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Eric: Those Cinematic Moments, and how Star Trek's lost the ability to do them.
As a note of warning, this post contains spoilers for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, The Empire Strikes Back, Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: Nemesis. I probably don't need that spoiler warning -- the statute of limitations has long since expired on four of these movies, and even the fifth is now three years old. However, while I sincerely doubt there are any surprises left on the first three movies for anyone who'd be coming to Websnark in the first place, only twenty-seven people saw Star Trek: Nemesis in the continental United States, and it might well be on someone's "I should really see that before I die" list, so, you know. There it is.
Oh, and I spoil some of Star Trek: The Next Generation, too. Just to say.
Oh, and the last episode of Babylon 5.
In Wednesday's post on Serenity spoilers, yesterday, she made mention of the fact that for some people the movie had events or moments on a level with Star Trek II or The Empire Strikes Back. She wasn't referring to those movies as a whole, of course. She was referring to the "holy fuck" gut punch moment of the movie. "Luke, I am your father!" "I have been, and always shall be your friend." Shocks that reverberate through you. (I don't know what the nature of such shocks might or might not be in Serenity, mind. This isn't about that.)
I found it interesting to think about, though. Frankly, The Empire Strikes Back, while my favorite of the Star Wars films, failed to have that intense a shock for me. I remember sitting in the movie theater back in 1980, twelve years old and full of wonder. I remember digging on Yoda and Dagobah, and I remember being impressed with Cloud City and thinking that Leia should be with Luke, not that smuggler. (Hey, it was years before they played the incest card, and besides, I was twelve.) I remember thinking that hey, you mess around with another man's girl, you get frozen in carbonite.
Regardless, I was completely hooked.
And then Vader shouted "Luke! I am your father!"
And I thought "oh, now that's just stupid. What is this? The Young and the Restless?"
Sorry. I was an opinionated kid. Still, given that (and given that Leia was Luke's sister), it really didn't surprise me that teddy bears could soundly defeat the Empire while our heroes stood around, got shot, and failed to do anything of significance to the main battle while fighting Vader on the Death Star. I mean, sure, why not?
Star Trek II, on the other hand? Devastated me. There was an intensity to that death scene that became literally a part of cinematic history. The entirety of that movie built to that one, shocking moment. In a movie that on one level was about growing old, growing up, and letting go of the past (seriously -- it was Khan's inability to let go that led to his ultimate destruction and the destruction of all his followers, even though -- as Joachim said -- he had already won, and had a ship, and could do whatever he wanted. At the same time, the death of Spock gave Kirk a new chance at life -- and a chance to feel renewed and young, once more, even as David let go of his anger and pain at Kirk, and so on and so forth -- hell, even the Genesis Device itself was a symbol of letting go of the old and creating new life!), this was the ultimate moment of ending. Spock wasn't just dying -- he was letting Kirk know he had to move on. I still tear up when I see it, even though I've seen all the sequels. Even the crappy ones.
As a side note, I felt similarly when Enterprise burned up over Genesis in Star Trek III. We had tremendous emotional investment in that ship.
So. You'd like me to get somewhere near the point, right?
Well, I was one of the twenty seven people who saw Star Trek: Nemesis. And if you haven't seen it, let me clue you in. (See, I told you there was a spoiler warning.) Data dies. Horribly. He leaps across the gulf between the Enterprise and the bad guy ship, crawls inside, finds the captive Picard, slaps a plot sensitive macguffin emergency transporter on him, sends him back to the Enterprise, and then dies as the ship explodes.
Now, Data was, without a doubt, the Spock of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The most popular character after Picard. The character with the most depth added to him over time. The character the writers lavished all the experience points on during the series. Seriously -- every third episode was Data finding a new friend or Data learning how to dream or Data having to fight for civil rights again (my favorite was the attempt to classify Data as Starfleet property, so he could be disassembled -- despite the fact that Starfleet never built him in the first place, and that if he was anyone's property it would be the estate of Noonian Soong), or the emotion arc. Dear Christ the emotion arc. Contrast that with poor Geordi, who was played by an actor who'd won awards long before this (and who was considered to be slumming by taking the job in the first place). I think there were... what, three Geordi centered episodes in the series? Four, maybe? Reg Barclay got more episodes devoted to him.
Every one of the Next Generation movies had significant Data subplots (Insurrection the least such, mind, but it was still there). Jonathan Frakes was top billed after Patrick Stewart and whatever major guest stars were in a given movie in each of the films (a relic of his Next Generation contract) but Brent Spiner was clearly the most significant returning character in each of them. Gates McFadden, on the other hand, might as well have just sent a photograph in, for all they gave her to do. Clearly, the thought was the fans would have a maximum sense of investment in Data, and his death would be Spock's death for a new generation.
(Also, similarly to Leonard Nimoy at the time, Brent Spiner wasn't all that interested in continuing to play his electronic counterpart, and was having trouble 'not aging' as time went on. So there were pragmatic reasons to do such a thing.)
And so, Data died.
And no one cared.
