dismiss the original series as a simplistic, mindless kid's show.
Growing up I was a HUGE Trek fan. Not quite to the point of dressing up in Starfleet uniforms and going to CONs…but almost.
That said, over the years I've come to despise and almost hate Trek because its nothing but Marxist propaganda from the word GO (or at least since TNG).
Rape it, I don't care … Trek is just another leftist wh*re anyway.
I'll watch it because I expect it to be mildly entertaining.
Besides, Lazarus Long would kick Capt. Kirks butt anyway.
I'm not really clear on this whole time travel thing, but how does altering the timeline from when he arrives change things that happened before he even shows up, like the entirety of Kirk's life up to enlisting in Starfleet?
Kirk and Uhura famously kissed in the episode "Plato's Stepchildren" in which aliens amuse themselves by forcing the pair to lock lips. We never saw any sign that they had an actual relationship and it would have been inappropriate for a commanding officer to be romantically involved with one of his subordinates. Yes, I am a Star Trek geek.
Well, they did kiss once, but they were both brainwashed when it happened, so I doubt it counts.
I'm getting older, especially discussing this topic, but I'm not at the big 4-0 yet. My problem with most remakes is the utter disdain usually shown for the source material. Plus, the remakes in the last ten years are so formulaic they could all have been written by computer. As a lover of movies, I hate this.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to tell some kids to get off my lawn.
No, they weren't intended for use in atmosphere (with the exception of the Intrepid class) The Enterprise (NCC-1701, also NCC-1701-A, NCC-1701-E) was constructed at the San Francisco Fleet Yards, which was orbital. Most construction, however, was done either at Utopia Planitia, or subcontracted to Yoyodyne.
** Though I did like Wesley.
** … I did like Wesley
** … like Wesley
Now I know you're crazy. Even the guy who played Wesley doesn't like Wesley.
You liked Wesley? You're off my Chistmas Card list.
Um…does nobody realize that…
Chris Pine (Kirk) is 29
Zachary Quinto (Spock) is 31
Karl Urban (McCoy) is 37
Simon Pegg (Scotty) is 39
John Cho (Sulu) is 36
Zoe Saldana (Uhura) is 30
Only Anton Yelchin (Chekov) is 19…and that's appropriate because he's a newly graduated Ensign.
Call these guys anything you want, poorly cast, bad actors, whatever…
But stop calling them "too young"! Stop calling them children! They are ADULTS.
you young punk! If you use your TASER to get those kids off the lawn, make sure you turn on the sprinklers to get a better electrical ground!
You can blame Roddenberry circa the late 80s for the PC stuff. I've read interviews with writers that disagreed and complained and felt boxed in by Roddenberry's utopian vision. The writers tried to break away from some of that on the later shows (at least DS9 and Enterprise). In the commentaries for Star Trek Generations and First Contact, writers Ron Moore and Brannon Braga poke fun at all the contradictions and rules that they had to follow.
Especially when you cover yourself with honey…BZZZ-ZZZZ-MRRR-ZAPZAP!!!
I agree John…anybody want to come over an see my leisure suit collection? I have matching platform shoes, too. I still have my glasses that are mended in the middle with surgical tape.
It was cancelled just when it was getting good, wasn't it?
The first two years, I said to myself, "This show has the best production values on TV but awful writing!" Manny Coto came in two years too late.
There are several canon story arcs you could take. The last surviving ship of a battle group in the Dominion War would be a great series of flicks. How about a group sent by the Federation to assist the liberated Borg in their fight against the collective. Hell, what about Garak & Q go to White Castle? Anything but this crap!
Although, the train wreck factor has kicked in. I'll wait for Rifftrax.
I saw the first Star Trek movie, which was good, but I haven't seen the others. I must admit I thought the previews for this new one were pretty cool and I'll be taking dad to see it.
OK, slick, you are now in the deep end of the Trekkie pool…you may return to your Paris Hilton coming out video.
Actually Bumblebee is a Camaro only because Volkswagon wouldn't give them the rights to use any of their vehicles.
The Kirk/Uhura kiss was rather controversial. It was not clear if the network was going to air the kiss. Shatner actually forced the issue by deliberately ruining the take of the alternate scene in which no kiss occurred.
