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In episode 3 of Star Rants, Seán and CJ dive into a fan's take on the biggest problem facing Star Trek and Star Wars: nostalgia! Are these iconic franchises too reliant on the past? We discuss the 'prequel-itis' epidemic and whether it's time to boldly go into brand new stories.
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00:00Hello everyone and welcome to episode three of Star Rants, where myself and my wonderful co-host
00:07CJ go through your lovely rants that you have dropped in the responses to previous videos
00:12and on socials as well for things that you liked and possibly loathed about Star Trek and Star Wars.
00:18CJ, how are you this week? I'm good. I've really been enjoying these rants. Like some of them I'm
00:24like I've never even thought of that and it's just like mind blown at these rants and ideas. They are
00:31amazing, brilliant. Keep them going guys, love them. Even if we don't use them in the videos, I'm reading
00:36them all. They're great. It's really good and there's honestly there's both a huge variety and
00:43it's fun to see that there's a lot of people who are kind of on similar veins with each other
00:48as well
00:48in in both franchises uh and I love this well if you've been following this series uh you this is
00:54episode three you will see as well that a while you know we're Trek culture and we're what culture Star
01:00Wars many other topics have been brought in as well uh we have covered Red Dwarf, we have covered Lord
01:07of the Rings last week in our yeah yeah Stargate 2 so yeah please feel free to send whatever you're
01:15thinking whatever you're feeling strongly about and what we'll do now is we're going to play a
01:20lovely little intro and then CJ you are gonna get us kicking off this week so to the intro
01:40so we have Wimp CW I'm guessing I'm gonna call you Wimped hope that's okay Wimped um both of the
01:49IPs
01:49have a great legacy 100 correct however lately it's been quite obvious that instead of telling us a new
01:56untold story they are relying on nostalgia to a fault with both IPs there's an entire galaxy with a long
02:04history
02:04give us something new something bold not something that rewrites existing history or solves the mystery
02:12set up by another series movie let it stand fully on its own two feet and see how it goes
02:20I really
02:21really agree with this rant I'm sorry I love all the original stuff from Trek and Star Wars
02:29but it's time to move on give us some new stuff give us some new characters to fall in love
02:36with
02:36set up the next 30 40 50 years of the franchise god we'll be so old are we gonna be
02:43doing this in
02:43our retirement home Sean that's the plan and it'll all be holographic interface as well um which just
02:51like the flying cars that back to the future predicted oh yeah yeah 2015 bit of a disappointment
02:57not gonna lie yeah well how do you feel about that do we need new stuff new stories or do
03:04we need IPs to
03:05be relying on the stuff of old well you know what the big the big problem with nostalgia is you
03:11run out
03:11of it right and if if if what you're making relies on hey do you remember well then what are
03:20we gonna
03:20do in 20 years when you're like oh do you remember that time you remembered uh and that's I know
03:27that's
03:27a very very harsh description and there is a lot of both Star Wars and Star Trek at the moment
03:31which
03:31is boldly going forward um I think in a way this speaks to I think it's a very very very
03:40fair point
03:41and it's something that we've talked about in video support but it speaks to kind of prequel itis um
03:46and I don't blame Star Wars for this but I am looking at the Star Wars prequel trilogy as one
03:52of
03:53the sort of leaders in let's go back and tell the story uh of beforehand um
04:04Star Trek has done it um a lot of franchises now have done it where we we spoke in in
04:12I think it was
04:12last week's episode about the the way Star Trek Picard kind of came out the gate as one thing then
04:20it
04:20morphed into another for the second season which was similar to the first season and then the third
04:26season relied very heavily on looking backward to the next generation and the next generation era
04:34movies and as much as my my fan by heart loved it like I loved seeing all these things again
04:40I loved
04:40seeing the crew back together again but I would now struggle if someone said well where do you go
04:46from there because there isn't much new in terms of story there what there is is sort of re-establishing
04:55what came before um and I think an example of where it was done very very well of telling a
05:03story and
05:03this is something that you have said a couple of times you you said that no but you said this
05:07a couple
05:07times is and or and or you had the end point but I do think that there's enough new material
