As science fiction fans.... New Star Trek trailer is out...

DeepSpace · Post by **DeepSpace** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 2:19 pm

Sorry for posting a non Oolite related topic

I just love where this new trek is going. If I figure out how to model in Oolite I'll probably do a new Enterprise model LOL

Find the newest trailer (No.3.) here....

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/startrek/

Amazing.

ramon · Post by **ramon** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 5:02 pm

Okay that does look good. Actually, DeepSpace said it better - amazing.

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:27 pm

Still not convinced...

Wolfwood · Post by **Wolfwood** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 6:55 am

Seems grittier than any of the previous Treks, which indicates good things, but I'll have to see it to believe it...

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 10:13 am

Things I don't like and which will annoy me when I will inevitably go and see it:

It suffers from "Enterprise" Syndrome - despite being set before the original TV show - it inevitably looks more advanced because technology in RL that produces the effects has moved on.

If Abrahams is ignoring stuff like the starships were made in orbit not on the ground what else that is canonical has he chosen to ignore.

DeepSpace · Post by **DeepSpace** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 10:31 am

There's a reason the Enterprise is being built on the ground not in space. Apparently the story is a time travel story. Nero (The bad guy) has travelled back in time several times in an attempt to change it. Which has changed certain things, that stay changed! One of these is that the Enterprise is built on Earth not in orbit.

As for the look being more 'hi tech' than TOS Trek, well honestly would any of us go to see it if they used cutting edge CGI to produce something that look like a 1960's airfix model?? I don't think so.

I mean come on, look at the Trek films 1-6 they all look far far more advanced than TOS and nobody complained then. Take those films and stick Star Trek: Enterprise series next to those and it doesn't feel so out of sorts with the general 'look and feel' of the Trek Universe. imo.

I personal like the look, I think it'll be a great film.

Selezen · Post by **Selezen** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:11 am

Time travel? Again? For the love of Spock, why can't they just stop messing with the timeline? Seems to be a get-out clause for everything these days. Can't make your "vision" match the established canon? Screw around with the timeline! "A time-traveller did it!!"

Sorry. big bugbear. Star Trek needs to be renamed Time Trek. More time travelling than space travelling these days.

Film looks good. Probably will be good as long as you haven't seen ANYTHING related to star trek before. Abrams and his team are fantastic storytellers so it will be good.

DeepSpace · Post by **DeepSpace** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:20 am

Yeah I hear you. Time Travel is a bit old hat nowadays, especially with trek. In the Trek timeline though it was the next step. Time Travel was the next big step for Star Fleet apparently by the 26th Century. So much so that they had to have a Temperal Police Agency.
Not sure if ST: Enterprise put paid to the TPA tho as they were in some sort of Temperal War with someone and final destroyed each other. Hmm.
I guess with the new film they feel it necessary so that they can effect certain changes to look, feel and characters of this re-boot without offending too much the vast army of fans out there.
Hopefully the next film after this will leave the whole time travel maguffin alone and have a proper Trek adventure.

Post by **Disembodied** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:28 am

Selezen wrote:
Time travel? Again? For the love of Spock, why can't they just stop messing with the timeline? Seems to be a get-out clause for everything these days. Can't make your "vision" match the established canon? Screw around with the timeline! "A time-traveller did it!!"

Sorry. big bugbear. Star Trek needs to be renamed Time Trek. More time travelling than space travelling these days.

Preach it, Selezen! I think the whole dumb "time war" thing was what really put the mockers on Enterprise. It obviously wasn't the hammy acting or poor stories or clunky scripts: every Trek series had those. No, it was the boring and wide-open-to-abuse Mega Story hovering in the background like a bad smell. It could have been a decent series about the Federation's first halting steps into a larger galaxy. It could have even crossed that heretical Trek line and shown aliens we could learn from, rather than teach – it had the perfect excuse to do so. But no: just a big bag full of time-travelling bollocks.

Personally, I think there's too much pussyfooting around the various fanboys and their canonical obsessions. If some nerd objects that "it wasn't like that", because of some trivial detail from some show broadcast 20 years ago, or whatever, tell them to go and make their own film.

KZ9999 · Post by **KZ9999** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 9:49 pm

This is why I always preferred the British SF show like Blake's 7 and Doctor Who. The hard core fans of the show, like yours truly, don't get caught up in the canon malarkey so much. They realise that ultimately that they are just tv shows created for entertainment, not trying to predict the future. Who cares if the new story contradicts previous ones, lets just have some fun. (I was actually slightly sadden by the first two seasons of the new Dr Who, because they were trying to be all serious and they forgot about how it's all meant to be just plain scary and fun.)

As for Trek leaving the time travel alone after the new movie, I seriously doubt it. Consider the following track record: there were 2 time-travel stories in TOS, at least 4 or 5 each for TNG and DS9, Voyger was riddled with time-travel / alternative time-lines stories, Enterprise which was 90% time-travel stories in some respect; finally there were 3 of the movies. This tells me that the Trek universe loves stuffing round with it's own history.

