Star Trek (The Original Series)

[Doctor Strange]

One of the things that most distinguishes the original Trek from its later incarnations is that nearly everyone, both behind and in front of the camera, had had military experience in WWII or Korea. Gene Roddenberry had been a bomber pilot and a motorcycle cop before he became a full-time writer/producer. These guys understood what was involved in making command decisions when out of communications with the chain of command, and it informs the "reality" of the show.

In contrast, the later Treks - especially after Roddenberry's passing early in the run of Next Generation - only know how to do "Star Trek" by replicating aspects of the original show. The younger production teams didn't have that real-world experience to draw on, and while there's plenty of entertaining and thought-provoking later Trek, it lacks that compelling "reality".

And don't get me started on JJ Abrams' recent movies, which don't even remotely get what made Trek interesting in the first place.

 

[Big J]

And don't get me started on JJ Abrams' recent movies, which don't even remotely get what made Trek interesting in the first place.

The only thing I like about the JJ Abram's movies are the sets. After what seems like about 30 years of grimy, 'used future' (starting, I think, with Alien and Bladerunner), it's nice to see that the 'gritty' cyberpunk industrial look has been surpassed by a nice shiny bright future (even though the new Enterprise does look like it came outta the Apple store).

 

[LizzieMaine]

We had the first Abrams Trek movie on second-run, and it seemed to me like a generic summer-blockbuster action movie with the characters dressed up to go to a Star Trek costume party. Although I do think the guy who plays NuSpock pretty much nails it.

 

[Benzadmiral]

We had the first Abrams Trek movie on second-run, and it seemed to me like a generic summer-blockbuster action movie with the characters dressed up to go to a Star Trek costume party. Although I do think the guy who plays NuSpock pretty much nails it.

The casting mostly was bang-on, especially Karl Urban's McCoy. But there were too many implausibilities in the structure of the ST world, the kind of stuff Roddenberry and Gene Coon worked hard to eliminate in the original. On TOS, there was clearly a chain of command, so that when Spock offers himself for arrest after hijacking the Enterprise (from the best of motives, mind you) in "The Menagerie," he turns himself in to McCoy, since he is "senior officer present." And though McCoy was a Lt. Commander and outranked Uhura and Sulu, he was a staff officer, not a line officer -- he had no qualifications to take the ship's command chair even temporarily; and he never did.

In contrast, in Abrams's films, we get the idea that it's okay to leave your post on the bridge without permission if you have a Really Really Good Reason, that multi-trillion-credit starships will be handed over to deserving cadets just out of the Academy, and other things. (And the bridge does look like an Apple Store.)

The thing missing in the films, though, is that sense of wonder -- that "Let's see what's out there" attitude, the discovery of strange corners of the galaxy, that informed TOS and ST:TNG.

"It's not safe out here [in space]. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid. . . . Picard -- you are about to move into areas of the galaxy containing wonders more incredible than you can possibly imagine -- and terrors to freeze your soul."
( -- Alien entity Q to Capt. Picard, in ST:TNG's "Q Who?")

 

[Doctor Strange]

Yeah, maybe the single most annoying thing to me in the Abrams films is that Starfleet isn't shown to be a meritocracy, but a cult-of-personality outfit where good ends can always justify the means. But my main complaint is that it's so dumbed down, and totally uninterested in the things that distinguished the show: deep space exploration and using SF metaphors to comment on our own society. I thought the second one was even worse: an Earthbound terrorist-infiltration action flick that had zero to do Trek, and it made an awful mess of "honoring" Wrath of Khan.

People who know that I'm a lifelong SF/Fantasy fan keep asking me if I'm excited about Abrams upcoming Star Wars film... and my answer is that he's already disgraced himself by ruining one SF franchise that I've been with from day one and revere, why should I put myself through that torture yet again?

 

[Big J]

I like the new Kirk, Bones and Spock, but Simon Pegg is starting to really annoy me. He was funny in Spaced, and that's where he should have stayed.

 

[Fading Fast]

The first one has some original ST elements in it - characters, style, history, but not story - but as Lizzie said, it is wrapped in a generic-summer-blockbuster-action-movie package. The second one has even less ST elements and story and is just another off-the-shelf action movie.

The core of the original ST is the philosophy, social commentary, thought-provoking stories - the action, adventure, phasers, beam-me-up stuff adds a great spark, but the core is what makes it last, makes it watchable time and again, makes you care about the characters. The movies, especially the second one, reverses the formula where it's all about the action and wiz-bang stuff and the philosophy, story, character development is tossed in without originality or thoughtful design.

 

[cm289]

Not a fan of the new Trek. Although I like the actors, I hate the writing. I really disliked how they turned Kirk into a cocky punk and how Spock flies into rages at the drop of a hat. I think they could have stayed a little closer to the source material without it just being an imitation, and it still would have been interesting to new audiences.


