Spock and the Legacy of Star Trek

StartsWithABang writes While the nerd/geek world mourns the death of Leonard Nimoy in its own way, it's important to remember the legacy that Star Trek — and that Spock and alien characters like him — left on our world. Unlike any other series, Star Trek used a futuristic, nearly utopian world to explore our own moral battles and failings, and yet somehow always managed to weave in an optimism about humanity and our future. This is something, the author argues, that is sorely missing from the new J.J. Abrams movies.

Comments

Live

[invictusvoyd]

long and prosper .. sniff

Re:Live

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ignorant in the sense that Quinto's real life has no bearing on Spock in the film. It was just a trollish slam. If AC has an issue with Quinto's portrayal of our favorite Vulcan, insulting him without offering specific and relevant criticisms isn't helpful.

Re:Live

[nctritech]

Surprisingly, you've stated my opinion better than I think I could have. The death of Gene Roddenberry and the slow decline of Star Trek seem to have coincided. It makes a LOT of sense if you watch the various older shows and films and "making of" specials about Star Trek TOS and TNG. Gene had a vision and Gene made Star Trek what it was. After his death, some of the people who worked with him (like Jonathan Frakes) did a decent job of keeping his vision around, but few who watch, say, Voyager (and have seen TOS/TNG) would say that Voyager is generally a better series.

The newer Trek creators have forgotten that Star Trek is about exploring the nature and folly of humanity. Futuristic space exploration just happens to be an excellent container to ship it in.

Re:Live

[thedonger]

Agreed the second movie sucked balls. The homage was pure hollywood crap. Shows how JJ Abrams is utterly over-rated. After creating their Star Trek universe they had an opportunity to create new story lines. Instead they punted and decided to destroy a classic movie.

My thought on the reboot is not that they punted and rehashed old story lines; rather, it is meant to demonstrate that even with an alternate future from the original movies -- a smart way to retell a story with the same characters and not be beholden to an old story arc -- they couldn't escape their shared fate, or their shared destiny.

Regardless, I'm just going to enjoy the reboot. That is, unless the next one involves whales and time travel.

Re: Live

[Oligonicella]

Ah yes, the "I made more money so I have more class" theory.

Spock is not dead.

[Z00L00K]

Only the vessel for him carried by Leonard Nimoy has passed on, but as long as he's remembered he's not truly dead.

The Original Series did a lot within the frame of that series to actually poke at contemporary issues about racism and other things. It was not so much about the science as it was about studies on humanitarian issues.

Make it DARKER dammit.

[ihaveamo]

I'm sorry capt'n , I can't make the movie any darker! But seriously, its a good point raised ... why is darker always better?

Re:Make it DARKER dammit.

[garyisabusyguy]

I think that you need to look at the generation of authors that created Star Trek TOS, they (like Roddenberry) were military veterans from WW2 and seemed to believe that good could overcome evil, bridges could be built across cultures and the idea of service to the betterment of their society wasn't an alien idea.

Harlan Ellison wrote one of the darkest original episodes, City on the Edge of Forever, and maybe the popular acclaim that it received allowed younger authors to take the series into different directions. When TNG was produced the authors were largely younger than the original group, with Roddenberry providing oversight through the the later series that were almost playing a neo-classical hand with references to past episodes and different riffs on themes.

Now Roddenberry is gone and the ownership of Star Trek has been taken over by generations of authors that never knew life before there was a Star Trek...

At least that is my long-winded summation of how we got to where we are now. What would it take to get it back in line with TOS? Maybe a dose of optimism and belief in conquering great evils and striving for a greater society. Maybe it just isn't a widely held set of beliefs anymore

It is that sort of spine that Spock brought to the new productions when he was brought into the story line. I think that is what we will miss most about both Nimoy and Spock

Re:Optimists is for fools

[Stormwatch]

"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?" -- Terry Pratchett

Re:The Optimistic viewpoint hade a source

[fermion]

This is it. The original Star Trek, all of them, pretty much said that diplomacy occasionally backed up with defense would end up in the best results. That technology over time helps us build trusts. There are a few bad agents, but we are mostly good.

The new Star Trek says violence is the way. That the violent people win. And brings a new level of suspension of rational thought. That the Earth would have no defenses against a rougue star ship. That a meeting would have no defenses against a rough droid. That we would be running across the city chasing a suspect. That civilization could build a starship, but could not protect the citizenship. It is not so much a dark world, but a world that reflects the fears of technologically illiterate audience.

Life is pretty bad when your star trek movie makes less sense than the Fifth Element, which at least had good actors.