05:15in those
05:16two seasons that for me while yes you had Mon Mothma you had Bail Organa you had those things but
05:22it was
05:23less about leaning on the nostalgia as it was creating a new depth and I do I have to say
05:32I think it's
05:33something that of the two franchises and or would be at the top of how to do that right because
05:39I
05:39think years now we will look back with nostalgia on and or it had enough originality that's the thing
05:44yes it had little kind of we knew the story anyway we knew how it's kind of gonna go because
05:50we know
05:51the timeline but what it did is it brought in new characters and new perspectives of what was happening
05:57in this timeline like one of the things that uh I'm gonna do a rant here one of the things
06:03I hate
06:03is when they bring back old characters and they've been in relationship and they just break the
06:10relationship and then the entire season again is those two characters that you'd got together
06:14were established were quite secure and then you spend another 10 episodes getting them back together
06:20again yeah like you just you broke them apart so you have some sort of story to justify why having
06:26these characters and sometimes just have them together and tell a different story involving it
06:33doesn't have to be the two of them always together it could be they're going through different things
06:38and they support each other it's just originality is important and I think they've even said it there
06:44like where is it I love this they have a great legacy they've got the IP they've got the franchise
06:51you've got us hooked in we know the universe now and yes you're going to have new people that come
06:56in
06:57but there's loads of things they can look at in YouTube that explain the legacy it explains the history
07:03I'd say 80% of people that watch Star Wars and Star Trek have seen previous Star Wars and Star
07:09Trek now
07:09a small new audience are smart enough now in the YouTube generation the internet if they don't
07:18understand something they now know how to do that I think we don't need to go through every little
07:25thing with them saying well the force is this thing which helps control people using mediclorians and
07:30stuff I think there's another but when you actually the funny thing is when you actually
07:39listen to George Lucas explaining it and the mediclorians behind it it makes sense the reason why in the
07:45Phantom Menace he didn't go into the whole well mediclorians are this this is how they work and stuff like
07:50that someone wouldn't do that in real life everyone knows what mediclorians are they wouldn't have a real
07:56life conversation you are smart enough to either accept it or read into it not that I'm a big fan
08:04of the idea of mediclorians but it is science fantasy fiction or our new coin science fun like just accept
08:14it that's how the science behind it works people want that in well the force what is that it's not
08:19explained there is a science behind it it's these microorganisms that tie all of us together and how you
08:25control those organisms in the background kind of thing that that's the very simplistic I don't
08:31know about Star Wars explanation and we do need to take some bold steps but he has the problem
08:38when we take bold steps if lots of people don't like it Starfleet Academy we ranted about this on
08:44the previous episode they took a bold step to boldly go where no one's gone before and a lot of
08:50people
08:50hated on it you've just set it up so we don't get more things like that in the future
08:57which is sad it is it is it's um the wonderful thing about legacy
09:07is it's kind of always going to be there you know um and maybe trust your audience to go back
09:16and enjoy
09:16it there is um one of the critiques I have of season three of strange new worlds strange worlds itself
09:24is a
09:24it's a prequel it's one of those ones where it's a sequel to one thing and it's a it's a
09:28prequel to
09:29another and um and for the most part for the first two seasons it more or less focused on doing
09:38its own
09:39thing um and sort of establishing its own identity and then in the third season it relied a little
09:47more heavily on uh james t kirk who you know james t kirk captains the enterprise the original series
09:56yes kirk one of the most famous characters in all of uh science fiction not a hook to bring in
10:01audiences at all no not even no not at all and I think the reliance then on here's the day
10:08spock and
10:09kirk met don't need it honestly that's and you know don't need it and you mentioned about like
10:16breaking characters apart only to bring them back together again well even still sometimes we don't
10:20need to see you know ah well one time they went off to weekend at bernie's together and here's what
10:27they got don't need to see it sometimes a drunken scotty and they're treating them like a weekend