Hell, it seemed like the Enterprise crew barely cared. There was a wake, which featured (surprisingly enough) some fine acting by Jonathan Frakes, but the scene seemed perfunctory -- of less significance than Riker and Troi leaving the ship. And of course, there was a scene before where Data's memories and brain patterns were put in the prototype B-4 in an effort to "force him to evolve," despite the fact that this would be like taking eighty gigs of a Windows XP install and loading it onto an IBM XT in hopes of forcing the 8088 to develop the ability to handle it. It was such an obvious and clear attempt on the part of the producers to have an out for Data's return that no one who actually saw the movie thought for a second Data was really gone.
This wasn't the first time such a thing had happened. When the Enterprise burned in Star Trek III, there was a powerful sense of history and endings that went with it. This was a ship that we loved -- a ship that Kirk loved. A mythology had built around it that was tremendous. (And the producers learned pretty quickly that it wasn't easy to replace.) When the Enterprise-D was destroyed in Star Trek: Generations, it was at best an exciting set piece and crash sequence, but even the characters didn't much give a damn. (Riker, once again, seemed to be the only one who even had wistfulness for the ship's being destroyed. Maybe Riker is just a big softy at heart.)
So, setting aside the fact that Rick Berman has no actual poetry in his soul, why is it that the most powerful and evocative moments in Star Trek, when replicated by the Next Generation crew, fail to inspire even slight interest?
Well, for one, there's the sheer banality of how they went about it. As was said, when Spock died in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, it supported the underlying themes of the movie as a whole. Things die. New things are born. Those who let go of the past can move on. Those who can't stagnate and die. Joachim's sacrifice led to Khan's death. Spock's sacrifice lead to Kirk's life. And the Enterprise died -- a painful, horrible sacrifice -- to turn death into (in the words of Leonard McCoy) a fighting chance to live, harkening back to the central themes of the previous movie. These events and sacrifices had weight, because the movies gave them weight, and built successfully off the series. It wasn't enough that Spock was a beloved character -- his death still needed meaning, and still had to have pain.
Next Generation pulled this off once, weirdly enough. When Tasha Yar died in the epitome of the meaningless death scene, there was a far more evocative wake. And her death caused ripples through the rest of the series. Data kept his holocrystal of her, and their shared intimacy continued to matter. We met Yar's sister, and that sister's failings contrasted with Tasha to the point that it hurt even more that Tasha was gone. With "Yesterday's Enterprise," Yar was returned in an alternate timeline, and in learning her death was meaningless specifically travelled on a suicide mission to the past in search of that meaning. And that in turn meant she was alive to give birth to Sela.
In Generations, the Enterprise-D was destroyed for no good reason. Mostly, it was so they could design a really bitching Enterprise-E, one without all those stupid kids and families on board and have it be entirely designed to be a kickass warship without exploration (seriously -- they said as much, in the voice of Picard. The Enterprise-E was designed to be able to fight Borg, not explore the galaxy). That palpable sense of extraneousness -- that lack of dramatic purpose in the Enterprise's destruction -- reinforced to the fans watching that they weren't really supposed to care.
Remember, we're discussing Star Trek fans -- the ur-fan. The archetype for obsessive fans who care. Teaching them not to care was not a survival strategy.
Then, on top of that, we had the last series that truly invested in its characters and set that way -- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine -- end. Star Trek: Voyager began, and managed to inspire... well, no real passion from anyone. The continuing sense that maybe we just shouldn't care continued, day after day, show after show, movie after movie.
Of course, those fans do continue to care -- just not about Star Trek. They're the ones who cried their eyes out when Babylon 5 was destroyed in "Sleeping in Light" (right there was a textbook definition of how to make your audience care. The visuals, the music, the buildup). They're the ones who, when Joss Whedon said "please don't spoil Serenity for other people" took him at his word and took it as a commandment. They're still out there.
But they don't feel that passionately for Star Trek any more.
So, Data died -- in an even less meaningful and more... well, stupid fashion than the Enterprise-D did. Seriously. He had to die because he only had one magical transporter device, and he gave it to Picard instead. Now, forget for just a moment that the idea that Data -- a functionally immortal being who was the only representative of his race -- clearly was a higher priority to keep alive than Jean-Luc Picard, who was a great Starfleet officer but who's only got a few decades left in him anyway, and will no doubt die just like this somewhere down the line, unless the Space-Senility gets him as was presaged in "All Good Things." Forget that, and focus on the magical transporter device he only had one of.
Guys, he'd had that singular device for most of the movie. And every fifteen feet there's a magic box on the Enterprise that makes exact duplicates of things. They even call it a replicator. Data knew Picard was over there, he knew that they'd both need a way back, and it's not like we've ever seen a replicator take more than eighteen seconds to make anything in the past. What the fuck?
For that matter, he died because he shot the Macguffin with a phaser, blowing everything up. But he'd already made one leap into space, and there was no one left alive to stop him from doing anything. So why not take out the phaser, set it to overload, run down through the ship retracing the path with your super Android memory and your super Android speed, and leap back out into the black before the bomb went off? Why? Because then Data wouldn't die, and the point was Data had to die.
Naturally, no one cared.
And of course, a complete copy of Data's brain is in B-4, all Spock/Katra like. So either B-4 will magically have his processors become Data-capable somewhere along the line and "oh, hey, Data," or someone will get the bright idea to copy those files back out of them, load them into any random Starship's computer, and then recreate Data's body on the Holodeck.
