Star Trek (SPOILERS)

[B5_Obsessed]

On Spock...

Spock is very logical, but they play up the "child of two worlds" bit. They have a great scene where he is bullied by some other Vulcan kids (which in and of itself was pretty funny,) but he obviously struggled with his half human/half Vulcan self.

I've always considered Spock (and most Vulcans) to be logical and devoid of emotion to a certain extent. I think there is always a button somewhere you can really push and get a reaction, but in doing so, you're waking the dragon, so to say. I've never considered Vulcans to be incapable of emotion, but rather they repress it in order to keep that dragon "caged." I remember watching episodes in which Spock was pushed/pressed or otherwise manipulated into emotional feeling and he was a force to be reckoned with.

Considering that this likely took place before the series (on the canon-timeline,) Spock probably hadn't fully embraced his Vulcan side yet, so the humanity in him slips out, but you also see him realizing that logic might be the best road for him. I don't want to really say too much (don't want to ruin things!)"

From the way I understand it, Vulcans, like Romulans, do possess emotions but after centuries of bloody wars they followed the teachings of Surak about 1000 years prior to Spock's time and began supprssing those emotions and embracing logic. Spock is attempting to do what his fellow Vulcans can do much more easily, but the human brain does not have the same amount of control and so it is very difficult for him. In "Where No Man Has Gone Before" he openly mocks human emotion and says he knows nothing but logic. Methinks he doth protest too much. But then in "The Naked Time" we see he is a basket case under his carefully crafted veneer of control.

 

[for the one]

Without sounding too harsh, there is NO NEED to explain why the Enterprise, Warp, the Transporters, and Phasers look different. Its a reboot. A relaunch. A fresh coat of paint on an old franchise. They get to change physical appearances without an explaination from cannon.

And FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE don't try to explain these changes by using Star Trek: Enterprise. Have you no soul?

:vulcan: Okay so it wasn't my favorite of all the Star Trek series ether, :alienblush: but the following episodes I felt were very good:
Vox Sola, Mine Field, Dead Stop, Dawn, Cease Fire, Canamar, Regeneration, Judgement, Bounty (in certain parts), Azati Prime, Storm Front I & II, Borderland, Cold Station 12, The Augments, The Forge, Awakening, Kir Shara, Babel One, United, The Aenar, Affliction, Divergence, Bound and In a Mirror Darkly I & II. :thumbsup:
Those episodes for the most part I loved, save for the occasional raunchy segments or cuss words. :alienblush:

As for the other episodes some I didn't like because of the idiology the writer was trying to shove down my throat. The series was uber pro liberal, west coast, politically correct but not from my religious stand point. I'm not self righteous or judgemental, I just set my moral standards relatively high. I don't which to argue that point. It simply is the way I was raised. To each his own... Peace out.

 

[for the one]

Yes, there was that too. Rather silly. I try to suspend a little belief when watching movies like this, but sometimes things just scream out at me when they are that obvious.



So not wanting to get into a big geeky debate here, but I think your assesment is wrong here on a couple of counts for me. First, I don't agree with the timeline stuff. Before Vulcan being destroyed, the only interference with the timeline ws the destruction of one single starfleet ship. That event would not make Chekov be born a good 10 years earlier than he was in the TOS universe.

More importantly, deep down I am certainly NOT trying to think that these are all one and the same. I went into this with the mentality that this was JJ Abrams Star Trek. Its a whole different thing and not related or based upon the original. What I saw on the screen only went to reinforce that, not make me think otherwise. In fact, one little tidbit you posted after this one actually contradicted yourself (at least I thought it did) and pretty much sums up my point on all of this:



This, I believe, is exactly right as far as the time travel stuff goes. To date in the Star Trek universe of Roddenberry, all time travel only served to keep things as they originally were, they never made things different. It just turned out that the ST crew from the future served to create the past they already knew. Even Rick Bermans ST First Contact had the same approach --- all playing in the same universe/sandbox. This movie did not. They even went out of their way in the movie to explain it as such with dialogue. It created a BRANCH universe. The TOS/TNG universe is still out there and continuing on...this one is now different. Its the first time this has ever been done in Trek.

