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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."
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
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
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.
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.
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