comment #1

Chase Kahn says ...

Zachary Quinto's always been the diamond in the rough on HEROES...

comment #2

Ray says ...

Despite the glowing special effects in the trailer and Jeffrey's enthusiastic endorsement, I have my doubts.

We've been down this road with this franchise before, and I'm not really sure that the TREK formula really works dramatically:

http://therecshow.com/2008/11/17/why-star-trek-fails/

comment #3

Ponderer says ...

Wow, that article knows pretty much NOTHING about Star Trek. Lack of drama? Yeah, the enforced lack of interpersonal conflict in later series is hard to take (though it was rectified somewhat in Deep Space Nine), but friggin' original Star Trek, which was essentially the grand naval voyages of Cook, Horatio Hornblower - even Run Silent, Run Deep - repackaged for the space age. The premise was that exploration and knowledge was inherently exciting and enobling. Star Wars didn't send a generation into NASA careers; Star Trek did. And boring, trite moralistic screeds wouldn't have been enough to accomplish something like that.

I'm so tired of people who assault the notion that a little wonder isn't sufficient. This is the kind of mindset that gives things like the crap ending of Contact.

comment #4

Ray says ...

@ Ponderer - Look, I can appreciate a sense of wonder just as much as the next guy. But seriously, as DRAMA, the STAR TREK series has, on the whole, been a failure. There is nothing at all inherently dramatic or interesting about people standing around on starship bridges and reacting to shit on a screen (see the entire film STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE for more evidence of this).

Sure, the premise is noble and optimistic. Great. Fascinating. But as science fiction or, more importantly, as DRAMA ... it has been seriously lacking since its inception.

comment #5

The Winchester says ...

"Star Wars didn't send a generation into NASA careers; Star Trek did. "

But Star Wars did make a generation believe they could move shit with their minds and grow up to be Jedis.

comment #6

Ponderer says ...

Winchester: hahahahaha.

Ray: The problem with Star Trek: The Motion Picture was that it WASN'T Star Trek. The reason why Star Trek II keeps being the template for science fiction action films was that it struck the right balance between character interaction, action, and ideas.

Contrary to the article, one film in the series was a massive hit (big even internationally - did well even in Soviet Russia!), and that was Trek IV. A film with, y'know, no real dramatic conflict, message-driven to the nth degree. The summation of everything you say was lacking in the concept of the thing, and it's the film that struck the biggest chord with audiences. You could not have pulled off IV with stentorian cardboard cutouts starting at screens.

And you know, as far as your interpretation of its premise being crappy science fiction, I'll go with with people like Sturgeon and Ellison and a horde of other SF icons who thought the premise was just dandy, thankyouverymuch. (This is not to say they didn't have quibbles as to how it all played out - but that they all bought into the central conceits and goals of the show is what means something here.)

I do find it amusing that the article mentions Blade Runner as a favorable comparison to Trek, which has been richly criticized for being absolutely inert in terms of any kind of human or character development. Beautiful, yes, but really, who gives a shit about anybody in it?

comment #7

nemo says ...

"... But seriously, as DRAMA, the STAR TREK series has, on the whole, been a failure. There is nothing at all inherently dramatic or interesting about people standing around on starship bridges and reacting to shit on a screen ...

Sure, the premise is noble and optimistic. Great. Fascinating. But as science fiction or, more importantly, as DRAMA ... it has been seriously lacking since its inception."

That was my whole complaint about the original television series when I was a kid back in the 60s.

The original Mission Impossible (the Martin Landau TV series, not the crappy Tom Cruise movies) were intensely visual. Things were not spelled out for the audience like they were idiots, but instead unfolded in real time in tense visual set pieces.

The Star Trek TV series, which was on at the same time, always seemed like a cornball radio serial. The actors, as you say, were always reacting to something on a screen. Even worse, the actors were constantly EXPLAINING the plot! Every last point was spelled out in excruciating detail in the dialog, as if it were being explained to a class full of slow children.

