Here’s the story (they claim this is 100% legit) from the guys over at AICN. Read it, then I’ll comment:
Picture an incident that throws a group of Romulans back in time. Picture that group of Romulans figuring out where they are in the timeline, then deciding to take advantage of the accident to kill someone’s father, to erase them from the timeline before they exist, thereby changing all of the TREK universe as a result. Who would you erase? Whose erasure would leave the biggest hole in the TREK universe is the question you should be asking.
Who else, of course, but James T. Kirk? If Spock were in a position to change that incident back, and then in a position to guard that timeline and make sure things happen the way they’re supposed to, it creates…
… well, what does it create? Because evidently the plan is to use this second timeline as a way of rebooting without erasing or ignoring canon. These new voyages of the ENTERPRISE, they’re taking place in whatever timeline starts with this story. Maybe this timeline features dramatic differences. Like… say… if Vulcan were to be blown up. If the Vulcans in the series were suddenly the last of their kind, alone in the universe, it would change who they are and maybe even redefine their strict rejection of emotion in favor of logic.
Ok, let me say something positive first. This plot idea would be brilliant for allowing them to totally reboot the Star Trek franchise, while not touching or interfering with the traditional Star Trek timeline and cannon. In essence, it’s a way to keep everyone happy. On that level, I tip my hat to them cause it’s a pretty creative way around the issue.
Having said that….
WTF!?!?!? More frigging time travel / timeline / space time continuum / altering the past / changing the future nonsense?!?!?! Is this all anyone associated with the Star Trek universe knows or understands? Haven’t they done this about a million times in each of the damn Star Trek incarnations? I mean come on… SERIOUSLY?
This (if indeed it is true) really sucks.
JJ: “Hey, let’s do something totally new!”
JJ Lackey: “Sure boss what are you thinking?”
JJ: “Let’s reboot Start Trek. Do something they’ve never done, make it fresh again”
JJ Lackey: “Great idea oh mighty king of kings. How should we do that?”
JJ: “Ummm… let’s have trouble in the space time continuum….”
JJ Lackey: “ZZZZzzzzzzzz”
One thing I’m curious about…what the heck will the Enterprise look like in a reboot scenario? Could be cool.
I’m tired of seeing time travel in Star Trek!!
I’m a trekkie since the 80’s and I don’t like
this plot at all! Why not make a movie starring
Q??????!
just no more whales please.
Please don’t exaggerate. They have not done this a million times. This is of course, not the only thing that they know or understand. Please don’t start frothing at the mouth about unsubstantiated rumor, freaking out before seeing a single frame of film. Please allow me to remind you, “Correct Movie Opinions”. Please live up to it.
Instead of time travel, they should do a movie in the mirror universe. Spock looks cool in a goatee. ALL HAIL THE TERRAN EMPIRE!!
Man John. Every time I read a post of yours about the new star trek film, I find myself in complete disagreement. Why is time travel lame in and of itself? It has been done throughout all the trek series and the only time it was really awful was during Enterprise when they just made a mess out of it. The time travel concept has worked well when it has been done properly, and it has worked poorly when it was done poorly (Ent). STIV? Great movie dealing with TT. STFC? Ditto – totally splendid movie about TT. How about episodes? “City on the Edge of Forever” was great, as were “Qpid”, “Time Squared”, and “Time’s Arrow”, while “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and “All Good Things” were two of the best trek episodes ever put to film.
You might as well say this will be a crap movie because it’ll have Romulans in it which has been done before. The fact is that TT is not a broke concept for Trek. It has been done well and it has been done poorly (including twice REALLY well in 10 movies). If they do it right, this one will be just fine.
I had one other question. Why all the hating on the “classic” Trek style? When some other movies do poorly at the BO despite being really really good, you run a page about “movies that deserved better” (i.e. the public should have gone and seen them more), but when the last few Trek films don’t make that much money, they have to reboot the franchise. Why not just take the public to task for not seeing the darn movies? I personally would rather they stay true to what is truly Trek, even if it’s never again as popular as it was 20+ years ago. It’s already earned it’s place in the TV/Movie hall of fame as far as I’m concerned. No reason to sell out what they’ve got so far to make a buck. They already flirted with that a little to much with ENT in my opinion, and the results were not overwhelming.
I love JJ, he is brilliant. He does no screw up often and I’ll give him the benefit of doubt
Ah Jason! CANON is not just a building on Independence Ave!
Without CANONs how would we have sunk British ships?
Without CANnON who would have starred in “Drumline”?
Canon makes the world go ’round!
;-)
In one of the dozens of other Star Trek reboot topic discussions I mentioned that I thought it would be cool for Kirk and Spock to travel back in time and fixing something but accidentally change something far more significant changing the future forever, therefore justifying a reboot of the series. (And giving an excuse to have old Kirk and Spock in the film)
The theory was met with positive reaction here.
Now my idea turns out to be very close to the original and people are bashing it.
Oh well.
No, Tuvok was just messed up to begin with from all his time undercover with the Marquis, as well as all the alien races Voyager encountered. That sped up a heredity disease he had and if not for the “Future Janeway” (Here we go with time travel again), he would not have survived the entire trip to the Alpha Quandrant
The more I think on this plot, the more I flash back to Futurama, and “Welshie” as a change in canon for his yodeling skills
Footnote:
“Like… say… if Vulcan were to be blown up. If the Vulcans… change who they are and maybe even redefine..”
