Abrams: Biggest Challenge Is Making Trek Relevent Again July 22, 2008
by TrekMovie.com Staff , Filed under: Abrams, Star Trek (2009 film) , trackback
In what may be the last of the reports coming out of the Fox’s TCA Fringe event last week, IGN has a summary of JJ Abrams comments about Star Trek. Much of it has been reported here before, but they provide it in better Q&A format to get more context. There is also a little bit more from Star Trek’s new director on what is his biggest challenge with the new film.
Excerpt from IGN:
Q: What was the biggest challenge of taking [the Star Trek] franchise on?
Abrams: I think the biggest challenge was trying to make it relevant to now. Like to do it despite it being Star Trek. I don’t think it’s enough to say, "Oh, it’s Star Trek, let’s just…." I think it’s a question of: How do you make it something that would be what it wants to be, even if it hadn’t been a series before.
Q: How do you?
Abrams: Well, you invest completely in the characters. And you tell a story that is good, regardless of the setting, in a weird way. And I think that what we found — with Alex [Kurtzman] and Bob [Orci]’s script and with the cast, who are so good — is you love these people and so you go with them anywhere.
For more from Abrams check out IGN
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Sounds great.
goof stuff, ,but how about some full shots of the enterprise
I have complete faith in JJ, there are only a few directors I would say that for.
I agree completely with Abrams. The 24th century Treks and the TV prequel show didn’t feel connected to today. They were off in their fantasy la-la land - a separate ‘Trek Universe!’
A lot of the blame for this lies at Roddenberry’s feet and is an Achilles Heel that has existed since the start of TNG. Rodders created a society so different from our own, because he wasn’t interested in the present day anymore. TOS was an attempt at showing where humans could go in the future. TNG was a show telling people where Roddenberry believed humans ***should*** go! Big difference!
With his intent to invest us in the characters and their foibles, making them believable people who could be our great-great-something-grandchildren, Abrams seems to show a touch of the likes of Gene Coon about him!
Hopefully there might be a reference or just a wink to Enterprise. Just to show this film is keeping with the canon.
Again, tired of Abrams telling us how wonderful he thinks it’s going to be. Post a pic or something already. We got a full Watchmen trailer and that gets released only 2 months earlier.
My confidence in this man has grown by leaps and bounds over the course of the past several weeks. He really does seem to be shooting for a faithful, original series Trek - but the man ain’t stupid - he knows he has to alter a lot of things to make it appealing to people in the year 2009.
Think about it: look over to the ad for the TOS replica communicator and tell me with a straight face that thing would look futuristic today next to an iPhone.
Me, I’m hoping they do a flip-out hologram-generating communicator or something.
I DO have to admit though, I hope he goes with the same sound effect when the communicator activates.
#4
“TOS was an attempt at showing where humans could go in the future. TNG was a show telling people where Roddenberry believed humans ***should*** go! Big difference!”
EXACTLY - EXCELLENT POINT!
#4
You’re right on the money there. Though I don’t have many complaints about the 24th century Trek. Still love all three of those series.
#5
I agree totally. Just a “wink” to Archer or NX 01 is all I ask.
“I think the biggest challenge was trying to make it relevant to now.”
Relevant, how?
“Like to do it despite it being Star Trek.”
Say, what?
6. Green-Blooded-Bastard - July 22, 2008
“Again, tired of Abrams telling us how wonderful he thinks it’s going to be. Post a pic or something already. ”
Then don’t read it. What do you really think he’s going to say? I don’t think he’s lying…they worked hard on this and I think equally hard on “getting it right.”
Human nature in the original series was just about what we see today. In the spin-off series, that nature was seen to have “evolved” into something noble compared to who we are today.
I don’t believe that human nature will change in the next few hundred years. It hasn’t changed in 6000 years of recorded history and it isn’t likely to happen in the future.
Thus, the original series had conflict and characters who the viewer could identify, thus, stories which hold-up 42 years after they were produced.
Perhaps we’ll see something of this in the new film.
I also agree that the series since TOS were quite disconnected. It goes back to Ron Moore’s thoughts on too much canon. What should happen is this: Ignore Enterprise, and follow only canon as it was in TOS. That would provide a fresh perspective and still keep the original series relevant.
Trek’s biggest problem is that it was so inaccessible. The reboot appeals to me more and more and I think it’s where JJ may be headed.
