www.ditl.org

I wanted to look at The Motion Picture, and how it was received by fans. Until this movie came out, people had only the original series in mind. Then, without too much explanation, fashion, ship design, architecture... all this stuff was changed, or OOU, "updated" to take advantage of new effects techniques, and to avoid appearing 'retro.' I think there are some important similarities between that first re-imagining (and that's exactly what it was) and this new one we're all so perturbed about. Maybe this'll shed some light on what Abrams and his cronies are trying to do, and how the public might react to the new movie.

First, and foremost on my mind is TMP's refit of the big E. Seriously, it's quite a stretch to say that such an exhaustive redesign and refit of an existing vessel would be more favorable than a new ship design. Every glimpse we got of the ship was completely different from its earlier form. In particular, think about how different the engine room was. How could this, the heart of the ship, be so utterly different without affecting every other inch of the ship's design? Honestly, I don't think I can make the point that it's more complicated and constrictive to design & build around existing equipment than it is to start from scratch, because we can't even prove it's the same ship from what's on screen. The ship was changed so completely that it could have very well been a new construction in all but name.

So, my verdict on that point: refitting the Enterprise in TMP = totally unrealistic. The next question: do we care? I'm going to go a bit Laissez-Faire here and say that the ends justify the means... The Refit Connie is completely awesome. To this day, it's one of the best looking spaceships I've seen anywhere. From what I've seen of the new Enterprise in ST11, it's a lot closer to the original Enterprise than the refit was. And anyways, I wasn't around when the movie premiered, so I have to ask for some outside info here... How did people react to the first re-imagining? Were there outcries about ignoring canon? About alienating the fans?

Looking back as an outsider, I have to assume for the most part that fans were just drooling all over themselves because Star Trek was back. It was treated to a biiig budget, too - Trek had never had any reasonable budget before! How exciting that must have been! I think the fans were so happy that this new movie was coming out that the differences were pretty easy to overlook.

TMP had an important advantage; the entire original cast was returning. In ST 11, not so. We're used to seeing redesigns, updates, new uniforms, lots of new ship designs... We can adapt our understanding of the Universe to incorporate these changes. But it's that picture of the new Cast that really weirds me out. That's a tougher one to adapt to.

In the end, I have to hope that JJ Abrams will give Star Trek what it's been missing. That's what was done with TMP. It needed a budget and a big screen. What does Star Trek need now? Better stories, better acting, more support from studio execs. That last one, like it or not, comes with a co-requisite of wider fan-appeal. It got $140 million of support. The new cast seems to be a step in the right direction for the most part, but I haven't seen them act in their new roles, so I can't really speak to that point. All we know about the story is that it involves Romulans and Time Travel. We can expect a significant role for Spock (at least, I hope for that). So for me, there's room for hope.

I don't think too many of us were around for the premiere of TMP; I certainly wasn't born for another 3 years and even Mikey would have been only about 7

Indeed it is the new cast which I feel will be the toughest thing to get used to, as we've seen Shatner, Nimoy, et al grow old (onscreen and off) and some of them die (offscreen).

There is one big difference between TMP and STXI besides the cast, its a prequel. I just don't see why we need that. The idea was mentioned that they could do a new movie, set into the future, if it does good then you make a series based off that crew. I would prefer what BSG did with the Miniseries being the pilot for a series. That way if the Mini bombs you don't loose as much as you do on a Movie and if it works you can move quickly into a Series. Either way the Future is the place to go, explore the past in Novels and such.

Aye, that's a good way of doing it.

I think we have enough threads depicting people's ideas that this is a prequel a/o reboot, and that therefore it will suck even if we don't know that it will suck. In response to this thread specifically:

Captain Picard's Hair wrote:Mikey would have been only about 7

Absolutely correct.

Remember - TMP was able to update the unis, the ship, the props, etc., because it was moving forward in the IU timeline from TOS. If such departures are (and they are!) being made with XI, then they necessarily must be presented as part of an alternate timeline in some form.

Also, there were 11 "empty" years from the end of TOS to TMP - no syndication, no reruns, no season 1-3 DVD sets, no downloadable clips. In today's market, we have so much information available (as well as more recent recollection) that it's far easier to say, "They didn't do it like that in the last franchise," or "The ship's sphincter-valve always glowed blue, not green," or some other excuse to hate the new feature. I daresay that TMP would have gotten the same jeers if we could have looked up DITL or EAS and compared the TOS info and pics to the "new" movie details.

Were they empty years? I though TOS was rerun rather heavily.

I don't have stats to hand, but I don't believe there was a lot of syndication before 1979, and the network wouldn't have been re-running it.

I think the biggest difference is the new cast and that it was absolutely clear in the first film that it wasn't really a re-imagining. I'm not sure what people were expecting from the previews, but the idea of an Admiral Kirk, and other promoted characters, I think it was pretty well-understood that these were unambiguously the same people at later times in their careers when the uniforms change.
I think there's a distinct difference between judging TMP for its bad uniforms and judging this movie if indeed it uses the chronologically incorrect uniform. The latter stretches the limits of in-universe believability. Sorry, but it's hard for me not to notice such things that are pretty indicative of the universe they're in.
Besides, even if this and the appearance of the bridge is explained away by an alternate timeline, that raises a slew of other problems. I just don't know if I can find myself caring about young alternate universe versions of the old characters.
I don't think BSG re-imagining is comparable because the characters were so DRAMATICALLY changed that they bore little resemblance to the old ones. I get the impression that with this movie they want to new actors to mimic the old characters rather than portray new people that entirely coincidentally have the same names.

Aye, it seems the characters are meant to be the same. It'll be interesting to see how faithful they are.

I think the carry-over of actors, the emphatic assertion that this was the NEW Enterprise in-universe, makes it pretty clear that despite having a new look and everything, this was still definitely the same fictional universe.
I think the questions for this next film are double-layered:
1) Will they really be the same CHARACTERS; i.e. types of people, mannerisms, behaviors, kind of like a re-telling of great mythical stories, and
2) Will it actually be the same universe, depicting the same characters with the same personal experiences they will ultimately have in the series?

I think Door #1 is far more likely.

I'd say the characters will be kept as close as possible to their TOS counterparts.

It just seems like an incredibly difficult task to replicate characters like that, and the risk of failure is so severe.

I've adopted a wait and see attitude to ST XI. Maybe it'll be good, maybe it won't but I won't know until it's in theaters.

That's a healthy attitude. I almost want to forget about it for the next 7 months. Don't want too much excitement to build up, because there's only so much a movie can live up to.