The Age Problem on Star Trek Reboots

[Corax]

Let's begin with the JJ-verse.



It's Muppet Babies. Kirk, Spock, Uhra, Sulu, Chekov, and even McCoy are going through the academy at the same time and this doesn't really work. Senior officers are senior in age. On the show, Bones, Scotty, and Spock were the oldest men on the ship. McCoy was six years older than Kirk. Spock was 3 years older than Kirk. Scotty was 11 years older than Kirk. Kirk was supposed to be 32 when he first took command of the ship (Shatner was 35 when he took the role). Even so, he was older than other familiar faces. Per StarTrek.com, Sulu was 4 years younger than Kirk, Uhura was six years younger than Kirk, and Chekov was 12 years younger.



Star Trek Strange New Worlds has us outside of the Academy, but has Uhura and Chapel on the Enterprise before Kirk or McCoy. This works for the girl-power emphasis of the show, but it also carries an uncomfortable implication for the future--these women apparently failed to launch. Why is Uhura, who is demonstrated to be a genius regularly saving the ship, still stuck working the switchboard for all those extra years when Kirk takes Command? Chapel, at least, has the excuse of getting side-tracked by Roger Korby before she returns to the ship. Uhura, on the other hand, appears to have no career ambitions at all or is a victim of the systemic racism of Starfleet.



The small-world syndrome of Trek results in oddities like our characters being closer in age than they should be and raises questions about why, given their initial positions, they were frozen in place in their ranks.

[Act III]

I believe they are approaching the Trek lore much like Marvel does, without attention to detail and double-checking that all the factiods compliment each other.This can be a bane to aficianados that memorize things biblically. It could be that the Star Trek universe is so expansive now that time-wise it isn't practical to make sure that everything is identical across all series.

[Corax]

I believe they are approaching the Trek lore much like Marvel does, without attention to detail and double-checking that all the factiods compliment each other.This can be a bane to aficianados that memorize things biblically. It could be that the Star Trek universe is so expansive now that time-wise it isn't practical to make sure that everything is identical across all series.


That's well and good, but it still raises questions in the "new" canon which replaces the old. We are, for example, left with the glaring question in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds of why it is that Uhura (now serving on the ship years before Kirk) fails to launch. Make a new room, by all means, but make sure you also measure for the carpet. Members of the crew simply being the same age is a case of the carpet not fitting the new room. The failure here is not that of external consistency (sacred canon), but internal consistency.

[Act III]

That's well and good, but it still raises questions in the "new" canon which replaces the old. We are, for example, left with the glaring question in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds of why it is that Uhura (now serving on the ship years before Kirk) fails to launch. Make a new room, by all means, but make sure you also measure for the carpet. Members of the crew simply being the same age is a case of the carpet not fitting the new room. The failure here is not that of external consistency (sacred canon), but internal consistency.

But that's why I brought Marvel up, when irreconcilable conflicts arise in a story arc they simple say its an alternate universe.

[Corax]

But that's why I brought Marvel up, when irreconcilable conflicts arise in a story arc they simple say its an alternate universe.
And that is why I rejoined that this is an in-universe problem.

[Act III]

And that is why I rejoined that this is an in-universe problem.

Maybe they don't care and did it on purpose.

[Mr Minio]

Sorry for being slightly off-topic but I've never seen anything related to Star Trek.

[Corax]

Maybe they don't care and did it on purpose.
Why would they make an error on purpose?

[John McClane]

I hear Starfleet is got some hellva good drugs

[Citizen Rules]

...It could be that the Star Trek universe is so expansive now that time-wise it isn't practical to make sure that everything is identical across all series. For me, the Star Trek universe ended the day JJ Abrams signed up to do the first reboot. That's how I see it, I don't care about any so called 'Star Trek' franchise that came after Enterprise.

[ynwtf]

For me, the Star Trek universe ended the day JJ Abrams signed up to do the first reboot. That's how I see it, I don't care about any so called 'Star Trek' franchise that came after Enterprise.

It has been a long road, getting from there to here.....

[Yoda]

I'd make a major distinction between this and Marvel, which uses the multiverse as an excuse to do things but, as far as I can tell, never after the fact. In fact it's clear they planned to get into multiverse stuff for quite awhile. Now, that may be handwavey, rob the films and shows of real drama, et cetera, but it's markedly different from doing something that makes no sense and then handwaving it away by positing the existence of alternative universes after the fact. I wish they weren't doing it at all, but they did warn us it was coming, so to speak.

The Star Trek thing is worse because it's trying to have it both ways and, as Corax notes, it creates some pretty clear inconsistencies. Not outright contradictions, just things that don't really make sense.

The only one of them that did this right was the very first JJ one. I actually thought it was rather clever, explaining how they could have all these same characters but not be beholden to the same timeline. They wove it in very well. Maybe you could argue these reboots should never try to do both things, to act as a restart and a continuation, but if you're going to do it, I don't think it can be done better than that film did it.

[Citizen Rules]

It has been a long road, getting from there to here.....:) Love that song...Well until a later season when they speed it up.