Thoughts about human nature and desires to see pictures of the Enterprise aside, I think we need to look at a bigger question:
Has anyone else noticed that if JJ were bald, he would look almost exactly like Moby?
12. Thomas Jensen
Sorry, I don’t see TNG human society as ‘noble.’ ‘Scary and repressive’ would be closer to the mark!
I think the thing with TNG and its follow-ups is that Roddenberry didn’t want to make another Star Trek show. He spent years trying to get something else made and couldn’t. His politics and personal obsessions changed down the years and this meant that he couldn’t relate to the sci-fi show he created.
We all know that TMP, whatever its merits and demerits, had little to do with the Star Trek TV show. What little is known of Roddenberry’s Phase II shows that, without Spock appearing and with Kirk set to be sidelined or killed off early on, the show would probably have tanked in its first season and be regarded by fans as an embarrassment best ignored.
When Roddenberry created TNG, he created a philosophically different show that had nothing to do with what Star Trek was about and dressed it in Star Trek clothing. Take away the window-dressing of the Starfleet command structure, the ship designs and terminology and you’re left with a show that is, at its heart completely unrelated to Star Trek.
After years of being seen as a failed has-been and in declining health, the Star Trek films taken away from him because he didn’t understand it as well as other people, he pulled the most massive con trick and cheated the audience out of a proper new Star Trek series by giving them something completely different under the Star Trek name.
Indeed, that’s why every meeting between the major castmembers of TOS and TNG were horribly awkward and embarrassing. It was like having Keifer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer turn up in character in the middle of Roger Moore’s Moonraker. While Moore’s James Bond series and Sutherland’s 24 series have the similarity of being about government agents, thaey don’t belong in the same universe.
Pity poor Ron Moore, a TOS fan, getting a dream job of working on a Star Trek show, only to find he wasn’t working on a Star Trek show at all! While DS9 can convincingly sit in the TOS universe, TNG really doesn’t fit in at all.
Really? TNG was great. DS9 was really dull towards the end there.
Abrams: I think the biggest challenge was trying to make it relevant to now. Like to do it despite it being Star Trek. I don’t think it’s enough to say, “Oh, it’s Star Trek, let’s just….”
” And you tell a story that is good, regardless of the setting, in a weird way.”
I am looking forward to this movie as much as the next guy, but so far I think JJ’s biggest challenge is to stop saying things that can be interpreted the wrong way. Both of those comments kind of rubbed me the wrong way. And believe you me, I like to be rubbed.
So to sum it up - ‘Make it real!’
… the adventure continues…
I think that Mr. Abrams seems to “get” a key point. The story has to stand on its own, and the characters be engaging, whether or not it’s Star Trek. If the story only works in the Trek Universe, people not already invested in that world won’t care. But if the story, and the characters, work whether in that fictional world or not, then the general audience has something to connect to, and will come find out what that fictional universe is about.
That’s really always what it’s been about. Make sure the story works first, and then set it in the Trekverse. (The last several films have had stories that relied heavily upon pre-existing interest in that fictional world, and thus never connected with the broader audience.) Don’t do it the other way around. And if the team making this film have succeeded in that, we’ll have a great new Trek film that the general audience can connect to.
# 7…Think about it: look over to the ad for the TOS replica communicator and tell me with a straight face that thing would look futuristic today next to an iPhone
I think it looks as cool, if not cooler - especially when you can really make a phone call with it like mine. I’ve stood next to people with an iPhone and used this, it ALWAYS gets more attention! Click below…
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K6n5jEFoVOM
16. Beam Me Up
I wasn’t saying TNG was a bad show per se. I was simply saying that, beyond the window dressing, it really is a completely separate entity from Star Trek, whereas DS9 feels like more of a companion show to TOS.
Looking at it realistically, in one ‘grouping’ you have TOS, TAS, DS9 and most of Enterprise season four, all fitting quite nicely together. In another, you have TNG, Voyager, Enterprise seasons 1-3 and a bit of 4.
All the shows have their crossovers, but realistically, TNG really shouldn’t be considered as a ‘Star Trek’ show, but as a separate show about life in a utopia, Voyager about members of the utopia losing their link with it and trying to get back there and Enterprise seasins 1-3 about the history of the establishment of the TNG utopia, rather than a prequel to TOS.
