Population Numbers...

No argument there. On the other hand, Chekov and Scotty are not what I would consider to be well-developed in the TOS movies either. In many of them they become parodies of themselves; in IV particularly, even though that is seen as an otherwise good movie (worse in V, but I don't think we're going to be using that as an example of anything anywhere).

I think the main problem there isn't Abrams, but the original script, and the problem with the original script is that we really don't know those characters well enough to easily extrapolate their past selves, so Orci and Kurtzman didn't have anywhere interesting to go. Spock we probably can extrapolate the best, even moreso than Kirk, and Spock shows up very strongly in the film. Kirk less so, but we can still see the potential for the naturally brash and rebellious Kirk to get out of hand without a father to look up to, and perhaps resenting Star Fleet for taking his father away from him (although I believe the script goes too far there, particularly in the aforementioned Kobayashi Maru). But then we get to McCoy, who we know basically nothing about his past (or rather, most people even most fans don't know much) except he seems to have had a very long friendship with Kirk. Sulu and Chekov we know even less, and Scotty's best known for saying the line "its green" and being the TOS equivalent of a geek. Not much to work with there.

In any case, I think if there's someone to blame for Scotty being the Chris Knight of Star Trek, Chekov being Doogie Houser: Navigator, and Sulu having trouble with the parking brake, its probably more Orci and Kurtzman than Abrams.

My impression from TOS and from some of the earlier movies is the show was basically the "Kirk, Spock, and McCoy Show." Oh sure, the others had lines and even some plots, but the main focus always returned to that threesome. The fact that the Abrams movie focused on Spock, Uhura, and Kirk shows me that he is at least willing to play around with the characters and bring some into the light. He might even viewing the series of movies as "episodes." The first movie/episode gives most of the action to Kirk, Spock and Uhura. Maybe the next one subs in Sulu for Uhura (Kirk and Sulu did bond a bit when trying to save Vulcan).

The fact these characters, in general, were sorta nebulous (yes, they may have had a backstory in the TOS, but how often did it serve the story? Did the show treak the backstories of Sulu and Chekhov as really that important?). Over the course of the movies and the explosion of popularity did the characters deepen. I would expect the same for these series of movies.

Like I said, just look to Uhura and how important she was to the first movie compared to her role in TOS. Nichelle Nichols has even said she loved Uhura's expanded role and is happy for the character.

True, Chekov and Scotty were never the most developed characters. But they still had more depth than the "nuclear wessels" and "I know this ship like the back o' me hand *smack into pipe*" essences that JJTrek boiled them down to.

As for Sulu, I took more issue with him being a god of sword fighting because of his fencing training than I did with the parking break gag. He's a green officer who is expected to fly a sparkling new ship-of-the-line into an emergency situation, so he's bound to get nervous and forget a detail or two.

I thought that the TOS series was a glorified redshirt raffle. Spin the wheel and see how many die this episode! Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were just the hosts.

Or a precursor to the "Mr. Lizard" show on the Dinosaurs.

Kirk: I wonder what will happen if I do this while down on the planet.
Spock: Computations show that there is a 99.999999% chance of a crewman fatality if that course of action is taken Captain.
Kirk: I don't believe in a no win scenario Spock.
Redshirt screams and dies horribly
Spock looks at Kirk and raises an eyebrow.
Kirk: Bones, Looks like we need another redshirt.
McCoy: Dammit Jim! I'm a doctor not a personnel officer!

I take your point about things being reimagined versus being original, but you aren't allowed to use Casino Royale as an example of anything other than bad storytelling.

I'm sorry, but that movie is so goddamned boring that even the writers couldn't figure out what the hell to do with it so they actually KILLED JAMES BOND in the middle of it. Since it's the title character, so we know he's not going to die... so that's just completely wasted time in the middle of the film for no purpose whatsoever. He even goes back to playing cards as if nothing's happened. It was ludicrous in the extreme. One of the single best Bond opening scenes ever, and then nothing.