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[Zombie_61]

...I got interested again in Star Trek around 1971 when the reruns showed up locally. I enjoyed Spock the most, and remember being annoyed that the only woman on the bridge, Lt. Uhura, did little more than answer the telephone...

Almost every Star Trek fan knows this, but Nichelle Nichols (the actress who played Lt. Uhura) was herself very dissatisfied with her role as "ship's receptionist" and was seriously considering leaving the series during the first season. Dr. Martin Luther King convinced her to stay by explaining that she and her character were vital role models for black children and young women, as well as for other young children who would see black people as equals--a rarity on 1960s television.

...I think the best comment on fandom I've ever seen was probably the Galaxy Quest film. There's an early sequence in that which features Sigorney Weaver at a fan convention, surrounded by young ladies dressed as her character. Their costumes vary in quality, in colour, they vary in body shape... the whole thing is beautifully observed.

Galaxy Quest walked that fine line between parody, homage, and examination of fandom brilliantly.

...People who know that I'm a lifelong SF/Fantasy fan keep asking me if I'm excited about Abrams upcoming Star Wars film... and my answer is that he's already disgraced himself by ruining one SF franchise that I've been with from day one and revere, why should I put myself through that torture yet again?

Surely you've heard this argument, but Abrams himself has stated that he never understood Star Trek and was never a fan. He has also stated that at some point during the preparation for the first movie he gained a greater appreciation for it, but clearly he still didn't understand it. Conversely, he is a self-proclaimed Star Wars fan, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of doubt...for the upcoming movie, at least. Besides, he couldn't do worse than George Lucas did with the Prequel Trilogy movies.

Back to the main topic, my Mom and Dad were born in 1915 and 1913, respectively, and couldn't have cared less about Star Trek. Mom usually watched daytime soaps and nighttime sitcoms, but Dad rarely watched television; once in a while he'd watch a golf tournament (he was an excellent golfer), and college football if USC and UCLA were facing off because he and my older brother had a friendly rivalry going.

 

[Fading Fast]

...Galaxy Quest walked that fine line between parody, homage, and examination of fandom brilliantly.

Surely you've heard this argument, but Abrams himself has stated that he never understood Star Trek and was never a fan. He has also stated that at some point during the preparation for the first movie he gained a greater appreciation for it, but clearly he still didn't understand it. Conversely, he is a self-proclaimed Star Wars fan, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of doubt...for the upcoming movie, at least. Besides, he couldn't do worse than George Lucas did with the Prequel Trilogy movies. ...

I, too, thought "Galaxy Quest" struck a very good balance where if it had tilted ever so slightly more one way or the other, it wouldn't have worked.

While not absolute, it seems there are Star Trek fans or Star War fans (you can like both, I do and many others do, but most are normally passionate about only one). That Abrahams wasn't a true fan, but a smart man who had studied the originals comes through in the movies - there is a lack of passion for the quintessence of Star Trek in his movies.

 

[MisterCairo]

One of the things that most distinguishes the original Trek from its later incarnations is that nearly everyone, both behind and in front of the camera, had had military experience in WWII or Korea. Gene Roddenberry had been a bomber pilot and a motorcycle cop before he became a full-time writer/producer. These guys understood what was involved in making command decisions when out of communications with the chain of command, and it informs the "reality" of the show.

In contrast, the later Treks - especially after Roddenberry's passing early in the run of Next Generation - only know how to do "Star Trek" by replicating aspects of the original show. The younger production teams didn't have that real-world experience to draw on, and while there's plenty of entertaining and thought-provoking later Trek, it lacks that compelling "reality".

And don't get me started on JJ Abrams' recent movies, which don't even remotely get what made Trek interesting in the first place.

James Doohan was an infantryman in the Canadian Army, was the first off his landing craft at Juno Beach in Normandy on D-Day, and was shot six times (friendly fire) in the leg, chest and right hand later on. His middle finger was amputed, and he craftily hid that issue throughout his acting career!

 

[Doctor Strange]

George Takei on Galaxy Quest: "A chillingly accurate documentary."! I have adored that film since it came out, it kids Trek/fandom so accurately, but with true affection.

And yeah, I've heard the Abrams-was-never-a-Trek-guy thing. The fact is, with two exceptions (*), I haven't liked anything he's made. He's essentially a hack who only knows how to redo old styles and projects profitably. And I have to admit to always having been more of a Trek guy than a Wars guy myself (**). As bad as the Prequels were, they were made by "creator" Lucas. Now that Disney owns Wars, they're just milking the cash cow. I've got zero interest in any of the forthcoming Star Wars projects.

(* I enjoyed his TV series Felicity, and the film Super 8. Even though it was just faux-Spielberg, I had a personal connection because I'd made Super 8 films with my high school buddies in the seventies - and it got most of that dead right.)

