105 replies to this topic

[VulcanFanatic]

I dont remember people saying it was the end of Star Trek when TNG came along, all i remember was it being embraced because Gene Roddenberrys vision was still intact. After TNG, the producers of Star Trek have strayed farther and farther away from that vision. I like DS9 and Voyager too, but i can tell the difference in them from TNG. Enterprise infuriated fans because Paramount was more concerned with milking the cash cow than making the fanbase happy and threw out canon so that they could expand and draw in a newer audience, but instead ended up with a show many wouldnt watch and it went down in flames. Nemesis also tried to be different than the other TNG movies and it too went down in flames. Star Trek fans have always known what they wanted, but the studios just seem to be thinking about trying new things to solidify the franchise that end up making it worse. Someone said the other day that Studios just make what people want to see because it sells. Seems like Paramount was out sick the day that was talked about. TV does seem to be a better medium for Star Trek than the big screen, no need to top the lengthy list of explosions from last week on TV like Abrams seems to feel the need to on the movies.</p>

Star Trek isnt my Star Trek, its Gene Roddenberrys dream. He didnt have multiple dreams called Star Trek, he had the one dream for humanity. If you take that out of Star Trek, it is no longer Star Trek, its just another space movie with explosions.

I feel so strongly about this because i walked out of the theater feeling as if i had witnessed a rape. A Rape of Star Trek's best moments and best characters and cheapened the moments by tossing them into a crappy story. I know this a fictional story that is meant for entertainment, but i have invested more than 40 years watching all 6 series and the movies and this is the first time i felt robbed of my time, and violation of Star Treks dignity.

[Gothneo]

This is probably a bit off topic, but how did Enterprise violate canon? This is the 1st time I've heard that? I'm admittedly soft on seasons 1-3 of ENT, but  pretty much everything that Coto did with it was gold IMO.

[Gothneo]

I simply don't agree with your analogy 1701. My mom burnt plenty of meals growing up, but myself and my siblings never (intentionally) tried to hurt her feelings. She just wasn't a good homemaker. Thats not to say she couldn't make a few things, but I learned to make my own food if I wanted something decent to eat.

 

Like wise your definition of what a fan is, is actually insulting to me.  Because I don't care for seasons 1-3 of ENT I'm not a "Happy Fan"??! Rubbish. Thats just ignorant and I'll suggest you just grow up a bit. 

 

I don't prejudice your fandom or commitment to Star Trek. I respect that your passionate about the JJ movies, and love everything about them, I think you bring a valued voice to any discussion for or against them, but make your argument... be it with passion or facts, I don't mind, I'll listen, but I don't have to agree. Just like you don't agree with my perspective. You see, we can disagree, and we can do so vehemently, but I can still respect you're passionate, commitment and  love of Star Trek. Statements like...

A happy fan is one that does not bog him or herself down with facts or figures, delving into the nit-pickery of it all, a happy fan is someone who might not like certain aspects of this film or that TV series but by and large will like all of it

 

Is a "Love it or leave it" kind of reaction. Why even start a Thread with a poll to rank the worst movie if your simply not going to respect the discussion?

 

I can't think of any property where fans love everything about it. Do you love everything about Star Trek? If so, there can't be a "worst" movie. They are all "equally" great! Star Trek, Star Wars, even Planet of the Apes... Fans all have likes and dislikes. 

 

I guess my question for you 1701, is why is it so important to you that everyone like JJ's trek as much as you do? Why do we all have to think the same way you do? Because that seems to be what your implying?!

[Darth Duranium]

Almost every single version of Trek since TOS has gotten roundly beaten with a stick by the fans, and even Season 3 of TOS is often dumped on. Crushing criticisms of new Trek incarnations is nothing new whatsoever.

