Whirlygig

Is it April Fools' Day again?  So many people talking about DST as if they are going to be releasing something, or even information about something, anytime soon....

Who/what is this "DST" you speak of?

I cannot recall in recent memory anyone by that name making any ships or promoting any upcoming releases...  

Cardassian Galor and Jem'Hadar Battlecruiser arrived yesterday

I would buy Ripley, Bishop, Newt, and god willing a Queen in a heartbeat...and even maybe Burke (who doesn't want a Paul Reiser action figure?) and if we got Ripley then maybe a Hicks if he's still around by then, but I just can't get excited about the marines in camo and the aliens.  At first I thought all the aliens were sweet, especially the ones who were being blown apart, but then I decided I didn't need those either.  So all I bought was one warrior and I really didn't even need that because somewhere in a box I have two from a previous run several years ago that I'm pretty sure are the same thing...

Looks like a male, walks like a male, talks like a male...  Check, check, check.  I'm ok with calling him "he" in sentences but if he is filling out a census questionnaire or applying for clinical trials I'd prefer him to not check either box.  :-D

Why, do more people buy toys during the holidays?

I guess at my house, every day is a holiday!

1701..

Since we're talking originality of story, form, and theme here, not originality of implementation details such as character names, I find your first paragraph to be pointless to the discussion.  If all this time, your repetition of the notion that this is "Star Trek for today" simply meant "for today" insofar as "being another reboot like every other movie today" and nothing more then your argument is even more thin than I thought.

Your second paragraph begins with a strange attempt to say that the stories of Star Trek's past are not worth telling anymore, which would suggest you are trying to say that Star Trek's present (JJ Trek) is somehow telling a different, ergo ORIGINAL, type of story, but yet you just got done telling us that you've never been saying it's original.  Which is it?

And yes, there is still racism against African-Americans in the United States.  One need only look at the reaction to our current president to see that.  But there is an even more intense racism/prejudice in the US and world at large right now toward Muslims.  Currently it looks like there will always be racism.

The second half of that paragraph lists the terrorism-related themes in Into Darkness.  But let me ask you, while the movie certainly *showed* those things happening, what did it REALLY say about them?  Can you actually vocalize for us what message was there that you brought home, and how you extracted that meaning from what you saw?  I personally felt it was more like a pseudo-intellectual "gee, look at all the so-called relevance we can slap on the screen to justify giant action scenes, and watch how we skirt any responsibility of providing our own meaning to this mess".  To show us a microcosm of what has just happened in reality is pointless -- we already know what has happened -- now what do we learn from it?  Star Trek always sought to show us how to be a better race.  Why is it suddenly satisfied to just show us how to be the lesser race we already know how to be?

It sounds like you've realized the primary difference between JJTrek and what's come before is style.  I see that style as having been so heavily modified to fit the competition and the times that substance, believability, and the entire point of Star Trek has been sacrificed.

I'm not sure the best way to start a topic about a TV show is with a spoiler from one of the final episodes....

Breaking Bad is great, I have not seen tonight's episode yet, just watched last week's.  Can't wait to see how it ends.

Has anybody picked up the Heisenberg action figure yet?  I have one on order and saw them in TRU the other day, pretty sweet looking and I love that it comes with a bag of "product".  Hope they make a couple more...  I would love a Saul, a Gus, and the old dude in the wheelchair.

To be honest, I think the only way I'd ever buy Harry Kim is if he was an accessory to an awesome Species 8472 figure. And I'm a Voyager fan. LOL.

Funny you should say that, at a local hobby shop I just recently picked up one of the very few Playmates items I own, the Scorpion two-pack of an infected Kim and Species 8472.

But what about a Captain Proton / Buster Kincaid complimentary set or 2-pack, painted in black & white, with diorama?  For some reason I've always thought I want this.  Work in a Queen Arachnia Janeway somehow and my mind is blown.

Well, I know part of TRU's biz model is to actually get exclusives in order to attract foot traffic. They want to be seen as a retailer you must go to and exclusives differentiate them from the competition.

Sure, I understand wanting to have exclusives, but I don't understand wanting exclusives at the exclusion (heh) of all else which seems like the trend they are heading down.  Why don't they carry the normal minimates too?  I would be very glad to be able to get them all from the same place or walk into a TRU and find those in addition to their exclusives.

And, they seem to kind of suck at gauging the popularity of/demand for a lot of exclusives.  Walk down their "clearance" type aisle where all the adult collector stuff ends up when they no long have a regular spot for it because they need to make room for new product (or nobody cares anymore).  A mish-mash of all of the exclusives nobody bought.  I thought the Prometheus trilobyte/engineer two-pack would be a great seller because of how awesome it is, but the two TRUs I go to now and then just have pegs and pegs full of them every time in the "leftovers" row.  For awhile there were a million of the "electricity" gremlins.  Glow-in-the-dark Robocops...seriously, who the heck was asking for those?  The fact that there is an entire leftovers aisle seems like a problem to me, and the stuff in it seems to stagnate.

