RE: TNG again | Report this post to moderator
By: zak (Odo's file, contact) @ 22:58:52 on Jun 09, 2006

I agree with you that perhaps "timeless" characters can be reworked - to some degree. But also notice that every one of the examples you listed were ones that have had a far longer history (literary, films, even as a comic strip and tv series) than has ST. I mention that only because I think that not enough time has passed since TOS for many to think of Kirk and Spock as other than Shatner and Nimoy. But,still, you've got a reasonable point there - and it's possible.

Beyond that, I still think that doing a new film set in the TOS time represents a step backward. And I don't at all agree with your assessment of TNG. I found and still find the TNG characters as having much more depth than you credit them with, and with several interesting0 inter-relations. As for the claim that that TNG hasn't matured and why aren't we seeing a Next Generation film - the answer to that is simply first, that despite the analysis of what's so far been put out from the Abrams camp, we might indeed be still seeing a next generation film. Nothing's been definitely said really one way or the other. Any representative has carefully avoided any real direct answer to that question. It's been inferred that TOS is the time setting - but from what's actually been said to this time, it could just as easily turn out to be the TNG,DS9 or Voyager period.

Also, I think one can always say that making any film is risky - and, naturally, a ST film might be risky as well (but, I also think a ST film might be somewhat less of a risk than any arbitrary film that's made might be - as whatever success or failure ST has had of late, there's still obviously an audience - and so the risks have to be less than for a totally new venture unrelated to ST or anything else).

As I said originally, I don't think an apparently new exploration of the TOS time is going to be nearly as attractive to audiences as one embracing the TNG time - and also that it will have far less of an opporunity to go further either.
I also think that the mindset of TOS is far more anchored in the 1960s than is TNG in the 1990s. It's a great deal easier to envisage TNG in any new time set than it is TOS. The very technology involved in the TOS time period has limitations which don't exist in the TNG time as technology there could be viewed as constantly expanding, whereas though technology in the TOS time might be expanding, there are more obvious limits on what has or hasn't been developed - compared to what one knows has happened by the TNG time. And trying to use some tech in a TOS world might only cause consistency problems. (Not that I view the technology used in a film as anything that in itself makes a film better or worse. It's rather than the problems that might be raised by tech issues of time development in a TOS film might simple be one of those unfortunate distractions that takes away from whatever other good points such a film might have)

We disagree more on the worth and progression of things from the TNG time period than I think we do elsewhere - that and the fact that I think a film set in the TOS period has little place to go for any ST future. TOS has been done so much now, that I don't see that spending more time in that period will do anything but rehash. But, of course, I could be mistaken. (I could hardly imagine the point of even trying to ressurect a series such as BG, as I thought the original was so derivative and heavy handed that any new series couldn't survive that. BUT, I was obviously mistaken - So,though I have my opinions about what might work with ST, and what I think just won't, I also realize that there's a very important uncertainty factor, largely eventually determined by the one who creates the new venture).

Lastly, I also agree with your comments re DS9. I think a film based on that series might run into huge problematic areas - the pseudo-religious elements might have worked well in the series, but drawing them out - especially keeping them in continuity with how they were laid out in the series - which wasn't all that clear to begin with - might be an enormously difficult task and, most certainly , at this point, whether successful or not, not something that, even if successful, might help move the franchise forward, (But, again, that's the very same issue I've raised about doing a film in the TOS period - I don't think, even if successful, that it would help the franchise.)

So - while I agree with several of your points and I think you've made some excellent ones re DS9 and the situation generally, I really think you've given TNG extremely short shrift and that it deserves a great deal more credit, not just for how it stood during the original time it aired, but how it is and has evolved more generally. It's too bad that Nemesis was as it was - and perhaps especially that it sat around for nearly a year after it was completed, waiting around for the December release - when it probably would have fared incredibly better had it been released in the summer months, when more films are available because more people go to them during those months. Instead, when it was released, not only had spoilers been out, not just for weeks or a month, but for 6 to 9 months so that it was almost like an old film to begin with. That's not really the current issue though - and I don't want to distract from what's been discussed with an evaluation of the release patterns of the last ST film.

And, in any event, I hope most fervently as you do that whatever the film period is that ST11 is set in, that it's not only an excitingly well put together endeavor, but that it meets with much success

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RE: TNG | Report this post to moderator
By: Mardus (Odo's file, contact) @ 09:41:16 on Jun 19, 2006

Did you mean clichés (pl.)?

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