I don't think that's true of the first film at all. You clearly get a good sense of who Wolverine is, the issues Rogue has, why Magneto hates humans (in one of the most efficient villain introductions ever) and the rivalry between Xavier and Magneto. I think the only real benefit 2 had over 1 is it featured more action in a wider-ranging story. I never once thought X-Men was plodding and if no sequels had been made, that would've been a fine stand-alone movie.

True, the TNG films were basically big-budget episodes of the series, but they made a lot of money. Adjusting their box office earnings versus their budgets results in a figure about $70 million less profit than Star Trek, but that includes the flop of Star Trek: Nemesis. Star Trek was marketed brilliantly. The true test will be ST2. The Phantom Menace had huge hype, great anticipation and was a massive let-down. It made nearly a billion dollars in theatres. The next two did 60% of that, despite having inflation on their side. That's still a ton of money, but it's pretty clear a lot of people abandoned the series after seeing TPM. Whereas the original series sold more tickets with each succeeding entry and pulled in more fans, the second series did the opposite. I kind of have the feeling that Star Trek is in that same boat, albeit to a lesser extent.

Well, we'll see.

I still say Star Trek was a bad film on its own and suffers badly when compared to fare such as Wrath of Khan. Abrams couldn't even seem to decide what sort of tone to set with it, so it's like every other character was serious, alternating with a character who was campy.

Kirk: campy.
Spock: serious.
McCoy: campy.
Uhura: serious.
Chekov: campy.
Sulu: serious.
Scotty: campy.
Old Spock: serious.
Nero: seriously campy.

The difference, though, is that while tons of people went to see Phantom Menace, lots of them admitted point-blank they went to see it because it was Star Wars, and it could have been two guys drinking coffee for two hours and they would have gone to see it because it was Star Wars. Critical reviews and general buzz about that movie was that it was, at least, somewhat disappointing after the initial hype wore off. And that became increasingly crystalized after the first few weeks. Trek's been out for over a year: by this time after Phantom Menace's release the movie had very few neutral or general audience defenders. But Trek hasn't gone that way, if anything the criticisms have lessened over time and the overall opinion of the movie continues to be generally positive. In that respect, Trek and PM are heading in exactly opposite directions.

Because there is so much subjectivity involved, no one thing is definitive for any movie. There are people who think Citizen Kane sucks, who think Gone With the Wind is boring, who think the Ten Commandments isn't true to the source material. Some people think Inception is one of the best movies of the decade, others thing its incomprehensible rubbish. But I think when the general critical reviews of a movie are overwhelmingly positive (the average reviewer thought the movie was reasonably entertaining, if far from perfect) and the general audience feedback of the movie is overwhelmingly positive (while not scientific, RT has Trek at 91% positive, and that's consistent with other audience feedback), and the box office suggests the movie had both good word of mouth (the movie had decent legs over the first six weeks of general release) and strong attendance per screen, and DVD and Blueray sales indicate strong home video demand, the burden of proof is skewed towards the people who want to assert the movie was poor cinema rather than the reverse.

Keeping in mind there's a difference between a movie you don't like and a movie you think is poorly done. There's lots of movies that are not my cup of tea but I don't think are poorly done and vice versa. Although, as a film buff its not common for me to actually hate a movie that I simultaneously think is well done. But I've been known to fall asleep during well made movies that were not my thing. No one has to prove a movie is something they don't like. Its only when they say its an objectively bad movie that the subject of demonstration comes into play.

And for the record, I liked Casino Royale. I had my doubts about Daniel Craig, but I think he did a good job overall.

The sword fighting bit though is a gag/reference to TOS where when something (a disease? I forget) made the crew go crazy and Sulu was fencing around the ship. In fact, the real reason why the character was doing that on the show was because George Takei padded his resume by saying he could fence (he really couldn't) and the writers saw that and wrote it in. It was part of the show.

So I would say the fencing bit in the movie is an attempt to take a not so serious, throwaway thing from the show and flesh it out and make it more serious, relevant, and useful.

I went with my friends from work to see TPM. We organized a day trip and the whole office convoyed down to the movie theatre to see it. Afterwards we met in the parking lot, shaking our heads at how much productive time we had just wasted.