1) Fan's don't know what Star Trek is CLEARLY otherwise Trekkies wouldn't have such an outspoken reputation (because we'd all agree with one another and not feel the need to be outspoken) and we'd all be agreeing with one another without any discussion and things would be rather dull. 

 

2) in general those who spend time talking about Star Trek online have a very specific view on Star Trek from those who don't talk about Star Trek online

 

3) Now you might only expect Star Trek to be told one particular way, you may only ever want to see the same dreary plot where the Enterprise goes to prevent war against an alien of the week but thats NOT Star Trek, is it...

 

4) You can't expect Trek, a 50 year old franchise to stick to one type of story, otherwise we'd have only ever been given those 79 original episodes if that. It has to change.

 

5) so what is it about JJ Abrams movies that you don't like because I've not heard a single justifiable reason...

 

...why any Star Trek fan should be so outraged by JJ Abrams Star Trek yet love TOS or TNG or DS9 or ENT or TMP or WoK or TVH or SFS or TFF or TUC or GEN or FC or INS or NEM beyond the fact that they are different because now they actually have the budget's and the support from the studio...

 

6) ...to do Star Trek better than they had been able to do in the past. 

 

7) No matter what your personal tastes are, Star Trek (2009) and Into Darkness are relevant and are what audiences expect from not just a summer blockbuster but a Star Trek movie. Whether you liked Into Darkness or not is besides the point and down to your own personal tastes on what you'd go and see at the movies but DONT bitch about it because it's not what you (meaning fans) expect from Star Trek because as it has always been from the very beginning with 'The Cage' - Star Trek isn't just one type of story and

 

8) if you think it is just one kind of story done a certain way then you clearly don't know what Star Trek is.

 

Responding in order to the above,

1) That's not a logical attitude at all.  Everybody knows what a car is, and yet there is a lot to talk about and agree/disagree about regarding cars.  But at the end of the day if you have something with no wheels, or no engine, it's no longer a car (maybe it's a sailboat).  Many here may argue that JJ-Trek approaches having no wheels at which point it wouldn't interest car enthusiasts.  Maybe you like fast vehicles and any will do, but some are in this "hobby" for "cars".

2) Stop stating this new theory of yours like it's some fact.  You can't possibly know this.  It sounds to me like more empty rhetoric.  A bit of anecdotal evidence from your circle of friends is no evidence to support such a generalization.

3) I'm surprised you think preventing war is a "dreary" plot in contrast to a plot, what, centered on engaging in war?  You know, you can still use imagination to fill any plot with action and suspense.  I imagine you must mean "dreary" in the sense that you find it boring, which is only a function of unimaginative writing, as opposed to the sense that you would find the actual act of preventing war to be a dreary/bleak/depressing endeavor to undertake.

4) Stop building straw men to whack at.  Nobody is asking for "one type of story" and you must be pretty unimaginative if you think that's all you are restricted to by following a simple set of "rules" for a fictional universe.

5) Plenty of reasons have been given to you, but perhaps you haven't heard them because you haven't listened.

6) Better?  O_O  Wow.  First, define "better".  Second, by any definition of the term, does anyone here really think either of JJ's movies is "better than" every one of those things you listed (in other words, the BEST Star Trek ever)?  If that's your feeling then be clear about it because we might as well stop talking now if we are so opposite in opinion there can likely be no reconciliation.

7) Define "audiences".  One possible definition is people who have been watching Trek for years.  Looks like a lot of those people disagree with you.  But you'd rather just pigeonhole them via some vague and unjustifiable generalization as being "online Trek fans" so you can dispose of their opinion as being in the minority.  It may be in the minority, but did you ever think that might be because people who have been watching Trek for years were in the minority to begin with as far as moviegoing audiences go?

8) Those were your words, not mine, so I guess you are just arguing against yourself at this point and ignoring me and the rest of us?  A straw man you've created in your mind to rail against without listening to the real conversation?

 

And its sentences like this that justify my point...

 

Maybe people just don't know how to be a fan these days but in my opinion a fan is someone open to change and respects that the thing they are fans of won't always be done a certain way but loves it enough to stick with it and enjoy it as it comes. 

What you've just defined is a fan with no standards.  As a fan, I'm not going to just accept any old pile of crap served up with a Star Trek label on it.

If you'd bothered to read the posts of mine you keep faux-responding to you might have seen in the other thread that I actually said that I thought this new film had slightly more of the spirit of Trek in it than the first, and as someone else (s8?) said in this thread I think I may like it more than the first one, but at the same time that doesn't mean I think it earned its Trek moniker.  I'm trying to illustrate, again, how liking or appreciating this film can be done simultaneously to feeling that classifying it as Star Trek is a bit of a stretch.

...

