I don’t know if Trekmovie is any idication. You see, dissent isn’t exactly popular here.

Read some other threads. It’s not all champagne and roses.

I, for one, don’t like this reboot idea at all. I don’t care how good it looks, how shaky the cam is or how many lens flares light up the theater. I do not like the idea of the bastardization of these iconic characters or the trashing, wholesale, of the basic Trek tenets.

But of course, that’s just me.

Oh, the reasons people do this are perfectly simple and easy to understand. In fact, I’ve taken the liberty of developing a theory about it, which I now present as…

The Three Laws of Fanboyics
with apologies to Isaac Asimov
(Note: the masculine pronoun is used throughout these laws, primarily because female fans are generally, with a few exceptions, not known for the behavior described therein.)

1. A fanboy must take any comment he perceives to be even slightly negative–no matter how innocuous, benignly intended and/or demonstrably accurate–as a grievious insult to his own personal favorite tv show, film, book, comic book, video game or what have you.

2. Any perceived “insult” to a fanboy’s favorites must immediately be perceived as a direct, personal attack on him and him alone, and be responded to with scorn, hysterics, outrage, personal insult and grating sarcasm.

3. A fanboy’s personal opinion must always be regarded as the reflection of absolute, irrefutable truth; any person who deviates from this opinion is to be perceived as a heretic, and dealt with as in rule (2), above.

Of course “canon” exists in the franchise. Everything prior to ST09 (ENT-NEM) forms the timeline of events which leads the Star Trek Universe to this point—which is what separates this endeavor from more traditional reboots like “Batman Begins”, for example. There is a coherent chain of events within the fictional universe which opens the door for all of this, as opposed to just pretending that none of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and the events depicted in the film series ever occured at all. It has to—otherwise, what is depicted within the story in ST09 does not…

The moment they depict “the post-Nemesis era” as the starting point for the timeline incursion—they have indeed “honored canon”. In fact, the cause for the creation of the altered timeline itself is quite canonical. The only difference is that, going forward, characters within the altered timeline will not be referencing the events from TOS/original films which are *not common* to both timelines—-and given the fact that the film is only 2 hrs. and 6 minutes in length and covers a very broad period of time—we do not even know yet what events will or will not be common to both (particularly in the characters’ backstories).

Today’s producers and backers seek a new “target demographic” is today’s 15-25 year old crowd), it’s important to the old people in charge of marketing this film (to include “releases” to this site) to have people believe that there is still respect for the original, even if it turns out to be no more true than other “remake” efforts like Bewitched, Lost in Space, Bionic Woman, etc.

I’ve heard it both ways – that this is NOT a reset, and that it IS. I happen to believe that it is, only because of the Chekov dilemna. But you might notice that even in all of the marketing efforts – the differences between the “real” Star Trek ship and this movie version are mimimized – all of the angles on the cereal boxes of the ship or the people feature angles that diminish the incredible differences between the old and new ways of seeing things. They hope not to need the old fans drawn in because of the Star Trek name, and they hope this movie is likewise attractive to a new generation by the merits of its own stand-alone look. I suppose at this point I can’t criticize the effort to get the crowd into the threatre. It’s what we’ll find there that will be worth criticizing – or not. In every way so far I have nothing to say but good about the movie per people who have seen everything from greenscreen dailies to early edit constructions, and I think even Nimoy is over-analyzing this movie, comparing it to some rise of the Messiah to stand tall in leadership over wanting and hopeless masses, and politicizing it by saying he was so disappointed the movie didn’t get into screens before Obama got into Office, because he sees some parallel. I think all of these actors are overanalizing all of this – all these years later they’re talking about work in front of a green screen that took place 2 years ago for less than a month.

Pegg hasn’t a thing to worry about regarding his career.

Also he’s wrong … if TrekMovie is any indication, most of the fans have accepted being eased into the reboot and seem to be very enthusiastic about the new movie, canon or no.

He’s also wrong about what Leonard Nimoy represents in the movie. The issue of “Canon” with a big “C” representing official back-story produced by Paramount and it’s subsequent spawn is not in question. Whatever is presented on screen IS Canon. The point Pegg is missing (and why most actors should keep their mouths shut most of the time), is not whether Canon exists, but whether “canon” with a small “c” representing everything that has been established prior to the start of this movie, exists anymore in the new franchise. Whether Leonard Nimoy’s character of “prime” Spock exists or not has nothing to do with whether they honor canon from the prime universe in this alternate universe. What is OBVIOUS is that the producers are NOT honoring established canon as the franchise moves forward, but rather redefining Canon for the franchise. And THAT is the problem some of the original fans are having with the movie – the fact that it has been RE-BOOTED and not simply updated, picking and choosing the trivial bits of canon that serve their new vision without getting in the way of the major changes they have made to canon. The Paramount/Abrams conspiracy to “ease” the old fans into the new idea most likely backfired for this now seemingly minority group. But all of that is irrelevant now with less than 3 weeks to go and the blockbuster locomotive is barreling its way down the tracks to be one of the biggest hits of all time, solidifying not only Star Trek as a major new franchise, but confirming Abrams self-righteous vision that he was right all along and entitling him to continue to re-invent the Trek universe leaving canon ever further in the dusty past and rendering it meaningless for a new generation of fans.

So Simon, just let it die, you are only making things worse with comments like that which show that you do not understand the first thing about it and seemingly do not care to those fans you seek to placate