The point I was trying to convey is that, for my money, they really didnt need to do this. I think they could have just done a reboot/reimaging and be done with it. No need to come up with fancy attempted sci-fi explainations, just call it a reboot and be on your way and come up with a story to give JJ's vision of how things may have started in Kirk career. But I do agree with your second point, and they stated it in the movie as such, this is now a different alternate reality that these movies will take place in (if others are made).

My complaint was that the way they executed the time travel aspect of this story was pretty weak. When Spock was giving his mind meld with Kirk explaining what happened I was honestly thinking to myself "Oh for crying out loud, they didnt even try...."

Again though, I was still able to enjoy the movie overall which really speaks to the cast they put together and their performances. Because what they were given to work with, IMO, wasn't an outstanding script/plot. But they made it work and fun to watch.

1.) Chekov born a good 10 years earlier than he was in the TOS universe.- The 'Enterprise' show, (and yeah yeah I know you don't like it), The Xindi War may have spawned a need to repopulate the planet, after their devistating attack on Earth. This may have led to a Adam & Eve effect were Earth spent the next 110 + years promoting sex. Thus Chekov could have been conceived at a more needy time in Earth history.
2.) This, I believe, is exactly right as far as the time travel stuff goes. To date in the Star Trek universe of Roddenberry, all time travel only served to keep things as they originally were, they never made things different.- :vulcan: Actually the movie: First Contact blantently altered history perminently because of the Borg sphere destroyed and Picard openly admitted it.

As for the rest you said RECOIL, Galahad handled that for me rather well, thanks Galahad.
Semper Fi (Always Faithful) my friend.... Salute Galahad. Live Long And Prosper.

RECOIL I loved all the good things you said about the film. On this we are one in spirit. :bolian: COOL.

 

[hypatia]

I assumed they explained somehow the emotionalism of Spock in the scene we see in the trailer. And yes, he is young, I guess, if he's young in this version of Trek when Kirk and the lot were young (ignoring the age and lifespan difference between Spock and his human crewmates). It's an interesting choice, directorially, to decide that's the direction you're going with Spock.

 

[Alluveal]

Absolutely. But, by trying to explain it here, it would spoil some stuff.

I think they're sticking pretty true to Spock, imho. I really can't say enough how well Z. Quinto does in the role.

Do any of you remember that one episode in the original Star Trek series where they landed on this planet and some spores that people breathed in made them happy all the time? Spock was all in love and such.

 

[for the one]

Absolutely. But, by trying to explain it here, it would spoil some stuff.

I think they're sticking pretty true to Spock, imho. I really can't say enough how well Z. Quinto does in the role.

Do any of you remember that one episode in the original Star Trek series where they landed on this planet and some spores that people breathed in made them happy all the time? Spock was all in love and such.

I thought Quinto did just fine as a young Spock. Showing this huge struggle were he needs to decide which side to embrace is fascinating and I feel fleshes out old Spock's character all the more.

Yes I remember, it was Star Trek episode This Side of Paradise.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

I think that the Spock in this time-branch-universe is likely to be more emotional, in part because he saw his human mother die in front of him.

 

[squish]

OK, so I find it a really bizarre coincidence that I wore a Babylon 5 shirt to Star Trek on Friday and just happened to find this board today searching for a Matrix quote... Anyway I have tons of thoughts so here go my thoughts on this thread. To preface, I thought the movie was one of the most kickass films I've ever seen in my life. This is coming from someone who pauses every sci-fi show/movie every three minutes with his father to have a thirty minute absurd nitpicking discussion, and who thought the sole purpose of producing Generations was to prove his point the movie was going to suck no matter what. I give this one 9/10 stars, the missing one being the one that Spock collapsed with the help of the new galactic cherry kool-aid flavor, just because I hate kool-aid.