 

-TMP (the farthest from the original series in tone and character) did good business (due to SW) but damaged the franchise (huge dropoff for TWOK at the box office despite being a much better film than TMP)

-ST:3 was decried as "The Search For Geritol"

-ST:4 was deemed meaningless fluff

-ST:5 (very close to Roddenberry's first idea for TMP) nearly killed the franchise due to Shatner's ineptitude and ego

-TNG was reviled (and was not very good in its first season) for a long time as a pale TOS rip-off with dull cardboard characters

-DS9 was accused of being a non-Trek-like soap opera Babylon 5 copy

-Voyager had dodgy ratings (probably because male fans couldn't stomach a female cap't) and was dubbed deja vu all over again

-Enterprise was indicted for trading on earlier series' plotlines, copious retcons, and mis-cast lead actors

-the TNG films were mostly written off as dull, tired, and predictable 

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't share many of these criticisms and I love Trek in all its incarnations (even Galaxy Quest!) but I recognized the need to do something bold with it and reboot it. And I have enjoyed the easter eggs that have been included for the hardcore fans, too. I wish George Lucas had done the same with SW before the Prequels. TBH.

 

Personally, I thought JJ injected a lot of fun and energy into a franchise that had jumped the shark/nuked the fridge long ago. It was becoming a parody of itself (a la Galaxy Quest) and rarely offered anything fresh anymore. I love older Trek shows and films but I also love to see something new. The new films are not boring, no one accuses JJ of that.

 

Do I love Spock and Uhura making out, Nero, zombie tribbles, karaoke mike nacelles, or transwarp beaming? Erm, no. But I was hugely entertained and I thought that the nucleus of characters were very well realized and I was pleased with the humour, banter, and epic scale. i thought they'd captured the spirit of TOS very well and set their own course.

 

I see the films as very different beasts than the TV shows. The films rarely involve "seeking out new life and boldly going" and are usually popcorn flicks with lots of action and phasers blazing. ST and STID are no different.  

 

60's franchises like Bond and Doctor Who have evolved over time to survive and stay relevant and Trek is no different. Do I expect everyone to agree? Hell no! But I would encourage folks to mitigate their preconceptions and enjoy their popcorn.

[Whirlygig]

Another thing that John Billingsley quite rightly said on one of these Enterprise special features the following:  "Every TV show, every movie, every bit of art or artefact that comes into the popular culture has to respond to the conditions of the day. And that's the trap of Star Trek, you can't be writing an iteration of a show that was perfect for it's time period for a time period that is no longer it's time period..." That opinion is so level-headed and really does cement the fact that really Star Trek Into Darkness and Abrams 2009 movie are the right way's to do Star Trek for this time period.

 

First, John Billingsley saying anything doesn't "cement facts" any more than my grandma saying them.

 

Second, what John Billingsley is saying sounds more like the opposite of what you are painting him to be saying.  It sounds like his main point is that Star Trek's time period is over and that's why it is hard to make it work again.  Not that Star Trek should continue trying to shoe-horn itself into inappropriate time periods by whatever means necessary.

 

I don't believe that the time period for Star Trek is over.  With superstition making a resurgence everywhere in a world that seems to be turning against science, I think we need it now perhaps more than ever.  Until humanity becomes what it is shown to be in Star Trek, we will need Star Trek. 

 

We all know why The Cage was called "too cerebral", and we also all know that is exactly why we love Star Trek.  Don't pretend not to.

 

Back when TNG/DS9 were in their prime, Star Trek provided as close to good, hard science-fiction as TV and movies were giving us.  (Those who keep dissing TMP, Final Frontier, Insurrection, and yes even Nemesis would do well to consider this...)  If you wanted sci-fi/fantasy, space opera, loud dumb action, there was plenty of that in the theaters.  Aliens?  Terminator 2?  Heavy on the loud, dumb action; sci-fi mostly by association -- a thin sci-fi background plot acting as an excuse for loud, dumb action.  Now, I like loud, dumb action.  I love Aliens.  I like Terminator.  (By the way, I think The Sarah Connor Chronicles was great and tried to bring some true sci-fi to the franchise and did pretty well in some episodes.)  But back then, everyone knew that if you wanted to see good sci-fi, the stuff that makes you think for days if not a lifetime, you had to look no further than Star Trek on TV.  Even The Matrix...when that came out, everyone who knew Star Trek was thinking "great...we already saw this a million times...like when Moriarty broke his programming and was given his own virtual world to exist in...and every other holodeck episode ever...who cares?"  Meanwhile the Trek outsiders were eating it up like the best thing since sliced bread.

