Nicholas Blair wrote:
I'd argue that most of the TNG films were brainier than Abram's film, though;



STAR TREK -- FIRST CONTACT: "Lock and load !"

wrote:
action set pieces and cheap gags are not what Star Trek is was meant to be about.


Sez who? Action and humor were a big part of TREK's charm, along with the ideas, personalities, social commentary and all the rest of it. About the only thing it wasn't about was hardware; phasers and transporters and warp drive and time machine technology and etc. were just supposed to be a means to tell stories, not an end in themselves. I think Abrams got that.

I like "real" sci-fi too, Clarke and all the rest. STAR TREK may have a place for that, but STAR WARS really doesn't, and wasn't ever meant to. STAR WARS may steal imagery from Frank Herbert or Larry Niven or James Gurney or whoever, but that's all it is -- window dressing.

It's when STAR WARS tries to incorporate scientific concepts like "midiclorians" or "cloning" and take them too seriously that it gets itself into trouble. Keep it simple, keep it metaphorical, keep it universal. That's what STAR WARS is all about, Charlie Brown.