DS9 is more about an interesting corner of the TOS universe where the likes of Harry Mudd and Cyrano Jones would like to trade. Most of Enterprise season 4 gives interesting background material about the early days of TOS.
The key philosophical differences between TOS and TNG are the reason that there’s such a divide in the fan world and why some people really loathe TNG and others dismiss TOS as a primitive, slightly embarrassing, doddery elderly relation to TNG.
When you have two shows that really are so mutually incompatible beneath the surface dressing, there’s bound to be a conflict.
Trek Reflects the times, TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT. Star Trek 1-10 They all reflected the times in which they were made. Now back to Abrams Stop telling us what a great thing this movie is! Please! What are you going to say? That it is a bad movie? Star Trek V’s close relative? That you have a cast who could barely deliver lines? That Pine turned into Shat and is an egotistical jerk? That Nimoy is to old to be Spock? That in Shatner’s cameo he ooopppps! Mums the word on that!
But, in regards to Bill, has anyone on here ever hear him sound so negative towards any current production? And being in the media a bunch of times saying it? Seems kind of odd……
[note: the following is an attempt at humor] ;-)
Q: What was the biggest challenge of taking [the Star Trek] franchise on?
Abrams: I think the biggest challenge was trying to not piss off all the rabid fanboys who will dis anything I do, and yet at the same time keep the cool old school Trekkie types happy and also make the 9th graders think it’s cool.
… And to do something good enough that Paramount keeps the big paychecks flowing my way. It was also a challenge to keep the “kitsch” out and make it “real”…
#15 Dom I’m right with you on this. Noble wasn’t perhaps the right word. As Mr. Roddenberry might have said, ‘humans were evolved from their adolesence’ by the time of TNG. And more boring.
It all goes back to… if you don’t like a biased (but informed) opinion, don’t read the interviews from JJ or the cast. Every time they speak, one or more on the thread basically say “shut up” (like they care or are reading that thread). Again, what are you hoping to learn besides a new way to dis them?
Miniskirts will make it relevant…
Guys, realistically you will not be seeing the Enterprise until another teaser hits us November-ish. They aren’t going to unveil their new Enterprise in a still shot. They’ll want to show it in action, on the big screen.
As long as JJ abrams makes sure this is a Star Trek film and not a film masquerading as a Star Trek film then I will be happy.
As long as he uses it to explore the human condition and show us as a species on way to improve ourselves ten I will be happy.
Star Trek is a utopia of how we will be better in the future, TOS and TNG both conveyed it. Its a future in which all the sickness and cruelity of today’s world is gone. That was the Star Trek ideal.
If we stray away from Roddenberry we stray away from Star Trek.
JJ better remember this.
Yeah, JJ, make the most famous scifi series of all times, the most iconic cult characters, the most famous tv troika, and the most enduring, inspiring, and discussed friendship of pop culture “relevant” again.
And while you’re busy doing that, don’t forget to tell everybody who the hell the elderly guy with the pointed ears is…LOL
I think TOS is perma-relevant to any human age (unlike the pajamatrek years, which increasingly feels much more like a “period piece” than TOS, in terms of actual story content if not - yet - the sets and FX).
But certainly it would be a challenge to assert that relevance to an audience that doesn’t remember it/know it, without seeming like you’re asserting anything. Character is key, so it sounds like JJ’s got his head screwed on straight on this point.
Change in enthusiam: no change; holding course.
JJ - The Star Trek Lagacy is counting on you. Never forget, Sci Fi is the last great playground of the philosophers. Make a great movie that is intelligent. If you make this work, we can get Star Trek back. I am so sick of the mindless garbage on TV and at the theaters.
I’m pretty much ready to see the what the Enterprise look like now, and no longer care about any of Abram’s so-called ‘challenges’.
#4 DOM; (I agree completely with Abrams. The 24th century Treks and the TV prequel show didn’t feel connected to today. They were off in their fantasy la-la land - a separate ‘Trek Universe!’)
Totally agree with his comments. There is a big difference between TOS and its spin-offs. In TOS Utopian universe, humanity had united and largely overcame many Earth-bound frailties and vices by the middle of the twenty-second century is very appealing story.. Tng and later spinoffs were more in Trek fatnasy Universe (that includes DS9 too)
“Yeah, JJ, make the most famous scifi series of all times, the most iconic cult characters, the most famous tv troika, and the most enduring, inspiring, and discussed friendship of pop culture “relevant” again.”