Of course, the Holodeck gives us a good reason why no one in Starfleet gives a damn that Data's dead. Seriously, the point was sentient artificial life, and now they do that so trivially there's a Ferengi bar owner who has a sentient 1960's lounge singer. Why would anyone bother with android tech now that they have "photonics?"
So, after seven full seasons and four feature length films, the death of the character with the most development, the greatest time and energy put on his growth, the most importance placed upon him and the most focused investment by both producers and fans was met with abject indifference. Far from being "a Star Trek II" moment or a "Empire Strikes Back" moment, it couldn't even compete with the emotional resonance and long term repercussions of the death of Tasha Yar twenty two episodes after we first met her.
So. We have Firefly now. And Babylon 5. And Battlestar Galactica, of all things. And Stargate. They're where the emotional investment is going. They're keeping the faith. And Star Trek? It's off the air for the first time since the 80's, with no chance of it coming back any time soon, and while they're supposedly working on another movie, no one's sure why. Certainly I don't want them to. If they have to, I'd want it to be about Sulu's Excelsior before, you know, George Takei gets too old to play the part. (Or give Chekov the Enterprise-B. I'd pay seven bucks to see Chekov in the center seat.)
This is how you end a franchise. Not with a whimper and not with a bang, but with a bang that everyone treats like a whimper.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at October 7, 2005 12:49 PM
Comments
Comment from: HydrogenGuy posted at October 7, 2005 1:59 PM
An excellent essay. You know, I've been fighting this whole Serenity thing. I haven't had a TV in seven years, never saw Firefly, and all of the really fanatical-sounding geekhype surrounding the movie has left me... annoyed. With that "Hey guys? Remember when everyone though The Matrix was the Great White Hope?" feeling.
Anyway, this has been the best arguement for me to give Serenity a chance that I've read.
Also, counterpoint - maybe the fannish audience has just become desensitized to this kind of Big Shocking Events? Because producers try to cram in three Big Shocking Events per hour to get people to notice?
Finally, Captain Chekov? Hell yes.
Comment from: RoboYuji posted at October 7, 2005 2:28 PM
Ha ha, they should have just copied Data into the SHIP. I mean, then he'd have a totally awesome spaceship body and they could just install a bunch of those hologram things they used for the Doctor in Voyager so he could interact with everyone through a Holo-Data body. Plus they could cross over with Farscape and he could get it on with Moya! Hot spaceship action is where it's at!
And Serenity is worth checking out because it's pretty good. And I've only ever seen one episode of Firefly.
Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at October 7, 2005 2:40 PM
"So, setting aside the fact that Rick Berman has no actual poetry in his soul, why is it that the most powerful and evocative moments in Star Trek, when replicated by the Next Generation crew, fail to inspire even slight interest?"
Along the same lines, you might as well ask why, beyond Shaenon Garrity being one of the best students of the comic form to date, does Narbonic work so well? All of the things you cite afterwards are all pretty much derived from having no creative spark whatsoever. After all, the original Star Trek had its own continuity problems and yet managed to get you to react thus. While you make your points, I think you're trying to ignore the real problem.
As for me, what does it say that my personal HFS (holy fucking shit) moment was when I got through the Giant of Bab-Il in Final Fantasy 4? Other than I can't see plot details stolen from other sources for miles away?
Comment from: Denyer posted at October 7, 2005 2:41 PM
Ha ha, they should have just copied Data into the SHIP.
Pick up Peter David's excellent New Frontier series of novels if you haven't already. There's something similar, plus a whole lot of wit and sarcasm you wouldn't expect in Trek fiction.
Nemesis... I got the impression the movie was missing at least an hour. And that, when cuts were made, the production team left in self-indulgences such as Picard buggy-racing rather than have useful plot material such as background on the clone.
(Incidentally, replicators are limited in the complexity of devices they can duplicate.)
I seem to recall reading that Patrick Stewart wanted his character to be the one written out --- and came out of the theatre wishing he'd got his request. Would've worked so much more effectively...
Comment from: Wednesday White posted at October 7, 2005 2:43 PM
Ha ha, they should have just copied Data into the SHIP.
Ah, bugger me, no. That's all we need: the ensuing series of tie-in novels, as written by people contracted by Anne McCaffrey.
"The Ship Who Cosplayed Sherlock Holmes," &c.
The obvious, alliterative crudity will be left to the imagination.
Comment from: Paul Gadzikowski posted at October 7, 2005 2:53 PM
You know, I've been a Star Trek fan since there were still only 79 episodes. There's still a level deep inside on which I want to respond to this post with a jihad. Yet it wasn't twenty-four hours after These Are the Voyages aired before I'd spotted the holes left behind through which it can be argued later that [spoiler] didn't [spoiler].
Comment from: Bequita posted at October 7, 2005 2:53 PM
Captain Chekov? No. Not because he'd be BAD at it, I just don't like Trek that much.
Besides, Walter Koenig's best performance was as Alfred Bester on Babylon 5. There's just no possible way for him to top that performance.