Yes dear.
I didn't mind Wesley, simply because I was roughly the same age at the time and would've loved to be on the Federation flagship and be told "Here, you drive!"
For comparison…
William Shatner was 35 in 1966 when he started playing Captain Kirk.
DeForest Kelley (McCoy) was 46
Leonard Nimoy (Spock) was 35
James Doohan (Scotty) was 46
George Takei (Sulu) was 29
Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) was 34
and Walter Koenig (Chekov) was 30
Ooo! I got it! Michael Weston gets recruited by Section 31!
Hey, I freely admit I missed out on most of TOS, and what I saw of it when I was a kid didn't really appeal to me at the time. I got acquainted with the series via the movies, and the Kirk/Uhura thing wasn't really an element in that.
So I'm playing catch-up.
If you didn't see The Wrath of Khan…you didn't see a good Star Trek movie yet.
It's absolutely pivotal in apologizing for everything that happened since. As in, "yeah, but…KHAAAAAAN!"
First of all, this is supposed to be prior to the actual series. Second of all, I was not trying to say that the new actors are the same age that the originals were at the start of the series. I am saying they are not children.
And their ages had nothing to do with their characters' ages whatsoever. Koenig may have been thirty, but Chekov was supposed to be 22.
If you like the other Trek series, you have to check out former Trek illustrator Doug Drexler's new blog. All the geeks here will like it – he's posting all sorts of goodies from the archives: vintage ads, photos, artwork, etc.
http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/
And yes, I'm single.
Ah Dude, You have to put this show in the context of the 60's. Civil rights, hippies, Vietnam, Great Society, etc. This show was waaay out there hence its cancellation after 2.5 seasons. Where did the show take your imagination? When I was a kid watching this, the first thing that popped in my mind was, "a 1000 people crammed in close confinement for 5 years and NOBODY having sex?"
C'mon, I was 10 at the time. I was a perv even then. Of course, the Kirk/Uhuru thing wasn't in the open. The '60's censors weren't having any of THAT! But the show did germinate fantasy.
Very well said Brisco. And that was the core to the original series.
Forget the youth of the cast, MY huge problem with what we've seen of this film so far is that it fundamentally doesn't seem to "get" Star Trek. I'm as glad to see a properly-lit set interior and color-coded uniforms and female officers in skirts as the next guy, but the "tone" and what we're seeing of the characters just looks "off" on a thematic level.
I'd like to take credit for the following observation, but I think it was originally pointed out by one of the CHUD kids (Devin Faraci, I'm pretty sure) that in terms of how the characters and their world (i.e. officers and Starfleet) that Trek was a NAVY show – just in space – and Abrams' version looks more like an AIR FORCE movie. Imagine "Crimson Tide" (or "Master & Commander!") "in space," thats more what a proper Trek update would play like. This? Watch the recent trailers careful: Kirk on a motorcycle, buddy-buddy bar brawls, business about living up to a father's legacy, etc… IT'S "TOP GUN" BUT WITH "STAR TREK" PROPS!
Men tend to put on muscle until age 30. Young men just look like that, often times. Even the guys who lift weights that I know, who are half my age, look waifish to me most of the time. Men don't hit majority and look like John Wayne. And this is about very young characters. Very young men just don't tend to look all that rugged.
Sorry, I thought you were trying to make a point.
As for the second part, no, that's wrong. Kirk was already captain of the Enterprise when the series began and several lines of dialogue imply that he could have been there as long as a year before the start of the series. And no, it wasn't a new ship. It was a ship with some history. According to Gene Roddenberry, it was commanded previously by captains Robert April and Christopher Pike, though the only one we met onscreen was Pike.
FWIW, Abrams is a good writer but his track-record with re-dos isn't stellar: A few years back, he was going to write/direct a "Superman" movie where Krypton didn't explode, Supes was a royal-born "chosen one" versus his totally-not-just-Laertes-with-a-cape Uncle and Lex Luthor was a corrupt CIA alien-hunter who turned out to be a Kryptonian sleeper-agent. Really.
The first ever inter-racial kiss on national network TV.
No, no NO! DS 9 had the best theme music of any Trek series! Dennis McCarthy hit it totally and completely out of the park with that awesome theme.
