On Thu, 20 Feb 2003, Reggie Bautista wrote: > It's interesting to see how two different people can like > the same things for different and sometimes contradictory > reasons. I think your analysis is really very good, but > you obviously look at ST:TOS and ST:TNG differently than > I, and that's because we seem to like the show for different > reasons. You seem to like ST:TOS primarily for the "what-if," > the pure science fiction anthology element of it. I liked > that element, but one of the main reasons I like TOS is the > relationship between Kirk, McCoy, and Spock, and the tension > and conflict that arise from their relationship.
Actually, this relationship is one of the best things about ST:TOS in my opinion, and I love it as well. But it's not really a relationship that grows from episode to episode. (It grows on the viewer, but that's different.) The actors get better at expressing it; but you don't really see a narrative of character growth and change from episode to episode until the movies kick in. On the other hand, this is precisely the thing that makes ST:TNG successful and, I suspect, appealing to a much broader audience (I know a number of people who love ST:TNG but can't stand the original series, and I suspect it's not just the scenery dripping from Shatner's teeth that puts them off). > Spock > suggests the logical course of action, McCoy gives the > humanitarian or emotional way of doing things, and Kirk has > to find the balance between those. Spock and McCoy are > almost the angel and devil on Kirk's shoulders, except that > leaning too far in *either* direction is a bad thing. For > all of Kirk's brashness, in many ways he is the Platonic > ideal of taking the middle road. He is the Golden Mean, > leaning more toward emotion than logic, but using both to > best effect. I think it's their fixedness in these archetypal roles that makes TOS dramatically weak as a serial, however. With the exception of Spock's spiritual quest, which only really takes off in ST:TMP, TOS doesn't have a narrative of growth and change for its characters as individuals. So, while it's great fun to watch them, you're not going to learn much new about them from episode to episode except for the plot details of a given week's "big idea." Contrast this to ST:TNG, where Picard and Data and Worf and Riker & Troy and, hell, even Wesley have ongoing issues and projects and concrete pasts that the series returns to again and again over the years to show how people grow and change and have private lives that matter to them. > The tension involved in staying on that middle > path is the main thing that drew me to TOS even as a kid, > and still draws me to it today. It's something my dad used > to talk about to me all the time. Use you emotions, and > use your brain, but when you have to choose between the two, > trust your emotions more. Logic can be *much* more misleading, > and in more insidious ways. (I know I'm probably gonna get > hit hard on this one on-list, depending on who reads this...) See, one of the really cool things about ST:TMP for me is that it takes just this tension and pushes it about as far as it can go. Plus, we actually see the characters mature and change through the movie. They are estranged when they meet, but when the movie ends, they're back to the heroic trio we know and love, but wiser than before and all that good stuff. And Spock has taken his first steps toward becoming the Great Rabbi of the Galaxy (or something like that). ;-) So, for me ST:TMP pushes the original Trek formula to its highest point. ST:TWoK jiggers with the formula and allows Trek to hit other points, many of them high, but of the movies none capture the Star Trek spark that I loved as a kid the way that ST:TMP does. ST:TWoK is a close, close second...but it's still second for me. > One of the main weaknesses I see in TNG is that the > relationships between the major characters are too bland. > The characters are each interesting in themselves, but there > is no tension in their interactions, with the exception of > Dr. Pulaski in the second season, and I didn't much like > her anyway; she functioned more as a two-dimensional... > hmm, maybe one-dimensional foil to highlight the "humanity" > of Data. TNG has no dance between being letting the heart > rule or letting the head rule, no finding that magical > middle ground. In TNG, all those decisions are foregone > conclusions (well, for the most part, anyway, as all of > this is generalizing to lesser or greater extents). That's true, in a way: Picard combines the traits of Kirk and Spock for the most part, with Data acting as sort of a walking calculator/Eliza machine/straight man. On the other hand, the "blandness" of the characters' interactions is a product of the fact that in TNG, they actually have normal lives outside the scope of the week's unfolding plot drama (that, and everybody is unfailingly politically correct, even the Klingon). Kirk, Spock, and Bones don't have those lives, not on screen anyway, so *all* we get from them are the cool bits (and the occasional