Okay, I lie, there is. He could play Bester in a B5 movie triology on the Telepath Wars.
Comment from: Christopher B. Wright posted at October 7, 2005 3:05 PM
Koenig did kick ass as Bester. That's no lie.
Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 7, 2005 3:10 PM
Well, yes. I would prefer to see a long drawn out chess match over several movies as Bester and Garibaldi (with bonus Lyta Alexander) wage a very private war of the wills -- literally... but that's not really something I could suggest Paramount do if they have to do another Star Trek movie, now is it?
Comment from: Jet Piston posted at October 7, 2005 3:13 PM
A wonderful and very sad, to me anyway, summation of the state of Trek.
Also, I've been of the opinion that Capt. Sulu and the Excelsior should have been the next step in the evolution of Star Trek ever since I heard the phrase "Fly her apart then!"
Comment from: hitch posted at October 7, 2005 3:33 PM
Also, counterpoint - maybe the fannish audience has just become desensitized to this kind of Big Shocking Events? Because producers try to cram in three Big Shocking Events per hour to get people to notice?
I suggest that this is not the case - particularly in light of my reaction to Star Trek Nemesis (the same as Eric's) vs. my reaction to Doctor Frasier's death - I was astounded, I was shocked, and I *cried*, dammit. She was real to me, and her death had MEANING - real, palpable, absolute meaning. She died because she knew that risking her life meant that others could live - and they did exactly what Eric described - making that meaning the theme for an entire episode brought it all together.Yes, I know there are people who say that SG-1 has lousy plots, but it's always been about the characters and their interactions for me - and this just brought all that out even more clearly.
Comment from: Kristofer Straub posted at October 7, 2005 3:36 PM
I went to a Star Trek con in Vegas a couple months ago, and everyone from the actors to the fans were cool with Star Trek lying fallow for five or six years. It's become necessary.
I remember reading some rough outline for a hopefully-not-forthcoming "Birth of the Federation" movie trilogy Berman was pushing. The description for the second film was something like "society's conversion from fission energy to fusion." Do they even know what movies are?
Comment from: Will "Scifantasy" Frank posted at October 7, 2005 3:37 PM
You've pretty much hit on the inherent problems with Trek right now. Short of a series of circumstances putting JMS at the helm of the Trek treatment he wrote some months ago (which will never happen; everybody's doing ten other projects, and that's not even counting the B5 script books about to be released), I can't see what can save Trek on TV or the big screen for years to come.
Thankfully, there are the already-mentioned New Frontier novels by Peter David, and I'm also partial to the SCE stories created and helmed by Keith R. A. DeCandido; there are still some stories worth telling in that universe.
As to the B5 Telepath War story, well, TMoS (the Babylon 5 movie, or at least it was going to be) fell through, but if you haven't, you probably should the J. Gregory Keyes Psi Corps Trilogy. Hell, the other books (Technomage, Centauri Prime, and the two older ones that have been rereleased) aren't too bad either. There's also the six B5 short stories, one of which features Lyta and Garibaldi just before the Telepath War.
Talk about irony...The last place for good storytelling in two of the greatest science fiction television universes is in books/short stories.
Comment from: Will "Scifantasy" Frank posted at October 7, 2005 3:44 PM
you probably should read...
Of all the words to leave out.
Comment from: larksilver posted at October 7, 2005 3:45 PM
Excellent essay. It sums up the apathy of the Star Trek fan, and the reasons for it, quite well.
Seems that another Star * franchise has the same problem, even if the same creator did oversee the production of both trilogies...
For the record? My favorite Brent Spiner character to date is still Bob Wheeler, from Night Court. But then, growing up in Texas, I know folks just like that...
Comment from: Nate posted at October 7, 2005 3:50 PM
As a side note, I felt similarly when Enterprise burned up over Genesis in Star Trek III. We had tremendous emotional investment in that ship.
I cried when that happened the first time I watched Star Trek III. I was a kid then, but still. Then I didn't watch it for years, and saw it again several years ago, punch in the gut again.
I can't honestly remember a time when I didn't know about Vader being Luke's father.
But yeah. For a long while, I didn't care much about Star Trek. Because most of the new stuff sucked. DS9 never grabbed me, and Voyager's only redeeming point was the Doctor. Nemesis, I watched a while ago, and... yeah. There wasn't much feeling with Data's death, because it was so stupid. And they had the "Hey, look! Data's memories!" plot already there. It's like a character dying in a comic book, they hardly ever STAY dead, what's the point?
Also, I think Jonathan Frakes is a pretty good actor. And they cut out a cameo for Wesley, which was kinda annoying too. All in all, Star Trek's just been "Meh" for many years. Downtime to get Rick Berman off the show and let new ideas coalesce is probably a good idea.
Comment from: roninkakuhito posted at October 7, 2005 3:58 PM
Eric, that is a hell of an idea. When I read your suggestion for an extended chess game in the B5 universe, I had a chill run down my spine and all of the geek nodes in my brain went in to happy mode.
Comment from: Senji posted at October 7, 2005 4:29 PM
The ship? Out of danger?
*teardrop*
Comment from: quiller posted at October 7, 2005 4:39 PM
The high point of Star Trek for me was DS9. Something new and different, something other than planet of the week, alien race of the week, miraculous solution of the week.
