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Star Trek To Return Christmas 2008
Tycoon Guy writes "Paramount today announced the new Star Trek film is scheduled for release on Christmas Day 2008. The studio also confirmed the film will be directed by J. J. Abrams, who said the film will 'embrace and respect' Trek canon, but will also 'chart its own course.' Also today, rumors are out claiming Matt Damon, Adrien Brody and Gary Sinise will play Kirk, Spock, and Scotty, respectively."
Somehow those rumours frighten and shock me. A Kirk that isn't Shatner and a Spock that isn't Nimoy?
What about a DS9 movie?
The "franchise" ran its course. Everyone should let it go and make way for other science fiction series.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
I'm a pretty big trek fan (currently watching all of it in chronological order), and these casting choices dont seem terrible. I hope the movie is better than the last two, although nemesis was kind of ok, but i think trek could use a rest. Watching/rewatching all of it has given me some perspective on all the series compared to watching them randomly in syndication on spike. So far IMHO, DS9 S4-7 > TNG S4-7 > DS9 S1-3 > TOS > TNG S1-3 > ENT S3-4 > VOY > ENT S1-2 > TAS. That may change, i may split voyager up, but im only on the first season of it/the third season of DS9 right now and i havn't seen an episode of voyager since it originally aired. General conclusions are still DS9 is the best, TNG is overrated, and ENT is very underrated. Oh, and Star Trek V still sucks.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Which Dax: Curzon, Jadzia, Ezri, or whatever host lived at the time of Kirk?
(If you just want to see Terry Farrell (the actress who played Jadzia), you ought to just hope she's in it as a different character.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Considering Lost has a suspiciously large number of similarities to an old show called "The New People", perhaps Abrams is the right person to resurrect the spirit of another show from the sixties.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063935/plotsummary
So...serious?
Blank until
who said the film will 'embrace and respect' Trek canon, but will also 'chart its own course.'
Resuming, it'll 'embrace and extend'. I just hope the warp drive keeps compatibility with earlier versions.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Not that similar. If you want to get technical, both are ripping off Lord Of The Flies, but the details are so different that it's basically a non-issue. There's only so many basic settings like "people crash on a mysterious island"; you're going to have some repetition of the basic plot. If anything, Lost is ripping off The Prisoner more than The New People.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Wireless controls on a warship (or a vessel likely to be in engaged in combat) seems like a really bad idea. One good jamming at the right frequency (or, say, an EMP), and the ship is dead in the water. Worse, they get your encryption key and now you're fighting on the enemy's side (and no, that's different from what Kirk did to the Reliant in STII:WoK).
Warships need to be hardened. The Galactica is the right idea - heavily shielded cables.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
What they should do, is a movie that takes place during the dominion war. It doesn't even have to include much of DS9. They could do it from the perspective of a few different ships and crews, perhaps with some minor involvment from both Enterprise E and the Next Gen crew, and the Defiant and the DS9 crew. There's lots of potential there for some really good space battles with all new footage, as well as things like the Breen attack on earth, the loose of Bajor to the Dominion, etc. It could make an INCREDIBLE movie. Too bad they're going to do a shitty sequel instead.
The thing is, what sets Star Trek apart from other sci-fi shows is exactly that it isn't gritty and believable. It is sci-fi in a near-perfect universe. The ships are clean inside and out, and the uniforms are pressed immaculately (unless the bridge is already on fire). When an entire starship blows up, the crew of the Enterprise take it stoically. Whole wars go on, yet the main characters are mostly unaffected either physically or emotionally. Poverty is eliminated. Medical science can cure almost anything.
Compare and contrast with any of the other major future/space sci-fi series in recent years, from Babylon 5 to Battlestar Galactica. Consider the obvious plot device of killing off a character...
[[[Warning: Spoilers for early Star Trek films, early TNG series, Voyager finale, Babylon 5 season 4 and early reimagined BSG series follow]]]
In the TNG episode Thine Own Self, Troi is training to become a command officer, and is faced with a dilemma of sending a friend to his death to save the ship in a simulated test. In the Babylon 5 episode The Long Night, Sheridan sends a whole group of Ranger ships to certain death for real, with no guarantee that his plan will even work. He asks the captain of the lead ship whether he's married, after he's given the order. The episode later watches Sheridan sitting in his office listening to the radio chatter as they all die.
In the final episodes of Voyager, we see an alternate Janeway sacrifice herself for the good of her ship. It's brief, and then we're back to celebrating. In B5, Sheridan is told long before leaving for the Shadow homeworld that if he goes there he will die, and deliberately chooses to go anyway. The story arc of the consequences of that decision runs right up to the final episode, Sleeping in Light, set 20 years after the main story. That last episode contains one of very few TV moments that still brings a tear to my eye.
In one of the early Star Trek movies, Kirk's son is killed by a Klingon. Kirk swears and makes a pained expression. In BSG, Adama's son is killed in an accident, caused by the negligence of someone very dear to him, and we see the consequences and how they both have to live with it.
[[[End of spoilers]]]
You can look at many other issues from the series the same way. In Star Trek, we have hints of underclasses. In B5, we have the area of "down below", which features prominently in several episodes, where real people suffer real problems because of real mistakes. In Star Trek, when a shuttle is in trouble we bounce it off an atmosphere and tractor beam it home. In BSG, it crashes or explodes, killing or stranding whoever was on board, even if there are major characters involved. In Star Trek, admirals are good guys or traitors. In BSG, we have the whole Pegasus story arc, where very bad stuff happens because two good people have different perspectives.
Basically, the thing that makes the Star Trek franchise different from everything else is the fact that their universe is clean and tidy and full of good people Doing The Right Thing(TM) and with a happy ending to each episode. Many other series have done Gritty Realism(TM) already, probably better than anyone in the ST world ever will. They should not go there.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
According to this article http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/767/767783p1.htm l Daniel Dae Kim ("Jin Kwon" on Lost and also had minor parts in both Enterprise and Voyager) is in early talks to play Sulu.
Yes, that's a common complaint. However, most of the episodes were actually pretty good. Even the shameless super-anachronistic vague Borg reference episode.
You clearly suffer from what I like to call "Bad Theme Song Syndrome." The theme song was so unbelievably not-trek that you couldn't get over that (and your misplaced nostalgia: no trek has ever been the height of literary greatness) and enjoy some good television.
Further, there was only one character who was static and uninteresting, but still miles ahead of the previous character played by Scott Bakula.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The 24th century was left wide open in the trek universe. DS9 was left open ended and so was TNG. Even though Nemesis was not the best movie ever it was still left open ended. They have enough open endedness in the 24th century to make an awesome sequel before they go backwards. A movie including the return of Sisco, Riker on the Titan, the return of Odo, a peace treaty with the Romulans and Data being resurrected through the memory transfer with the B4 unit would all make a great movie even if Patrick Steward thinks he's too big for Picard's britches. There need not be any Enterprise involvement if we had all this in a movie. That is unless we're going to be given a Star Trek:Titan TV show. Now I'd watch that.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"