It's the principle.

[scarfman]

Okay, I lied when I said I don't know what I like about Star Trek: Enterprise. But it's true that I can't point at anything specific about it that's what I like.

Phil Khan observes, in a roundtable in the current Webcomics Examiner, of a particular artist that he's not interested in what the guy does but loves that he does it. scarfwoman didn't like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie, because that day she'd been in the mood for something familiar, whereas I liked it, being a student of the way a fiction evolves from one medium and era to the next.

Trekfans railed against Enterprise from the start - at least till season four when Coto, Brennert and the Reeves-Stevens signed on - because it kept poor continuity with the original series. (The reason the year four stories were better wasn't that they kept continuity. They may have been inspired by continuity but the bottom line is that they were better written.) Fans complained that Berman was trying to make Star Trek over his way. But that's what I liked about it. I said so from the start: I said it was the closest he'd gotten to remaking the first series (and in saying so I persuaded scarfmom to keep watching when she hadn't been persuaded by the first episode or two). I say that if Berman ran the franchise for fifteen years and then tried to make it over his way, he did need to be sacked, for someone who works faster. Yeah, I already confessed that Berman's execution left me lukewarm, but giving in to the fans didn't rescue the series either (except for those of us still watching who appreciated the better stories).

However ... the next person who tries to make Star Trek over will have an easier time of it if only because s/he won't be the first. Maybe s/he'll go whole hog and do an out-and-out remake instead of a sequel (or a prequel). You know it'll happen eventually.

Comments

[angryricecooker.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to your take on New Voyages, and other similar projects with which I am less familiar.

Because while I would hardly call New Voyages a great television show, it maintains a shocking amount of the original's style. And after I watched the first episode...I actually wanted to watch the second.

I can't say that for Enterprise

[scarfman]

I'm not familiar with this stuff, but looks fantastic. I love the concept. I've been a consumer and producer of Star Trek (and other franchises') fanfiction myself for more than thirty years. If I had money and time I'd be making screen (as opposed to prose and comic strip) netfanfiction myself with animation software. I'm sure I'll have lots to say about fanfiction in future LJ posts.

[angryricecooker.livejournal.com]

I recommend the second episode of New Voyages over the first (only those two are up at this point). Neither really makes sense, but the first one as an a really annoying woman as a super-powerful alien entity and the second one just has lots of time travel (and would probably make Harlan Ellison's head explode).