To my mind, DS9 had one problem. It was concurrent with B5, and B5 was better.
I'm not really sure that Star Trek is a living franchise at this point.
Comment from: Christopher B. Wright posted at October 7, 2005 4:42 PM
I remember reading somewhere that the actors in the ST franchises who played human characters were told to "hold back" when they were acting in order to not overshadow the aliens who were forced to act through prosthetics. This was around the ST:V series, I think, and it was the guy who played Chakotay who was griping about it.
(ST:V started out with a fair amount of potential... that they managed to waste, waste, waste, waste, waste, waste, piss away, and then waste. Bastards.)
Comment from: siwangmu posted at October 7, 2005 5:00 PM
"and it might well be on someone's 'I should really see that before I die' list"
Excuse me, this is me dying laughing at myself. because that person is totally me, but I went "Oh, what the hell" and read the snark anyway, and...
my face has just now come undone from the twisted up "Oh my GOD" shape (it should be remembered that I was a Next Gen baby).
The utterly saddest thing of all?
Eric has me half-convinced that if I'd actually watched the movie, it might have had less impact. How fucked up is that?
So, uh, Eric? Just so you know... you just gave Data's death meaning. In at least this work, it was the crucial element bringing together and illustrating all the themes and ideas of the piece.
Comment from: Robert Hutchinson posted at October 7, 2005 6:33 PM
I STILL want to know if I was the only one (of those twenty-seven people) who, as soon as Data's fate was apparent, decided that it was actually B-4 rescuing Picard? I wasn't able to judge the emotional resonance of the whole thing, because I was waiting for Data to step out of the turbolift. By the time I caught up, and realized they had went with Idiot Plot A instead of B, they were talking about B-4's backup memories.
Damn, that movie sucked.
Comment from: Phuul posted at October 7, 2005 7:13 PM
I suggest that this is not the case - particularly in light of my reaction to Star Trek Nemesis (the same as Eric's) vs. my reaction to Doctor Frasier's death - I was astounded, I was shocked, and I *cried*, dammit. She was real to me, and her death had MEANING - real, palpable, absolute meaning. She died because she knew that risking her life meant that others could live - and they did exactly what Eric described - making that meaning the theme for an entire episode brought it all together.I only recently saw this two part episode and was completely blown away. Quite frankly I didn't know SG-1 had it in them. The writing is impressive as is the direction and pacing. The actor who plays the reporter, Saul Rubinek if I'm not mistaken, does an outstanding job of bringing depth to what could have been a shallow, over the top performance. Having him play the central character in the story was a wonderful choice.
Although it hadn't been spoiled for me I new what the outcome would be. That didn't help in the least. By the end of the second episode I was a wreck. These pair of episodes is far and away the best that SG-1 has ever done.
Comment from: Carlos Rodriguez posted at October 7, 2005 7:19 PM
I think the main reason why Data's demise ringed so hollow was because they were intentionally trying to recreate Spock's death without bothering to sit down and analyze, as Eric did, what made Spock death's so poignant - Data died because the writer decided that Spock's death alone is what made STII the most beloved and critically acclaimed Trek movie, not because, you know, it is a good story or something. (Plus, B4 has to be the most insultingly obvious escape hatch ever devised).
Comment from: Chris "Slarti" Pinard posted at October 7, 2005 8:00 PM
background on the clone.
Background? What, you mean on the android who totally should never have possibly existed?
I mean, c'mon. It was already pretty well established in the series that Lore was the first, the prototype android on which Data was an improvement. To have another prototype belabors the point on that matter. It had Been Done.
On top of which, that B-4 was such a total surprise is utterly stupid, 'cause, y'know, when Soong died, Data, as the sole remaining not-a-thief "child", got all his stuff, including all his notes, which would include a list of all the androids he built.
Data had that stuff for a couple of years before Nemesis, which should've been enough to read through it all at super android speed and have it all in his perfect android memory, or, failing that, have either the stuff itself near to hand or in storage somewhere and an online copy in the Enterprise systems. (If they, in fact, just left all that stuff on that planet and never did anything with it, then they're fucking morons.)
So, yeah. B-4 was an utterly stupid concept from the get-go, IMO. Never mind how they went to an awful lot of effort to show us a huge bay full of fighter-craft on board the Nemesis, and all the use they ever got was Picard and Data stealing one to comedically fly through some corridors, out a window, and escape back to the Enterprise.
(Yes, I know that fighters have traditionally been against the Star Trek model of space combat, but the Remans (ahgahd) obviously felt they'd be useful to have built the unbelievable shitload of them. So why, when the big space battle finally happened, did they not send out even a single one of those things?!)
Ahgahd, the pain. Damn you, Eric. :-)
Comment from: ormond_sacker posted at October 7, 2005 8:25 PM
I've been trying to get into Battlestar Galactica (a product of Ron Moore, of Star Treks TNG and DS9) via DVDs recently. It's earnest and metaphorical and crisis-of-the-week oriented and quite well done - despite the obvious differences, I think it's a worthier Star Trek successor than anything "We slept through every single positive development in sci-fi/fantasy in the last decade, plus we're hacks" Bermaga came up with. But... after Farscape and the Whedons (not to mention Schlock Mercenary and several other candidates for the Epic Shortbread), it's kind of an adjustment to go back to self-serious, high-principled, "holds-a-mirror-to-humanity" sci-fi. How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm when they've tasted irony?