Exactly Iowagirl! I know he means well but some of the things he says….
#15 “When Roddenberry created TNG, he created a philosophically different show that had nothing to do with what Star Trek was about and dressed it in Star Trek clothing. Take away the window-dressing of the Starfleet command structure, the ship designs and terminology and you’re left with a show that is, at its heart completely unrelated to Star Trek.
After years of being seen as a failed has-been and in declining health, the Star Trek films taken away from him because he didn’t understand it as well as other people, he pulled the most massive con trick and cheated the audience out of a proper new Star Trek series by giving them something completely different under the Star Trek name.”
SO very true. I’ve always believed that the spin-offs never even remotely resembled STar Trek. In order to get made, they had the name, but that’s where any resemblence ends.
Excuse me for being a cynic, but I’m waiting for the credit line on the upcoming movie to read: “Star Trek” - Created By JJ Abrams.
21 - Funny you should say that; I’ve always thought of DS9 as the one that didn’t fit with all the others, but just had the name “Star Trek” slapped on it to cash in on the franchise. Berman was very open about the fact that he did not want to do a Star Trek show, but found himself unable to do the show he wanted without using Trek vocabulary, and thus DS9 was born.
That aside, ALL of ST’s incarnations have been about telling stories relevant to today’s society, and I’m glad that JJ gets that. He’s not doing anything new by making that his commitment. Some of the shows and movies have made the parallels more thickly veiled than others, and frnakly that’s how I like it.
As much as I’ve enjoyed a lot of the new BSG, its primary weakness in my eyes it that it bludgeons the viewer over the ehad with its parallels rather than let us subtly discover them. Making every single detail of their society identical to ours shows a distinct lack of creativity in storytelling which is only made up for by the visual design and some amazing performances.
“Excuse me for being a cynic, but I’m waiting for the credit line on the upcoming movie to read: “Star Trek” - Created By JJ Abrams.”
Chuckle. Which would be fine if he was completely reimagining it say like BSG. That almost total redo is awesome. I kinda wish that was what was happening with Trek & JJ to a certain extent. That way I could emotionally divorce myself from it. I’m not sure you can have it both ways — keep the old but make it new — but we’ll see.
#4—I completely agree with you, Dom, and have been saying this for years.
To me, there will always be a difference between Star Trek and “based upon Star Trek”. Even Roddenberry himself wanted to ignore much of what he had done in the Original Series when he created TNG. TOS never depicted a utopia. It was, however, optimistic in that human beings did not destroy themselves after all. We survived, and went on to explore the frontiers in front of us.
TNG was Roddenberry’s revisionist view of the Star Trek Universe. He wanted to depict his idea of utopia. The resulting effect of the writers is well documented, and I won’t revisit that here.
TOS was a romantic look at our possible future…
TNG began as a politically correct, sterilized, almost robotic environment, where humans no longer had any internal conflicts recognizable to us, and there was often a fine line between wisdom and naivety towards other cultures. Were they truly “enlightened”, or “assimilated”?
28. captain_neill
You don’t seem to know what a utopia is. I suggest you read up on it! TOS is not a utopia. Most of TOS and its related (23rd century) spinoffs did stray from Rodders, which is what made them so good. Star Trek not being faithful to Roddenberry’s ‘vision’=good!! Star Trek resembling the work of DC Fontana, Gene Coon and John Meredyth Lucas = good!
Get away from this Cult of Roddenberry nonsense! All the sickness and cruelity of today’s world is not gone in TOS. Why else do you think there are still monsters like Kodos and Captain Garth and Dr Adams out there in TOS? TOS is about humans trying to be better, not being better!
Of course they’re out there in TOS - and recognized to be aberrations, the same as in TNG.
For instance, Karnas and Mark Jameson are nothing if not the heirs to Kodos and Finney or Matt Decker. And in both series, the things they do are looked at as things which have no place in the society humans want to live in.
It´s not Abrams comments that are tiresome, what is tiresome is this new found TNG bashing. TNG did a lot for the TOS, if not just to give new material to discuss about, and TOS was never made to be this over scrutinized.
40
I do know what a utopia is. I did an essaay on it and dystopia in University.
Star Trek is the one show to display a utopic view point. Most other science fiction has a very dystopic view point.