And one other thing I forgot to leave room for above.  You said you could find messages of hope/optimism/whatever in STID.  Of course you can.  A very large percentage of all stories every told by man contain some amount of hope, often driving the protagonist or the plot.  Even, or especially, your post-apocalyptic or disaster films.  This is not what is unique to Trek, at all.  What is unique to Trek is that that sense of hopeful optimism has played out to the point where the entire human race has overcome the troubles of today and lives in a future where we are all working together to reach out to the stars.  Beyond Earth is where we find the greatest conflict.  This is the sense of hope/optimism that I still find sorely lacking from JJ's world.  Creating a sense of "hope" by, say, showing Kirk making sacrifices for his crew, or showing the crew overcoming obstacles, is a cliche and obvious way to go about it in any old action film without having to address it on a higher level as it might apply to the entire culture of mankind.

At the end of the day JJ Abrams has ... created a rich and vibrant and believable universe very much in the spirit of TOS.

Does this mean you've been convinced that there *is* a definable spirit of Star Trek, or just that you are willing to allow one to TOS for the duration of a complimentary remark if it helps form that remark?  You can understand my confusion since your previous statements have largely hinged around convincing us that there is no such thing as a spirit of Star Trek.

If you love your Star Trek cerebral and conference table based then no this won't be a film you'll particularly like.

 

Whilst anyone is perfectly capable of expressing their own opinions, I do wonder if many Trekkers/ies are missing the bigger picture and the point of Star Trek because their so caught up in the specifics that really they aren't able to enjoy but a fraction of what Star Trek actually is rather than enjoying it as it was always meant to be enjoyed, even in the 60's as... ENTERTAINMENT!

What if I someone loves Star Trek to be cerebral and not conference table "based"?  And might I suggest that such flippant remarks as suggesting the two go necessarily hand-in-hand (and are somehow inherently a negative combination as implied by tone) are not likely to be taken lightly (or seriously) by Trek fans, and making them risks painting yourself as hyperbolic.

And lastly, to repeat what others have already stated, we can simultaneously be entertained by something while also holding the opinion that it is not Star Trek.  Continuing to assert the two are mutually exclusive is not going to make it true.  Also your last sentence above is somewhat incoherent but it sounds like you are again claiming we're quibbling over some small "but a fraction" of Star Trek when I think those you are conversing with (including me) have already made it quite clear we consider the missing portion to be significant.  You'll need to address this if you want to make any progress with those you are speaking to -- repeating your original hypothesis ad infinitum will not get us anywhere unless your goal is to simply drown us out.

Did anyone expect Star Trek: The Next Generation to be hugely popular with fans of the classic crew back in the 80's? Not at all yet that series reinvigorated the franchise and brought in an entirely new fan-base, of which I'm sure many of us were brought up on.

 

I think what we have here is a matter of history repeating itself. What TNG did for Star Trek was broaden it's appeal and entice an entirely new fanbase whilst keeping a number of original fans willing to accept change and this is exactly what is happening now...

What you are doing is comparing apples to oranges, or perhaps more like apples to rocks.  I think we can all agree that the essence of Trek has always been best captured in the TV medium and not the films.  As special effects spectacles, the films must cast a wider net to draw in larger audiences to justify the expenses.  As such they tend to follow your typical hero, villain, actionactionaction pattern.  The weighty philosophical stuff and the ambiguous morality stuff and the deep character development stuff always takes a back seat to meeting the wider audience's sensibilities.

What TNG did, with its more ponderous and less emotional characters, its unconventional sense of conflict (none between main characters), its increased frequency of hard sci-fi plots, etc, was actually to make Star Trek more Star Trek than TOS often was, IMO.  In an era where TOS had already pioneered the territory of television sci-fi, TNG had an easier time of delivering a "cerebral" type of programming than it did by no fault of its own.

What these new movies are doing, and really what Trek movies have always done with just a few exceptions, is falling back on your cookie cutter action movie model.  As much as I like seeing variations on a theme, with all of the superhero films, Star Wars films, Star Trek films, Oblivions, Bonds, etc, etc, how many times do we really need to see the same thing over and over?  Ohhh, but it's fun to see it happen in the Trek universe, right?  Meh.  I've seen it happen before enough for my tastes.  There were 10 other movies, each one beloved by me 10 times more than ST09.  I like to see a variety of stories in the Trek universe, not the same one over and over.

The "new fan base" you speak of will lean more toward people who like blockbuster action spectacles, and less toward people who look for true science fiction.  That's the complete opposite of the fan base that grew out of TNG.

You seem to understand, in the Select thread, we didn't love Picard because he fired a phaser and was a fast talker, we loved Picard because he had the patience to break communication barriers when his universal translator was broken...to live an entire lifetime as another man to learn about an alien culture...to repeatedly resist a Cardassian brainwashing with all of his mental and physical strength.  These plots, you put them in a movie, and suddenly "BOO, THAT MOVIE WAS JUST LIKE AN EPISODE" (see also: Insurrection).  Nope, the movie has to be an action spectacle with all the tropes or people aren't happy.