And it's a minor point, but
there were... what, three Geordi centered episodes in the series?To be fair, Geordi episodes weren't generally very memorable or good. I recently used the eppie where Geordi's mom may be caught in a gravity well as an instance of how not to put a loved one in deadly peril - after I spent a few minutes convincing fellow raised-on-TNG friends that the episode had actually existed.
Comment from: Paul Gadzikowski posted at October 7, 2005 8:28 PM
background on the clone.Background? What, you mean on the android who totally should never have possibly existed?
I suspect by "the clone" is meant the clone of Picard? The clone of Picard who is the villain of the movie and whose actions in opposition of the series hero drive the plot?
Eric's arguments today notwithstanding, I enjoyed Nemesis in the theatre. The kicker for me of course was at the end when Shiatsu is pulling himself up the shaft of the thing that's impaled him in order to get at Picard. I watched that murmurring, "Mordred. Mordred." Then I had to explain it to my wife and my mother. See, in Le Morte d'Arthur when Arthur impales Mordred, Mordred pulls himself up the spear to deliver Arthur's death blow. (In Excalibur the roles swap, I guess because villains aren't supposed to have fortitude any more.)
Maybe Wheaton's cut scene is among the new special features in the new DVD release for which I saw an ad while I was composing this.
Comment from: MrPerson posted at October 7, 2005 10:07 PM
I was one of the unfortunates to only have watched "Wrath of Khan" -after- seeing "Search for Spock", which, unless I remember wrongly, pokes holes in Spock's sacrifice over the course of the entire movie. It's one of those things where you keep thinking, "Y'know, this would be such a powerful scene if I didn't know that he wasn't -really- really dead."
Comment from: kirabug posted at October 7, 2005 10:09 PM
Ironically, this snark made me feel a lot better about my slow growth away from Star Trek. In junior high I was the rabid ST Original Series fan who was mad at all her friend for watching that new "Next Generations" crap, who read Spock's World and went to conventions in IDIC teeshirts. And I eventually loved Generations, but high school took me away from steady watching. Never watched either DS-9 or Voyager worth anything because I just didn't have time.
I always kind of felt guilty for having so many emotions invested in the original series, but almost none in anything after Generations. I was afraid I'd somehow grown out of it. And I did, but only because it got less and less engaging.
The last good Trek moment for me was when Data found Spot at the end of Generations. It was a "there's still hope, there's still redemption" moment in a movie that circled around moving on.
Comment from: Chris "Slarti" Pinard posted at October 7, 2005 10:20 PM
I suspect by "the clone" is meant the clone of Picard?
Oh, right. Him. My WTF on him was, as you might guess, exceedingly minor compared to the whole Data/B-4/what-about-Lore?! thing.
"Mordred. Mordred."
hah Oh, right. I'd forgotten about that, and yeah, ISTR having had a very similar thought there.
My Dad, alas, actually likes ST: Nemesis. My genes feel so unclean.
Comment from: William_G posted at October 7, 2005 10:59 PM
The disinterest in Star Trek from the fans comes from the fact that Star Trek no longer gets promoted, hyped, shoved down our thraots like it did in the 80s when these glorious moments on film (like Spock dying) occured.
The juggernaut of pop-culture marketing is no longer behind Star Trek, and this is why no one gave a crap about Data dying, or the franchise being put out of its misery for no longer bringing in a profit.
The same thing will happen in a few years with whatever it is everyone is obsessing over back home. "Lost" or "Serenity" or whatever... I dont know.
To sum up: Fans are as much a slave to marketing as a 12 year old girl is.
Comment from: BZArcher posted at October 7, 2005 11:45 PM
Re: Wil Wheaton's scene in Nemesis, it's still cut out on the 'expanded' DVD. In fact, the expanded DVD, from what I understand, is basically 10 pounds of crap in an 8 pound box. Save your money.
Comment from: Wistful Dreamer posted at October 8, 2005 1:03 AM
Maybe it is for the best. Maybe now they can stop cycling back to the Star Trek and Star Wars universes and actually come up with some new sci fi genres. No more hands off exploration or evil empires versus good rebels. Maybe new ideas like Serenity or old but long dormant ideas like Dr. Who and Battlestar, or even truly new ideas can filter into the sci-fi conciousness for the first time in forty years.
Then again, maybe Hollywood will just turn another Asimov book into an action debacle instead.
Comment from: Plaid Phantom posted at October 8, 2005 3:33 AM
Berman treats Star Trek like a franchise. That's his biggest failing. Yes, it is a franchise, but nearly every time a franchise 'realizes' it IS a big-name franchise, a sudden drop in the quality/greativity/Goodness soon follows. It's happened with Star Trek. It's happened with Star Wars. It seems to have happened with the biggest parts of the Sci-fi genre. Thankfully, Sci-fi as a whole is realizing it and is taking the right direction. (see Firefly, Babylon 5, even Stargate to a slightly lesser extent [OT: If SG-1 goes for too many more seasons I'm gonna scream. They beat the Goa'uld. It's over. Let it end.]) Now, Star Trek is taking a break to regroup. Barring any more movies by Bermann, I look forward to the future.