Star Trek the TV series was just like a 1930s Flash Gordon radio serial with pictures added, and was every bit as corny. The movies were not much better.

Mission Impossible the TV series was like a mysterious and puzzling spy movie directed by Hitchcock, or Robert Bresson, or Fritz Lang in his silent movie days. The Tom Cruise MI movies completely jettisoned the best aspects of the TV series, becoming utterly conventional action movies in the process.

comment #8

BurmaShave says ...

Isn't the argument about STAR TREK's dramatic effectiveness immediately settled by the existence of 11 movies, 5 series, and hundreds of novels, comic books, and animated series?

comment #9

Mark G. says ...

BurmaShave, what a great point!

comment #10

EDouglas says ...

Jeff, I was kind of surprised when I mentioned this was at "34th STreet", you didn't understand it was this theater, which is the only movie theater on 34th Street now (the one on the East Side closed) but this one has been there for at least five years cause I saw Matrix Reloaded there. They don't do a lot of press screenings there but it is a very busy theater.

comment #11

Rich S. says ...

That recshow article is interesting, if for no other fact that it's clear he's watched very little of the original series, and understood it even less. His arguments apply with far greater force to Next Generation. (In perhaps the greatest original series episode, City on the Edge of Forever, they're barely on the ship at all and they don't spend any time "standing around reacting to a screen.")

I don't think anyone can seriously argue that Star Trek is great drama. As with any serialized or episodic presentation, the characters never really change, so at best it's melodrama.

But Star Trek, especially in its original incarnation, has always been pretty good at presenting ideas. Sometimes it was hamfisted (the black/white-white/black episode), but sometimes it was very effective (the episode where the computer replaced Kirk as captain of the Enterprise).

In the later series it degenerated largely into deus ex machina technobabble, but that can't be said of the original series. I'm worried this new movie is going to cater to the lowest common denominator action crowd (like the guy from the recshow) while jettisoning the character interaction and ideas that made the original series great. I guess we'll see.

comment #12

Ray says ...

@ Burmashave - A good point, one I address slightly in my article. The reason the series continues to be reconfigured in all of these different forms, through movies and television, is because Paramount likes to make money. The series can, at least in movie form, guarantee somewhere between $70 to $100 million at the box office (although none of the films have surpassed $100 million domestic), so if you keep the films tight and lean (as they have since the first one), you make a PROFIT.

As for the series, none of them have been impressive hits other than TNG, and even that was a syndication darling rather than a network superstar. Despite this, the network and studio make sure they produce enough episodes of each series to ensure its value in the syndication market. It's the same reasoning behind Lucas' constant talk of making the STAR WARS television series run 100 episodes - for the sake of syndication money.

But I think all of the numbers so far over thirty years of Paramount trotting it out into the market show quite clearly that TREK is a mostly American property that has a loyal fan base and that's all; it's largely ignored by a wider audience, who are bored or embarassed by it.

comment #13

Ray says ...

@ Rich S. - I watched the original STAR TREK reruns as a kid. I loved science fiction at that point in my life. But I found it, even at that impressionable age, to be fairly silly and boring. Every single episode of that original series had the Enterprise fly through a cloud/nebula/force field that altered the personalities of the crew in some way; think about it. I think the reason why this happened so much in the original series was due to the setup of the show - as a writer, you need to come up with a weekly reason why this giant ship and her hundreds of crew members get into trouble or have conflict. It's a difficult problem for a screenwriter.

The show itself is much like the Enterprise: beautiful to look at, but it steers like a cow.

comment #14

Mark G. says ...

All that humbug about the movies never been that successful. Sure the most successful one (IV) grossed "only" $110m but it seems to me that some people never heard of the word inflation...

Inflation adjusted (ticket prices estimated at $7.30 average in 2009) it looks like this:

I: $238m
II: 196m
III: 166m
IV: $216m
V: $96m
VI: $130m
VIII: $132m
VIII: $152m
IX: $109m
X: $54m

comment #15

Rich S. says ...