10:32at bernie's that would be fun okay scotty I would watch that no problem especially martin
10:37quinn playing scotty now but that I would watch but yes I think sometimes there can be a little
10:42bit I saw um uh another reviewer uh jesse gender who's fabulous fabulous reviewer talking about
10:50this idea of having the toy box and when you have the toy box with all the bits and you've
10:55got
10:55lightsabers you've got midichlorians you've got phasers warp cores you've got all these things but
11:02just because you have the toy box doesn't mean you need to take everything out of the toy box
11:07the whole time well a funny analogy to that is as well you take everything out of the toy box
11:13what you have on the floor a mess a mess yep well I think have a reason for things to
11:21be there have a
11:22reason to use things and a reason that gives us something new you know if there was one thing I
11:29wish every episode of anything would do is give us at least one new thing per episode
11:34um because it's something yeah it's it's something we've done before when you run out of nostalgia
11:40first of all you've run out of audience yeah well because in in academy there's one episode of academy
11:45which I love I love love love it's the episode that's all about deep space nine I understand it
11:49was probably really confusing to people who didn't watch deep space nine well the funny thing is even
11:55I haven't fully watched deep space nine I got it because I know enough about trek to understand like
12:02I know the general story of deep space nine because even though I couldn't get into the show originally
12:09I still read about it got the idea of how it went I don't know the full background of cisco
12:16but I knew
12:16enough to appreciate and I love that episode as well by the way and I thought it was a brilliant
12:21nod back
12:22to deep space nine and bring me sun back in talking about erm and stuff like that I thought was
12:28brilliant did I need to know everything about deep space nine do I need a 10 minute rant about the
12:32history of it no did I get the subtle references I don't want to say anything in case I spoil
12:38it but
12:38the reference to a certain character at the end did I get that reference of course I did that's all
12:44I
12:44needed little kind of hints easter eggs is all you need a time like kind of hey this is its
12:51own
12:51story but nudge nudge wink wink look what we did here look at this look look look it's the character
12:57from deep space nine all these years like that sort of stuff's brilliant and that's what you need you
13:03don't want to just go we're going to bring this entire character and give the whole show to this
13:06character now that's not what we signed up for originally we signed up for these new characters
13:11bring in the little guest spots do that whole nudge nudge then move on don't but make nostalgia the
13:17show have a show that has a bit of nostalgia I love that I don't want nostalgia the show give
13:25me
13:25a show that has some nostalgia that should be on a t-shirt and you can buy it now below
13:30in the
13:33if you'd like to see t-shirt like that let us know star ants give me
13:40yeah I ain't joking all right that that that was a that was a really good rant that was a
13:44really good
13:44one David Bedard um my rant would be about how both franchises are tentpole ips produced by two of
13:52the most prestigious studios in the world for now so they have absolutely no excuse not to be producing
13:58top tier stories every time especially with the enormous budgets the effects might be superb but why is
14:05it so difficult to find good writers this applies beyond star wars and star trek 2 okay I think this
14:14is
14:14something we touched on in one of our previous episodes and funny I think the context was the
14:21actors versus the direction given yeah um because I think I what I've seen a lot
14:34is oh it's not it's just not good writing and that's by the way I'm not saying that that's what
14:38David's saying in this uh this rant but it it's what speaks to a thing oh it's just poor writing
14:43it's
14:43poor writing it's poor writing it's poor writing and
14:50I'm not going to be you know kind of uh you know kind of snoozing but we define poor writing
14:54I'm not
14:55it's not what it's about but that's a whole hour in itself it's different is it the dialogue is it
15:01reference is it flowing like there's so much into that it's it's a huge point and also I don't I'm
15:07and I'm not here to say that there isn't examples of weaker writing and shortcuts you know things like
15:14that I don't necessarily like to I don't like to blame any one person for any one thing because
15:22every single episode of everything is a group project yeah it's a team effort when you suck
15:29I mean yes team effort when you suck but when you win it was all me no