failed cool bit) -- but not a sense of well-rounded depth to any one of them, except maybe Spock. This helps give ST:TOS its special geeky uniqueness, but I think the series sacrificed longevity in part because of it. > For me, both shows have equal amounts of "what-if." It's > just that in TOS, almost all of the "what-if's" are external, > whereas in TNG more of the "what-if's" arise organically > out of who the characters are, how they have grown, and > how they *haven't* grown. That organic quality is one > of the strengths of TNG as I see it. I agree that that is TNG's great strength. And yes, it has lots of what-ifs, too. I think there are a lot of good arguments to say that TNG is better TV, in the plain and simple sense of what makes good TV, than ST:TOS. But TOS just has that special...something. For me, anyway. (Maybe it's just that Picard is so good at producing smooth solutions for problems that would send Kirk scampering for a big foam rock.) But the series is much better than the movies it spawned, and if we're talking about the *movies* then ST:TMP beats the TNG films with a big, um, foam rock. :-) > And that brings me back to the reasons ST:TMP feels the > least Trek-ish to me of the movies (except for the fifth > one, which never happened :-). TMP is all what-if. But it's not! Really! It just has more what-if than the rest of the movies put together! (It also has the daring to suggest that people other than the canonical heros - that is, Decker and Ilya - who are also more idealistic and less jaded than our heros at this point, may be the ones to take the NEXT big step, into the NEXT "final" frontier, or "undiscovered country" (ahem), of human experience. I mean, V'ger is a thousand times scarier than the Borg, utterly amoral (like the universe), and coping with it requires this amazing combination of love and sacrifice and sheer id that is just...amazing. It makes killing Spock seem almost gimmicky by comparison (as a plot point - not the character's self-sacrifice itself). Sure, > all the regular characters are there, but you can pretty > easily replace them with other characters without changing > the movie much. Ok...this I just don't see. V'ger is the premise of Star Trek writ large and shoved back in the face of the Enterprise crew as a challenge to the spirit that sent them forth in the first place. A similar movie *could* be made with another cast of characters, but it would never feel the same. Without Spock's religious yearning for logic, V'ger is just another generic doomsday alien thingy. The business about Kirk bullying his way back on to the bridge of the Enterprise would make no sense for a character we haven't already loved and watched in that role for years. By contrast, STII:TWoK -- except for the fact that it mines TOS for its antagonist - is a story that could easily be told in the form of a spy thriller, say. U-571 was arguably a remake of STII:TWoK (sort of). :-) All you need is a hero, a bad guy, a powerful McGuffin, and the heroic sacrifice of a character. Yes, we weep for Spock, but the act of self-sacrifice is not unique to Vulcans. You can't really do that with any of the > other movies, not even the fifth one, nor can you do that > with the best of TOS. Try imagining "City on the Edge of > Forever" with anyone besides the Enterprise crew. That's pretty easy, actually - standard "time travel - tamper or not?" plot. I can easily imagine this as an episode of the Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone. The episode is a key point in understanding Kirk's character, but Kirk's character is not essential to the point of the plot or to the big idea being expressed. > Or try > "Amok Time." True, but it's specifically Vulcan. (Like Spock's sense of being called by V'ger.) > Or "Balance of Terror." Hm. Thinking about this one makes me want to draw distinctions between three kinds of ST plots. There's the character-driven plot (Amok Time) the specific point of which is to explore a recurring or one-time character's nature; there's the ST-universe plot, which may reveal character but is driven by issues specific to the ST univerise (Balance of Terror); and there's the one-off "big idea" plot, which also may reveal character but whose power is not really dependent on any ST-specific aspect of the ST universe (City on the Edge of Forever). I think ST:TOS leans heavily on the last kind of plot as a rule, leavening the mix with occasional bits of the first two. ST:TNG and the other spinoffs lean more heavily on the first two kinds of plots, which improves their appeal as serial human dramas but which makes them less quirky and eclectic as a result. Another way to put it might be to say that ST:TOS has the Federation of Planets as part of its background story, but it isn't really *about* the Federation and its ongoing concerns. ST:TNG, DS9, Voyager (and maybe Enterprise - I don't get the show) are much more about the Federation itself and its relationships with other civilizations. Not that there's necessarily any hard and fast line between the types of shows, its