In the end I think the new movie being treated as the big reset. Everything else that went before is canon but belongs to an alternative timeline. What we are seeing now is the new future that is open for new ideas and creations. (An hopefully some better scripts and acting. <Said tongue in cheek.>)

CptnEcho · Post by **CptnEcho** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 2:33 pm

I agree that there's plenty of storytelling available without involving time travel.
The Star Trek fiction novels have done quite well without it in most instances. The Rihannsu collection for example (a story line revolving around Romulan plot lines) is wonderful material from Dian Duane.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Star-T ... 776/?itm=1
I also enjoyed "The Final Reflection" novel that told a story from the Klingon point of view. And it introduced Trek fans to a new game played by Klingons.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Star-T ... 543/?itm=1

I enjoy the Doctor Who series. It's meant to be travel in time and space. It's fun, a little cheesy and still delivers plenty of ideas, concepts, conflicts and dramas.

I enjoyed ST:Enterprise most of the time.
I enjoyed ST:TOS and DS-9 the most.
Voyager's episode involving a first encounter with photonic life amidst retro Space Opera on the holodeck was a thoroughly entertaining homage to past inspirations like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.
ST:Next Generations seemed like the wimpy-est version of ST, in my opinion. I found myself enjoying the villains more than the 'heroes'.

Yes, Star Trek has gone to the time-travel well too often in an attempt to create a crisis worthy of everyone's attention. For many fans, the "oooh-ahhh-amazing" reaction to such story-telling crutches has been replaced with annoyance.

Mirror-verses, Multi-verses, and alternate time-lines are decent story concepts provided they're not repetitiously over-used.

That said, I still intend to see the upcoming movie.

Selezen · Post by **Selezen** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 10:49 pm

Star Trek used to be all about the storytelling. Now it just seems to be lost in its own hype. Patrick Stewart once said that he felt Trek needed to take itself a little less seriously and inject a bit of humour back into itself. Look at the original series - no matter how bad the story there was always some effort at the end to show everyone together on the bridge and (often) have a bit of a laugh. TNG had some of that, but later series lost that completely.

I am a big trek fan, but I have to admit that I'm an even bigger Babylon 5 fan. B5 started the death of Trek by showing everyone that episodic television didn't have to hit the reset button at the end of each 45 minute segment (just like Blake's 7 tried to do but somehow failed). It was B5 that prompted DS9, Voyager and Enterprise to try the "story arc" approach but the big mistake was not having anyone actually in charge of developing the story. JMS developed B5's story over years and years, but Trek tried a "seat of the pants" approach and just seemed to make it up as it went along. Enterprise took it to the nth degree with the whole "temporal cold war" concept. They must have thought they had hit on a gold mine there, with a "story arc" AND an excuse to piss all over established canon all rolled into one. The day they announced that Enterprise could disregard established canon because "ST First Contact changed history completely" was the day that I disowned any future Trek series.

Storytelling is important. Rule 1: tell a good story and your audience will love you. TOS had it. Even through the bad acting and shoddy effects, it held audiences with its storytelling. TNG had it, but in the process managed to dumb down the crew and turn the captain into little more than a father figure for the real men. Somehow it did work though, but the Worf stories were a bit trying. DS9 tried to be B5 sooooo hard it hurts. From there it just declined... Voyager had very little in the way of storytelling and should have been cancelled. We have Jeri Ryan's chest to thank for keeping Voyager on the screens. Then came Enterprise. The pilot, with the very thinly disguised soft pr0n scene (you know the scene I mean!!) aimed at keeping the teenagers glued to it for 7 years just to see it again, just dug the whole that the series could get thrown into.

So I'm surprised to actually be looking forward to the new film. I like Abrams and co and think they will be able to craft a good film. Will it be Star Trek? No, I don't think so. Will it spawn a new series? It just might, and it's been casted to do just that. At the very least it should spawn another couple of films and keep Paramount in business through the recession.

Sorry... waffled on longer than I thought I would.

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:13 pm

I concur pretty much absolutely.

I did like the Dominion Wars period of DS9, but they copped out with Sisko at the end - they should have just killed him.

Some (very little on reflection) of VOY was good, but not a lot. Enterprise sucked soooo badly, as soon as they mentioned a "Temporal Cold War" I thought, oh well, that's this series screwed over then. It lasted only as long as it did for Syndication purposes - it should have been cancelled after series one (or possibly the pilot).

I used to like Abrahams stuff but the more of his stuff I see the less I like it!

I think it's possible that the new movie will be an ok movie but it won't be a Trek movie despite the names being the same!

ramon · Post by **ramon** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:11 am

has anybody seen these fan episodes:

http://www.startreknewvoyages.com

The episodes are pretty good actually, I think the guy who plays Kirk in this has a small cameo in the new Trek film.

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:16 am

Yup, been following New Voyages for some years now - their production rate is not quite as high as they first hoped!