 

Now I see the opposite.  I see a surprising number of great sci-fi films coming out like District 9, Moon, Oblivion, that seem fresh and original again even though they really aren't, that people like and that make you think -- make you reconsider your worldview like good sci-fi does.  Meanwhile Star Trek has morphed into loud, dumb action with sci-fi as the background excuse for it.

 

Star Trek dropped the ball somewhere.  And you know, it's not too hard to imagine what happened.  Just the other night I watched an Enterprise episode that I didn't really remember seeing before even though I know I have seen them all.  "Rogue Planet".  And as I watched it, I thought, this is entirely predictable.  From the minute Archer sees a strange woman running around, I knew where it was going.  Not only that, but it was like a bunch of other Star Trek plots just sewn together.  The only element of that episode I found interesting was when T'Pol explained they can't enforce anything because they don't have resources to patrol the planet, which wasn't the main point of the episode.  They could have made the episode explore that aspect of things more in-depth, but then, it wouldn't have been science fiction at all.  Basically, Star Trek suffered because it had already done everything so well.  What sci-fi story was left to tell that we hadn't already been schooled on by Trek, to where we knew the moral of the story within the first act?  None.  The most interesting parts were the action parts (few and far between) and the parts that explored the tedium of canon (that no casual fans care about), because the sci-fi parts were nothing new.

 

So it went away, long enough for us to start forgetting and for a new generation to come along who didn't know the stories, but while Star Trek slept, other films came along to reclaim that ground.  Ground that film once had before, recall the days of 2001, Solaris, Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, THX 1138, Close Encounters, etc.

 

The Trek films have always had to compete with the film environment of the time -- loud, dumb action has been the norm in "sci-fi" films since basically the mid-to-late 80's.  Trek was pulled out of the closet as a competitive marketing response to Star Wars ("what do we have like that", isn't that how the story goes on TMP).  So they always tended that way and whenever they didn't, "boo, this is like a TV episode".  I like it to be like a TV episode, because that's when it's being like Star Trek.  So I have to agree that Star Trek belongs on TV or at least does better there, and has more room to breathe there.  And since the days of Enterprise, TV has entered another golden age of its own.  Networks are being more adventurous, taking bigger risks, and allowing greater scope and flexibility in storytelling.  Star Trek could go where no Trek has gone before, if only someone would bother to care.

[VulcanFanatic]

There are quite a few canon violations in Enterprise. Captain Robert April was the first Captain of the Enterprise, not Jonathan Archer. Spock was the first Vulcan to serve in starfleet, not T'pol. Romulans had never been seen before "Balance of Terror" yet they appear on Enterprise. NX-01 never existed before Enterprise. All the violations of existing canon on Enterprise is why they got such poor ratings, because those that enjoyed the previous 5 series were offended that the producers of Star Trek thought so little of them to just throw out what they held dear from 5 previous series.

[Exelion]

 Romulans had never been seen before "Balance of Terror" yet they appear on Enterprise.

All the violations of existing canon on Enterprise is why they got such poor ratings, because those that enjoyed the previous 5 series were offended that the producers of Star Trek thought so little of them to just throw out what they held dear from 5 previous series.

 

The crew of the Enterprise never see a Romulan, only a Bird of Prey, hardly a violation of canon.

