1701D

So after apologising to Nigel... Nigel wants to play, ok let's do this!

1701D's "make Star Trek relevant again" reminds me of Trump's "make America great again." lol Star Trek was already great with Enterprise. It just didn't appeal to a massive audience the way you can get when you pump in several sex scenes and horror film violence.

Utter bull shit, total total bull shit. First of all that orange tangerine dick voted in as president is America's hot mess. He doesn't represent any kind of humanity I know and certainly does not represent my views on ANYTHING so you can take that comment back for a start.

Secondly, oh come on Nigel, I'm a fan of Enterprise but clearly Star Trek was not relevant to anyone other than a few million people. It had become sterile and repetitive, rehashing old plot lines, using dated story techniques and falling back on the old Star Trek TNG formula . where DS9 showed us how well a serialised Star Trek series could be, Voyager and Enterprise fell right back into the same old thing with just a different crew.

There were episodes of Enterprise that could of been done in any of the Star Trek shows. It completely lacked relevance.

Your generalisation of what the general mass audiences like is woeful and completely out of touch.

If Game of Thrones has become the standard that all "good TV" is supposed to mimic then I am truly saddened. I watched GoT until the end of season 4 when I decided I'd had enough of the same old sadism and pornography that the show was so steeped in. If "catching up with the times" means Star Trek becoming nothing more than Star Wars style action films and R-rated TV then I hope it doesn't "catch up with the times."

I think your views on Game of Thrones are... interesting, if a little dated and conservative, nothing wrong with that but in terms of Star Trek, catching up with the times means for Star Trek telling stories that as the trailer for Discovery says "is always a reflection of humanity", relevant to audiences today whilst respecting the qualities Star Trek has always lived up to. I can't see Star Trek going as dark or as disturbing as Game of Thrones goes because Star Trek ISN'T Game of Thrones!

I can't imagine what you must think CBS are going to do with Star Trek when as a studio (separate from Paramount), they have done nothing but respect and uphold the legacy YOU love. They've remastered TOS, spent millions on completely remastering TNG, giving fans a ton of new Star Trek merchandise based upon TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT... they've supported projects with Roddenberry such as The Roddenberry Vault (Rod Roddenberry is a producer on Discovery too), they've supported Adam Nimoy in creating For the Love of Spock and What We Left Behind, they've teamed up with artists to put together an exhibition of artwork inspired by Star Trek's 50 years, countless exhibitions and events over the last decade and taken their time to return Star Trek to our TV screens. They've not rushed, they've spent the time to get it right. Have there been bumps along the road? Sure, could it suck? Sure but could it also be awesome? Sure!

You cannot fault CBS for making any bad decisions with Star Trek.

There are great fan-made things going on like Star Trek Continues. I've had this discussion on facebook groups so many times it is becoming ritualistic.

What's your point here?

Star Trek has never been aimed at "sweaty nerds" like 1701D would have us believe. But it was aimed at families, young people, even children. I know, people like dark and edgy. But DS9 did that without being vulgar and pornographic.

At some point after TNG, Star Trek stopped appealing to many families, young people and children until it had become so irrelevant to them that Star Trek was reborn into something new and exciting by JJ Abrams.

Whether or not Star Trek: Discovery is more adult themed or enjoyable for the whole family to watch remains to be seen but I don't for one moment believe that CBS is making a vulgar porno haha.

People like 1701D, who don't even like TOS

TOS? Is that that thing sweaty nerds enjoy? Nigel... what are you doing?

I love TOS. I like DS9 better, I like TNG better but I can't deny the brilliance and importance of TOS. That show revolutionised TV and science fiction. It was the beginning of fandoms as we know it and started the convention craze we know today. Cosplay, SDCC... Star Wars, would never have been possible had it not been for those 79 episodes of Star Trek and that's without going into the social importance and impact of the series. Please don't presume to know what it is I like or dislike, that makes you sound very petty indeed.

and think it's for "sweaty nerds" that they "can't understand" are always going to be there to point the finger at the longtime fans who have invested a lot of time watching and re-watching Trek from its very beginnings, just because they don't become infatuated with the newest fad that has the Star Trek label slapped on it. A lot of these people will watch the films and politely say "It does not appeal to me." Fine. Leave them alone and don't go insulting and degrading them for their taste. As I've said before.

