www.ditl.org

Yeah, I think all of us hate it, but it's a neccesity.

I think the Storm Front hoop is a comfortably large one, and allows us to ignore a lot of crap that we otherwise couldn't.

The new movie is something entirely different, but I'm still looking forward to it.

Rochey wrote:

Interesting idea. I haven't actually seen "Regeneration," so I'll have to check it out at some point

Don't bother. You can spend that hour of your life in far better ways. Seriously, it sucks.

Is this the main reason some fans consider Enterprise to be an alternate timeline?

No. Most people that consider it an alternate time line because it contradicts so damn much of every other series that it being an alternate universe would be the best sollution for rectifying the problems. The Borg bit just gives us a nice explaination of how it happened.

How do you explain Riker and Troi in These Are The Voyages? Just that the timeline was different, but not too different

That's pretty much it. It's an alternate, but very similar, timeline.

Interesting. I guess that also explains why Riker was 10 years worth older and fatter than he was in the Pegasus.
I still can't wrap my mind around why the writers would specifically decide to set a show in a prequel time period where they would need to dance around a lot of canon AND make this very clear from the beginning that it's meant to be the same universe (Cochrane's speech, etc.) and yet made little effort to uphold this when they ABSOLUTELY KNEW how much people would care about it. Bizarre.

Well, there're several possible reasons for why they did that. One being that Kirk was, quite simply, the best Trek captain ever. Of course, the more cynical side of me is saying that they're setting it during that time to cash in on all the fans who'll go see it.

I think they are trying to go back to basics again

stitch626 wrote:I still hate jumping through hoops to explain stupid writers.

I too. This is the reason that, although I'm trying really hard to keep something of an open-mind, I'm deeply deeply concerned about the canonicity of the next film. Even things as simple as the chronologically inaccurate uniforms and different ship design. There COULD be some explanation (such as the uniforms being in an experimental usage, not in full rotation and then put in later; or the ship being designed as depicted as it is in this film and then getting redesigned by the time of "The Cage," meaning it actually underwent 2 refits, the second of which is finished in The Motion Picture) for these changes. Still, it's looking more and more like they're completely abandoning the canon if indeed they have people meet the Romulans face to face, which at this point wouldn't surprise me. But hey you never know.

Rochey wrote:Well, there're several possible reasons for why they did that. One being that Kirk was, quite simply, the best Trek captain ever. Of course, the more cynical side of me is saying that they're setting it during that time to cash in on all the fans who'll go see it.

Yeah, I was speaking specifically of Enterprise but those questions may well prove to be just as applicable to the new film.

Mark wrote:I think they are trying to go back to basics again

I've heard that but I'm not entirely sure I buy it. I don't see a convoluted, timeline-driven time travel story with multiple Spocks from different time periods trying to solve a technobabble problem sounds like anything but back to the basics.

I'll recount two experiences that really concerned me about this film and the future of Star Trek.
1) A friend of a friend who is a casual TNG fan, thought DS9 was boring, and ONLY knew the TOS crew from the films. He said it just looked awesome. Again, I'm really concerned that this movie could be driven not by an understanding of the TOS characters, but by a very shallow understanding based primarily on pop culture common wisdom about Star Trek's characters (i.e. Kirk is a ladies' man and a real loose canon, etc. instead of a nuanced understanding of the character as show in the actual TV series) and this would really mean the death of Star Trek and its replacement by a pseudo-ironic hipster type deal.
2) Someone who has never seen Star Trek before, but described the trailer for the new movie as "Hella Sweet," referring no doubt to the trailer's promise of violence, sex, explosions. He suggested that this film would be bringing in all the fans who never liked the show by correcting the mistakes they made for 40 years; no doubt he was referring to it being a largely cerebral show that was more than a mindless 2-hour action flick.

Again, I've heard people say that Star Trek really needs to reinvent itself by creating a fun and accessible movie in order to survive.

