Comments on: New Star Trek Movie Takes Place In Alternate Timeline

By: Fjord Prefect

Fjord Prefect — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 06:17:57 +0000

So they say that Nero going back to the past and confronting the Kelvin is what changed the timeline and allowed for Vulcan’s sky to be blue instead of red, for the Enterprise to be built on land instead of space, for there to suddenly be brands like Nokia and Budweiser in a future where no one uses money, etc. But if that was the case, why was Kirk’s mother on the Kelvin to begin with? She should have been back in Iowa where the Kirk of the original, pre-Nero timeline was born, right?

By: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Prequels | SIMPLY BOUNDLESS

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Prequels | SIMPLY BOUNDLESS — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 06:01:12 +0000

[...] in Star Trek. The story of the time traveling Romulans was specifically designed to create an alternate reality within the Star Trek universe not bound by William Shatner‘s series or any of the later [...]

By: RD Flores

RD Flores — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 20:42:46 +0000

I really hate that Hollywood is taking so many good series and destroying them to make new ones. The take an American hero icon Mr. Phelps and have him go bad of Tom Cruise can be the hero. Now Star Trek. They need to fix the time line. Why do they have to destroy everything that Star Trek fans have come to love in order to make these new actor the heros. There is still a lot of room to do what they want with the original time line. There are also major problems with not fixing the time line.

1. In STE, they revealed the guardians of the time line. Where are they?

2. As soon as the time line reaches the point where they go back in time to destroy Vulcan, their planet is not destroyed this time, or if it is, it won’t be Spock’s fault, so they don’t go back and the time line will correct itself.

By: Cypher888

Cypher888 — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 07:46:26 +0000

Can’t all these time lines just get along? Can’t we all be friends, these shows and movies are about 2 things. The human condition and the history of our future. And from the words of Dr. Emmett Brown, “the future isnt written, it’s what we make of it”

By: tag1462

tag1462 — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:27:19 +0000

Jeez, Loved the movie.
So to all the whiners, purists, & whoever else…
It’s the dream,it’s the concept, it’s the imagination of a shipload of people who dared. Why dump on that? Isn’t the real point “to boldly go where no one has gone before”??
Yeah, the movie at points jars with the Holies of Holies. So what, they themselves did that, to themselves, over and over again. And I think they knew what they were doing. Logically, because we still have Trek.
I’m okay with alternate timelines, paralell universes, and complete revisions only because Trek said it was so. It’s the story, it’s the whole damned point of who we are and why. And that was Gene’s dream. The new movie captured that.

By: Cliff

Cliff — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:37:14 +0000

I’m with Sarpok. I’m a Star Trek geek and I love seeing the Trek universe lore being written. Every time there is non-canon stuff introduced, it upsets that process. This time around I actually went into the movie knowing pretty much nothing about the plot, except that it involved the younger TOS crew and Romulans. (I never read much stuff up ahead, to avoid spoiling myself since I did that in the past). Towards the end of the movie I was praying for them to be able to reset the timeline, bring Vulcan and also Spocks mother back. I realized that this universe was not the same as when the movie ended. I’m not only going to complain, the movie was impressive enough and had lots of pleasant surprises. But because I was expecting a movie that was part of the current canon Trek universe, the new turn of events tainted it a bit for me. On the other hand, I guess Star Trek XII will also be part of this universe, so perhaps we’re going to see a bit of continuity in that respect. But it will take a lot of getting used to for me.

By: drumstyx

drumstyx — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 03:14:27 +0000

Hear hear sarpok!

By: sarpok

sarpok — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:21:23 +0000

There are those who understand why old trekkies are unhappy. They are those who do not.

One more time:

Star Trek is, to many people like the history of the future. OUR history hopefully. The old Enterprise is a part of that history.

The new movie is a rewrite of that future. Whether it is in a parallel universe or not is a little irrelavent. Was the future changed or not? As far as I am concerned, the old future is gone- is anyone ever going back to the old universe? If not, then it is gone.

Tied up in this is the STORY of Star Trek. Star Trek was created by Gene Roddenberry and a whole lot of writers. This Star Trek has been discarded by the new writers that DO NOT CARE what went before. Abrams DOES NOT CARE about the next generation or DSN. HE SAID SO, the only thing that matters to him IS THE UNIVERSE of Kirk and Spock. HE SAID THIS.

Call me old fashioned but if someone takes a piece of classic literature and keeps only what he likes and throws the rest away I think he is being a real jerk.

By: Claire

Claire — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 04:33:42 +0000

I don’t know what some hardcore Trekkies are getting worked up about. I’ve loved Star Trek for years and this is just as much a Star Trek film as any other.

They aren’t totally dismissing everything from TOS and the other films.They’re delving deeper into the story and deeper into the characters. That’s something Star Trek has always done, and something it is still doing.

I enjoyed Star Trek XI as much as any of the original stuff.

By: Jason

Jason — Sat, 23 May 2009 02:18:58 +0000

That’s dumb, why would Spock promise to save Romulus by attempting to save it in an alternate time line when he knows full well that he could save the real time line by traveling into the past the same way he did when he saved the whales.

By: drumstyx

drumstyx — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:15:47 +0000

John, what I meant is more that, the new timeline will never be the original timeline. By official canon, it should be referred to as an alternate trek universe. for example, technologies that are only invented in the alternate universe, should only be a part of “alternate universe” trek canon.