First off, Star Trek wasn't created for sweaty nerds. Star Trek helped create geek culture and with geek culture comes those obsessive fans that are so obsessed with something that they can't see clearly on why it needs to evolve and change with the times; sweaty nerds - Jon Schnepp on Collider Movie Talk Heroes along with Robert Meyer Burnett are both sweaty super hero nerds. It's not a bad thing as long as you can remain level headed and not presume to think there is only one way to tell a good story set within any particular universe; in this case, Star Trek.

I think it's fine that people love Abrams trek and can't wait to see Game of Treks, I mean, Discovery. Power to you. But I reserve the right to have a negative opinion on whatever Trek manifestation I want without being bombarded with insults and hate.

No one is bombarding you with hate or insults or not at least trying to insult you.

Nigel at the end of the day you like what you like and you dislike what you dislike. Doesn't matter if it's Star Trek or Game of Thrones, you'll decide when you watch it. I don't pretend to understand people who call themselves fans but really hate much of what has come out of Star Trek over the last decade. I don't understand your comments on presuming that CBS are going to turn Star Trek into a Game of Thrones style show to the extent of it showing gratuitous violence, sex, incest and other quite brutal and adult themes. In my opinion, all of that is fine in Game of Thrones because it works within the context of that show.

Star Trek in comparison is an optimistic, family friendly take on the future. For it to go as dark and as violent as Game of Thrones has done would be jarring and damaging to the brand.

I think most of us here use Game of Thrones as an example of how Star Trek: Discovery be constructed as a series - serialised and featuring a larger scope of characters, ships and worlds rather than the one ship, one crew formula we are used to seeing with Star Trek. Whilst it may be more graphic, I don't think anyone here is expecting the level of violence, sex and disturbing adult themes we see on Game of Thrones - where you've got this notion that CBS would jeopardise a long standing billion dollar brand by changing it so radically, I'm not sure but I think really your comments are way over the top when everything we've seen so far (granted two trailers) would seem to point to a series that looks very different but upholds the values and philosophies the original Star Trek series began 50 years ago.

Just watch the trailer again, there nothing there to suggest a more graphic violent and sexualised Star Trek. This will be a Trek that honours Gene Roddenberry's philosophy whilst modernising the look to appeal to a new audience as well as the fans.

Here's a question for you. Forget the last 50 years of storytelling in the Star Trek.

You are Gene Roddenberry reincarnated today and you are developing Star Trek for today's audiences. No one has ever seen Star Trek... how would you develop a series called Star Trek?

An unexpected electrical problem? They've made quite a few phasers before, what kind of electrical problem could they have had?

Maybe it actually worked as a phaser?

Abysmal show from DST over the 50th.

Probably Zach Oat. I don't know what the deal is with DST but that guy needs to go and the whole PR department needs some serious shake up.

This is a visual upgrade to Star Trek to bring it up to modern standards!

It's funny how fans slate the new films for not being Star Trek enough in intelligence and story but then slate Discovery for not looking like Star Trek...

That is all everyone should need as evidence that these fans don't know what they want or what it is that Star Trek actually is.

It's because of the reputation DST have. They're a second rate collectibles company. They don't invest in their own identity and it shows. Nothing they do is really exciting when compared to the likes of NECA, Mezco, DC Collectables etc...

It's nothing to do with the licenses they have, it's to do with how they promote them and actually sometimes the quality of them. You compare a DST action figure from any of their lines and put it next to a NECA figure and there's simply no competition, NECA win hands down.

Beyond Kirk looks awesome, picking him up when he's out.

What? first of all, what? Second of all... He's right! Trek fans have thumped their chests shouting "this isn't Star Trek!" for decades! Well what the F*ck is Star Trek? Sh*t dude! I mean... Sh*t!!!
 

 

You simply are damned if you do, damned if you don't with many a Trek fan who probably don't really know what Star Trek is, but just believes he or she knows what it isn't. Well I can tell you what Star Trek isn't, it isn't these mindless fans arguing the toss over what a Klingon should or should not look like.

 