 

I really don't think that Enterprise's poor ratings were anything to do with people being offended by canon, are most people going to look at that show and go,"oh my god they have a view screen and aren't using nuclear weapons as described by a episode of TOS, this is deeply offensive and I will have no part of this!", I just can't see most people being like that. However I do think that by Enterprise's time, Star Trek had become creatively bankrupt, the same stories, the same format, the same music, not taking any real risks, and show in those first three seasons never really did what it was supposed to do;show us the birth of the Federation. Enterprise narratively speaking was a lumbering dinosaur compared to the likes of Farscape , Lost, and Battlestar. If Enterprise had started with the quality of season four, then things may have been different.

[Whirlygig]

There are quite a few canon violations in Enterprise. Captain Robert April was the first Captain of the Enterprise, not Jonathan Archer. Spock was the first Vulcan to serve in starfleet, not T'pol. Romulans had never been seen before "Balance of Terror" yet they appear on Enterprise. NX-01 never existed before Enterprise. All the violations of existing canon on Enterprise is why they got such poor ratings, because those that enjoyed the previous 5 series were offended that the producers of Star Trek thought so little of them to just throw out what they held dear from 5 previous series.

 

I think you are explaining one of a set of reasons why some die-hard Trek fans were turned off at the start of Enterprise.  All of those problems were a hurdle to clear only at the beginning to buy into the show, and would only matter or be identifiable to existing fans.  So those things don't account for why the numbers of casual viewers kept falling as well, which, as we all know, TNG would never have reached its ratings heights without plenty of those supplementing the die-hards.  What I said doesn't fully account for it, either.  It debuted on a network that still not widely carried, the number of competing entertainment options was experiencing an accelerated growth rate, and the landscape of television was changing in many other ways simultaneously, to boot.

 

Really? I personally think the Cage is fairly weak and fairly forgettable. Wagon Train Trek is exactly why I love Star Trek, TNG Trek for the most part is why I love Star Trek, DS9 Trek is why I love Star Trek, Enterprise and yes the movies (bar FFT and TMP) including Abrams two is why I love Star Trek and I think the majority of fans would agree with that.

 

I was not saying the "The Cage" itself is the reason we love Star Trek.  I was saying the fact that it was called "too cerebral", because it set out to be more than just entertainment, something to engage audiences in on a new level, in other words, that it was more like hard sci-fi, is the reason we love Star Trek.

[Daysleeper]

I always thought Robert April was the first captain of the NCC 1701. Archer commanded the NX 01. Which episodes states that Spock was the first Vulcan in starfleet? I don't believe that was ever mentioned.

[Whirlygig]

Also unless your grandmother appeared in Star Trek, I'd take the word of John Billingsley, a man who was in Star Trek over her, no offence to your grandmother   

 

I had to return to say a word about this.  That is your right to do so, but you would be making a logically fallacious argument from authority.  Fallacious, in this case, primarly because there is no expert consensus on this subject.

 

John Billingsley knows a good deal more than I and "grams" about all kinds of objective facts such as what went on behind the scenes of Star Trek, what it was like to work on Star Trek, what Star Trek means to him, and what the opinions and thoughts of other people he worked with are.  Etc.  But what John Billingsley knows no more about than you, or I, or "grams", is something so complicated and somewhat subjective as why Enterprise, or JJ-Trek, or Voyager, or anything, has lost so much traction with audiences.

 

Not even Rick Berman, or Brannon Braga, or the heads of the studio/network know any more about that than we do.  I'm sure they've studied the facts about it, I'm sure they can tell us a great deal of information about ratings, market shares, television history, what others have said to them.  But if they KNEW why, don't you think they'd have done something to correct it at the time?  Or if it was beyond their control, that they'd have explained it in clear detail with charts and all sorts of factual evidence to fans by now -- if for no other reason than to try and assuage some of the vehement poison spewed constantly at Rick Berman by inconsiderate, rabid fanboys?