I think the paradox is that all you die hard trekkies who have major problems with the film, are completely ignoring the entire core mandate of Star Trek! To BOLDLY GO WHERE NO--[cliche auto-truncation]. It's intrinsically oxymoronic to write the billion quadrillionth movie in a series about a ship that goes looking for new adventure! This film accomplishes the impossibly brilliant balance of summarizing every major dead-horse Star Trek cliche plot element and character into a perfect "Star Trek for Dummies" book, while giving every audience member no matter who they are, the adventurous feeling like it's completely new again. Those basic, CORE plot elements are the *only* things that matter in the attempt of "Alright, let's boldy do this whole Star Trek thing all over again." It's a franchise neuralizer.

The science is insanely sound, because there *is* no science, other than throwing in a bunch of vague generic key physics words, which is all Star Trek ever does. Those words again contain the CORE of those scientific principles. The newbie gets the *feel* of the raw basics of space, time travel, black holes, and supernova-imploding cherry kool-aid matter. That's the nature of science fiction. People complain about the transporters overriding the Heisenberg principle, well, the answer is, in the science of the future, they've discovered something new! Or worked around it, or whatever. Sci-fi is the extension of physics to something less tangible, it's all theory. It's based on science, and with anything that doesn't make sense, anyone can come up with some theory to explain it, until they officially explain it in a ST physics book somewhere. The big thing is self-consistancy, and since this movie threw everything out the window while re-hashing itself, the physics is flawless. You can start complaining if the next one states that grape kool-aid was used in the collapse of the super-supernova star.

The entire idea of self-consistency of a series, begins with the first movie. Think of the whole thing as an adjacent universe where some random things are similar and some are different. When Star Trek characters fall into the darker parallel universes, things are just changed at random... Kirk and Kira are badasses, while Spock and O'brien aren't complete badguys, and it all just sorta makes sense that this is a totally random parallel universe where things work a little differently. We're just buying tickets on a surreal parallel Earth time line where Star Trek starts out differently.

Then went to use this Deux Ex Machine "Red Matter" to stop the supernova after it already happened.

But that's crucially normal standard Star Trek science! How about the genesis effect? The video describing it was just ubergeneric pseudoscience... "It creates life where life wasn't before... a dead planet from a living planet... shazaam!", via the unstable matter stuff or whatever that caused it to backfire. Within the movies internally, ALL Star Trek science is just deus ex machina science babble. It's up to the "Physics of Supernova Implosion Cherry Koolaid" to come up with the details. Those are the places you can debate the details and haggle over science or nonsense. The CORE of Star Trek science--within the movies internally--is to take a bunch of super generic physics terms and explanations and mush them into generic science babble that achieves--or at least lamely feigns--a "bold new" fictional science (depending on your point of view). We get the utter utter raw basics of those principles and fictional sciences in the movies; we get the feel of them, as well as the biblical key lines describing the basics, not the details.

Characters conveniently getting dropped into key positions on the ship without much question

How else could they possibly achieve throwing all those core characters into a movie like this? It's like a Q episode where Q plucks people at random and places them randomly somewhere else in space-time. Nobody questions "continuum physics", we're just led through the suspension of disbelief that Q can drop the enterprise crew into Men In Tights on any day of the week. You can explain absolutely all these problems if you suppose that screwing around with a time line caused all sorts of plot discrepencies. Sure, this magic catch-all axiom only works for the very very very "first movie," (or at least the second first movie), but you'll have the rest of the "rebooted" Star Trek universe to say things aren't making sense any more.

One way in which it could be believable is if the type of energy given off by the supernova had a property that destabilized the integrity of other stars... perhaps we are thinking in terms of a single explosion when in fact it was possibly a chain reaction of events started by this one catastrophe

That's a good explanation! And that's my point, that until the Star Trek universe officially describes the event, that all we have is theory.

I take the opposite view on that... I think it was an incredibly brave thing to do. In terms of potentially alienating your established audience...