Ray,

My original statement stands. Your current statement shows that you are remembering the original series through the lens of childhood and you've shortchanged it as a result.

I'm not enough of a Trek geek to point out exactly how many of the original series episodes had the plot you described, but offhand I can only think of about two or three that might arguably qualify. That's out of 70 some-odd episodes.

It's true, as Ellison once observed, that Roddenberry only really had one plot idea: The Enterprise finds God and he's insane, a child or both. But even that idea only appears five or so times. Star Trek was never as one-note as you try to make out.

Since your premise is flawed, so is your argument. I'm by no means a Star Trek fanatic, but you've unfairly pigeonholed the show to make your point and that should be made clear.

comment #16

btwnproductions says ...

The Loews 34th opened in fall 2001. It's still I think cheaper than competing multiplexes, because of its somewhat-off-the-beaten-track location.

comment #17

hcat says ...

Just to add a useless point, Star Trek did not originate at Paramount, they bought the rights in the mid 70's with the rest of the DesiLu properties including the Mission Impossible series that was mentioned above, and the Untouchables.

That had to be one of the smartest purchases of all time given the syndication revenue on Lucy and Star Trek as well as the film rights to ST and MI.

comment #18

bluefugue says ...

>But seriously, as DRAMA, the STAR TREK series has, on the whole, been a failure.

You can't look at Star Trek as a monolithic entity; there's too much of it. The best episodes of classic trek (Amok Time, Mirror Mirror, Doomsday Machine, etc.) were fantastic drama. Spock's conversation with T'Pring at the end of Amok Time is one of the best dialogue passages in network television, full stop. The Kirk/Spock/McCoy trinity was a solid set of characterizations with good internal tension, though the non-continuous series format prevented any of them from really changing or growing. The show has always had a morality-play element to it, but I don't see that as a bad thing; the same could be said of the Twilight Zone or any other number of great shows.

Trek's optimistic vision of a future, as well as its bizarrely underrated production design, probably resonates more strongly than its drama, and is still present even when the drama flags. On the whole, adding up all the series together, there are probably more bad episodes than good, but I see no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Trek works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't. Not unlike Wars, and a lot of other things, with or without "Star" in the front of them.

As for Star Trek, TMP, it's an interesting film. Magnificent score (one of the greatest ever composed); fantastic special effects; and a refusal to sink into the self-parody that some later Trek films indulged in. Also the last time Shatner really looked like Kirk. The shuttle ride around the refurbished Enterprise is my favorite scene in all the movies. But the plot was dull and was recycled from The Changeling, and the attempt to evoke a 2001-esque sense of wonder (the movie is, in terms of its FX, the truest descendant of 2001 ever made) didn't quite hit the mark.

comment #19

markj says ...

Star Trek II, IV and VI are all terrific films. And I loved The Motion Picture as a child - it had a real sense of majesty and wonder about it (and an amazing score by Jerry Goldsmith). At the end of the day Star Trek was about ideas, something I fear this new film will have very little of. Kurtzman and Orci are resposible for The Legend of Zorro, The Island, MI:3, Eagle Eye and Transformers. 'Nuff said.

comment #20

DavidF says ...

I beg to differ a bit with bluefugue.
I think TMP is primarily an FX descendant of Star Wars. Kubrick didn't linger ad nauseum around the Oddyssey.

That whole shuttle scene comes more from the opening shot of Star Wars where you can see every little detail on the Star Destroyer.

That scene does have a sense of wonder the first time you see it but it DRAGS and DRAGS and DRAGS. I think that whole movie is an attempt to take Star Wars-style FX, a Star Trek action story and the to tell those things at the pace of 2001. It's the only one of the Star Trek movies I've only managed to sit through once (I sat through Nemesis a second time, just to make sure it wasn't as bad as I Remembered. It was.)