15:33yeah but unfortunately some people are like that in the industry it's like
15:37look what I made isn't it great it goes wrong look what my team did it's bad
15:43it is there's a there's there's an example of somebody I won't name but there was
15:47a host of something before said if you don't like these jokes blame my writers
15:52that's a bad way to start a start a performance but anyway um and I don't know because I'm trying
15:59I don't want to be sitting there like you know pulling my punches and everything because sometimes
16:03yeah I watch something I'm like I didn't enjoy that um and it's to say I need a better writer
16:09for this
16:10I think first of all that's assuming the writer was given full creative license
16:17um you know the truth is sadly that yes a writer's name might be on an episode but that doesn't
16:24mean
16:24it didn't go through studio rewrites either or if I write as and adapting the screenplay and the
16:29original ideas there's changes on the day as well that's why you have script supervisors because then
16:34if anyone changes something to say the improv it all kind of plays a part in it like an example
16:41of a
16:41really fun uh like example of improv happening was that uh the strange new world's lower decks
16:46crossover episode and there was so much improv going on and improv doesn't normally happen in
16:52star trek or certainly didn't up to that point uh and so you had people like jonathan frakes
16:57directed that going are we allowed to do this is is this oh you know is this is this okay
17:02it's like the whole rica thing when he's sitting down and doing the rica and stuff I believe that
17:06was all improv and stuff like that as well like uh there was I think it was just recently that
17:10interview or it might be an old interview but I saw that interview again recently and it was so good
17:15when they're talking about how they made it oh just like you know and and there's an example of
17:21improv working out well but you know the person who wrote that script didn't write that line
17:27you know it did did the improv improve it possibly could have gone the other way absolutely you know
17:36so better basically what I'm saying is that without I'm not trying to say oh I don't like this point
17:42at all because I think there's a really fair point to be made here is that
17:47what we see is the finished product we often don't see all of the processes that went into making that
17:57finished product and I'm going I'm going to use the example of section 31
18:02so section 31
18:05has been reviewed the way it's been reviewed you know kind of like we we haven't the time
18:09but so many individual things happened in the making of that that either didn't make it into the final
18:18product um you know by all accounts apparently it was a really fun set to work on apparently you know
18:24the
18:25people really had a lot of fun making it now how much of that transferred into the final product
18:31who loads loads sure everyone watches that and goes wow that was a fun production
18:39hmm so um but who you know do we say that that was craig sweeney the credited writer is that
18:49his fault
18:49is it his fault that the end result of section 31 that we got
18:55you know does that you know or is it the changes that it went through from being a series to
19:01a movie
19:01to the direction to the editing to the producing ideas to the performances
19:08and it can be very very frustrating and I understand this rant because you see what you would hope
19:14is the script that was written for that piece you would you would hope that that's what was filmed
19:19and that's just not always the case and you know there's examples of writers talking about
19:24horrible experiences they had when their idea was transformed from submission to end product and
19:32like you know that's not what I submitted um so I think that this it I think it is a
19:40very fair point
19:41I don't think it's fair to lay it at the writer's feet but what I think that what is very
19:45very fair
19:46about this is that a lot of the end products that we've gotten particularly in star trek and
19:52I'll shut up now in a second so I'd love to hear your view when it comes to star wars
19:56as well
19:57um is how much are we not seeing and how much do we think like death by a thousand cuts
20:07where things
20:07just chipped away at in the process of making what we eventually see on screen I think you'd be fair
20:14you've covered a lot of it which is relevant for the star wars as well and like a lot of
20:17background
20:18meddling the only point I kind of want to add is which seems common sense but I think people forget
20:23this no one ever hires someone who's bad at the job like you don't hire someone thinking oh they're
20:30not a good writer ah well like they hire these people because they are good writers it's whether
20:36they are the right type of writing for that show that type of emotion that you want that episode