Does that explain Tuvok…?
Funny. I should have expected this opinion out of you, Gio. Why can’t you just save everyone the trouble and say you don’t give one iota about Trek…*period*.
While I always thought the best bet for Trek films is to have it 100 yrs after TNG timeline, start with a brand new crew and captian. and thus Red shirts become meaningless, let me simply address this issue at hand.
It does blow.
Consider: if the Romulans kill Kirk before he becomes captain, how will they know the ripple effect of it unless they returned to their right timeline? Would they find themselves conquered by Klingons, The Borg, Dominion, or be under Shinzon’s rule? {Note: knocking off Kirk may or may not effect future cap’ns all that much with the exception of how to beat Kobyashi Maru- and there is nothing to suggest that a replacement cap’n might do things differently. Indeed- Spock, and later Sulu become captians in thier own right. Given another chance, what if Decker turned out alright? What if killing Kirk meant survival of PIKE?
What if the humpback whales died in the 20th century?
What if The Borg took over the Earth?
What if
What if
aghhhhh!!!!!
Madness!!!
Trek is dead!
Trek is dead!
yep, sounds like Back to the Future… and not a good way to reboot the series. Why can’t they just make a normal film with the popular Star Trek characters and pick a known plot and just add a twist at the end to leave room for the second. That would please fans.
I completely agree with you John. I hated Voyager because there were too many time thingy :) stories, and Enterprise could have been great, but they had to put it a temporal cold war! WTF!?!?! I HATE TIME TRAVEL PLOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know I like Star Trek films when I was younger and I did watch some of the good episodes from the next gen and orginal. But too me af ter DS9 it was all downhill. I feel Star Trek was way ahead of its time but, now time has caught up. It would seem nice to try and revamp Star Trek but I feel its way too soon. The last series died what I think 2 years ago? The orginal is still classic tv and the other shows are still shown on tv. Its time is over for now wait 10 or 15 years then do a reboot. This whole plot thing sounds like typical Hollywood BS but its not confirmed. For me Ill sit back and watch ST2,4,6 movies and enjoy some good movie sci-fi entertainment. Oh I remeber.. ST4 was about time travel too. But it was more fish out of water and comedy then serious plot lines..remeber Scotty: Hello computer.
Can anyone explain to me the obsession some people have with canon?
Time travel, again?
Well….I’m out.
God, he shouldn’t have kept the details so tightly under wraps. The fanboy backlash is already coming at them like a tsunami…
Well, I guess we’ll just have to see. Personally, I think the Time travel deal is a valid workaround if the story is supposedly in the past and possibly going to screw up the vast canon of ST. I don’t know, though. Movie time travel is getting tired. I HOPE it’s good, but who knows.
Mr Spock: Engineering…
Doc Brown: Engineering here. Emmett Brown speaking…
Mr Spock: Doc Brown, please prepare the flux capacitor to fire at Warp 88. We’re sending Captain Kirk back to the future…
Doc Brown: Great Scott!
Okay, that is kind of lame. I definitely still plan to see it though
I say this a lot but J.J. Abrams annoys the hell out of me ugh!!!
I think the guy is completely overrated and I don’t like what he is doing with the Star Trek franchise. I thought his movie MI3 was mediocre at best mostly that movie just reminded me of Alias the only difference was that all the characters were different.
I think J.J. is going to ruin this damn movie.
Now I’m not a huge Trekie, but… I think if they have that whole thing at the begining in a Captains log and just start from there it could work. Make it just a brief statement explaining where we are in the Star Trek universe and that’s it. Move on with the movie.
I would hate if that was the plot, or worse, they cram all that in before we get to the story.
Keep in mind that the Quint AICN post is speculation at this point.
OK – let’s review what we are dealing with.
Given – the next movie, for better or worse, is locked into using the original series. That is not going to change.
Therefore there are three ways to proceed:
1) Confine the new movies to the time period before the series picked up.
Problem with this approach is dramatically the established canon kills any tension as the audience knows the fate of the characters.
2) Reboot – ignore any previous established history. This nicely resets the slate but discards 40 years of memories. Tough to do and for fans to be happy about.
3) Implement a time travel/alternate time line story device or combination thereof. Many people roll their eyes at this approach yet many of the best episodes from ALL the series contain those very elements.
This well has been drawn from many times by the franchise but it is damn enticing because it accomplishes what points one and two do at the same time.
I personally think option 3 is an excellent compromise and addresses current fan issues and opens the door for them and, more importantly, NEW fans to get interested in the ST franchise again.
If there is another way to address the issues in approaches one and two that does not involve time travel/alternate timelines, please speak and share your ideas with us.
Peace
You’re right. The time travel plot line has been done to death. Although I can’t wait to see how they are going handle the younger versions of everyone, the technology, and of course the decor. So will this be set after the Enterprise series?
It sounds like a great idea for a Star Trek book, not the movie that is supposed to relaunch the entire series. Not to mention, we all saw what adding characters from another series’ time, ie Will Riker on Enterprise, did to that show’s finale. This is a bad idea, a very bad idea.
Excellent point Kevin
Thanks,
But i have already seen the Terminator