I am not going to provide a spoiler alert, because if you are a long-time Star Trek fan and you haven't seen the new movie yet, you are a contradiction in terms. Besides, no one protected me in the eighties from learning ahead of time that Spock dies, Spock comes back from the dead, and (from that other series) Darth Vader is Luke's father. And if you aren't a Star Trek fan you won't care anyway.
The new movie manages to take care of any possible inconsistencies between established Star Trek "history" and the new "original crew of the Enterprise" introduced here, by having time travellers alter history - to wit, James Kirk's father is killed by the time travellers just before Kirk's birth, and a couple of decades later these same time travellers destroy the planet Vulcan. Lives are subtly and dramatically altered, the Enterprise is built vastly more shiny and sophisticated, the transporter effect is different, product placement is an unfortunate reality in the 23rd century, it seems (although, strangely, the products are 21st century), and Uhura is bonking Spock.
I'm fairly sure the Internet is abuzz with debates over this. (Note: I never pay attention to the Internet.) Does the new time line replace the old one, so that (in effect) the Star Treks we've known and loved (...in varying degrees...) all these decades never happened? No original series, no Wrath of Khan, no Next Generation, Deep Space Nine or Voyager? Ironically, only Enterprise, the prequel series, escapes this scourge as it took place earlier than the new movie. (As Enterprise for a while unfolded a story arc of a "time war" with the potential to alter history, one can imagine all kinds of complications to established future histories.) Alternately, maybe the new continuity is taking place in a time line that exists parallel to the original one, so we fans can take comfort that everything that has happened, is still happening. Or to put it another way, "All of this has happened before and it will happen again." Then again, the Kirk/Spock/McCoy and company of the "JJ" universe are so genetically dissimilar to their "GR" universe counterparts that it may be that this is an entirely different timeline that existed prior to the time-travelling reset button. I rather favour that theory myself.
What annoys me is how the critics, while applauding this clever ploy, have not yet failed to take a swipe at the old fanbase: We are stick-in-the-muds with an obsessive insistence on continuity, which if it had been catered to, would have made this film impossible. As it is, Abrams has successfully subverted our nerdiness to appeal to a new, hipper generation of fans. The following parody news item from The Onion neatly sums this up:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/trekkies_bash_new_star_trek_film?utm_source=most_pop_pop
Very funny, Onion, but my "inner nerd" insists on pointing out that Klingon dialogue was subtitled most of the time. (Besides, there are no Klingons in the new movie.)
It's also slightly absurd to assume that anyone would knowingly make a Trek movie that they thought would likely alienate the original fans rather than please them. (Well, not totally absurd. Look at the "reimagined" Battlestar Galactica.) "Yes, J.J, we're giving you millions of dollars to produce a revamped Star Trek, because it's been our biggest money-making franchise and we'd like to put new life into it. But we certainly don't think you should worry about the old fans - don't bother with them at all - maybe introduce one of the original cast in a small cameo, just toss them that bone; but we want you to concentrate on the younger generation who basically don't know Star Trek or if they do don't like it."
I'm fairly certain that the "Not your father's Star Trek" publicity campaign was orchestrated merely to take the stink of recent failures (Nemesis, Enterprise) off the franchise. Too bad the critics bought into it.
In point of fact, Star Trek fans have never had a great deal of problem with continuity changes. Speaking of Klingons, in the original series they were depicted as basically human in appearance, with bronze skins, goatees, and arched eyebrows to distinguish them (and make them look evil). For the first movie, their makeup was redesigned to make them look genuinely alien, with forehead ridges giving them a reptilian cast. That became the basic Klingon look for all subsequent series. There were no loud cries of "Bring back the real Klingons!" heard from fans due to this change.
Then there's Mr. Spock, famous for his lack of emotions. In the pilot episode "The Cage" (which was incorporated into the first season two-parter "The Menagerie"), he is portrayed by Leonard Nimoy as rather excitable. That's simply because he was a minor character in the pilot and Gene Roddenberry thought the pointed ears were enough to make him interesting. When he was made First Officer in the revamped series he was reconceived as being half-human, half-Vulcan; as the Vulcans are relentlessly logical and renounce emotions, that made him a good foil for Kirk's impulsive and passionate nature and McCoy's irascibility. And being half human gave him a ready made inner conflict to deal with. Most of us do not think that "The Menagerie" spoiled things with its few seconds of Spock as originally conceived.
Moreover, Trekkers weren't particularly troubled when it was revealed that Vulcans were the race that humans had first contact with (in the Next Generation movie with that title). This had never been hinted at in previous stories. Nor was James Cromwell's portrayal of Zephram Cochrane (inventor of the warp drive) - utterly unlike the character as portrayed in the original series episode "Metamorphosis" - there he was an earnest and serious "square", as opposed to Cromwell's hard-drinking, rock-and-roll loving version.
True, the revelation in Star Trek V that Spock had a long-lost brother didn't please us, but that was because the movie basically sucked.
