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Thursday, August 24, 2024
By Dr. Steven Taylor

The Trek Movie Report asks of the fellow heading up the next Trek project: JJ Abrams: The New Roddenberry or The New Meyer?

Let’s just say that I hope, as the piece speculates, that Abrams is more the new Meyer and not the new Roddenberry. While Roddenberry deserves many accolades for creating Trek and especially for the work he did in the first two seasons of the show, the bottom line is that he never seemed capable of fully understanding his own creation–or, at least, significant elements of its magic.

For example (and as the post at the Trek Movie Report rightly notes) ST:TMP was wholly almost devoid of the Trek magic–yet, after Paramount gave the reigns to Harve Bennett and Meyer with Treks II, III, IV, the magic was clearly back. After the hiccup that was V, Meyer was back for Trek VI.

I would also note that ST:TNG was better starting in season two, after Gene was no longer able to be hands-on with the show. Certainly his desire to portray humanity as having evolved beyond petty conflicts has a serious problem with it: no conflict=no drama. As such, the characters on TNG were pretty boring at first.
Although, really, the bottom-line is that Trek needs new blood at the helm, so I am willing to see what Abrams cooks up. Certainly if Roddenberry to be considered in this case as stolid and stale and Meyer is considered fresh and exciting, let’s go with the latter.

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Filed under: SciFi, Trek | |

3 Comments

  • el
  • pt
    1. I am amazed at how over Trek I am. I have lost the ability to suspend disbelief. Firefly was the first blow but the coup de grace was Galactica. I’ll never forget trying to watch an episode of Enterprise after BSG and how empty and silly Enterprise seemed. Abrams record is mixed at best though I loved MI3. ALias was good for 2 seasons and really went off the rails. I can’t sustain an interest in Lost. I’ll still give his Trek a chance, though.

      Comment by Drew — Friday, August 25, 2024 @ 9:52 am

    2. That he “deserves many accolades for creating” but “never seemed capable of fully understanding his own creation” would apply equally, if not more so, to George Lucas.

      Comment by James Joyner — Friday, August 25, 2024 @ 1:14 pm

    3. […] Doc Taylor has a few things to say about the new Star Trek Flick. Now I haven’t been following the brouhaha at all, but I’m not letting that stop me. […]

      Pingback by Mythusmage Opines » Blog Archive » How I Would Save Star Trek — Sunday, August 27, 2024 @ 2:51 am

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