The score, you're right, is wonderful (and recycled, of course, for TNG).

comment #21

Ponderer says ...

"Kubrick didn't linger ad nauseum around the Oddyssey."

2001 is my favorite film, but that's not something I can agree with. How many shots of [cough] the Discovery did he have the camera SLOWLLLLLLLLLY pan along the underside, so slow that it makes the long star destroyer reveal in Star Wars look like that shrimp on a treadmill?

comment #22

rr3333 says ...

Start a thread about Trek or Star Wars and the nerds come out of hiding in hordes. Amazing.

comment #23

BurmaShave says ...

hey rr3333, bite me. You're 21 comments deep into "nerd"ville on the same STAR TREK thread. ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

comment #24

DavidF says ...

Fair enough, Pondered. I meant more that...Kubrick lingers over everything in that movie. That's just the tone.
In Star Trek it's just FX wanking. "Wow, look how awesome the new Enterprise is. Do you want to see more? More? Still, more? More? Look - look at the windows? Wanna see the hull again? Isn't this almost as neat as Star Wars? I forget - did I show you the bridge area?"

comment #25

Ponderer says ...

I'll grant you that about TMP, but I can forgive that since it's basically the only thing I remember about the damn movie, besides the fantastic Jerry Goldsmith score. in fact, with that score, I've often thought of TMP as the greatest desktop screensaver ever.

comment #26

berg says ...

just a comment on M:I

"The original Mission Impossible (the Martin Landau TV series,"

Landau was not a cast member per se ... he was always billed as "Guest Star" after the opening credits and appeared in most of the series until a president change at CBS brought an end to the Rollin Hand / Cinnamon era ...

"Mission Impossible the TV series was like a mysterious and puzzling spy movie directed by Hitchcock, or Robert Bresson, or Fritz "

Not really, after the opening montage, theme, and mission conference the show was pretty much par to sub average concerning sets, acting, situations, make-up ... I am 20 eps into the first season (dvd) and it's definitely more corny than I remember as a kid ... John Alton shot the pilot ...

comment #27

nemo says ...

"Landau was not a cast member per se ... he was always billed as "Guest Star" after the opening credits . . ."

True, but Landau owned the show. Nobody watched it for Peter Graves.

"Not really, after the opening montage, theme, and mission conference the show was pretty much par to sub average concerning sets, acting, situations, make-up ... I am 20 eps into the first season (dvd) and it's definitely more corny than I remember as a kid . . ."

The only time I saw MI in the past couple of decades was on French TV dubbed into French, and it still held up well. MI always worked well as a silent film.

But back in the day, back when I still was a kid, I couldn't believe how freakin' corny Star Trek was even to my 13-year-old mind. Dialog that explained every plot point and every moral point with a hammer blow; sets that were as overlit as a 60s sitcom; static, unimaginative framing and editing; characters as broad as a barn door, like something from I Love Lucy or Dean Martin's old Matt Helm films.

But all those things I hated about the old Star Trek are probably why Star Trek was so popular.

I'll have to rent the old MI series on DVD sometime to see what I think now. But back in the day I knew it was a model of subtlety and craft compared with the old Star Trek (or with the bloated Tom Cruise movies).

comment #28

DavidF says ...

The concept of Trek and the Kirk-McCoy-Spock trio holds it together. There's no question some of it is corny even by 1968 standards but at its best (City on the Edge of Forever etc.) it is great show. Some of it is only dated in the same way everything from that era is.
In terms of acting, writing and production value (even though some of it now seems dated, obviously) TNG is a "better show" for what that's worth.
Somehow, Star Trek transcended itself and, though Roddenberry never approved, Nick Meyers re-invention with Wrath of Khan is largely responsible. We'll see if Abrams can do better.

comment #29

markj says ...

DavidF: We can safely say that Abrams can't do better than Nick Meyer.

comment #30

free games says ...

The enforced lack of interpersonal conflict in later series is hard to take