In short, the continuity changes of the new movie aren't in any sense a problem to us. Star Trek has frequently featured alternate timeline/parallel universe stories. From "Mirror/Mirror" to "Yesterday's Enterprise" to "All Good Things" these have been among the most popular episodes. Placing the new series in an alternate reality was thus completely within Star Trek tradition, and more than acceptable.
The new movie manages to take care of any possible inconsistencies between established Star Trek "history" and the new "original crew of the Enterprise" introduced here, by having time travellers alter history - to wit, James Kirk's father is killed by the time travellers just before Kirk's birth, and a couple of decades later these same time travellers destroy the planet Vulcan. Lives are subtly and dramatically altered, the Enterprise is built vastly more shiny and sophisticated, the transporter effect is different, product placement is an unfortunate reality in the 23rd century, it seems (although, strangely, the products are 21st century), and Uhura is bonking Spock.
I'm fairly sure the Internet is abuzz with debates over this. (Note: I never pay attention to the Internet.) Does the new time line replace the old one, so that (in effect) the Star Treks we've known and loved (...in varying degrees...) all these decades never happened? No original series, no Wrath of Khan, no Next Generation, Deep Space Nine or Voyager? Ironically, only Enterprise, the prequel series, escapes this scourge as it took place earlier than the new movie. (As Enterprise for a while unfolded a story arc of a "time war" with the potential to alter history, one can imagine all kinds of complications to established future histories.) Alternately, maybe the new continuity is taking place in a time line that exists parallel to the original one, so we fans can take comfort that everything that has happened, is still happening. Or to put it another way, "All of this has happened before and it will happen again." Then again, the Kirk/Spock/McCoy and company of the "JJ" universe are so genetically dissimilar to their "GR" universe counterparts that it may be that this is an entirely different timeline that existed prior to the time-travelling reset button. I rather favour that theory myself.
What annoys me is how the critics, while applauding this clever ploy, have not yet failed to take a swipe at the old fanbase: We are stick-in-the-muds with an obsessive insistence on continuity, which if it had been catered to, would have made this film impossible. As it is, Abrams has successfully subverted our nerdiness to appeal to a new, hipper generation of fans. The following parody news item from The Onion neatly sums this up:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/trekkies_bash_new_star_trek_film?utm_source=most_pop_pop
Very funny, Onion, but my "inner nerd" insists on pointing out that Klingon dialogue was subtitled most of the time. (Besides, there are no Klingons in the new movie.)
It's also slightly absurd to assume that anyone would knowingly make a Trek movie that they thought would likely alienate the original fans rather than please them. (Well, not totally absurd. Look at the "reimagined" Battlestar Galactica.) "Yes, J.J, we're giving you millions of dollars to produce a revamped Star Trek, because it's been our biggest money-making franchise and we'd like to put new life into it. But we certainly don't think you should worry about the old fans - don't bother with them at all - maybe introduce one of the original cast in a small cameo, just toss them that bone; but we want you to concentrate on the younger generation who basically don't know Star Trek or if they do don't like it."
I'm fairly certain that the "Not your father's Star Trek" publicity campaign was orchestrated merely to take the stink of recent failures (Nemesis, Enterprise) off the franchise. Too bad the critics bought into it.
In point of fact, Star Trek fans have never had a great deal of problem with continuity changes. Speaking of Klingons, in the original series they were depicted as basically human in appearance, with bronze skins, goatees, and arched eyebrows to distinguish them (and make them look evil). For the first movie, their makeup was redesigned to make them look genuinely alien, with forehead ridges giving them a reptilian cast. That became the basic Klingon look for all subsequent series. There were no loud cries of "Bring back the real Klingons!" heard from fans due to this change.
Then there's Mr. Spock, famous for his lack of emotions. In the pilot episode "The Cage" (which was incorporated into the first season two-parter "The Menagerie"), he is portrayed by Leonard Nimoy as rather excitable. That's simply because he was a minor character in the pilot and Gene Roddenberry thought the pointed ears were enough to make him interesting. When he was made First Officer in the revamped series he was reconceived as being half-human, half-Vulcan; as the Vulcans are relentlessly logical and renounce emotions, that made him a good foil for Kirk's impulsive and passionate nature and McCoy's irascibility. And being half human gave him a ready made inner conflict to deal with. Most of us do not think that "The Menagerie" spoiled things with its few seconds of Spock as originally conceived.
Moreover, Trekkers weren't particularly troubled when it was revealed that Vulcans were the race that humans had first contact with (in the Next Generation movie with that title). This had never been hinted at in previous stories. Nor was James Cromwell's portrayal of Zephram Cochrane (inventor of the warp drive) - utterly unlike the character as portrayed in the original series episode "Metamorphosis" - there he was an earnest and serious "square", as opposed to Cromwell's hard-drinking, rock-and-roll loving version.
True, the revelation in Star Trek V that Spock had a long-lost brother didn't please us, but that was because the movie basically sucked.
In short, the continuity changes of the new movie aren't in any sense a problem to us. Star Trek has frequently featured alternate timeline/parallel universe stories. From "Mirror/Mirror" to "Yesterday's Enterprise" to "All Good Things" these have been among the most popular episodes. Placing the new series in an alternate reality was thus completely within Star Trek tradition, and more than acceptable.
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