just that I think ST:TOS treats itself as a vehicle for ideas first and as an ongoing serial plot second. I think that when Star Trek got a second lease on life, the producers realized that if they didn't want the show to crash and burn in under three seasons (or movies) they would have to alter the bias. Or in TNG, try > imagining "Yesterday's Enterprise" or "Best of Both Worlds" > or "I, Borg." None of these episodes would have the same > resonance, the same power, with different characters. ST:TMP, > IMO at least, would be the same movie if you replaced the > Enterprise crew with the crew of, say, the Palamino from > Disney's _The Black Hole_. Eeewwwww! Blasphemer! :-) > There is a great sense of wonder > in TMP, a cool what-if, but it doesn't feel strongly tied > to the characters, IMO. Sorry, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. > Sure, there are some episodes of TOS and TNG where the > characters are more or less irrelevant to the plot. But > there aren't many (especially in TNG). It's not that the characters are irrelevant, but that in TOS there are fewer episodes that are *about* the characters in the sense that, say, Worg's intrigues in the Klingon Empire are about Worg, his past, and his identity, except for Amok Time and those occasions when we meet Sarek and his wife. Except for Spock, compared to TNG we learn almost nothing about the personal lives and ongoing issues of any of the characters of TOS -- until the movies. And after ST:TMP, the bias swings heavily to stories about the characters themselves, with an almost total abandonment of the big ideas ST was intended to convey in the first place. (Exceptions: the environmental message of STIV is very much in keeping with some of the preachier episodes of TOS, and there's a sense in which STV would be an awful but faithful version of a TOS-style epidose...if it existed, that is.) And they aren't the > really good ones. Science fiction is the exception to a > general rule about writing; good stories come from good > characters. In science fiction, it is possible to have a > very good story with throw-away characters. One example > (and a good counter-example to my next point) is the Asimov > story "The Final Question." But when you think about the > *best* science fiction, what do you think of? I start > thinking of character names. Hari Seldon. Gillian Baskin. > Creideiki. Spock. Captain Nemo. Beowulf Schaeffer. Again, > there are exceptions, and more exceptions in science fiction > than you would find elsewhere, but it is a truism among most > writers that the best way to make a great story is to start > with a great character. Hm. While I agree that the best SF tends to have good characters, when I *think* of great SF I tend to think of the big picture. I loved Dune, for instance, but I have no particular attachment to Paul Atreides as such. I love Asimov's Foundation series, but in the original trilogy Seldon is little more than a glyph; and I'd be hard-pressed to remember the name of the rest of the characters (aside from The Mule). But it's the idea, the universe they inhabit, that infatuates me. I loved _Earth_ and I enjoyed _Kiln People_ but at the moment I can't remember the names of any of the characters, even the protagonists. But the big pictures linger. Forge of God? Blood Music? Great books, but I can't remember a name from either. Again, it's not that I think Kirk, Spock and Bones aren't great characters; its just that the show was not originally designed to spend a lot of time exploring the characters as such - rather, the characters are designed to convey other ideas. Starting with ST:TWoK, ST is much more about exploring the characters as an end in itself, like standard fiction. I'm not saying this is bad, but a side effect - in the movies in particular - is that the traditional focus on a big idea was lost for the most part. It's less of a problem in the TV spinoffs, where having a large number of episodes lets you indulge yourself more. > Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that ST:TMP is *not* > the most Trekkish of the movies. Clearly it is, based on > your definition of Trekkish. But also, clearly it isn't, > based on my definition of Trekkish. Perspective is > everything :-) :-) > Above, I mentioned the "reasons," plural, that TMP feels > least Trekkish. The other one, besides the interchangableness > of the characters, is the pacing. The original series > rarely had a slow or dull moment. TNG, while paced quite > a bit more slowly in many episodes, still rarely got boring. > But there were long stretches of TMP where I found myself, > even as a 10-year-old, thinking "Get on with it already!" That was never a problem for me. Maybe I'm just naturally slow. (I tend to think that because I was born three weeks late, I've taken things leisurely ever since. <g>) Marvin Long Austin, Texas Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Poindexter & Ashcroft, LLP (Formerly the USA) http://www.breakyourchains.org/john_poindexter.htm _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