TNG is the utopia of everything is perfect but not so in TOS. However, the 23rd Century still has a more utopic view point because it is still depicting humans as growing and Earth has grown beyond the troubles of the now. To me that is utopic thinking. Now I will admit that the humans got bit more arrogant and full of themselves about their evolved brilliance in the 24th Century.
Its a great idea but would not work in practice, in todays society that is. With no money humans would become fat and lazy, there be no drive today. But I love the idea of no money as it brings up too much greed in todays world.
Also TOS was born on an era which wanted a monster of the week and shoot em ups. TNG was born out of the conservative 80s. There is a reflection of the times in both shows. Just as the Xindi arc of Season 3 was relevant of the post 9/11 world.
Also I am getting fed up of TNG bashing that Victor Hugo is bringing up. TNG was a brilliant show. it seems like everyone is bashing the 24th Century now ever since JJ Abrams came on the scene. I have also noticed the same with the Batman movies. After the disaster of batman & Robin everyone praised Keaton and Burton’s two films and it seems even they are getting bashed now in the post Batman Begins era.
I always believed TNG was the way Gene Roddenberry wanted Trek to be if he was allowed more freedom, which he did have for TNG as it not tied to a network.
This utopic view on humans as a species being better than we are now is part of the Trek. Its not just shoot em up, it is a morality play with our characters.
These are what are important.
There is still diseases in the 24th Century as well.
Perhaps it is better to say a utopic future rather than a utopia, as it is a future which provides hope.
true #39 and i add—from tng on i fervently disliked how tng on thru voyager the prime directive was used—and how the federation developed—the prime directive began simply as not to interfere with the internal poliitics/development of a pre-warp civilization—but tng on thru voyager it turned into the plausible deniability directive–pretend u never met them/never heard of their plight…accept everything short of mutual annihilation…put non-interference above a persons right to exist…the federation would allow entire civilizations of nice people to die off rather than help them…believe me the shock of your world dying due to a plague would far outweigh the shock of meeting an alien race prewarp…the federation would allow that crap to occur and on top of that, goes around plotting to displace people by force (the ba’ku) and consorts with races who love raping, torturing, encouraging their kids to watch them do psuedo-s&m on people just to utterly destroy a person, and committing horrific violations of basic decency (cardassians); use the glory of murder, violence, cannibalism, etc., as the formation of their whole society, (klingons) and debases women and embraces everything humanity was meant to avoid (ferengi) and plots genocide to stop a war…
the federation sounds more like the terran empire using a different opera mask…
hmmm…for all its faults the romulan empire doesnt look so bad after all…perhaps i’ll acquire a dwelling in the krokton segment…perhaps pardek’s old place..LOL…
naaahhh…LONG LIVE BAJOR!
RE: 29. Iowagirl - July 23, 2008
“Yeah, JJ, make the most famous scifi series of all times, the most iconic cult characters, the most famous tv troika, and the most enduring, inspiring, and discussed friendship of pop culture “relevant” again.
And while you’re busy doing that, don’t forget to tell everybody who the hell the elderly guy with the pointed ears is…LOL”
***********************************
Well, I think to a large extent, Star Trek is NOT relavent anymore…not to the general population. It may have been years ago, but not any more. Trek may be relavent to you or I or anyone else that patrols these boards, but not to John Q. Public.
*relevant* not relavent…..darn typos
[…] Trek Movie e […]
#43—”…what is tiresome is this new found TNG bashing. ”
For you it may be “new found”, but TNG lost me very early on, and there is nothing new about my disappointment. It has been 20 years or so, and I don’t feel like it is any closer to Star Trek as I knew it than I did then.
I’m not bashing TNG. It had a huge following, and still does. But I would rather have seen a continuation of Star Trek in what I felt (and still feel) to be the more romantic 23rd Century then, and I am very happy now that Star Trek is returning to what was, IMO, its golden era now. TNG was obviously “for you”. It just wasn’t “for me”. That doesn’t necessarily make one or the other better…They are just different, as you and I are.
50. Closetrekker.
Nicely put! My feelings exactly!
47 and others - very good point. Each incarnation of Trek has been incredibly relevant _to the time in which it was created._ If JJ had not made it his mission to make his incarnaiton relevant to 2009 was all as relevant to previous incarnations, that would have been a sign that he just didn’t get the whole concept of the thing.