Right, I mean, they have to blow up the enterprise in every movie, why not a major planet? I'm voting for Ferenginar for Star Trek 2 2.

I'm especially in love with ZQ as Spock. I thought he by far outshined everyone else in performance, presence and what I come to expect from Spock (reimagined or not.)

I was dreading Quinto as Spock from the moment I saw the first trailer. It ended up I sorta liked him in the role, but in general I think they made the gross mistake of thinking you don't need a superb actor for the role of someone who doesn't show a ton of emotion. I think it takes a superb actor to get the supressed emotion across with a tiny twitch of the muscles. I feel Spiner's a blah actor but played Data perfectly because it required a character with NO emotion rather than subtle emotion.

 

[Alluveal]

First off, welcome Squish! Glad you found us.

And I like Quinto in general. I loved him in Heroes (back when I was actually watching it.) Sylar was actually one of the few things that kept me watching as long as I did.

 

[Bab5nutz]

Was anyone expecting a "reset button" ending? Where at the end of the film, everything would go back to the Trek universe we all know?

 

[squish]

That would have defeated the only purpose of the movie. The whole point is we can do new things now, that we have no idea what to expect. Otherwise we should just pull down every succeeding Star Trek book, film, and episode off our shelves, and just just watch them sequentially again while drinking cherry kool-aid. I'm an aspiring novelist and I can't imagine boldly re-writing myself into a pre-written saga.

 

[Alluveal]

Was anyone expecting a "reset button" ending? Where at the end of the film, everything would go back to the Trek universe we all know?

Naw, I was just along for the ride....

 

[Sindatur]

Finally got to see it. I loved it.
The characters were all written well, and the actors did a great job portraying their namesakes.

I knew about the time travel aspect, but, it didn't ruin anything for me, because I was expecting it to play out much different (I expected Old Spock to travel back and send Kirk's crew back further through time, or something like that)

While it's true, the time travel aspect wasn't neccesaary, (JJ could've just been unapologetic and said this is MY Trek, not prior Trek, and we're starting over) I think it probably helped the popularity. Hard Core Trekkies (the general population of them, that is) are accustomed to "The Reset Button" and I think it actually helped that segment accept the changes easier and allowed them to enjoy the film without picking apart the changes. Of course, I hope they are done with "resetting", but, as a means to start over, I think it was fine and helped give a reason to the changes

 

[Jade Jaguar]

Was anyone expecting a "reset button" ending? Where at the end of the film, everything would go back to the Trek universe we all know?

As squish says, that would defeat the purpose of the reboot.

But, I would not have been surprised if they had managed to save Vulcan, as that would not be a total reset. However, I wasn't necessarily expecting it. Part of what I liked about the film was that while some was predictable, such as the Kobayashi Maru thing, there was a lot that wasn't obvious too.

 

[darth_librarian]

That would have defeated the only purpose of the movie. The whole point is we can do new things now, that we have no idea what to expect. Otherwise we should just pull down every succeeding Star Trek book, film, and episode off our shelves, and just just watch them sequentially again while drinking cherry kool-aid. I'm an aspiring novelist and I can't imagine boldly re-writing myself into a pre-written saga.

From a creative point of view, this was basically a neccessity. Trek was dying under the weight of its own continuity, and a vocal but minor section of the fanbase was dragging the whole thing down by requiring that it was constantly adhered to, which was unworkable and a bit silly.

With this gone, screen-writers can be free from all of that, and a good thing too.

What I don't want to see is slightly naff rehashes. I mentioned Kahn earlier, but It would be good to see them try some really new stuff. Although Ricky Gervais or Will Ferrell would make a good Harry Mudd.

 

[for the one]

(Originally Posted by squish) I give this one 9/10 stars, the missing one being the one that Spock collapsed with the help of the new galactic cherry kool-aid flavor, just because I hate kool-aid.

