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Old 12-11-2009, 01:16 AM
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That's fairer. I had the same objection when the news first broke about the alternate timeline. It was, like, "Yeah, the old timeline is still there... but this new fork is going off into its own territory, and we might never see the Prime Universe again!" And that bummed me out, because so much time and treasure is invested in the Prime 'verse.

However, I do think you're suffering from a misconception. Nero's incursion into the past did not, according to producers, alter the original timeline. Instead, it created a completely new timeline which forked away from the original. Orci took the idea from "Parallels," the TNG episode where we saw hundreds of different Enterprises from hundreds of different timelines -- all of which forked off from one another because different people made different decisions at different points, but all of which co-existed with one another.

According to the producers of the new movie, that's what happened here -- the new timeline is a fork off of the old one, not a rewrite of the original universe. Both universes co-exist simultaneously. In fact, Paramount is relying on this: they're continuing to market new material written for the "Prime" universe, including the upcoming Star Trek Online, which is based in the Prime timeline's twenty-fifth century, about fifteen years after the destruction of Romulus.

HELPFUL INFOGRAPHIC:



This realization helped ease my pain a great deal. Everything we've seen is still there, and we can still revisit it whenever we want; the new movie did not "rewrite" one word of old canon. And the new movie went to such extraordinary lengths to pull that off, with the inclusion of Spock Prime and everything for the sole reason of making this movie fit into continuity without destroying it.

Not that I'm comfortable with everything -- I agree that the destruction of Vulcan was, in the final analysis, not treated as well as it could have been and probably should not have been done at all -- but I do think the filmmakers deserve a lot of credit for the insane amount of work they put into making the new movie tie into the old timeline without damaging it. And they should -- Orci is one of us. He's seen every episode, I believe, and he quotes the Tech Manuals, the series, and the novels with astonishing fluidity in online chats with the fans... especially when some of the fans start to argue with him. It's really quite impressive.

Final note: you'll notice that, if you go back and rewatch TOS, TAS, and everything Gene Roddenberry and the original creators ever did, you'll find that they didn't give us an origin story for the characters or the crew. Not once. Ever. So I don't think they're stepping on anyone's toes here by telling us that story. I certainly couldn't get up the bile to call it repugnant even if I hadn't loved the movie. I mean... the origin story was untold. It was fair game for a movie no matter how you sliced it, as long as you didn't break canon.

And the impressive thing is that, even in the alternate timeline, nothing from Kirk or Spock's backstory is changed. Kirk still grows up in Iowa, still goes to Tarsus, still cheats on the Maru test; Spock still takes his kahs-won early, still falls out with Sarek over the decision to go to Starfleet Academy, and still ends up as Captain Pike's X.O. for a little while. So, what was already there in the Gene Roddenberry backstory for these characters (which was, let's admit it, very sketchy anyways) has not been contradicted by the new film. I mean, wow.

So, I hear you to a degree, but I just don't think you're giving the filmmakers a fair shake here. It's a solid film. Better than TMP, TSFS, TVH, TFF, GEN, and FC, in my opinion. Worse than the others, but hey, fifth place out of eleven ain't half bad, is it?
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