The ship has been steered just fine, maybe not in the direction you'd like it to go/remain in, sometimes not in the direction I'd like it to go in but at least Abrams broke through the glass ceiling that fans had so wanted Star Trek to remain confined to. The Enterprise under water was ridiculous, no more so than Data being a floatation device, no more utterly ridiculous than two gigantic hump-back whales being beamed aboard a space ship, no more ridiculous than "so you people, you're all astronauts, on some kind of... Star Trek, no more utterly stupid as Spock having booster rocket shoes, or Scotty whacking his head on a bulkhead, or a Klingon bird of prey bringing down one of the biggest ships in the fleet, or there being a seemingly bottomless pit in the Enterprise E from Nemesis or the dune buggy chase in Nemesis, or Kirk's mind being swapped into the body of a woman, or Spock loosing his brain, or the Enterprise running into space hippies... Or the crew being turned into giant space slugs in Voyager... the crew being turned into whatever they were in Enterprise, I mean what the hell was the episode Two Days & Two Nights even for? It had no relevance! Star Trek is full to the brim of utterly ridiculous moments, episodes and films that are hokey, stupid and down right lame. At least Abrams has had the balls to acknowledge something needed to change with Star Trek, it needed to be unwrapped and allowed to be new and do exciting things. Sure Spock yelling KHAAAAAAAN and the whole Kirk and Spock death retread was stupid, super blood? Oh dear... but these new movies are legit and no more ridiculous than things we've seen in Star Trek prior to them.

 

These new movies stand for everything Star Trek should be, everything it had lost over the latter half Berman era. Not because of anything Rick Berman or Brannon Braga did, but simply because it was being crushed by the weight of its own popularity, it's own canon, and the fans demand for everything to be explained and figured out to the point where they wouldn't be able to do episodes because it contradicted episode 28 of Star Trek: The Next Generation...

 

Abrams has... SAVED Star Trek from its own short sightedness and its own myopic universe that was slowly being eroded into literally nothing but something a very small group of loyal Star Trek fans would understand. His movies, his stories have energised Star Trek and allowed for it to not just continue but to break free, rather than just become a footnote in history. Remembered fondly, but hardly relevant.

 

The voiceover on the new Star Trek Discovery trailer says that Star Trek is half a century of stories, unbridled by space or time but always a reflection of what it means to be human... Abrams is the one that returned Star Trek to being relevant, bold, risky, and engaging, Abrams held up that mirror and made Star Trek again reflect where humanity is today and I'm so sorry if you don't agree with that, but had Abrams not come along and reinvented Star Trek, allowed the idea of Star Trek to be free of so much of what fans love as canon, allowing it the freedom to expand beyond the stagnating place it was in during Enterprise (a series I still adore) then Star Trek would of died as an irrelevant piece of pop culture for our world as it is today. It would of become a fond memory. Star Trek is too good to be remembered, Star Trek is about us right now, it has a place in our society today, not making sure fans are serviced with ships and Klingons that look like designs 20 years old, but making sure that the mirror is held up, reflecting back at us, our society, our politics, our religion and telling us something important about ourselves. 

 

The more you rile me up, the more I believe what Abrams has done to Trek, was the right thing for Star Trek, the right thing for this franchise to continue to inspire, educate and inform countless generations. I bloody love Star Trek! Not because I want to see every little piece of canon examined and neatly tied into each other, but because I want to see Star Trek tell me something about myself, I want it to open my eyes the way it did for thousands/millions back in the 60's. Star Trek (2009), Into Darkness, Beyond all did that, and hopefully Star Trek: Discovery will just blow this franchise wide open to endless new possibilities. 

 

To hell with canon - it's a pain in the ass!

Real Star Trek is this:
 
Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

 

Anything else is a spinoff or, at best, an homage.

 

And as I recall the only movies ever to have that monologue in them are Wrath of Khan, Star Trek (2009), Into Darkness and Beyond... Well, there you go kids! Real Star Trek is the movies made by JJ Abrams and Justin Lin, who'd have thunk it!

So why did DST resurrect the Mego 6" figures?

I don't know if you noticed but at the time DST relaunched the Mego line, everyone was doing these retro figures. From
DST to NECA and Mezco, Biff Bang Pow too... it was a fad that quickly died.

I don't think we could rule out a return to the fully articulated action figure days but it all depends on who or how Discovery is merchandised and how well it does and what kind of demographic it does well with.

1701D, you can't force this argument into BLACK vs WHITE.  And neither can I.
 
It doesn't matter that "cerebral" was directed at The Cage.  It doesn't matter if (or how many so long as they're not an overwhelming majority) episodes and films here and there throughout the 50 years often did not end up being all that cerebral.  In fact I acknowledged this reality.  What does matter is that "cerebral" was entirely indicative of the driving spirit behind the franchise.  If the spirit is somewhere back behind there showing through now and then we forgive other failures here and there as fans, but if the spirit starts to disappear that's a different problem.

I don't think the cerebral spirit of Star Trek has remotely disappeared from any of the newest Abrams movies, its 100% there behind the loud noises and flashy action.

I think there's an interesting argument to be had that this spirit is actually more prevalent in each of the Abrams movies than most of the older movies and a certain number of the more contemporary TV series.

