Star Trek

ANOTHER SPOILER

(Although people who haven't seen a movie and don't want to see spoilers shouldn't read threads about said movie. Nevertheless I'll be nice.)

Why was the Earth utterly defenseless under Nero's drill attack? They should have had some badass defenses, but they showed NOTHING. I know Pike told them some codes under duress by that disgusting bug, but still an ATTEMPT should have been made by Homeworld Defense.
 
So JJ is telling me that, basically, the last 30 years of my life spent watching the syndicated series, movies, and cartoons, is over. I have just undone in 2 hours what made the franchise great for over 40+ years, and you will love me for it. That's what JJ is telling me?

"As a matter of cosmic history, it is much easier to destroy than to create."

I still think that JJ could have picked up the story from the early going. Much like Batman Begins, a Star Trek Begins. There is little material out there that deals with the characters prior to the Enterprise's original 5 year mission. Batman Begins is closer to the comic canon than other incarnations of the Dark Knight.

I just hate the thought of doing another Wrath of Khan. Who else but Ricardo Montalban could play him?

I hope they do something completely different, and something that we haven't seen before in the next installment. We saw time travel in IV, a limited amount in Generations, and in First Contact. We see it weekly now from JJ on Lost. Let's move on to something different.
 
However, does anyone anticipate any more movies in the other, or prime, timeline? I doubt they'd be skipping back and forth between two different universes. This **** is confusing enough as it is.
 
I'm going to see it again this weekend, so I'll try to pick up on the alternate realities / universes bit. I don't like the fact that this seems a bit too convenient for the storytellers, that they can do and say whatever they want without reprecussions. I don't want another Battlestar Galactica finale, or Lost storyline....that is, I don't want any half *** excuses for not addressing plot elements.

Not to sound like too big of a fanboy, but I'd like to engage in a discussion with my friends about Trek, and not be cut off with someone asking, "wait a minute, are we talking about Universe Prime, or Universe JJ?".
 
I think the prime universe is on a well deserved break for a while. The last couple of trips to the plate have struck out both in the theaters and on TV. The first cast is too old and mired in too much continuity. The second cast has not done particularly well in the theaters. As much as I'd like to see a DS9 movie, neither it nor Voyager or Enterprise had much of a following. I think, if the continuity which has been built upon to this point is going to survive, then it needs to just lay down for a while and catch its breath. Give people a chance to be nostalgic about it attempting a reboot. When the time comes, they need to do what TNG did, and skip a few hundred years into the future and start over again.
 
DET, I totally understand, but at least in the short term Prime universe is down for the count. The franchise is drowning in continuity, and the fan base can't even sustain a basic cable TV show. There is no audience and no producers want to touch it with a 10 foot poll, the way that it is. You've got to let the series lay fallow for a while if you wan to pick it back up, and I think what Abrams is doing may serve to accomplish that without having to step away from the show completely. String this out into a movie franchise over 6-8 years, and by the time it is over people will be saying, "I miss old Trek". It would be a heck of a lot less jarring than the gap between ST and ST:TNG.

Keep in mind, that if we are talking a multiverse time line, then there is no reason to presume there won't/can't be cross over. Hell DS9 went back to the Mirror, Mirror universe 5 or 6 more times, with varying degrees of success.

As to BSG and Lost, I would argue that the latter can't be argued to have dropped anything until the story ends... and the former never really had a plan to begin with. Ronald D Moore (BSG's producer) is just too much of a tactical thinker. He gets into the minutia of storytelling to the point that the grander picture would get lost. That was the complaint with BSG and Carnivale... and with TNG he was under so much supervision it didn't manifest quite as much.

Personally, I think this movie had the worst science of any other trek story, the script was mediocre and the villain felt like he was pulled from a "How to write Sci Fi" correspondence class... but the storytelling itself was actually quite nice. It was a nice tight production which didn't give you too much time to focus on the ridiculous. I was happy to see it, and have no reservations as to what it does to the wider franchise. Either it will succeed and build its own continuity, or it will fail in such a way as to make people miss the old series. There is nothing which was done which couldn't be undone.
 
Are the people in the prime timeline wondering what the **** happened to Spock and Nero? I had a few drinks with dinner before the movie so I'm a little fuzzy on some of these time travel/ parallel universe details.

Also, doesn't this directly contradict everything that happened in Star Trek IV (The One With The Whales), and First Contact? In both of those they traveled back in time, fixed some ****, and then just skipped ahead in time again and everything was all good. If Prime Spock in the new movie skipped ahead 120 years back to his "time", it would be the future of a parallel universe, and not his "native" universe, correct?
 
I agree, the older crew was getting a little stale, there was really no other place to take those characters, unless you looked at them from the beginning. And for me, that was the best part of the current movie; everything prior to Nero meeting the Enterprise. The Kobayashi Maru test was fun to watch.

It just seems that time travel is a common theme with JJ Abrams. There are other ways to write / produce / direct a drama than to include time travel.

Felicity - Series finale involved time travel to the past
Alias - 2nd season finale involved time travel to the future
Lost - Time Travel in the current season (no longer flashbacks or flashforwards)
ST XI - Time travel with Spock and Nero

We'll see how the new movies play out. I'm looking forward to more Trek. I'd like to see more of Kirk / Spock / Bones trio in the next one.
 
You guys all have a lot of great points.

I'd like to point out that time travel has always been a huge part of this franchise. This isn't some new technique for the franchise at all. Now, you may find it old now that BSG, Lost, Terminator, and other sci fi series have used it. But when I was a kid I remember watching Kirk, et al dressed as Chicagoland gangsters. And maybe as Germans. And probably some other crazy time travel gigs, too.