 

No, it is a complicated question with no solid answer, and while they know a lot about the production side of the equation, we, the audience, know many things that I doubt they know about our side of the equation as consumers.  As much as you gotta love 'em, and as long as they worked on Star Trek, none of them that I know of have confessed to obsessing over the actual product they created quite like many of us do.  In fact we know that many of the actors, the worst offender being William Shatner, almost seem to gloat about the fact that they haven't seen many of the episodes.

 

Now, in reality he does know more than at least my grandma because she has probably never watched an episode or read an article or review about Star Trek in her entire life.  But I chose her as the subject of my slight hyperbole for comedic purposes. 

[Jedigreedo]

Well... of the "Prime" universe, my vote for worst movie goes to Nemesis.  It barely squeaks by Final Frontier because instead of just failing by incompetence, it failed by incompetence and trying waaay too hard to be an "homage" to Wrath of Khan.  Plus, it being the last TNG movie it was a terrible send-off for the crew.

 

Overall Trek movies... I'll go with Abrams' first movie.  I haven't seen Into Darkness yet, so I can't weigh in on that one.  I'm not going to go into too many details and more just echo my feelings that I've mentioned previously somewhere on here.  The 2009 movie is the worst not just because of its gross misinterpretation of Star Trek and the majority of its characters, but also because it's a badly made movie by production/technical and acting aspects.  I still cringe at brick floors and ridiculously oversized watertubes on a starship, let alone the Enterprise.

 

My whole ranking of the movies would be:

1. First Contact

2. The Undiscovered Country

3. The Wrath of Khan

4. The Voyage Home

5. The Motion Picture

6. The Search for Spock

7. Generations

8. Insurrection

9. Final Frontier

10. Nemesis

11. Star Trek (2009)

[Gothneo]

1701, thank you! I do see what your saying, and I will admit that through our conversations and discussions like this, I realize don't actually think MOST Star Trek Movies are very good, but most of them are fun. Maybe that's why I like Galaxy Quest so much, is it doesn't take itself seriously and I do like a good comedy.

 

I'm clearly more of a TV Trek Fan, and as a few of us do seem to agree... it worked better there. 

 

One more thing to consider. Please try and have some empathy for those those die hard fans. I'm not saying you have to agree with them. I certainly don't feel the way VF does about ITD, but I can empathize, as I have felt the same way for some properties.  Most famously, this episode of south park parodies what I thought of the last indiana jones movie!

 

[Gothneo]

So I say bring on Star Trek 3 and future Star Trek's

 

So say we all!

[VulcanFanatic]

 

So say we all!

Not me, unless they can get back to REAL Star Trek again.

[VulcanFanatic]

 

 

 

When I think of Star Trek at it's most awesome I think of TNG from Best of Both Words onwards, DS9 from The Way of the Warrior onwards and Enterprise (the first Trek show I'd seen from beginning to end in it's first TV run), Generations, First Contact, Insurrection and a film that could have been better but was still enjoyable to watch... Nemesis. I love it all but that era to me is when I had the most enjoyable time watching Trek. I loved Star Trek (2009) and I loved Into Darkness but clearly they are meant for a new time, and a new audience and I think that's brilliant because it means that Star Trek will live on, hopefully for another 50 years.

 

So I say bring on Star Trek 3 and future Star Trek's

Then you never got what Roddenberrys vision of the future for mankind was. Apparently you are interested in battles and wars and constant conflict. We have plenty of that already in our lifetime, Roddenberrys 23rd century is a time when we have overcome wars here on Earth and Starfleet keeps the peace, not out looking for another war. JJ abrams universe is like taking people as they are now and giving them 23rd century technology so that everyone can shoot or blow up anything they want. You dont have a different Star Trek for a different time, thats makes no sense. Star Trek is a vision of how we can evolve from what we are now into the 23rd century that Roddenberry created. The current Star Trek is not evolving into Roddenberry's vision of the 23rd century, its going in the opposite direction. Its no longer an inspiration for people to aspire to, its just 2 hours worth of meaningless drivel to watch while your eating you $20 worth of popcorn and soda.