![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenio9 has its first bits of news about a sequel to the Star Trek reboot. Warning: there are more than just Star Trek spoilers at that link, but I reproduce just the Star Trek spoilers in the LJ cut below.
It's not like they have anything huge to report--no one will have anything written before the end of this year, I'm guessing. But it's nice to know what they're thinking.
I approve of at least one of their decisions:
We're going to have to figure out if this movie is Star Trek 2 or Star Trek 12. Either way, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman hint that classic characters like Khan could turn up, since they've never met our heroes in this alternate timeline. And they say we'll never have to talk about time travel again, because the time-travel device was destroyed at the end of the first movie. They also hint Leonard Nimoy may never reappear.
I'm glad they're trying nix the time travel. Time travel is a cheat, plain and simple. It also happens to be the cheat from which the reboot is derived. This reboot does not exist without time travel, but if time travel continues to exist, it doesn't exist either. Because you could just as easily go back in time and un-exist the changes that made the reboot in the first place. So time travel has to be gone as far as stories for the future sequels are concerned, or else we'll just end the reboot some umpty-dumpty number of sequels down the road by returning the universe to what it was for Star Trek: The Original Series. I know it sucks that TOS is essentially rewritten/erased/disappeared by what the reboot has done, but "fixing" the changes of the reboot would be even more cheap. It's the "it was all a dream" ending. (Don't like the reboot re-writing canon? Just console yourself that it's not our universe! Because of quantum!)
What bothers me is the idea that they're considering bringing back "classic characters," as they put it. Khan should be at the top of the "DO NOT TOUCH" list. Not only was the character wonderfully explored in what is arguably the best of the TOS movies, and thus no reboot could really do him any better justice, but this is really a lazy sort of plotting. The reboot did rely on nostalgia and previous familiarity with characters/world-building to short-cut a lot of development, I don't deny that. But it didn't just throw up an old episode of the series in a longer format with "a twist" to justify it being "different."
Why does this really worry me? Well, after the past decade of comic book movies, I'm more than a little put off by movie franchises borrowing on characters from their source materials and screwing them the hell up. You can show me all the Doc Ocks, Wolverines, and Ledger-Jokers you like, but I still remember Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, the-thing-that-I-won't-dignify-calling-Venom-that-was-supposed-to-be-Venom, the Dark Phoenix...oh god the Dark Phoenix!!! Villains in particular get the short shrift when adaptations try to update them. Khan is awesome, leave Ricardo Montalban alone, DO NOT GO THERE.
I'm also sad that they wouldn't want Leonard Nimoy involved again. You ask me, he almost stole the show from the otherwise excellent Zachary Quinto. He was just so much fun to see as Spock again, and his Spock was so much more fun playing the guilelessly sly older guy setting the young whipper-snappers in their place. Nimoy's a good spirit, too; he seems so generally positive about the film and about working with the cast/crew again that I'd be sorry if he weren't involved. Maybe he doesn't want to poke Shatner in the eye?
It's not like they have anything huge to report--no one will have anything written before the end of this year, I'm guessing. But it's nice to know what they're thinking.
I approve of at least one of their decisions:
We're going to have to figure out if this movie is Star Trek 2 or Star Trek 12. Either way, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman hint that classic characters like Khan could turn up, since they've never met our heroes in this alternate timeline. And they say we'll never have to talk about time travel again, because the time-travel device was destroyed at the end of the first movie. They also hint Leonard Nimoy may never reappear.
I'm glad they're trying nix the time travel. Time travel is a cheat, plain and simple. It also happens to be the cheat from which the reboot is derived. This reboot does not exist without time travel, but if time travel continues to exist, it doesn't exist either. Because you could just as easily go back in time and un-exist the changes that made the reboot in the first place. So time travel has to be gone as far as stories for the future sequels are concerned, or else we'll just end the reboot some umpty-dumpty number of sequels down the road by returning the universe to what it was for Star Trek: The Original Series. I know it sucks that TOS is essentially rewritten/erased/disappeared by what the reboot has done, but "fixing" the changes of the reboot would be even more cheap. It's the "it was all a dream" ending. (Don't like the reboot re-writing canon? Just console yourself that it's not our universe! Because of quantum!)
What bothers me is the idea that they're considering bringing back "classic characters," as they put it. Khan should be at the top of the "DO NOT TOUCH" list. Not only was the character wonderfully explored in what is arguably the best of the TOS movies, and thus no reboot could really do him any better justice, but this is really a lazy sort of plotting. The reboot did rely on nostalgia and previous familiarity with characters/world-building to short-cut a lot of development, I don't deny that. But it didn't just throw up an old episode of the series in a longer format with "a twist" to justify it being "different."
Why does this really worry me? Well, after the past decade of comic book movies, I'm more than a little put off by movie franchises borrowing on characters from their source materials and screwing them the hell up. You can show me all the Doc Ocks, Wolverines, and Ledger-Jokers you like, but I still remember Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, the-thing-that-I-won't-dignify-calling-Venom-that-was-supposed-to-be-Venom, the Dark Phoenix...oh god the Dark Phoenix!!! Villains in particular get the short shrift when adaptations try to update them. Khan is awesome, leave Ricardo Montalban alone, DO NOT GO THERE.
I'm also sad that they wouldn't want Leonard Nimoy involved again. You ask me, he almost stole the show from the otherwise excellent Zachary Quinto. He was just so much fun to see as Spock again, and his Spock was so much more fun playing the guilelessly sly older guy setting the young whipper-snappers in their place. Nimoy's a good spirit, too; he seems so generally positive about the film and about working with the cast/crew again that I'd be sorry if he weren't involved. Maybe he doesn't want to poke Shatner in the eye?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-13 06:03 pm (UTC)They really shouldn't rely on too much from the original series unless they can significantly improve on it. Khan would be a big mistake. At the same time, I don't know how they can avoid running into some of the original continuity eventually. Considering that many of the things they encounter happened because they were the first to make that trip, they might just run into stuff a few years earlier. I'd love to see a movie based on "The Squire of Gothos" that ties Trelane into the Q Continuum the way he was in the novel Q-Squared, but that might be too much to ask.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-13 08:02 pm (UTC)You're right that it will be hard to come up with new things within the Trek extended universe. I don't think they have to abandon fan-favorite, reliable heavies or anything. I think they would be remiss not to have Klingons, especially not as they were attacked by the villain of this movie, same as the Federation, and something could be made of the two sides' fallout to that. And it would be next to impossible to fiddle around without hitting on or coming close to an already established story. But I think there's a difference between having familiar stories with different players, details, and ends (most stories are the same) and bringing back specific antagonists and plot lines that have already been dealt with--and done well--elsewhere.
I wouldn't object to the Q showing up. I did always sort of like Q. Mostly, I think, because he spent all his time fucking with the Next Gen folks, and a lot of them deserve to be fucked with. :P
relatively spoiler free ^_^
Date: 2009-05-13 06:32 pm (UTC)Considering which of the shows I follow he showed up in recently, I'm glad. I hope he becomes a regular on said show since it would just rock ^_^
Re: relatively spoiler free ^_^
Date: 2009-05-13 07:56 pm (UTC)