Then came TNG, which had its share of "time travel"-like adventures, too. The best of those, IMO, was not truly time travel at all but resembled it quite a bit. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_(TNG_episode)

As mentioned, time travel has been used plenty in the movies, as well. I have no problem with Abrams re-using a plot technique that has always been used by this franchise. In fact, given time travel's consistent use over time in Star Trek, I think that it is actually an apropos way to restart the series.

I thought this was a GOOD summer action movie. Those of you who didn't like it based on the science, well I guess I understand. I would argue that Star Trek has never, ever been about science. It's always been principally about the characters, who happen to be set in what many find to be an easily understood future. In a nutshell, phasers and photon torpedoes are cool, but it's always been more about how Kirk looks done and then throttles the baddie.

I read a lot of history. It pisses me off when someone makes a movie based on historical events that is actually worse than the historical plot. People who don't like history tell me "hey, but it was a really good movie!" I can never seem to see eye to eye with that, but to each their own. I imagine it must feel this way to people who actually know a thing or two about science when they watch Trek movies, and maybe especially this one.

Anyway, I agree with the idea that Abrams has a hit here. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with this thing from here on out.
 
decent soft sci-fi movie with a plot full of hideous gaping holes (the biggest - spock can shoot the drill a few trimes with a scout ship and destroy it - the whole planet vulcan cantr do anythign about it)

It's a decent movie, it's not a good star trek movie and im not a trekkie - they shat on the whole canon.

Enjoyed it however, had very very low expectations.


I can see why Trekkies hated it - but you can't make a big budget movie just for geeks. Well you can but it's hard (master and commmander barely broke even)
 
I know it sounds like I am bagging on it for the sake of bagging on it, but I honestly want the movie to do well, and I really enjoyed it with all of its faults. When I left the theater after the latest Indiana Jones movie I was pissed, saying WTF? When I left the theater of ST XI I said, "that was f'ing cool!". So it has that going for it.

I just have some critiques of the plot device, but I have just as much praise. Especially for the acting, which I thought was outstanding for a summer action flick.
 
So I went into the movie knowing Kirk, Spock, Scotty, some black chick that was supposed to kiss Spock, but Shatner was such an egotistical prick, he made the kiss... and that's about it. And I've watched some "Next Generation" stuff. When the doctor said "Damnit Jim, I'm a doctor", I chuckled because it sounded familiar. And the fact there was an Asian guy seemed right, because the original one was queerer than a $3 bill at Shatner's roast a few years ago.

So I watched the movie and then the movie ended and I was happy I saw it. I kind of like the potential debate that didn't happen between Kirk & Spock as well as the "Fire Swamp" move that the Asian guy made when he knocked his fencing partner into the area of the fire jet blasts.

I found it comforting that despite all of the damage that the Bush/Cheney regime did to the US, that the training center for all of the world was still in the USA (the San Francisco area no less). And I liked that despite the fact that the ship represented the "Federation", it was still called the "U.S.S. Enterprise"...

The Bush/Cheney crew could have f'ed everything in the alternate reality, but I was comforted to see that that hasn't happened.

I also found it amusing that despite the fact that travel speeds & modes of transportation have changed vastly over the years, STILL no one wants to live in Iowa.

Peope were living on top of themselves in quake-filled San Francisco, but NO ONE wanted to live in Iowa.

Maybe that had something to do with the tectonic plates, because depsite the fact that Iowa was/is in the middle of the Great Plains, there was a HUGE gorge in the middle of nowhere. Something is amiss in Iowa.
wtf.gif


So good job. And I hope they can all get off the island AND stay alive.
 
I dunno... the "gorge" looked artificial to me, as if were some sort of quarry. The crags were all rectangles.
 
mia1994,

You're absolutely right. I was watching a few trailers of the movie just a bit ago because I really enjoyed it. The gorge looked absolutely like a quarry. (So now he's stealing from "Breaking Away" as well!)

Thanks for the correction. There's still no one living in Iowa (maybe they're all watching baseball at the Field of Dreams), but I'm going with it being a quarry over a gorge.
 
I read a post on IMDB that articulates what I was trying to say:

"If going back in time creates an Alternate timeline, why worry?

'Captain, the Borg have gone back in time to stop first contact!'

'Don't worry about it, when they went back in time it created an ALTERNATE timeline. Ours is fine!'"
 
Nordberg, not all time travel experiences in the Star Trek are quite the same. In the example you mentioned (First Contact), as the Enterprise chased the Borg into the past, they witnessed their own future change. They saw themselves disappear from the poloroid (to reference Back To The Future). That may be what Abram's was setting up, but it doesn't necessarily need to be, which is the point. The reason people keep bringing it up is to pacify the voices saying that Abram's destoryed the ST universe, which does not need to be the case, for this episode to still have a place in the canon.
 
The difference I think some are missing here about the timeline is that the Romulans and Spock not only travelled through time, but because of the black hole, into a parallel dimension.

So the the original series and timelines still exist, because they exist in the prior/other dimension.

Similarly, this new dimension to which we have been introduced allows for the variations that will be inherent in future installments, without upsetting the original canon that exists in the other dimension that we all know and love.
 
I loved this move. I was thoroughly entertained for the entire duration of the movie. It was very well done.

One thing to note, I did't realize until the end that Winona Ryder was Spock's mom. Was she in makeup to age her, or does she really look that old now?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top