The problem isn't the fact you might dislike the Abrams movies, the problem I have is what right is it of any of us to tell someone else what is and isn't Star Trek. Just because you or I think we know what Star Trek should be. That in my mind is narrow minded, and completely at odds with the spirit and values Roddenberry set out to achieve with Star Trek, a vision continued by everyone who has worked on every incarnation of this great franchise.

The jumbo 1701 D went up prematurely on the site and the TOS 1701 has sold out so is now again up for pre order

The JJ Abrams era Star Trek movies are more of a parody of Star Trek than REAL Star Trek. I just sat through Star Trek beyond hoping for real Star trek again but I give up, it isn't going to happen with JJ Abrams in charge.

*bangs head against brick wall*

What is "real" Star Trek? Describe it to me because in 50 years, Star Trek has been so many things. From Space Seed, Balance of Terror, Spock's Brain... to Encounter at Far Point, Yesterday's Enterprise, Best of Both Worlds, All good Things, Emissary, Far Beyond the Stars, In the Pale Moonlight, Caretaker, Year of Hell, Endgame, Scorpion, Broken Bow, These are the Voyages, Similitude, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Generations, Nemesis, Into Darkness, Insurrection, Beyond, First Contact... Star Trek....

At what point in 50 years of storytelling, did real Star Trek present itself because in my mind, every Star Trek story is wildly different from the next. From The Cage to Beyond and further into Discovery, I don't think anyone can put their finger on what "real" Star Trek is.

There's good and bad Trek but are you really saying that Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness or Star Trek Beyond are worse movies than The Final Frontier or Insurrection or Nemesis? The excuse that the newer movies aren't "Star Trek" just won't work because what is Star Trek?

At the very core of every single Star Trek episode, film, book, whatever, is the fundamental values Gene Roddenberry envisaged for his series because whether it be Doomsday Machine or Into Darkness, both reflected aspects of society and humanity at the time. The argument fans have had over Abrams Trek are the same arguments fans had over TNG, DS9 and the Berman era, the same arguments they've had over the Nicholas Meyer and Harve Bennett era... so when will real Star Trek be real enough for you?

All filmed entertainment is subjective sure and I respect that, what appeals to you may not appeal to me and so on but to define what "real" Star Trek is? I don't buy it. Star Trek has always been reflective of the world we live in and none of the new movies have gone against that any more than any of the 10 movies that preceded 2009 did.

I've been critical of these movies myself, I grew up with the Berman era of Star Trek so that to me is what I identify as being Trek, moreso than the Original even but thats to do with how I remember Star Trek, and I've got to be honest, a lot of what is in these new movies is far better than anything Berman or Roddenberry ever did because now they actually have the money and the resources to realise what the future could look like, what warp speed could look like instead of just streaking white lines and stretched ships, and realise weird and wonderful alien races... Abrams, like Berman before him, like Harve Bennet before Berman have all been unfairly criticised for carrying on the mantle. No one knows what Roddenberry would have wanted to see, no one knows how he would have changed Star Trek but I'm certain he wouldn't be sat at his keyboard smashing out irrelevant nonsense about how this film or that series aren't "real" Star Trek.

To you, it might be that these movies don't live up to your expectations of what you think Star Trek should be, but to thousands of others, these movies are exactly what Star Trek has always been about and what should be about in the 21st century.

Star Trek is a group of hundreds of stories. Some good, some bad but that doesn't mean it isn't all REAL Star Trek. From The Cage to Beyond, and into Discovery, everything put to film by CBS or Paramount is REAL Star Trek - whether you like it or not is a personal pereference down to you to decide.

Do you not think though that these have been three movies, regardless of what people may think of how they relate to Star Trek, are movies that should be making 500 - 1billion dollars but aren't because of the name Star Trek?

Personally I think there's plenty in these movies for Trekkies to be angry about but nothing I can see that would stop them from being hugely successful beyond how successful they've been, making in excess of $800 million at least but the name Star Trek and the stigma that still surrounds that name.

Or is it simply because Star Trek is fundamentally a TV series and that's where it's popularity lies?

I love the NX-01 so I'm happy if it's the 4th ship.

The thing I love about these ships over DST's, is that they are far nicer display pieces. The jumbo 1701 sitting on my sideboard looks the business, whereas the DST TOS Enterprise I used to have, was a big plastic toy with the gimmicks of those voice clips.

Sure the Eaglemoss version has faults but personally it's just a far nicer piece to display. It's not a toy basically.