(** The short argument was: "79 hours of thinking man's science fiction adventure vs. 6 hours of special effects and borrowed ideas, essentially a fantasy about warring wizards in a technological setting, taking place in a once-upon-a-time past that wasn't a future extrapolation of our technology or society."

As I've said here many times, I don't revere Star Wars like people just a few years younger than me do. I was already out of college when Wars opened, and I was aware of everything Lucas was "borrowing" from to synthesize that film - Arthurian myth, Tolkien, John Ford, Kurosawa's samurai films, WWII dogfight sequences, Triumph of the Will, etc. - and I'd studied comparative mythology too [ironically, we didn't read Joseph Campbell, who was considered a lightweight in the field... before he and Lucas teamed up, which made Campbell the popular face of myth studies and allowed Lucas to get on his high horse and claim that studying Campbell allowed him to "create a modern mythology"... when it was obvious to anyone who had listened to Lucas's interviews from before Stars Wars had opened that Lucas had taken more ideas from Marvel Comics than he did from Campbell!] Anyway, I greatly enjoyed the Star Wars Trilogy... but I didn't think it was an original work of genius, like people who didn't know all the antecedents Lucas combined to assemble it.)

 

[Zombie_61]

...While not absolute, it seems there are Star Trek fans or Star War fans (you can like both, I do and many others do, but most are normally passionate about only one)...

...And I have to admit to always having been more of a Trek guy than a Wars guy myself...

I also like both Star Trek and Star Wars, and have never really understood why some people insist that fans must choose one over the other.

...As bad as the Prequels were, they were made by "creator" Lucas. Now that Disney owns Wars, they're just milking the cash cow. I've got zero interest in any of the forthcoming Star Wars projects...

If it's handled properly, that cash cow still has a lot of milk to give. Considering how much money Disney spent to own the Star Wars franchise (and everything else under the Lucasfilm umbrella), I don't blame them. As for the Prequel Trilogy movies, I think the only reason George Lucas made them was to shut the fans up who kept asking for them. Just to be clear, I've come to accept the Prequel Trilogy movies for what they are but I do prefer the Original Trilogy movies.

...As I've said here many times, I don't revere Star Wars like people just a few years younger than me do. I was already out of college when Wars opened, and I was aware of everything Lucas was "borrowing" from to synthesize that film - Arthurian myth, Tolkien, John Ford, Kurosawa's samurai films, WWII dogfight sequences, Triumph of the Will, etc. - and I'd studied comparative mythology too [ironically, we didn't read Joseph Campbell, who was considered a lightweight in the field... before he and Lucas teamed up, which made Campbell the popular face of myth studies and allowed Lucas to get on his high horse and claim that studying Campbell allowed him to "create a modern mythology"... when it was obvious to anyone who had listened to Lucas's interviews from before Stars Wars had opened that Lucas had taken more ideas from Marvel Comics than he did from Campbell!] Anyway, I greatly enjoyed the Star Wars Trilogy... but I didn't think it was an original work of genius, like people who didn't know all the antecedents Lucas combined to assemble it.)

Oh, Lucas himself has spoken about how he borrowed heavily from classic (and not so classic) literature, films, and mythology, to create Star Wars (or at least as much of the story as he had completed by the time they started filming the 1977 movie). No surprises there. But it didn't stop me and countless other people from enjoying the movies. [huh] And I'm not trying to sway your opinion, or anyone else's for that matter, in any way. Like them, don't like them, either way is fine by me (and that's really more of a general statement, not necessarily directed at you Doc).

 

[LizzieMaine]

The first "Star Wars" was the best drive-in movie ever made, bar none. But as far as I was concerned, that's all it was -- a thing to watch on a summer night while slapping mosquitoes. Lucas can't write female characters to save his life, and I never bought all the "genius" stuff for a second.

My brother, who is eight years my junior, however, was a rabid Star Wars fan -- he owned every piece of merchandise that was possible to own in the late seventies, and actually took it all out of the boxes to play with it. PICK UP YOUR DARTH NADER JUNK! my mother would yell after stepping on yet another action figure in her bare feet.

 

[Big J]

The first "Star Wars" was the best drive-in movie ever made, bar none. But as far as I was concerned, that's all it was -- a thing to watch on a summer night while slapping mosquitoes. Lucas can't write female characters to save his life, and I never bought all the "genius" stuff for a second.

My brother, who is eight years my junior, however, was a rabid Star Wars fan -- he owned every piece of merchandise that was possible to own in the late seventies, and actually took it all out of the boxes to play with it. PICK UP YOUR DARTH NADER JUNK! my mother would yell after stepping on yet another action figure in her bare feet.

Princess Leia is literally the only woman in the galaxy. Many people have commented on this, but I never noticed as a child, and that shocks me as an adult. Was it because Lucas couldn't write female characters? Or was it because he is deeply misogynist? Or is there some other explanation that I'm too dumb to spot?