Roddenberry was not a saint, he was a television producer. He had an agenda, just like every other ‘creator’ that we tend to revere today such as Abrams or Whedon. His ideas started the train rolling and should be given credit and/or blame where it is warranted. But he did bring this creature we call Trek to life.
A movie or TV show is SUPPOSED to be relevant to the time in which it is being viewed. Great movies or TV can supercede their time and place of creation and become ‘classic’, revered or incessantly over-analyzed by some, but they should hold some truths that can be related to any time or place.
What we need to hope is that those charged with this movie can see the truths that have held this universe up as one to be treasured, dreamt about and yes, even ridiculed, for over 40 years.
While I will reserve final judgement for another 10 months give-or-take, for now I will defer to one who has invested in this enterprise for most of his life - I trust Nimoy and he has blessed this vision… and so we must wait, even if it kills us.
First! … oh, wait.
#44 “Also I am getting fed up of TNG bashing that Victor Hugo is bringing up. TNG was a brilliant show. it seems like everyone is bashing the 24th Century now ever since JJ Abrams came on the scene. ”
TNG and Berman’s 24th century “style” lost me a LONG time before JJ ever thought of doing Star Trek. Fact is, TOS and TNG are totally different animals. They ARE radically different. I don’t like the spin offs because of that fact. Others LOVE the spinoffs because of that fact. And some like it all…and despite the huge differences, they somehow manage to lump it all together in the same basket. I can’t do that.
What I enjoyed and what made me a fan of Star Trek isn’t present in the spin-offs, so, while the spin-offs were fine, if somewhat repetitive, examples of television, I just can’t toss them into “my” Trek basket.
I vote that JJ, the cast and the writers speak no more on the subject of their movie until November. Anytime they do, several fans find something to take exception to. A word, a phrase…. next, Quinto will cock an eyebrow during an interview and it will be immediately non- canonical and heresy.
And yes, I understand it’s in a Trek fans blood to nit-pick, but some of you need to go pro and let the amateurs move up in the ranks.
>;-)
Let’s hope the movie makes Trek relevant again. I think the franchise lost its way and lost what makes it special from DS9 onwards.
Nitpickers United!
TNG was the evolution of TOS. In TOS, humanity had not quite settled on a philisophical way to approach itself, freedom with restraint and responsibility coupled with a code of conduct that helps define what it means to be human. In TNG humanity had come farther and closer to achieving that goal.
In DS9 conflict was a part of the show because all sorts of humanoids were there and a space station that operates as a port cannot have a unified culture as a starship can. Remember when Sisko (in reference to the issues with the Cardassian Treaty that abandoned Federation Citizens) said, “The problem is Earth” and explained how its too perfect and too much of a paradise. People’s experiences do not allow them to understand the situation that his part of space was in and to really understand what the Federation had done to its own people. As a result people like Commander Eddington and the Maquis left the Federation.
In Enterprise Captain Archer had said (paraphrasing), “They are humans, there is a code of behavior they are expected to follow” and that was the beginning of it.
So lets stop the TNG bashing, it was different for a reason, as DS9 was different from TNG.
59. As has been said before, we’re not TNG bashing. An assessment of it 20+ years after it was launched, when it is being superceded is inevitable, though.
Many fans of Star Trek see TNG as a completely different show that merely uses some Star Trek ephemera like names and terminology. Not to say it’s a bad TV show, merely that it doesn’t have much to do with Star Trek.
Even the name is a falsehood. ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’, if it was genuinely what it says on the tin, would be set on the Enterprise-A post-Kirk or the Enterprise-B at most.
A ***spin-off*** from Star Trek, for commercial reasons, would have made crossovers with the original cast simple. Crossovers between Star Trek and TNG proved doomed to failure, because the shows aren’t related beyond the usage of some naming and a few designs. Rodders knew that was the case, since he stated that the two shows should never cross over!
TNG isn’t an ‘evolution’ of Star Trek any more than TMP was: it’s Star Trek’s creator having different ideas for something new and using the Star Trek name to sell it.
With TMP, the studio, the cast and the public pretty swiftly realised that they were being sold a movie claiming to be Star Trek, but wasn’t, so Rodders was out the door! And TNG is, stylistically, a spin-off of TMP.
