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Sunday November 30, 2008 2:30 pm
Captain Kirk can drive? Star Trek continuity and the new Star Trek film
I was just watching the new Star Trek trailer again. As you know, the trailer opens with a young James Kirk driving a car, but if you watch the classic Star Trek episode “A Piece of the Action” Kirk does not know how to drive a car.
In the episode, Captain Kirk and the crew arrive on a planet that has been exposed to Earth culture by a book about Chicago gangsters of the 1920s. The entire planet looks like Earth during that time period - complete with cars. Kirk and Spock get in a car and Kirk does not do a good job of driving. But in the new trailer, he’s a master. Are the writers of the new film aware of this discrepancy? Do they care? Am I being a fanboy? I’m just wondering how much more Star Trek continuity will be altered in this new film?
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From what we’ve seen in the recent trailer, there are some definite changes in regards to continuity. The bridge is completely different from what it looked like in the television show. Now I know the show was from the 1960s and it would look ridiculous if we put the same set on the big screen, but I was hoping for more minor changes to the bridge instead of a completely new design. I think the more modern looking bridge contrasts with the traditional 60s Starfleet uniforms. But this is something more aesthetic than a change in continuity. I think that’s why the look of the Klingons was probably changed back in the first Star Trek film. The ridges on the forehead look a lot cooler and more alien than the evil goatees.
The thing with the car is minor, but I’m a stickler for details when it comes to an ongoing franchise like Star Trek. I think by having an established continuity, it makes the fantasy a little bit more real. Its own world; its own history. I think that’s why people like sequels. It’s not just the continuation of the story, but the molding and shaping of the characters and the world they live in. That’s why I’m anxiously awaiting the Harry Potter Encyclopedia - another franchise that I love. The encyclopedia will be a complete history of the character and that world. If years from now we see a continuation of the Harry Potter story or its world, something in that new story contradicting what already existed in continuity weakens the story and the fantasy.
Lets be frank, we all secretly wish all these things were real. Why do you see so many people dressing up at conventions? So that’s why I hope the new Trek film doesn’t divert too much from the old series. Lets keep the fantasy as real as possible.
- Related Tags:
- a piece of the action, captain james kirk, captain kirk, continuity, dr. spock, klingons, star trek
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Comments:
That is discouraging. But I think the guys behind “Trek” are hoping to “reboot” the franchise a bit. So, things like this are gonna happen.
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Who cares? Get over it. They can do what they want with the continuity. For crap’s sake, it’s just a movie and it’s going to be awesome because it’s Star Trek. Be happy that someone cares enough to put it on the big screen again.
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That was a terrible episode anyway. No one cares.
Get over it. Kirk called himself “James R. Kirk” in one episode too, did you throw a fit that he later became James T. Kirk?
It was a ‘60s TV show, not the Bible.
Sheesh.
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Something for you to consider while complaining about “Star Trek continuity”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1chtJQFQNs&eurl=http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/star-trek-continuity-errors-galore.html
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I forgot about that the James R Kirk/James T Kirk. That one’s annoying as well.
This is just a pet peeve of mine. My wife tells me to relax too. I guess it’s an OCD thing.
Forgive me and thanks for reading.
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Think about it, the car in the trailer was a 60’s ear model. Much, much, much simpler to drive than a 20’s era car that often featured multiple gearshifts, the need to double clutch and column mounted throttle and timing retard levers. I could drive the daylights out of my 78’ Impala, but give me a Model “T” and I am clueless. This is not a lack of continuity but something based on reality. Relax, and enjoy yet another ploy to extend the financial life of the Star Trek universe.
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Maybe Kirk driving the car happens after the bad guys have changed the timeline.Old Spock is trying to fix it best he can.I think that’the plot of the movie.
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first, a comment to Dave: Nowhere did Kirk call hiimself James R. Kirk. That was on a tombstone that Gary Mitchell made in the second pilot.
As to Kirk not knowing how to drive - he didn’t know how to drive a standard transmission. (I don’t either, but I do very well with an automatic!)
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You don’t need a Harry Potter encyclopedia. They are books to begin with. Trek is a piecemeal compilation of series and books and movies and animated stuff that was all done by different people. There are already a slew of contiuity errors and canon problems with the franchise, even within TOS. So who cares.
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Kirk didn’t call himself James R. Kirk. Gary Mitchell put it on his headstone. It’s entirely possible for Mitchell to have gotten his middle name wrong. It’s not a continuity problem.
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Maybe his real father never owned a car. Therefore, he may not have had an opportunity to learn how to drive, except now that the timeline has changed, and Kirk’s stepfather has a car, he learns to drive.
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Speaking of continuity…Did anyone else notice? The Wrath of Khan has Checkov holding a seat-belt/strap of some kind as he mutters “Botany Bay. . . . Botany Bay….Oh no!” when he realizes what ship they are actually on. In the original episode “Space Seed”, Chekov is not part of the cast in that particular episode. So apparently, the fim-makers are not as concerned with continuity as one may think or hope.
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*sigh* Kirk in the new movie was raised by the owner of the car he is seen driving, is it so hard to believe that in this new continuity he has learned to drive the car sat in his step dads garage?
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Rick K. brings up a good point about Chekov. Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan established that Pavel Chekov had been assigned to the ship sometime before the first season episode “Space Seed” (Stardate 3141.9, production code 24, but twenty-second episode by airdate), since Khan remembers him in the movie. Walter Koenig joked that Khan remembered Chekov from the episode after he took too long in a restroom Khan wanted to use. In the book Adaptations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text by Deborah Cartmell, Imelda Whelehan calls Khan’s recognition of Chekov, despite Chekov not yet having appeared when Khan is introduced, “the apparent gaffe notorious throughout Star Trek fandom”. He could have however been onboard as one of the 430 or so crewman you never see before being promoted to the navigator position on the bridge by his first on screen appearance in “Amok Time”, (Stardate 3372.7, the first episode of season 2). It is also speculated that he joined the Enterprise after “Mudd’s Women” (Stardate 1329.8, second episode by Stardate, production code 04 but sixth by airdate), since he does not recognize Mudd in the episode “I, Mudd” (Stardate 4513.3, thirty-seventh by airdate), but this could also be explained away by the ship being big enough and populated enough that theres a good chance he would have never met Mudd. This can be very confusing since the Stardate, and production code are seldom sink up with the airdate in any kind of order, but for the sake of Star Trek cannon, I’m going by the Stardates. I am unaware of anything in his backstory that contradicts these possibilities, for all we know Chekov could have served under Pike at the end of his 10 year tenure, before Kirk’s 5 year mission, but probably not. Sorry about being so long winded, just wanted to clear that up, fun nerding out with you. LLAP
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