Fans are as much a slave to marketing as a 12 year old girl is.
Is that it? Or is marketing a slave to what the fandom wants? They always seem to be on the same page; makes me wonder if one is really leading the other.
Comment from: siwangmu posted at October 8, 2005 3:53 AM
I'm not saying you couldn't be right, William G, but... after reading Eric's detailed and well-reasoned take on why we no longer care about Trek, I just don't find you blandly asserting that it's because we're slaves to marketing terribly convincing. I could probably be convinced, but... could you offer arguments, similar examples, counterpoints relevant to Eric's analysis? Anything like that?
Comment from: Denyer posted at October 8, 2005 9:29 AM
To sum up: Fans are as much a slave to marketing as a 12 year old girl is.
Yeah, it couldn't possibly be because the product is wank...
There's great Trek fiction out there. It just isn't on-screen, lately.
Comment from: Matt Sweeney posted at October 8, 2005 2:34 PM
[OT: If SG-1 goes for too many more seasons I'm gonna scream. They beat the Goa'uld. It's over. Let it end.]
After the Anubis story I lost complete interest in SG-1.
After happening across a mini marathon of the latest episodes though, I'm back on board.
It'll be interesting to see how they handle the questions of religion and faith now that it is more front and center.
Comment from: Amadan posted at October 8, 2005 2:38 PM
[quote]
To sum up: Fans are as much a slave to marketing as a 12 year old girl is.
[/quote]
Amen! And I mean, how much more evidence do you need than siwangmu's reflexive "What? NO WE'RE NOT!" response.
I liked Trek, back in the day. TNG was OK, but only because it was pretty much our only option for TV scifi that done remotely seriously. Most other TV scifi, up until the late 80s or early 90s, was either Battlestar Galactica/Buck Rogers tripe for 12 year-olds, or even worse tripe, like Six Million Dollar Man or Knight Rider.
Then they upped the ante and there was actually some credible science fiction on TV. DS9 is actually my favorite Trek series because it came the closest Trek ever did to looking like serious science fiction, but as someone else pointed out, it suffered in comparison to Babylon 5.
Now? We have the Sci Fi Channel, among other venues, and while of course they churn out their share of crap, they also keep the scifi market saturated. The new BSG series is quite good. Firefly was indeed good (I haven't seen Serenity yet, will probably wait for the Firefly/Serenity DVD package to come out). Hacks like Berman might have gotten away with Voyager years ago when TV science fiction was a vast empty wasteland dotted with children's shows pretending to be for grown-ups, but not now when there are actually decent alternatives to bad Star Trek.
I've never liked Trek all *that* much because I actually, uh, *read books* when I was a kid. Like, real science fiction. Heinlein, Asimov, Niven, Clark, Bova, and so on. So I knew even as a kid that Star Trek was juvenile crap with moments of brilliance, but that it had no consistency or credibility.
Eric pointed out all the ways that Data's death was stupid and unnecessary, given the technology we know exists in the Star Trek universe. One of Star Trek's many failings is the way they introduce miracle gadgets to solve a plot predicament and then promptly have everyone forget about them. No, no, let's not use that magical device we used to get out of a similar predicament last season because then the Enterprise couldn't stay trapped in a gravity well for most of THIS episode!
Comment from: Wandering Idiot posted at October 8, 2005 3:20 PM
The disinterest in Star Trek from the fans comes from the fact that Star Trek no longer gets promoted, hyped, shoved down our thraots like it did in the 80s when these glorious moments on film (like Spock dying) occured.
I'd say the disinterest comes more from the fact that the last two Star Trek series have sucked (I wanted to like Enterprise, I thought it had potential, but it was never lived up to. Voyager I hated from the beginning). DS9 was also casual-viewer unfriendly in its later seasons due to the long storylines, but that's a different issue.
I know marketing had nothing to do with why I liked TNG as a kid, or why I like Firefly now (Fox's TV ads misrepresented the show horribly).
If nerds were as susceptible to marketing as you suggest, the whole Internet would love the Star Wars prequels.
In short, I call bullshits. (Except possibly in relation to the original-crew movies. I pretty much missed that era due to youngitude and saw them all later on VHS, so marketing [i.e. "being shoved down our thraots"] may have had more to do with their popularity at the time. I don't think most of the later series/movies were promoted any less heavily, though. Heck, Voyager was the flagship show for a whole network. Didn't stop it from sucking horribly)
P.S. - Serenity/Firefly are both really good. And by that, I mean they're good period, not just "good for sci-fi" or somesuch.
Comment from: Sean Duggan posted at October 8, 2005 10:37 PM
Heck, there's not really any drawbacks to holographic life ever since The Doctor got his funky little module to allow him to exist outside of the holodeck with all the benefits of fleshy existence and none of the drawbacks...
