Fundamentalist Trekkies....
September 18, 2012 at 3:08 am
(This post was last modified: September 18, 2012 at 3:10 am by Tea Earl Grey Hot.)
I browse Star Trek forums and sites (don't post on them anymore though) and it really amazes and saddens me the sheer number of trekkies I read who hate Abrams' new Star Trek not for the story but just for the way it looks. (I read one guy upset just over the change of the sound of the phasers!)
They expect audiences to take seriously a vision of the future created by designers who were severely limited by budgets, time and resources. Not to mention much of the technology on the old show is out of date. TOS had CRT monitors everywhere, computers with loud mechanical noises, and large hand held devices covered in buttons and knobs. The pilot episode even had a computer that printed out results on paper!
I remember also when Star Trek: Enterprise (set 100 years before TOS) came out, trekkies complained that the technology on the show looked more advanced than what was on TOS. Well, you know what? Much of reality looks more advanced than TOS now! Geez...
This whole "canon is sacred" attitude bothers me. It reminds me of fundamentalism. You can even see Trekkies engaging in Star Trek apologetics to defend the faith. I'm happily a liberal trekkie more concerned with preserving the spirit of Star Trek rather than the painted plywood and cardboard instances of it.
I would think updating a show based in the future to look more futuristic would be a good thing. Part of the appeal of Star Trek was the dazzling look of the future its artists were able to imagine. When that vision no longer excites us, I say update it.
They expect audiences to take seriously a vision of the future created by designers who were severely limited by budgets, time and resources. Not to mention much of the technology on the old show is out of date. TOS had CRT monitors everywhere, computers with loud mechanical noises, and large hand held devices covered in buttons and knobs. The pilot episode even had a computer that printed out results on paper!
I remember also when Star Trek: Enterprise (set 100 years before TOS) came out, trekkies complained that the technology on the show looked more advanced than what was on TOS. Well, you know what? Much of reality looks more advanced than TOS now! Geez...
This whole "canon is sacred" attitude bothers me. It reminds me of fundamentalism. You can even see Trekkies engaging in Star Trek apologetics to defend the faith. I'm happily a liberal trekkie more concerned with preserving the spirit of Star Trek rather than the painted plywood and cardboard instances of it.
I would think updating a show based in the future to look more futuristic would be a good thing. Part of the appeal of Star Trek was the dazzling look of the future its artists were able to imagine. When that vision no longer excites us, I say update it.
My ignore list
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