I guess there’s also a generational misinformation thing in it. I grew up with Star Trek reruns, while the generation after me grew up with TNG on air or in reruns. That generation’s view of what Star Trek is was shaped by TNG, so, misinformed, they look at Star Trek in the wrong way.
Also, Star Trek fans didn’t (and don’t) go in for the Cult of Roddenberry. We know he created it, but we have also always known about the likes of Robert Justman, Gene Coon, DC Fontana, John Meredyth Lucas, Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson and Harlan Ellison, whose vital contributions to Star Trek have always been acknowledged by us. These names mean just as much to us, if not more, than Gene Roddenberry’s.
It was the TNG-era publicity machine that focused everything on Roddenberry in the 80s, even ignoring David Gerrold’s vital contributions to TNG. The sad thing, when you read Gerrold’s novelisation of Encounter at Farpoint, is that he was striving to make TNG feel like a continuation of Star Trek. The novelisation has humour in it, there’s genuine conflict between characters and even mild profanity. The book covers pretty much everything the TV episode covers, but the emphasis is different. Where a line is intended to be funny in the book, the delivery in the show is unemotional. When a character is angry, the same thing happens.
None of this is to say that TNG doesn’t have merits as a sci-fi television show. But for fans of Star Trek, the live action show that ran from 1966-1969, the cartoon series from the early 70s and the five proper films, this is a big moment for us. It appears that Star Trek, as we know and love it, is coming back for the first time in 18 years. At last we get to show people what pure, unadulterated Star Trek really is and why we love it so much.
I felt that TNG was always kind of too preachy. It was a way of saying “we are better than we once had been,” which is esentially saying we are better than you. Where the original crew never felt that way. They still stumbled. They tried to be the best they could be. They had rules and laws. Sometimes they realized they had to bend the rules. Sometimes talking wouldn’t work. Sometimes the answers are not right there. Or the rules won’t work.
We had the character of Kirk who was our clear hero of the story. And rather than have a Devil on one shoulder and an Angel on the other, Kirk had brains (or logic) on one shoulder and heart (emotion) on the other. These were in the characters of Spock and Bones.
TNG seemed to get away from that. I always felt like they were characters who were not only were better than us, but they constantly rubbed our noses in the fact. Were the origianl crew had clear enemies who were threats, the next generation was more like we’re friends with everyone. It was kind of like the original show was like the U.S. and the Next Generation was what the U.N. was meant to be like (but in my opinion isn’t.)
Even the spin off, Enterprise, leans closer to the Next Generation. Archer said to an alien race, “You hunt here? Our people stopped hunting fifty years ago,” or words to that effect. It sat wrong with me. Because it felt more like the writers are telling me that if you’re a hunter, you are a savage. Another had a character who had lung cancer. She was to get a cure in a matter of minutes with a shot Phlox was gonna give her or a pill or something like that. When I saw this episode I realized that if there was indeed a simple cure, people would undoubtedly take up smoking again because there is less of a threat. But they don’t do that in Enterprise or Next Generation. Because they are clearly better than me. They drink synthetic alcohol on TNG. Did anyone drink too much? Never saw that on TNG and based on Troi in First Contact I guess not. No one even drank too much. Kirk and his crew made those mistakes. And I loved them for that.
I never felt that way with Kirk and the original crew. Make it relevant to today Abrams says. And I agree. Kirk made mistakes. Let him stumble. Let him learn. I don’t know. Give him the Andorain clap that has to be treated with a shot of penicillin. Let him have anti Klingon feelings (sure it’s calling Kirk prejudiced, but we see that he realizes it in The Undiscovered Country.
Why was the origianl cast and show better? Because while they were more advance from us, and better educated they still fumbled. But they learned from it. That’s more hopeful to me than a society that is better, knows it and always seems to be rubbing it in my face.
Also, the original show seemed to show the good and the bad with new technology. Where the Next Gen. etc seemed to always show the good things that are done. The internet is a great tool for getty all sorts of information. But it’s been used for bad too. So has the car for that matter. Even the phone is used in crimes today. But, I digress. I feel there is more hope in seeing a group of people make some mistakes that are human and learning from them than a group of folks who know what the right thing is and show us that they know it all the time.
Unless he meant relevant in that he wants to have the technology upgraded so that they’re using communicators more like todays phones rather than the communicators of old. Then I just missed the entire point. But I am quite dumb.