Personally, I think the next Star Trek series should be Star Trek: New Frontier. It's Star Trek written as a comic book, or as a pulp novel, but it's enjoyable. *wry grin* Good luck getting Ashley Judd to come back to reprise her role as Robin, or of the TV networks ever letting Burgoyne 172 on-screen though...
Comment from: lmf3bthelma posted at October 9, 2005 2:08 AM
When I saw them unwrap yet another Data duplicate in Nemesis, all I could think was, geez, you'd think Picard would've learned by now.
After all that business with Lore, he should have issued a standing order: Immediately upon assembling a duplicate Data, take a black Sharpie marker and write on its forehead "Not the real Data. Beware. Fake Data." in large block letters. To be on the safe side, write it several other places: perhaps the back and forearms. Tagging it with an ear tag is probably a good idea, too. Or shaving its head. Maybe even lopping off a finger or two.
As an added precaution, get a red Sharpie and write "real Data" on the original, as well.
Comment from: larksilver posted at October 9, 2005 2:40 AM
I don't think my love of the Star Trek universe ever came from media hype. I loved the original series, bits and pieces of each subsequent series, and the first several movies, not for what it was, but for what it represented, for the concepts surrounding it. It's the same reason I love true blue superheroes, and am saddened by The Watchmen Effect so much.
I'm so oblivious to media hype that I didn't even know there HAD been a Star Trek movie until Khan came out. And if it hadn't been for my geek (then) boyfriend, I would never have been in on ST:NG from the beginning... so that can't be it. These things grabbed me because, in the middle of sometimes painfully mediocre writing/storylines, there were still characters in there I came to know, and to care for.
The original series had sexism running rampant throughout, and had some major issues, such as "oh, look, he's in a red shirt. he's TOAST!" But that core ensemble wins you over, and darnit, they just try to be *good* people. Not because they feel like they are better than another, or because it's what you do to get ahead, but because it's just what we, as a race (or race(S)) have evolved to be. Even Enterprise, with it's lackluster storylines (darnit I *tried* to like it, but was bored), featured characters who wanted to be there, who were full of wonder and fear and the desire not just to get through the day but to be good. Not the kind of good that gets yer ass killed, but the kind that will violate even its prime directive to save a child, on occasion. The good that will take up phasers and smack on a Klingon or a Romulan if need be, or a Borg.
It's so sad that they didn't remember this in the last few years with Star Trek. They've managed to beat out of it so much of this ideal, of this wonder.
I believe that it's not the hype that keeps even disillusioned Trekkies looking in from time to time, it's hope. We just hope it'll get better, for we know it *can* be better. We remember a time when it *was* better.
Comment from: larksilver posted at October 9, 2005 2:41 AM
Of course, in the meantime, we'll soak up every ounce of good stuff like Bab5 and even FarScape we can get. duh. hehe
Comment from: siwangmu posted at October 9, 2005 2:44 AM
[quote] To sum up: Fans are as much a slave to marketing as a 12 year old girl is. [/quote]Amen! And I mean, how much more evidence do you need than siwangmu's reflexive "What? NO WE'RE NOT!" response.
I'm trying to respond to this by assuming that I did in fact miscommunicate, and that the problem is somehow contained in the content of my post, but I'm having trouble. It should be patently obvious that the explicit content of my post has almost nothing in common with "What? NO WE'RE NOT!" Can it be inferred from my tone that I probably had a reaction on some level that was like that? Apparently so.
Is there any reason to ignore the fact that I explicitly did not come and post "What? NO WE'RE NOT"? I clearly had the option to do so, and I clearly had some motivation in that general direction. Instead, if the literal content of my post is any guide, I explicitly acknowledged the potential merit of the viewpoint I was questioning and I decided to ask if that argument could be fleshed out at all, since it seemed to me to be blatantly ignoring everything Eric had said for some other purpose. Yes, I wondered at that purpose. A cheap shot? A chance to insult people? Or, just as likely, an accidental bite in the tone of the original post reflecting other background concerns that happened to give the assertion a particular inflection?
You know what I consider significant? I did not post saying anything along the lines of "I know exactly what you meant to do when you posted this and I'm going to feel free to vent my personal problems with it!" That is what I did not do. To be dismissed and belittled for it, in a post that actually responds to the concerns I expressed (a much more valid "proof" that my "this argument needs fleshing out" post was valid than my post is a proof that I am an idiotic marketing slave). I hope that saying I felt belittled and dismissed doesn't cross the guiding line of our usual conversation here; if it does I am truly sorry. It should be pretty obvious how I would get that impression from what happened, but I could definitely be wrong about that (the obviousness).
It is a very good and valid point that when someone who is being manipulated by culture has that pointed out to them, their immediate response is to say "What? No I'm not!" (I'm not trying to pound that particular phrasing into the ground, I just think it's very apt). My awareness of that problem was a huge factor in my deciding that my visceral reaction was doubtful and choosing not to express it, in favor of a "the argument you advance may be compelling but I need more information" approach.
The essence of this response is that, according to my perceptions, I got mocked for doing exactly what I chose to avoid doing, which bothers me a little for reasons I hope are readily apparent. This does present the possibility that I failed utterly to avoid it and thus pretty much deserve the response I got, but alternate possible explanations exist.
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