Star Trek (2008)

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My friend informed me today that the Star Trek teaser debuted with Cloverfield.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuksQwGOtVs[/youtube]

So what does everyone think of the movie?

I saw a neat video that showed a highly-detailed version of the 1960s Enterprise.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP6PEVWyGF0[/youtube]

I think that sort of model and animation style could work well in the movie.


One problem I see is that the movie might create continuity problems, but hey - all the debates and arguments could reinvigorate the Star Trek community.

Starships are not built on earth in Star Trek, there built in shipyards in space.

It looks like this film is going to kill Star Trek

I liked how Deep Space Nine handled the continuity problem with how much Klingons had changed since the orignal Star Trek. Worf said, we don't discuss what happened with outsiders.

That was the coolest, most bold, wonderful continuity copout ever. It's like, this idea is so crazy, it just might work!

Maybe something like that could happen again?

Jeebus Cripes, they're gonna kill Star Trek because of where they built the stupid ship????

If this movie finishes the process of bringing the franchise to a screeching halt, it'll be because of the acting, or the script, or one of the producers marries a goat the day before the premiere and that's all the papers want to talk about, leading to a boycott by every major Christian group in the US. It won't be because the Enterprise was constructed in a one-g field, similar to what the ship will experience when its artificial-gravity system is working.

(And incidentally, according to the only source in canon on where the ship was built, it was in San Francisco, CA. That's what it says on the dedication plaque on the bridge of NCC-1701. NX-01 was built at McKinley Station, in Earth orbit; NCC-1701D was built at Utopia Planetia Shipyards, orbiting Mars; the other Enterprises could have been built anywhere - the question was never addressed. Besides, the original series used to contradict its own continuity on a regular basis...)

The point remains, Face, that building NCC-1701 at the San Francisco docks doesn't contradict anything except maybe your expectations. Personally, I don't see why a society that can teleport solid objects without needing a vacuum receptacle, manipulates gravity cheaply enough to install such systems on small private craft, and can create packets of antimatter to order, can't build their starships wherever they damn well please. Construction on Earth (or other M-class world) also means you don't have to worry about what happens when some welder's suit loses integrity - he's surrounded by air, he's not wearing a suit. (Those wondering why people are used for this, rather than robots, are referred to the original series episode "The Ultimate Computer" - Federation society, at least in the mid-23rd century, is very uneasy at the idea of AI. Sometimes, the unexpected happens, and a sentient being has to be there to fix it.)

On the other hand, this isn't as bad a complaint as one I saw at trekmovie.com - where some turkey's enjoyment of the film has already been compromised because they used the wrong font on the hull numbers. And I thought we were supposed to be nitpicky...

Did I read that right? Winona Ryder is in this? ! !! !!

Face:

The novels are not in canon.

Canon, for Star Trek, is what has appeared on screen in one of the TV series or movies. Believe me, you don't want to open the can of worms involved in trying to reconcile, say, Ford's The Final Reflection with Klingon society as shown in TNG and DS9, or Duane's Rihannsu novels with, well, pretty much anything else Trek.

Now, mind you, I really liked the Klingon society in the Ford novel, particularly his lingustic breakdown of the real meaning of the name of the language, Klingonaase (klin is the warrior principle, gon is an embodiment, and the -aase suffix means a tool used to manipulate - thus, Klingonaase literally means "a tool used to manipulate the embodiment of the warrior [a Klingon]"). I wanted that to be used for Klingon society in TNG. But, knowing what constitutes canon, when they developed Klingon society instead as some sort of cross between samurai and a biker gang, I shrugged, tossed my expectations, and enjoyed the show as written.

I also like Duane's Rihannsu, even though I know we'll never see any of that taken into account in the official creation of Romulan society.

I won't see it because, again, the novels are not canon. Paramount doesn't have anyone overseeing the "official universe", the way anyone publishing a Star Wars novel has to have it vetted by Lucasfilm to fit their canon. (Thank heavens, too - would you really want the relationship between Kirk and Spock in the Marshak & Culbreath Phoenix novels to be considered official?)

Even though I'm not much of a Star Trek fan, I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Face:

Okay, putz, check it: It was, in fact, Gene freaking Roddenberry who defined "canon" for his show as "what appears on screen". The only exception he made was the animated series - Roddenberry declared that non-canon, apparently in response to the number of changes made to the very concept by suits who were afraid Roddenberry's original vision might make kids' heads explode, or something.

As for "reading", I've been a fan of the show since I was six (the year it was cancelled, sadly), and until I enlisted in the Air Force in 1985, I had collected somewhere in excess of 200 ST:TOS novels, as well as The Making of Star Trek, Star Trek Memories, and Star Trek Lives. I could, had I the interest in debating further, point out where the episodes contradict one another, where the novels contradict one another, and where the novels contradict the series.

Know what? I don't care. I was first drawn to this show because of the hope it proffered, and because of the (occasional) quality of the writing. (Sure, there were episodes like "Spock's Brain" and "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield", but then again, there were also episodes like "Amok Time" and "City on the Edge of Forever".) And if this movie can capture that feeling of hope, of joy, once again, then I don't really care where they build the ship, or what font the letters are in, or whether we can reconcile the characters all being in the general vicinity of Starfleet Academy at the same time. That's all just petty details, to be fanwanked later if necessary.

(Oh, if you truly do require any fan to have the "correct" attitude toward Bermaga, you might want to go read some of what I've posted over the past few years at Television Without Pity, on the Star Trek forums, under the name Irish Wolf.)

If your future repartee will be on the order of your last couple of posts, however, this conversation has ended. I've got better things to do with my time - clip my toenails, or something.