 

[cm289]

I think Lucas considers himself a feminist. There's a few female characters in the Star Wars series, but I think the main reason Leia is so prominent in the original three is that he based Star Wars on the Japanese movie Hidden Fortress, which has just one female character if I remember correctly.

I consider myself fans of both SW and Trek, but Lucas' endless tinkering with the originals has largely ruined them for me (Greedo shooting first, the insertion of burp/fart jokes, Hayden Christiansen in Jedi, etc.) and my problem with the new Trek is Abrams trying to turn them into Star Wars action films. Chris Pine has said he based his Kirk on Han Solo which ruins the character- Han was my favorite in SW, but his story arc is that of a reformed scoundrel.


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[LizzieMaine]

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that, in his limited view as a filmmaker, women exist mainly as trophies to be fought over or victims to be rescued. He's not the only filmmaker with this kind of a worldview, but he's one of the most prominent. I don't think he's intentionally misogynist -- although most misogynists aren't, in my experience -- but I do think he's stuck in a funny-paper/Saturday matinee mindset in a way that's less a deliberate homage than simply a limitation of his own vision. He grew up with that kind of stuff, and for him, it's simply the default.

Frankly, I always found a bit of that in Gene Roddenberry's work as well. Even when he tried to promote progressive female characters, they always come across as decidedly second-class and are usually defined by their unrequited yearning for some unattainable male, usually either Kirk or Spock depending on the situation. Even the original "Number One" fell into this trap -- watch the scene in "The Menagerie" where the Talosian reads her thoughts about Captain Pike.

You could call Uhura the one major exception to this, but even she was far less of a dynamic character than she could and should have been.

The most believeable female character in all of Trekdom is Kira from "Deep Space Nine" -- a woman who is in no way defined as a character by her relationships with men, and a character Roddenberry had nothing to do with.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Just to clarify: I don't "hate" or "dislike" Star Wars.

I like Star Wars plenty... it's tremendous fun, but I just can't take it seriously. I'd been one of the dedicated original Star Trek fans for 11 years before Star Wars even came out. And don't get me started on the transporting brilliance of 2001: A Space Odyssey back in 1968. That was the film that knocked me back in my seat at 13 and turned me into a hardcore SF reader and aspiring filmmaker. (Unfortunately, to most post-Star Wars generation viewers, 2001 is just "slow, boring, and difficult to understand".)

Star Trek and 2001 were legit science fiction - which I'd also been reading for a decade by 1977 - and Star Wars was clearly... something else. A fun popcorn flick with mind-boggling new effects, a return to old-school adventure that was welcome amidst the cynicism of the post-Watergate malaise the nation was suffering from at that point. What it was not: thought-provoking, original, or even vaguely about our own world/technology/society in the way that Star Trek was. It was tremendous fun - I saw it three times in theaters by the time Empire (a much, much better film) - came out three years later. But it just wasn't to be taken seriously.

Folks only a bit younger than me had their kid minds utterly blown by Star Wars, and have a completely different relationship with it. It's holy writ, the epic space adventure film, the starting point for modern movies. I don't debate that last point, but I have profound ambivalence about it. As much as I love today's fantasy/SF/comic book films, I feel that their having become mainstream filmmaking has changed the film industry and society... not for the better. There used to be lots of mainstream intelligent films made for adults that weren't just in the indie-film/Oscar-bait ghetto. And I miss them!

 

[Doctor Strange]

Lucas and Roddenberry - and really most American filmmakers who grew up before the seventies - were NOT remotely feminist. Sure, Leia is a very active female character for 1977 - even if she still existed mostly to be rescued - and we all know about how Roddenberry had to retire the Number One character after the first Trek pilot because "audiences wouldn't accept a woman in that position of authority" per NBC. But really: Uhura, Nurse Chapel, Yeoman Rand, and the other featured Trek characters were only baby steps beyond weak women stereotypes.

To all of the younger folks being raised in today's crazy PC world who find this "disappointing", get real. You can't change the past just because you want to make it look like there was more fairness and equality than there actually was. This doesn't mean that there weren't plenty of exceptional women and minorities who managed to get beyond the time's limitations: but they were exceptional.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think it's easier to overlook in the sixties and seventies -- which, despite their veneer of feminism, saw more aggressive mainstream sexism in popular culture than any other decades of the 20th Century -- than it is in the eighties and nineties. This was my big disappointment with "Next Generation" -- the backstories of both Crusher and Troi were essentially defined by their past relationships with Picard and Riker, respectively. Roddenberry was a progressive in some respects, notably his view of race, but he was very much a reactionary in others.

I'm not singling him out for this, though -- I think many men of his generation had exactly the same conflicted look-ahead-but-hold-back worldview, and in that sense he was merely a man of his time.