Frankly, if that's what it takes (abandoning what Star Trek has been about in favor of meaningless action movies, a process that largely began with Insurrection and Nemesis) to "breathe new life into the franchise" than they should just leave it be.
The horse is dead already!
Oh well. If this movie sucks, I really don't know if I'll care that much; I only started getting invested in it as I went back and watched TNG and DS9 again, which made me excited by Star Trek. But when I think back to when Voyager and Enterprise were the only Treks fresh in my mind, I remembered thinking I'd rather watch Babylon 5 all the way through on a projector screen rather than see another Star Trek movie.
Perhaps seeing this new one will help me bury Star Trek in my mind; it's been dead since about 1999, and although I think TOS, TNG, DS9 are a really great saga that develops a great universe, that universe was deliberately abandoned as much as possible by late-era Trek and I really just don't care anymore.

Chris Propst wrote:*snip*...I really just don't care anymore.

Well, there you go. If it's already lost it's luster for you, then there's no way you'd like it. Unless of course, you wrote it.

Chris Propst wrote:I too. This is the reason that, although I'm trying really hard to keep something of an open-mind, I'm deeply deeply concerned about the canonicity of the next film. Even things as simple as the chronologically inaccurate uniforms and different ship design. There COULD be some explanation (such as the uniforms being in an experimental usage, not in full rotation and then put in later; or the ship being designed as depicted as it is in this film and then getting redesigned by the time of "The Cage," meaning it actually underwent 2 refits, the second of which is finished in The Motion Picture) for these changes.

Eh...I think that's absurd. There's no way that they would revert from these 2008 esthetics back to tacky-looking 1960s esthetics. I would treat it as either retcon or a reboot.

Still, it's looking more and more like they're completely abandoning the canon if indeed they have people meet the Romulans face to face, which at this point wouldn't surprise me. But hey you never know.

Personally, I think the existing canon is so shot to hell that they should just ditch it and start anew. The blatant lack of continuity was one of the things that eventually drove me away from Trek several years ago.

Basically, I think that as a commercial franchise spanning multiple decades, series and movies, and written by hundreds of different people, Star Trek has been doomed to a state of esthetic and historical chaos. My attitude is, I'm not going to waste my time worrying about canon when the people in charge of the franchise obviously don't give a shit about it. (I initially flirted with the idea of treating Enterprise as a standalone series and forgetting everything else, but that was before I found out that it sucked.) I was obsessed with Star Trek when I was younger, but now I really just have a casual interest in it as an ex-Trekkie who accumulated way too much knowledge for his own good. I've long been in favor of a total reboot.

If there was one thing that finally killed Star Trek for me, it was reading Bernd Schneider's masterful archive of inconsistencies. I think now that good science fiction should be under much stricter creative control, preferably by one person or by a handful of people who really have a shared vision and care about continuity.

Lazar wrote:...I think now that good science fiction should be under much stricter creative control, preferably by one person or by a handful of people who really have a shared vision and care about continuity.

Agreed. Hopefully, if the movie does well, 'Trek will be under the control of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman under the watch of JJ Abrams for the immediate future. They'll definately follow their own "canon".

And since when has 'Trek being "cool" been a problem? As long as the story and acting are good, I'd prefer to see "badass" and "cool" action scenes. Is it supposed to be two hours of people talking?

And since when has 'Trek being "cool" been a problem? As long as the story and acting are good, I'd prefer to see "badass" and "cool" action scenes. Is it supposed to be two hours of people talking?

I agree. Hell, the film that's widely regarded as the best ST film, The Wrath of Khan, is basicaly one long battle between the E and the Reliant.

With all of the time traveling going on, it wouldn't ACTUALLY violate cannon..........it would shift it into an alternate timeline.

Mark wrote:With all of the time traveling going on, it wouldn't ACTUALLY violate cannon..........it would shift it into an alternate timeline.

I've been saying that since the argument started; I have no problem with that move.

Hell, I already consider ENT an alternate universe. No reason this film couldn't be either. If it's good, I'll forgive canon contradictions.

Rochey wrote:Hell, I already consider ENT an alternate universe. No reason this film couldn't be either. If it's good, I'll forgive canon contradictions.

Exactly. I'm just hoping for a good movie.

Has anyone seen the new Big E design? I've only seen it in the Weekly Poll.
Any thoughts?

I am only really bothered by the nacelles. The jet engine intake looks weird.