This. There’s ample room on TV for a big ticket, big budget prime time scifi show. These people playing this crew with these special effects could pull it off. All we need is good writing. BSG showed that can be done.
…for two seasons before running out of steam.
I really liked the whole attitude about this–the fact that there wasn’t exactly what you just described.
Going into the movie, I’d seen the shots of a planet being destroyed in the trailers, but I didn’t know it was Vulcan. As soon as I realized that’s what was about to happen in the film, I figured “Ok, we’re pretty early in the film, obviously there will be more time travel later so the crew can go back and prevent this” or something.
But then, not only does that not happen, but Spock Prime is basically ok with “Well, here I am in a new time line I’m responsible for.” And they even take it as far as turning the Spock meeting Spock thing into a joke about time travel cliches. The movie refuses to follow the formula about how this is the wrong timeline, and we’ve got a responsibility to fix the space time continuum, or anything like that, it’s just what happened. And I think that’s great.
Of course, it makes perfect sense in retrospect. All these years, we’ve been so paranoid about what would happen if we changed something when we time traveled. Turns out the result is a reinvigorated franchise. We should’ve been changing time lines left and right!
The real trick is have some primary writers for the ‘character’ episodes and then tap up and coming and established serious science fiction writers to write the other episodes. TNG had too many character episodes, and the old series had the opposite.
Trek can be an awesome platform for real good sci-fi in the past. The danger lies in the direction TNG and others went with the continual storyline stuff. It can be both- Bab 5 did an awesome job of telling off the main plotline stories, and always looping back to the main thread.
But yeah this crew, I’d watch them weekly.
I want a tv show, but only 4 episodes a year, so they spend the time and money getting it done just as well as this and it doesn’t get stupid or run out of ideas.
As for stories… well, there are three seasons of inspiration from TOS.
Oh - and the next movie MUST BE SPACE SEED. I will accept no substitute. I can’t remember the guy’s name but there was some discussion of him as Khan and they showed a pic of him next to Ricardo and omg, it was like his brother or something.
Really enjoyed it. Some comments I held back in the non-spoilery thread…
[ul]
[li]Nero was so obsessed with revenge that he never realized his time-travel saved Romulus. Spock now has over 100 years to make contact with the Romulans, and destroy that star BEFORE it goes supernova. Nero could have just high-tailed it to Romulus, where he wouldn’t have had as much trouble getting his story accepted as Spock will.
[/li][li]The bridge looked like it was designed by Apple, but Engineering looked like the Coors Brewery.
[/li][li]Loved the humor. TOS was fairly humor-laden. After that, most of the humor came from Data saying stupid things or Ferengi idiocy.
[/li][li]What was Nero doing for the past 25 years while waiting for Spock?
[/li][li]I’m not going to geek nitpick such a fantastic movie, but I cringed when (1) Kirk happened to land right next to CodgerSpock, and (2) Pike made him second-in command, and (3) He got his own Starship command one mission out of the academy. Okay, nitpicks done.
[/li][li]Spock and Uhura: That’s gonna be a nasty breakup.
[/li][/ul]
Oh yeah, one of the few things I didn’t dig was engineering. The revamped bridge was cool, the shot of the shuttle bay was cool, but engineering? It didn’t feel anything like a ship of any kind; starship, battleship, anything. It looked like a generic factory set Sidney Bristow could run through any minute now. Glad we didn’t spend much time there.
My God I enjoyed the hell out of that.
The prospect of a fully new timeline is really, really exciting for me. Plus it’s got me wanting to watch my DVDs of the other series, but some of them are super-scuffed up and don’t play properly. Blah :(
Anyways, I am in with the others here voting for a TV series. I’d be unbelievably happy with that.
Also, was happy to see Cameron’s cameo as Kirk’s mom :)
Spoiler!!!
---- IT KICKED FUCKING ASS.
Loved it.
I’m a huge sap, so JJ had me sniffling during the ‘naming Kirk’ sequence in the opening. That bastard.
One big thing I’m confused about:
How did Nero know where Spock was going to time-jump to? How’d he know that 25 years later, Spock was going to appear “riiiiiight…here!”?
They both came out of the black hole in the same location, just at different times. NOT my favorite part of an otherwise awesome film.
You’re going to be waiting a long, long while. The writers stated in a recent interview they have no intention of ever re-visiting/re-imaging Khan. That’s one big part of canon they won’t bother touching, for good reason.
— Alan
[/li]
It’s funny you should mention that, JJ mentioned on Jimmy Kimmel last week that they shot in the Anheiser Busch brewery for the engineering scenes.
I had three nerd problems with the movie, I might as well get them out of the way. When George Kirk turned the Kelvin to ram the Romulan ship the warp nacelles glowed like they were firing up when the smaller red impulse engines should have been glowing. This especially bothered me since they got it right every other time a ship was accelerating both at impulse and warp speeds. Second, the shots of the Enterprise being built on the ground were cool but totally wrong. Yes people have complained about it since the trailer first came out but it still annoyed me. Finally I was really hoping for some more red shirt deaths. We only got one and it wasn’t even that exciting!
Fortunately I thought the rest of the movie was pretty damn awesome. Changing the timeline is really the only way to do something like this so I really don’t have a problem with it, and the way they’ve explained it I think many of the events we know from previous movies and tv shows could still happen. I thought the casting worked for all the characters; Sulu was definitely the weakest but he didn’t have a huge part in the movie and was still decent. Bones, Spock, Uhura, and Scotty worked great, and while I was expecting Chris Pine to be terrible as Kirk he brought a real interesting characterization to the role that gave it a great depth. Nimoy was definitely the right choice (of the few still left) as the character to bring from the future, he’s still great as Spock.
I know I’m kinda rambling but I’m a little overwhelmed at how much I enjoyed the movie. The Kobayashi Maru scene was perfect. Some of the comedic scenes were actually funny and the others were cheesy enough to be funny but not too cornball. The action was awesome. I loved the wide shots that would then zoom in to a much smaller object in action. The ship combat was just kickass. I think it’s safe to say I’ll be seeing this again in theatres.
Tman
34
I thought this was great. Leonard Nimoy doing the voice over at the end with the original “5 year mission” brought a tear.
One thing I haven’t seen anyone mention and I’m sure if I missed it someone will remind me, but THEY KEPT THE RED “SHIRT”.
Ok, technically it wasn’t a shirt, but damn when that guy got stepped on the transport platform, I said “he’s wearing red, he’s going DOWN” ROFL.
The Uhura/Spock turbolift shocker was the best scene in the movie.
I read “shocker” in the high school vernacular sense, and imagined Spock informing Uhura’s nether-regions that they should “live long and prosper.”
I saw it today. I absolutely loved it.
I could have done without the Uhura/Spock make out part in the transporter room (seemed VERY unSpock like) but all in all, best Trek since Kahn IMO.
The wife and I saw this tonight and were blown away, this movie is fan-friggen-tastic!! I cant wait for the next movie or a series or whatever, JJ Abrams did indead save Star Trek.
Editer
39
Once Pike said "Sulu, Kirk, Olsen, you’re with me, I realized they were actually filming the old joke… “Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Lt. Sulu, and Ensign Liebowitz beam down to the planet. Guess which one’s not coming home?”
Hey, at least the guy went out as a badass, and not like a punk.