20:42and edit like I don't know if you've ever seen like the funny clips that go on instagram how just
20:48music
20:48can change a scene and just the wrong type of music like for example in starfleet academy the the love
20:57scene um which has the song ufo on it that made that scene for me I've had ufo on my
21:05playlist
21:05since that episode absolutely love that song that song made that scene yes that song made that scene
21:15for me choose a different song and I'd be like do we need this much kissy canoodling like oh you
21:23can do
21:23what they need in watchmen is put leonard cohen's hallelujah over a scene and I was waiting the cinema
21:29going what is happening here yeah so these little aspects of the editing that just the shot the angle
21:38can change and on paper you write this scene so it could be these characters are shown intimately how
21:46much they love each other and shown this connection between the two and then their minds link and
21:51everything on paper that sounds brilliant how you show that on screen like they don't put a lot of
21:58the times in the script it doesn't say spend five minutes on this sort of scene it could just be
22:03two
22:03minutes in the writer's mind but they're expanding it for the cuts so yes do they need good writers
22:10a hundred percent but it's a team process where any little thing can change that process and it's how
22:20people adapt the writing to get it on screen is where a lot of the pitfalls can happen and I'll
22:26end that on that rant because we could probably continue on this but I feel like that is the best
22:32sort of way of putting it but you know what I'm just looking at the time there um Sean my
22:39friend
22:39my buddy yes do you fancy a quickie always
22:49our quickie this week is from at sean hill 4535 the stupid holodeck episode never happened and trip
22:56is alive tell me about this Sean tell me all right go on the season finale the series finale the
23:04last
23:05episode of star trek enterprise these are the voyages is actually an episode of the next generation
23:09where commander reicher while wrestling with a decision to make watches the you know a mission on the
23:20nx01 during which trip tucker is killed uh it is a fairly universally panned episode um and marina
23:30sirtis recently was doing an interview where she described the reaction to her and jonathan
23:38frakes being the episode as like a cup of hot sick um it's very i i i am an absolute
23:44advocate for
23:45ev all star trek is star trek uh canon is there's very few things i would ever be like
23:55i don't like to consider that canon this would potentially i i i the frustration is emanating
24:05from you right now i thought it was camera distortion but the the frustration is
24:09hitting the electrical signals i i choose to look at it this way the novels have expanded
24:19on the events of this episode which have suggested that no trip actually didn't die
24:26and that way it's it's kind of a way of having your cake and eating it too um which is
24:31a way of
24:32going the episode happened we can do nothing about that but did the events of the episode happen
24:39as we interpreted them and this is why we are very happy for expanded universes
24:49yeah i think that's probably a good place because if we like i can guarantee there will be a rant
24:53if
24:53you want to talk about expanded universes and star wars and what happened to all of the awesome books
25:00the the true sequels as people put it to this original star wars trilogy i can guarantee you
25:06there will be a rant about that and if there isn't a rant feel free to leave your rants in
25:10the comments
25:11if you haven't already please let us know your thoughts and opinions on the rants that you've heard
25:15today because we want to go back in a future episode and build on what people have been saying and
25:20discuss what you put and if you have new rants shove them in the comments below we want to do
25:25more of these and hopefully you've been enjoying them because i've been enjoying these it'd be really
25:29good fun yeah this has been so much fun thank you so much cj again thank you everyone who has
25:35been
25:35ranting along and dropping replies please make sure you're following us the various socials we're at
25:40trek culture on most socials at trek culture yt on instagram and at what culture star wars on the
25:45socials as well you will find our personal socials on screen right now but also we are linked on
25:52everything we're not hard to find which is really worrying from like a spy's point of view ah they can
25:59come i'll make them dinner it's fine grant cool well you mean you're making that executive level money
26:03so yeah uh so everyone look after yourself until i see you again uh make sure that you live long
26:11and
26:11prosper and may the force be with you
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