Saw it last night, lol what a load of crap, X-Men (or Harry Potter) in Space more like.

At least Enterprise, Voyager and the Next Generattion tried to do something different with a fresh crew rather than a copy based in an alternate reality.

But then it's all about making money just aim it at your average brain-dead 'I want a quick thrill' audience.

Star Trek should just stick to it's niche 'intellectual market. =)

When I heard a new Star Trek movie was going to be made, I rolled my eyes, and thought, "what else can they beat out of that old tired thing before even the die-hard fans realize a joke these movies are...."

After hearing a bit more, and then all the twitter chatter when the movie opened I decided to see it at the theatre (I might watch one or two movies a year at the theatre, the rest get Netflix). And here's the thing—aside from the common complaints (some plot things just too forced, generally shallow characters)—I really liked the movie! at the very least, it certainly gave a moribund and over-extended franchise an entirely new life and lots of excitement. Where things go from here is a whole new universe of possibilities... and I think this one may be more suited to giving us those Gene Roddenberry-ish points of contemplation for a new generation and a very different world than the one in which he created the original Star Trek universe. That gave us ideas of multiculturalism and cooperation, a peaceful future in light of an 'evil' empire... perhaps this one will help us address the very different challenges and issues we face today.

The kicker for me, really, was within the first 60 seconds of the movie. I remember thinking, "oh wow, it's like the producer of every single other Star Trek Movie has just been schooled—this is how a Star Trek Movie should feel!"

The Movie to me was like this:

Lens Flair, Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair...

Your snarky joke would have a little more bite if you spelled it correctly.

Lens Flair, Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Extreme close up
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Something blows up
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Extreme Close up
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Something blows up
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
Lens Flair,
The end

New Battlestar Galactica is a reboot.

It simply continued the story. In that first season starting with 'Rose' the Doctor was the mysterious figure he'd always been hooking new viewers in with questions which suddenly made the title relevant again as it became a question; but then with the addition of news of the destruction of his home planet (not named properly for another two years) fans were drawn in with questions about what happened which still haven't been completely answered.

Then, slowly, over the past couple of years, old continuity has been worked in, but with the greatest measure of care, and other then a few in-jokes, not unless it serves the story (though there's a discussion to be had about that, especially in relation to Journey's End). Effectively it worked up its own mythology which didn't contradict what went before.

In Doctor Who, everything is potentially canon, the tv series, novels, audio plays, audio books, comic strips, none of it's consistent and most of it can't be reconciled (which isn't to say some people haven't tried and been quite successful at it -- http://www.behindthesofa.org.uk/2008/01/in-many-cases-n.html).

And the brilliance of the new series is that by and large it didn't piss all that up the wall. It's all interlinked with concepts and even stories from the multimediaverse turning up on television, characters from the comics turning up on audio and in the novels and well you can see how that can be.

It somehow managed to reboot and not reboot, and still managed to produce something new.

God, I love it.

Well, one: there's still Vulcans, just a lot less. I recall someone saying something like around ten thousand. Not a lot in planetary terms, but not facing immediate extinction or inbreeding. And the whole Sarek rescue established that the culture has been preserved.

Two: Older Spock (heh, "Spock Prime" in the credits) said he's already found a suitable planet to colonize, so any Vulcan-oriented stories could easily take place on Vulcan II or whatever they decide to call it.

And three: they destroyed Vulcan because nobody would have really given a crap about some "red-shirt type planet".

"And if Vulcan was under attack wouldn’t they send seasoned officers instead of a bunch of cadets into a major battle?"

You know, they did say that all the seasoned ships were busy elsewhere, and that nobody knew it was going to be a major battle going into it - the whole discussion of "space lightning" and what that meant - wait a minute. Did you even actually watch the movie?

Funkygreenjerusalem: "your allowed to have an opinion on the end product without having done it yourself, or else none of us could have opinions on a lot of things."

Some days I think I could live with that.

Finally went to go see the new movie yesterday. Surprisingly, I really liked it. Liked the effects, the pacing, and even the characters. I thought the story did a fair job at setting up the new direction. Overall it was very entertaining to me. Must say I'm anticipating JJ's next move. To me it breathed new life into a dead franchise.