WELCOME SQUASH!
Gallatic Kool-aid that's classic! :rommie::guffaw:

 

[vacantlook]

Finally went and saw it today. I liked it, didn't love it, but I liked it. Scotty was probably my favorite character. I felt a lot of the glowiness and lense flare of the look of the film was distracting. The actors felt enough like their namesakes that I didn't feel distracted by new actors playing them, which was my utmost concern. Before seeing the film, I had seen the advertisements on tv plenty, and there's the shot in the adverts of Spock attacking Kirk (though I couldn't tell it was Kirk he was attacking in the clip in the adverts, just that Spock was attacking someone) and that had me especially worried in that I was worried about having an emotional Spock in the film, but the context for that scene made all the difference. I think Zachary Quinto did a very good job as Spock.

And I couldn't help but see the giant ball of "red matter" and think of the giant floating ball of red liquid from Alias. That was a bit annoying.

 

[Alluveal]

And I couldn't help but see the giant ball of "red matter" and think of the giant floating ball of red liquid from Alias. That was a bit annoying.

That's right. The rambaldi experimental stuff was a red ball as well and didn't it turn people into zombies? And/or changed time/space?

 

[vacantlook]

That's right. The rambaldi experimental stuff was a red ball as well and didn't it turn people into zombies? And/or changed time/space?

I honestly don't remember. After the super-craptastic third season, I stopped paying as much attention as I did during the first two seasons. It's so sad how stupid that show got. To take a character as wonderfully complex and mysterious as Sydney's mother, who at the end of the second season in a secret message to Sydney made it sound like there was something big she was concealing but that she was ultimately working toward a good purpose, and in the end have her die maniacally wanting more, miscellaneous "power" sounding like Darth Sidious in Revenge of the Sith was such a loss.

I think that's another thing that contributed to my worries about this Star Trek film: JJ Abrams storytelling ineptitude in the past. But if I remember the end credits of Star Trek correctly, he directed and produced but did not write the script, which probably helped. Some people can interpret stories well but are just not capable of creating them themselves, and maybe JJ Abrams is such a person. The creative structure of films is different than with tv shows; the position of executive producer plays significantly different roles in crafting the stories for the two different mediums.

And, I can't help it, but I think that the Kelvin and the shuttlecraft were rather ugly. I think more than a few Star Trek ships have been ugly over the years though. The Enterprise is nice, and I think the basic (and specific) shape of the ship Kahn uses in the second ST film was good too. But slapping miscellaneous pieces onto the basic Enterprise shape to make it "different" really doesn't work for me.

 

[Alluveal]

I honestly don't remember. After the super-craptastic third season, I stopped paying as much attention as I did during the first two seasons. It's so sad how stupid that show got. To take a character as wonderfully complex and mysterious as Sydney's mother, who at the end of the second season in a secret message to Sydney made it sound like there was something big she was concealing but that she was ultimately working toward a good purpose, and in the end have her die maniacally wanting more, miscellaneous "power" sounding like Darth Sidious in Revenge of the Sith was such a loss.

I think that's another thing that contributed to my worries about this Star Trek film: JJ Abrams storytelling ineptitude in the past. But if I remember the end credits of Star Trek correctly, he directed and produced but did not write the script, which probably helped. Some people can interpret stories well but are just not capable of creating them themselves, and maybe JJ Abrams is such a person. The creative structure of films is different than with tv shows; the position of executive producer plays significantly different roles in crafting the stories for the two different mediums.

And, I can't help it, but I think that the Kelvin and the shuttlecraft were rather ugly. I think more than a few Star Trek ships have been ugly over the years though. The Enterprise is nice, and I think the basic (and specific) shape of the ship Kahn uses in the second ST film was good too. But slapping miscellaneous pieces onto the basic Enterprise shape to make it "different" really doesn't work for me.

You're preachin' to the choir about Alias. The first two seasons were rockin hard-core. What they did to Mama Derevko was just shameful. I did like Nadia in season 4. That was interesting, but yeah. I waited a few years to get into Lost because I wanted to see if Abrams would frack that show up as well, but I'm liking what he did with Lost. Maybe he learned his lesson with Alias. Let's hope.