I love all five series of Star Trek. I love both TOS and TNG the most. I think there is more fun with the characters in TOS ayet the TNG characters became legendary in their own rights as well. Picard and Data are cool characters.
I agree that humans got a little to full of themselves and a little stuck up. There is a more communist view in the 24th Century. Proving themselves to be better than they are today is better than enforcing those values upon others.
What I find interesting in Star Trek is that the aliens are excellent showcases of human behaviours of today. Ferengi are very much a representation of our greed, which is still very apparent today.
There are characters I love on TNG I love equally to TOS. I love Data. I am a fan of androids, cyborgs and robots in sci fi and how they are used to understand humanity.
I look back at the feedback of this post and realized one thing - Star Trek in its various incarnations, gives ALL of us a home. We may not care for weird Uncle DS9 or Big Brother TNG or little runt ENT and some may pine for Papa TOS or even prodigal daughter VOY, but they are all part of our family, dysfunctional as any family is, and we are better for it.
So, please, continue the nits, the picks, and the praise. Its all part of the joy of being family. May the spirits of the celestial temple look over you all. PEACE.
#58 - Shouldn’t it be Nitpickers Amalgamated? ;-)
#59—”TNG was the evolution of TOS”
I don’t feel that way. Roddenberry resented alot of the loss of control with TOS, and decided to make another show born from his revisionist view of what Star Trek was all about to begin with. That revisionist view included the “utopian” angle. Instead of being a “wagon train to the stars”, he changed it completely to represent what he thought would be a utopia (The trouble with that, for me, is that one man’s utopia is another man’s prison).
I agree with Dom in that TOS and TNG are completely different productions, with completely different approaches to things. TOS was something I could relate to, with its fantastic characters, cutting edge social commentary, and that feeling of “frontier” life among the stars.
To me, TNG was more watered down, holier-than-thou, sterile, and far less romantic. I would hardly call that “an evolution”. It is more aptly described as “sanitized”.
While I understand some of the reverence for GR, let’s be honest. While he certainly laid some of the groundwork, it was Gene Coon, D.C. Fontana, Justman, etc. who made Star Trek “great”. Gene’s Trek writing(meaning his episodes) was often mediocre at times. Even TNG got better once he left the show. The characters certainly became more interesting. Unfortunately, they had already lost me.
To my generation, Star Trek is TOS and the original 6 films.
I enjoyed some of DS9 and ENT, but I won’t stop for TNG (unless it’s “YE”–which is just great writing) or VOY reruns.
To my kids, they only know Kirk and co. from the movies. Trek, to them, is TNG-era. I think it is all very age-relative to some degree.
The only thing that has me here on this site and at all excited about “new” Star Trek is the fact that Trek is going back to its roots–the iconic Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty, space exploration without a tech solution for everything, without holodecks, Klingon friends, children on the bridge, or artificial people in Starfleet.
#61—Very well said.
#63—Nice perspective…I’m glad to see someone else who doesn’t take it personally.
I don’t have a problem with TNG being different than TOS, in regards to its depiction of the future. From a practical standpoint, it’s supposed to be 80 years after TOS, so of course the universe has changed.
Just look how much things have changed in the past 80 years.
All pieces of art are a product of their times. You can’t expect a show created in the 1980’s to reflect a 2008 view of the world, or of a 1960’s view of the world.
I’ve been rewatching some of my favorite episodes of TNG on DVD, and there are some darned good pieces of work in that seven seasons. The only stumbling block for me is that the special effects are looking very dated by today’s standards.
But again, what do you expect? 2008 special effects in a 1988 TV show? Gimme a break, lol.
Cripes, for it’s time there wasn’t a TV show on the planet that had effects as good as TNG on their TV budget. It’s not fair to compare a movie effects budget with a TV effects budget, either.
Redo the effects for TNG, and I think the show would outdraw first-run episodes of BSG. Mind you, I like and watch BSG.
>>#58 - Shouldn’t it be Nitpickers Amalgamated? ;-)
I think you’re right!
Vedek Anon said it best: “So, please, continue the nits, the picks, and the praise. Its all part of the joy of being family. ” It amazes me how people see the shows so very differently. One thing for sure, it’s never dull in a Trek thread or chat room!
How long do we have to wait until we get to see this movie?
Staving off the colossal anticipation associated with this movie, that is the challenge.
Nuff said.