Here's my observation regarding the whole new vs original debate: Seems to me the old Star Trek universe had gotten pretty stagnant and was pretty much dead in the water anyway.

Last tv show was canceled 3 years ago. Haven't heard any plans about any new ones coming down the pipeline. Be great if Abrams could start one up, even though very unlikely.

It's been six years since the last Star Trek movie. Just re-watched Insurrection and Nemesis and even though I'm a fan of TNG I didn't think they were all that great. More like bigger tv episodes.

Where was the next Star Trek movie going to come from? DS9 and Voyager never spawned any movies. TNG is long gone. Enterprise didn't even have enough success to complete a run on tv, so where?

Doesn't seem like anyone was chomping at the bit to do it, so I guess I owe JJ some appreciation for daring to try something different.

Seems like you can give the new Star Trek a chance or just live off your old memories. Doesn't look like there were ever going to be any more movies to continue the old time-line.

Regarding continuity and the like, I really liked this article. Goes to show that Star Trek has been cobbled together from a lot of different sources. Plenty of silly plots in TOS, even quite a few later on.

I guess to me it came down to this. It's a movie. It's make believe, science-FICTION. It's not reality, none of it is. So to have some kind of dogmatic reaction to some new shift from established 'canon', to me is kinda silly. It's about being entertained, whatever that means to each person watching the movie.

A reboot is when all prior films, movies and so forth are considered to have NEVER TAKEN PLACE. Ever. At all. A good example of this is Batman Begins. Even though there were four prior Batman movies, Begins takes place in a universe where Batman never fought the Joker, the Penguin, never met Robin or Batgirl, and where Mr. Freeze never made dozens of corny puns.

By contrast he TOS episode "The Menagerie" features the unaired pilot, Star Trek II is a sequel to the TOS episode "Space Seed.," and even Deep Space Nine takes place in a TOS episode in "Trials and Tribble-ations." These are not "reboots" of any kind because the prior established Star Trek episodes are assumed to still exist and to have taken place.

This new movie is a reboot because it is now assumed that none of the Star Trek shows and movies will ever take place. The writers of a new "rebooted" Star Trek franchise are free to remake and redo everything to do with Star Trek. They can write Khan into the next movie if they wish in much the same manner The Dark Knight introduces the Joker.

So, my advice is you learn to use the term "reboot" correctly before you base an entire blog on it.

I also find it funny that, as the franchise as a whole has been slowly limping towards its grave as mainstream audiences have long since ceased to care, and the only people still going to see the movies and new series seem to be the most diehard of old fans, when they finally manage to produce something that recaptures the excitement and energy of the original series, it's the diehard fans who rail against it the hardest.

Which leads me to an interesting question - is it better for a beloved property to reboot, and at least try to recapture the spirit of the original, or to watch the franchise die an agonizing death to the point where no one in their right mind would ever propose making another movie/TV series based on it? What's more important, rigid continuity, or more product?

there was no reason to kill Spock’s mom except for lazy writing. How could Kirk take over the Enterprise? Get Spock mad. How do you get him mad? Kill his mom.

There were so many more complex machinations that could have happened with Pike and Spock

Like what? Any examples?

HOWEVER: Destroying Vulcan was a travetsy. The Vulcans have always been one of the most fascinating, noble, intellectaual and intriguing races in ST; this new universe will be much poorer without them. Just watch Amok Time, Journey to Babel, Yesteryear, or read SPock's World or Vulcan's Forge or Sarek to understand how Abrams severley limited any future opportunities. And why couldn't they have destroyed soem random red-shirt type planet.

Lastly, there was no reason to kill Spock's mom except for lazy writing. How could Kirk take over the Enterprise? Get Spock mad. How do you get him mad? Kill his mom. There were so many more complex machinations that could have happened with Pike and Spock.

And if Vulcan was under attack wouldn't they send seasoned officers instead of a bunch of cadets into a major battle?

Furthermore, there are a number of life events for Kirk that DID NOT OCCUR in this timeline, to mature him.