Found the history of the ship here
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(N...
The ship was 20 years old when Kirk takes the helm, and he was 31 when given command (apparently that makes him the youngest Starfleet Captain at the time).
I was born in the early 70s, so I grew up thinking Star Wars was the be-all end-all of sci fi. My dad tried to convince me TOS was great, but stacked up next to SW it just looked feeble. Heck, even Space:1999 and the original Battlestar Galactica had better toys than Star Trek. At the time, that was more or less the deal-breaker.
So it wasn't until the movies came around that I even really gave it a chance.
I think Bumblebee was a Camaro because they had some king of sponsorship deal with GM. Notice all the other GM cars. A Hummer ambulance, come on. (it was a badass ambulance though)
I think entertaining movies can be made without resorting to the dried out plots and characterizations that dominate almost every new movie coming out of Hollywood. Conventional wisdom says the stars must be "beautiful people". If they can't act, no worries, we'll make up for it with special affects. The story sucks… no worries we'll have Kirk do Uhura.
Good movies come from good stories. Even Frakes could excite in a well written story. There are plenty of examples. The latest Batman movie was well written and IMHO blew away the several BM movies that preceded it. The Lord of the Ring movies (in which I personally was disappointed) were driven by a great story. The same can be said of the Narnia movie.
If people want bad boy they can watch shows like Gran Torino. You get the full effect without redesigning a character that Shatner spent 40 years developing. The problem is that Eastwood probably isn't pretty enough for the shallow dandys that comprises most of today's movie goers.
Well, at least they kept the original font in the titles. I'll give it a shot and hope for the best.
BTW, did they bring Ens. Rand back? She, Uhura and the Green Dancing Chick were the hottest women on TV throughout my pre-pubesence.
I liked some of the movies, but many of them are lame. You can't tell me the one Shatner directed or Nemesis or Insurrection are worthy of one of your movie recommendations. I still like Star Trek, but they have not done a very good job of handling their franchise.
As for your actor argument, it's valid. No actor since Sean Connery has played James Bond as well IMO. But different generations see that differently. THis is a new Star Trek aimed at a new audience. It's not aimed at those of use who grew up on the old show.
I'm willing to go with it if its good.
Ack! I'm late to this stupendous thread.
Where to begin? OK, Trek creds: I'm 51, so I was a boy of about 10 when TOS initially ran. It was my favorite show on TV by far. Built Revell models of the Enterprise, Klingon War Birds, Romulan Bird of Prey (At least, I think they were Revell). Bought the LP, "Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space" (Still have it!). I have some nitpicker's guides too.
In Jr. High and High School, before I could drive, I would RUN HOME rather than taking the bus so as not to miss the first five minutes when TOS was in reruns. Can you say major nerdified Trekkie? It's a wonder I EVER lost my virginity. LOL!
I've seen every series and every movie when they originally ran or were released except for Enterprise because I didn't get UPN at the time, so I watched that on SciFi when they got ahold of it.
Favorite TOS Episode: The Doomsday Machine in which William Windom gave the best performance EVAR by a guest star on that show, "My God Jim, it had a maw that could swallow a dozen starships!" Classic.
Favorite Original Cast Movie: The Wrath of Kahn. Is there really even any other possible choice?
Though I enjoyed the subsequent series, none of them topped the original for me. That said, I can see where people who came of age after me would find it hopelessly lame since they were exposed to much better effects tech when they were young. I think that's completely natural and understandable.
Favorite Subsequent Series: Enterprise. Though I HATED, HATED, HATED that ridiculously embarrassing theme song. I mean, really, LYRICS in a Trek theme? Balderdash.
Enterprise was most like TOS as an ensemble piece, though the scripts were not the unambiguous morality plays that made the original so great. Still, they were close, and the production values were simply magnificent. Voyager wasn't too bad, but Jeri Ryan's appearance… dang! The hottest Trek babe of all.
As for the upcoming movie, this may be the first one I wait for the DVD to see. I'm not aghast at recasting the original crew, but they really screwed up by not casting Adrian Brody as Spock, and the whole 90210 zeitgeist is a bit too much to take, not to mention shredding the Trek Universe back story. A definitive WTF moment for me.
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