By: John "Kahless" Taylor

John "Kahless" Taylor — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:53:27 +0000

Why can’t they merge? In Mirror, Mirror, that should that other realities exist; the same for TNG episode where Worf was jumping from one quantum reality to the next. That’s what’s soo good about the Trek universe…anything is possible.

By: drumstyx

drumstyx — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:12:30 +0000

re: Deamandred

I do agree that all of star trek is certainly riddled with time travel, however, in this context, it’s telling the story from the alternate timeline’s perspective. this is going to be accepted by the general public, and every future star trek release, series, movie, or otherwise, will be based on it. As much as it’s upsetting, I really am pleased that it will bring about a new generation of star trek. Really the only issue is that there’s going to be 2 different canons now, old trek and new trek, and they simply cannot merge.

By: Vee

Vee — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:11:01 +0000

Yes Bruce, it is SCIENCE fiction. If we’re going to make up things (fiction) without grounding them in possible science, we call it Fantasy and put it in a whole different section of the library.

Things like being able to see a planet get sucked into a black hole from another planet, likely in another solar system, with your bare eyes. What was that? Dramatic? Yes. At all possible? No.

I’m willing to accept the premise that time travel is possible through black holes, and that such time travel could create an alternate reality. I’m also willing to accept that, at some point in the future, we’ll be able to make space ships that can withstand the gravitational forces of a black hole and get up the speed to escape from one, making the time-travel-through-black-holes thing feasable. I can’t accept that that same ship, though, could be destroyed by a black hole just because it was convenient for the plot.

There are several other points in the movie that are like this, but I won’t go into them because most of them would be more spoiler than you can find by doing a Google search and not clicking on any of the links.

Faster than light travel has not been proven impossible, and therefore works in science fiction. Transporters were clearly explained in Star Trek canon to break up your body into the individule molecules that make up said body and move them at very high speeds to a desired location, then reassemble them into you. This may very well never be feasable (the energy required to do such a thing would be huge), but there’s nothing saying it will never be possible.

The key point of good science fiction is that (at the time of writing) it could be possible. While this movie may have been good fiction (for the most part), it was not good science fiction.

By: Bruce Simmons

Bruce Simmons — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:01:23 +0000

That’s where I get befuddled, getting hung up no the loose ends of the science as an issue point.

It is science FICTION… doesn’t the fiction part also apply to the science part to some degree?

They travel faster than light – that’s not real, but we accept that?

They have transporters that apparently pick up people from various state of beings… and we accept that?

But then to nit apart other parts that don’t seem to gel with what we know, yet could be parts of things we don’t know yet?

I’m just sayin’, I stand befuddled?

By: Vee

Vee — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:11:57 +0000

You know, I can buy the alternate timeline thing. I’d even believe that they were serious about it if they had payed attention to real science for the rest of the movie. But they completely failed to do that at almost every opportunity. Unless they’re going to tell us that this alternate timeline takes place in a universe where the laws of physics only apply when it’s convenient, they should just come out and say “Hey, we needed an excuse to not be bogged down by 40 years of baggage, so we made up an alternate timeline. There doesn’t need to be a plausable reason for it.”

By: Deamandred

Deamandred — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:14:04 +0000

Personally i dont see the issue. the new trek used time travel to recreate modernize the trek universe give it new life. I was skeptical before seeing the movie and now I am impressed. the entire star trek chronology is litterally littered with time travel.

nice example would Be admiral Janeway leaving voyager in an alternate timeline different from the one she left. viewers were pleased because to them it was the same timeline they had watched for seven years. one would hope that the new trek universe leaves time travel behind after this and uses more creative arcs for storytelling.

Until this point Star Trek was a dying franchise. its television time run out. the books many of which were low quality stories not worth reading. JJ Abrahms has handed trek fans a diamond where as fans of the old timeline can continue to enjoy media in that story arc. Fans of the new trek have an entirely new trek univers to explore

By: drumstyx

drumstyx — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:35:38 +0000

well, personally, the fact that it takes place in an alternate reality pissed me off, it’s kind of a cop out…can’t think of a new idea, so we’ll just make our own rules for a good idea…the fact that it takes place in another timeline means it really isn’t the star trek we know, it’s like that family guy episode where stewie spends a whole episode in a simulator….none of this really happened when it comes to the real star trek

By: Vic Holtreman

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:51:22 +0000

FYI, I’ve set up a Star Trek discussion post where people can talk about the film and not worry about spoiling it for others who haven’t seen it:

http://screenrant.com/star-trek-spoilers-vic-7732/

Vic

By: Rick Aseltine

Rick Aseltine — Fri, 08 May 2009 06:58:36 +0000

Having just got back from the movie I’m trying to come to grips with the future here. One thing that seemed to be consistent in the TV shows was that everything gets “fixed” in the end. That didn’t happen here and the “masses” who were decimated had incredible influence on the growth and development of the Federation so much so that I can’t see how the loss would be unable to result in a very different Federation and with it Star Trek.

Not that I’m complaining, it just seems any future production in this time line would have to see a colder and harder Federation both logically and I think (though admittedly not that well versed) canon wise where we see the Federation as a more war like/hard organization due to similar events in other parallel time warp story lines in the past. (trying not to get too detailed in case someone stumbles upon here without having seen the movie yet).

The big question is does it end here or does a new movie/series get spun out? I’d be game for either, and would imagine that will be a fun writers room to sit in. BSG made a good go of it, I think that success could be repeated here if not trumped.

-R