For example, he did NOT have to deal with NEARLY DYING at the hands of Kodos the Executioner (remember, he was one of a half-dozen people who could ID that mass murderer, in the original timeline, from having seen the man in the flesh as a teen on a COLONY WORLD that in the new timeline, he never lived on). There were also other ships he served on before Enterprise, in the original timeline. Heck, he didn't even have the same FRIENDS in the Academy as he did before (no Gary Mitchell or Lee Kelso, or Carol Marcus, for that matter - in fact, the only way that ANY of his OTL academy acquaintences might have existed is if one of those security redshirts he embarassed was Finnegan!)

Odds are, he was nowhere NEAR the problem child in the original timeline he was in the movie, and probably was much more subtle in messing with the Kobayashi Maru test. In fact, going back to all the retcons this story mentioned, there was actually a novel (was it set in the camping trip we see as the entro for one of the last TOS-cast movies?) with each character discussing their taking of the test....

my initial point was simply this: the author could have made his point without having mentioned Enterprise, which, aside from a small number of partisans, is considered to be an unmitigated failure. it weakens the argument (with which i agree) and was intended to be evocative. it should have been omitted.

Um... I AM the author. So yeah, I suppose I could have made the point without it. However, I've been doing this long enough to know that if I had, there would have been a dozen pedants demanding to know why I didn't at least MENTION Enterprise.

Apart from all that, I disagree with your assessment. Considered by WHO to be a failure? What authority? On a number of levels I think you have to grant that it's not a failure. It's not a HUGE success but failure is not the right word. The point the author was making -- that author would be me, so I'm on pretty firm ground here -- was that no matter how disparaging fans get about this or that iteration of Star Trek, every television version of it has made money in both its original run and in ancillary licensing, with the exception of the original series, which wasn't really a success until it went into syndication.

So, sorry, but that success does indeed include Enterprise. First of all, no studio or television network does anything without an eye on the bottom line. There's no reason whatsoever to 'invest' in anything if they don't think they're getting their money back. Enterprise runs on the Sci-Fi network at more or less the same frequency of rotation as Star Trek: the Next Generation. Airtime is limited and costs money, and even a little cable outlet doesn't run stuff they think no one will watch. They've been running it long enough to cycle through all the episodes two or three times, so they must be getting decent ad revenue out of it.

Likewise, DVD sales generate revenue. Not only is the show on DVD but it's out there in varying packages. It's available as season sets, as part of the various theme collections, as a mega-set... that tells me it's doing a little better than, say, F Troop. Likewise, no one continues to license out new Dark Angel or Babylon 5 novels... but Enterprise books are still out there. Those things may not matter to you or to me, really, but they matter to the owners of the licenses that are spending the money on them. They wouldn't be continuing to bet on the property selling to consumers if there wasn't precedent.

also, Enterprise sucks.

I see that this is pretty much the core of your disagreement, but it doesn't change the facts. I like Enterprise better than the first season of TNG for the most part, but that's not really relevant to the point I was making.

you wrote:

"'Not as successful as other versions' is not the same as “failure,” no matter how much you may happen to hate that particular show."

you are correct that the phrase "not successful as other versions" does not have the same meaning as "failure"; however, my comparison of the number of seasons Enterprise managed to limp through with the number of seasons spanned by each of the previous three series was not intended as a statement of relative success. given that even Voyager managed to complete seven seasons, it would seem, prima facie, that paramount was willing to invest a significant amount of time and money into even the most mediocre series in the star trek franchise. the only success Enterprise may be said to have is that it defied these expectations.

making money for the studio is something several series that have subsequently been considered "failures" have done. citing that a series is rerun on cable seems irrelevant as well.

dvd sales are only worth mentioning if they are in some sense exceptional and i am unaware of any such information regarding Enterprise discs. i am sure Cop Rock dvds are bought as well (or will be once they become available).

i do regret that my hatred of a show does not automatically render a show unsuccessful, and thank you for clarifying that for me. i was evidently under that false impression that my disgust with most of what is on television simply was not of sufficient strength or focus to cause the massive cancellations i dream of nightly. i shall now endeavor to concentrate my energy on nobler pursuits.

my initial point was simply this: the author could have made his point without having mentioned Enterprise, which, aside from a small number of partisans, is considered to be an unmitigated failure. it weakens the argument (with which i agree) and was intended to be evocative. it should have been omitted.

also, Enterprise sucks.