But TPM, as bad as it was, at least fit into the Star Wars Universe. The new Star Trek is a reboot -- the 'alternate universe' explanation was just a loincloth they draped over the truth. They rebooted the franchise with this one, and in the process they made it something else. That new franchise promises to be fun but it is not the old Star Trek. The old Star Trek was fun and smart; it invited the viewer to contemplate the possibilities and moral questions of the future. The new Star Trek is fun but stupid; it insists that viewers turn their brains off in order to accept the plot holes and inconsistencies.

As far as the short-term strength of the franchise is concerned, 'fun' is all that matters. The new Star Trek has that, and it will do well. But the long term future is bleak. Unless they put some intelligent depth into the storyline, the franchise will collapse again when they run out of stories to tell with the central cast, or when the central cast retires.

You can only tell so much of a dumb story before it becomes too stupid for even the most moronic mouth-breathing consumer to accept. In my opinion, Abrams sold the future of Star Trek in order to revitalize it for a short time.

I know (I think it was the only time Sulu was ever shirtless). The crew got drunk on contagious water and started acting crazy, with Sulu running around babbling about fighting Cardinal Richelieu and waiving his foil around. Then it never came up again. It was more or less a minor part of the Sulu character, and there wasn't really any indication that fencing was more than a hobby for him. Yeah, alternate universe and all that, but still I have trouble believing that sport sword fighting could be used in actual combat.

Also, I always figured that they made Sulu a fencer because Takei didn't want the character to be shoehorned into being a stereotypical Japanese karate guy.

If he did, he's the worlds greatest salesman. Considering that before the 2009 movie Star Trek basically had no future, Abrams got an incredibly good price for it.

Star Trek has changed course and speed so many times that you could say that everyone sold the future of Star Trek for their own personal vision of it. Only TNG can at least lay claim to having Roddenberry's initial approval. DS9 sold the future of Star Trek to promote its gritty scifi vision of the future. Voyager sold the future of Star Trek for a ton of Seven of Nine posters. Enterprise sold the future of Star Trek for a 20-piece chicken McNuggets value meal. Judging as harshly as some Trek fans do of the 2009 movie, very few Trek moves (sic: moves, not movies) didn't cost them in the long run, as directly evidenced by the fact that the long run came to a (predictable) end.

Bottom line: Abrams cannot be blamed for costing Trek a future it was never going to have.


And as I mentioned previously, I believe that to be a matter of highly subjective opinion. Reasonably intelligent movie goers have come to the opposite conclusion. Its not just the "stupid masses" that like the 2009 movie. I had to "turn my brain off" for every single Trek movie, from TMP to Nemesis, including WoK. And WoK itself is a standard no other Trek movie before Abrams has been forced to attempt to equal, because none do. Take TVH, which is often considered the next best Trek besides WoK. What grand moral questions of the future does that present to the viewer? Save the Whales? Its a fun adventure movie, but it doesn't struggle with any big moral dilemmas. Although it too was nit-picked at the time, it wasn't punished for it for as long as some people continue to flog the 2009 movie.

And as I also mentioned, like TVH, the criticisms surrounding the 2009 movie are not growing over time. It comes down to the 2012 movie. If that also does well, and it uses the launchpad afforded by the 2009 movie to tell a deeper story, the trajectory of the two movies combined will I believe silence all but the most hardcore detractors of the Abrams Trek movies. If it doesn't, I'll be the first to criticize the 2012 movie for going in the wrong direction.

Yes, but there was a third option -- revitalize Star Trek with an eye toward long-term storytelling.

Were you turning your brain off to enjoy the technological background? I think everyone familiar with how science really works has to do that, and not just for Star Trek. I'm talking about turning off your brain so that you don't question the plot holes, the sudden brain character moments, or the inconsistency of the new rules of the game. WoK and TVH had mostly sound plots and characterization. The Abrams movie had plot holes you could throw a star cruiser through.

I'm not referring to the technobabble on the show. That's expected. It isn't a matter of how intelligent the movie goers are. It's a matter of stupid storytelling. I can handle it if they get the tech wrong; I can't stand it when they get the characterization wrong.

