gunsmoke on 21/5/2009 at 18:52
I still don't get why Voyager gets bashed on so hard. I thought it was great (it was actually the show that got me into the whole Star Trek Phenomenon). Deep Space 9 was a tad hard to swallow, though. It was so neatly contained on the station, and seemed more like a Trek version of a reality show than a proper Trek series.
rachel on 21/5/2009 at 19:10
I'm watching Enterprise right now and it's okayish. Not stellar (haha) but it gets the job done.
JohnnyTheWolf on 22/5/2009 at 00:22
Quote Posted by Stitch
Plus the Star Wars enterprises--even the shitty ones--cause a stir and make STRONG CASH.
Yeah, but Georges Lucas could put his own shit in a doggy bag and sell it as Star Wars VII and he would still manage to make big money with it.
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When I say dead I don't mean it's six feet under and people aren't even watching or buying it anymore, but that if the franchise had gone on with some Star Trek 11 that featured TNG cast or come weird hybrid of Enterprise or Voyager or whatever casts they'd bomb harder than a quantum torpedo (lol) at the box office because it was clear that they were creatively dead in that Universe. The whole thing had become stale and tired and doing anything innovative with it would have probably required retconning anyway, not to mention a whole ton of prior knowledge that a general audience wouldn't have. Again, all of this stacks up to saying that from a creative, critical and financial standpoint that nothing was going to happen with the current franchise.
Star Trek: The Beginning was to feature an original cast with a cool, Kirk-like protagonist. It didn't look like it would have required any previous knowledge of Star Trek. From what I can read, it was to be both epic and action-packed, kinda Pearl Harbor in space (Romulans being the Japaneses).
Heck, even TNG was already mainstream enough. So far, I'm in 2nd season right now and the plot is fairly simple to follow. Treknobabble is nowhere as bad as you pretend it is.
I guess it's just not commercially viable to have a bald englishman as the main character.
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And I wasn't meaning to incorrectly label you as a Trekkie and sorry if you take offence to it, but I just reckon it's pretty clear to most (except maybe a pretty hardcore fan) that the old Universe was commercially fucked. Plain and simple.
Oh, I understand it very well. It's just that, you see, I'm from an seemingly rare species of moviegoers who enjoy movies for what they are and don't give a shit about box-office.
And I didn't really enjoy Star Trek 2009 as a movie. I do think it was pretty terrible on many aspects.
TheivingME on 22/5/2009 at 00:48
Quote Posted by dj_ivocha
But of course the most rabid haters ignore that fact and just blather on about how the 3rd season sucked...
I thought ENT season 3 was by far the best Star Trek season ever. Of all of them. Season 4 was cracking as well.
Critical reviews for trek actually picked up during season 3 & 4, the improvement in the show though just came to late to pick up the ratings
I hate all the Enterprise bashing. Season 3 was the first time a captain was shown to go from idealistic exploror to torturing PTSD effected psychotic. All the other treks the captains are utterly infallable. To the point where they are not even charachters anymore. Only voyager fleshed out janeway enough to give her any charachter.
Scots Taffer on 22/5/2009 at 00:48
Quote Posted by JohnnyTheWolf
I guess it's just not commercially viable to have a bald englishman as the main character.
I don't really get what point you're trying to push here. Star Trek: Generations and First Contact were both pretty successful, even if the former was a bit weak.
Patrick Stewart was a big pull in that regard.
The stories on the later two were just shit, they were filmed in an uninspired way and came off like two feature length TV episodes. And no one wants that.
Also, my comments with regards to box office are simply intended to reflect the fact that movie making is a business, maybe now more than ever and so even if you and half the moviegoing world don't care about what turns a profit, the suits do. And in this rare case, the suits were right.
JohnnyTheWolf on 22/5/2009 at 02:24
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
I don't really get what point you're trying to push here. Star Trek: Generations and First Contact were both pretty successful, even if the former was a bit weak.
Generations, just "a bit weak"? I thought it was considered to be one of the truly bad Star Trek by fans and non-fans alike, along with TMP, V and X. Besides, everything you hate about Star Trek is found in Generations all right.
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The stories on the later two were just shit, they were filmed in an uninspired way and came off like two feature length TV episodes. And no one wants that.
Yes, people do want that, judging by the tremendous success of the Prequel Trilogy and its spin-offs. But again, Star Wars appears to be able to get away with such things as inconsistent narrative, uninspired filmmaking, bad dialogue, bad acting, overeliance over SFX... while Star Trek apparently couldn't, until now. Guess that's why J.J.'s ripping off A New Hope!
Seriously though, people are just being unfair to old Star Trek. I'm watching the series right now and it's no worse than, say, LOST.
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Also, my comments with regards to box office are simply intended to reflect the fact that movie making is a business, maybe now more than ever and so even if you and half the moviegoing world don't care about what turns a profit, the suits do.
Tell me something I don't already know, please.
Renzatic on 22/5/2009 at 04:16
I saw the new Star Trek just this last weekend. It was...eh. Decent. Most of the people I saw it with absolutely loved it, but I can't conjure up more than a tepid response.
Star Trek as a whole is kind of a ponderous beast, best presented as a series. Action sequences within the ST universe only work when they're brought in alongside the mystery, thrills of discovery, politics, tension, and other interesting bits and pieces that made the show so popular to begin with. It's a accumulation of all these things, built up over time, that make Star Trek Star Trek. I've never felt you got that with the movies. Especially not with this new one, which eschews all the slower stuff for balls wild action.
Right now, I gotta say I ain't too stoked about the sequels.
Matthew on 22/5/2009 at 10:31
Quote Posted by TheivingME
Season 3 was the first time a captain was shown to go from idealistic exploror to torturing PTSD effected psychotic. All the other treks the captains are utterly infallable. To the point where they are not even charachters anymore. Only voyager fleshed out janeway enough to give her any charachter.
Apart from the DS9 episode where Sisko acquiesces to assassination in order to achieve his objective, you mean?
Rug Burn Junky on 22/5/2009 at 19:36
Spock: uber-intellectual, hyper-logical, unemotional, coldly dispassionate - - - and the little bitch can't handle a Yo Mama joke.
Banksie on 26/5/2009 at 05:02
Quote Posted by TheivingME
I hate all the Enterprise bashing. Season 3 was the first time a captain was shown to go from idealistic exploror to torturing PTSD effected psychotic. All the other treks the captains are utterly infallable. To the point where they are not even charachters anymore. Only voyager fleshed out janeway enough to give her any charachter.
As someone else has pointed out Sisko on DS9 kept having to make hard choices about which morals to compromise. But otherwise I agree with you - the Xindi story arc was well told and did what Voyager should have done by way of watching a Captain and Crew have to question what was important to them.
The first two seasons were pretty forgettable but the last two of Enterprise really were pretty good.