TVH was a masterpiece of character moments. Kirk, ready to save Earth although he knew he was in for a court martial. Spock, recovering from his ressurection. Even Checkov had his character fleshed out and expanded in that film, albeit into comic relief. It was great storytelling with few plot holes, as long as you're willing to accept the central conceit.

Here we absolutely agree. The 2009 movie might have been a quick reboot to get things going, and Abrams might intend to put more care into making the next film live up to the series. But I'm pessimistic; I think the 2009 film was Abrams' true vision of what he wanted Star Trek to be, and it's fun but dumb.

In theory yes, but in practice the priority was to rescue Star Trek from its death bed, and the 2009 movie did that. If you rolled the dice and made something that the Trek fans would think was intelligent and more "Star Trek" and no one went to see it, the game would be over. You wouldn't get another shot for a decade. You might have also done permanent damage to the franchise. So while its easy to say "it should have been just as enjoyable to the movie going audience, but better" the question is specifically how? Can you be certain that any change you would propose would not have turned off movie goers?

Of all the possibilities that could have happened with the 2009 movie, most of them, the vast majority of them I believe, don't involve a 2012 movie. In that respect the 2009 movie beat the odds.


Here's a related thought. The 2004 BSG was, in almost all respects, a better show than the original. It was better scripted, it had better production quality, it had a better story, it had stronger performances in general, and it had more depth. There is only one area in which the 2004 BSG fails to supercede the original. It has no charm. No one is going to be reminiscing about the remake in thirty years. No one is going to be thinking about remaking BSG2k4 in thirty years. I'll bet its more likely someone will want to remake BSG1979 in thirty years. I would much rather have the original Apollo and Starbuck flying CAP over my house than those two flakes that replaced them: I'd probably shoot them down myself.

I still have warm memories of Lloyd Bridges as Commander Cain. I think Michelle Forbes did a good job of portraying Admiral Cain. But I don't have the same iconic memory of Helena Cain as I do Commander Cain. Helena Cain is a morality lesson. Commander Cain is larger than life mythology.

Many fans refused to watch BSG2k4 for exactly that reason. It wasn't the original. It made no attempt to come anywhere near the original in any but superficial ways. Its not my place to tell people what to watch, but in my opinion that was a mistake for two reasons. First, the show was just better, if you gave it a chance. Second: its easy to say "why couldn't you make the show have the same production values, better writing, etc etc, and *also* retain the charm of the original. Why not choose that option. Its not impossible."

Yes: its not impossible. But its asking a lot. More than I think is fair.


Both, and I mentioned many of them upstream for other movies, including specifically WoK.

I can also tell the difference between things that specifically bother me, and things that bother me for more general reasons. Its the same skill I use when on jury duty and when switching between training students on software and beta testing the same software.

Its not like I pattern my training classes after this guy:



On the other hand, when I'm evaluating software and talking to vendors...

I don't think they got characterization badly wrong. I think they nailed Spock. I think they went overboard with Kirk, but not critically so. They got McCoy ok, insofar as he isn't central to the story. But I think they did do something subtly right with McCoy in that unlike Kirk or even Spock McCoy is sort of already an "adult" at the time of the 2009 movie: while we are seeing Kirk at a time before be grew into being James T. Kirk and we're seeing a Spock before he became Spock (if you consider The Cage/The Menagerie proper canon, Spock matured into the more "Vulcan" Spock of TOS over time), McCoy is portrayed more or less as he is in TOS, which makes sense. He's not still in his formative years.

The other characters are much harder to have an objective debate about characterization, because they are by necessity far extrapolations given the lack of strong background material to go on in TOS.


I think TVH and the 2009 movie are much closer together than you're portraying them. But the point isn't that my view is more accurate than yours, but rather that at the time TVH was seen in a similar negative light as the 2009 movie was, with similar complaints by a similar number of percentage of viewers, which decayed over time in a similar way. There's no reason to believe "the fans" were wrong in their subjective opinion then, but correct now.