Could we Trekkers have saved the Trek XI script? [SPOILERS]

[Maurice]

Wait a sec...DFScott? Are the D.F. Scott who wrote for Computer Shopper, etc., back in the late 80s?

[DFScott]

Yes, indeed, I cannot lie...D. F. Scott was my pseudonym back then. I go by my given name now, Scott M. Fulton, III, but I was originally published by that name. In response to Anticitizen's question, yes, guilty as charged for the last 25 years.

DF "Naysayer" Scott

[Anticitizen]

It shows. To this voracious reader, anyhow.

[Peter the Younger]

Just saw the film a second time, and I'll repeat what others have said - this film doesn't need saving. Its a rousing adventure and fine introduction to Star Trek for a new generation. If it did need saving, though, Trek fans are the last people I would want touching it. First, we don't have the perspective necessary, and second, well to be blunt, most of us just don't have the talent.

I've seen my share of fan fiction over the years, and I'm sorry to say most of it is execrable. Too many Trekkers write stories that rely on obscure - logical, but still obscure - technobabble, or fifteen minute scenes where the characters debate some moral dilemma, or leaden dialogue that unintentionally parodies the worst tendencies of later-era Trek shows.

Funny, after a quater century watching Star Trek, I've come to a realization. Most of us obsess over minutia at one time or another, but only when a movie or show rubs us the wrong way. The truth is, Star Trek, regardless of the incarnation, is rife with unlikely coincidences, inconsistencies, and illogical choices. When it happened in TOS and DS9, I excused them, because I liked the shows. When it happened in VOY, I tore them a new one, repeatedly - and in retrospect, unfairly. But why? What was the defining factor? I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, it always comes back to the characters, and how they make me feel. If I respond to them - to their personalities, to the dialogue written for them and the actors playing them, I'm willing to let the rest slide.

Sure, if it were up to me, I'd make their world as airtight and believable as possible. Yaeh, there are a few nitpicks in STXI I would have corrected, if I had veto power over the writers and producers - a line change here, a different planet name there. But in the whole, they did what they had to do, they made the characters real and fresh and human, and I cared about them. More importantly, all those other people out there - who don't care about Delta Vega or red matter or why Spock was in that particular cave - they cared about them too. That's the storyteller's first and only real job, and JJ knocked it out of the park.

But still, Orci and Kurtzman, if you're reading this, I am totally available to give advice on the next one.

[teacake]

Save it? It's damn near perfect.

:: STXI ::

[Peter the Younger]

Oh, BTW, thanks for posting the Bad Astronomy link! I love reading that guy's stuff.

In fact, I'm going to call the seminal event the "Superdupernova" from now on.

[Gep Malakai]

J. Allen wrote:

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Also, saying that anyone who is critical of the movie will be ridiculed is a fast way to setup a persecution complex.

J.

And, paradoxically enough, encourage the sort of ridicule that they don't want to receive.

[flemm]

The film had a weak plot. Fortunately, we don't need to be professional screenwriters to perceive that this is so. There is actually remarkably little disagreement on the point anyway, the most common counter-arguments being "It does not matter" or "Trek has had weak plots in the past."

I'm also pretty confident that the writers and producers knew that the plot of the movie was contrived and full of holes, but decided to go with it anyway on a cost/benefit type of analysis. Chiefly, they must have decided that having Nimoy's Spock around was worth the time-travel contortions required to bring him into the story.

Ironically, one motivation for this was probably to please longtime fans, some of whom seem to be among those most displeased with the contorted plot. Whatever. They thought it was worth it. That's what we have.

I can think of a few ways to smooth over some of the glaring coincidences surrounding the Delta Vega sequences, but I confess I am at a loss when it comes to thinking of a more elegant way to bring Spock Prime back in time. This was going to be contrived if it was going to be done at all.

For me the lingering question is whether having Nimoy around was worth it. I think a straight-forward reboot might have made for an even better movie, and I think it would probably have been just as successful, if not moreso, since I don't think Nimoy's presence has been a major factor in the film's success at the box office. Such a movie would almost certainly have had a simpler, more satisfying plot.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

bullethead wrote:

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Keeping in mind that the movie was filmed during the writers' strike, which prevented Orci and Kurtzman from doing revisions during filming, this is what I would do to improve the film.

The script was completed and accepted months before the strike - if the producers had felt that plot, structural or any other major changes were desirable they would have completed those in plenty of time. Those are the very sorts of changes you make every effort to avoid during shooting.

What might have been done and could not be done during shooting because of the strike were minor on-set changes to dialogue - Abrams supposedly thought of "a great line" one day and could not use it. We're not even talking about adding in some kind of expository lumps intended to paper over plot issues, mind you.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The movie had an episodic plot, not the "strongest" kind but not in and of itself objectionable.

[J. Allen]

Gep Malakai wrote:

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And, paradoxically enough, encourage the sort of ridicule that they don't want to receive.

Yahtzee.


J.

[Peter the Younger]

flemm wrote:

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I'm also pretty confident that the writers and producers knew that the plot of the movie was contrived and full of holes, but decided to go with it anyway on a cost/benefit type of analysis. Chiefly, they must have decided that having Nimoy's Spock around was worth the time-travel contortions required to bring him into the story.

Ironically, one motivation for this was probably to please longtime fans, some of whom seem to be among those most displeased with the contorted plot. Whatever. They thought it was worth it. That's what we have.

The box office receipts would suggest they were right.

Yeah, none of them are dummies, I'm sure they probably did sit down and say, "well some people won't like this at all." But it those people represent less than 10% of the core fanbase, and you bring in more than enough new fans to compensate, well, that's business.

[flemm]

Dennis wrote:

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The movie had an episodic plot, not the "strongest" kind but not in and of itself objectionable.

I'm not sure what you mean by "episodic" exactly. Could you clarify?

From my point of view, I would say the plot is weak principly because it relies on the boring and inconsistent plot device of Red Matter and a series of glaring and implausible coincidences in the pivotal sequence on Delta Vega.

To put it another way, I think the movie succeeds in spite of its plot and not because of it.

What is very heartening for me is the fact that the sequel should automatically have a better story since the reboot is over, the origin story is told, and time-travel from the Prime universe will presumably not be necessary.

I can't wait to see this crew, this ship and the new pacing and effects in a better story.

[flemm]

Peter the Younger wrote:

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The box office receipts would suggest they were right.

They suggest the movie got a lot of things right, which I believe it did. They don't, however, suggest the film is above criticism or that it could not be improved upon.

Peter the Younger wrote:

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Yeah, none of them are dummies, I'm sure they probably did sit down and say, "well some people won't like this at all." But it those people represent less than 10% of the core fanbase, and you bring in more than enough new fans to compensate, well, that's business.

I think it is difficult to argue that having Nimoy in the film was an important draw for new fans. Since much of the plot is contrived in order to have his character around, I think it is quite possible that the film would have been even more successful as a straight-forward reboot with no time-travel and a more elegant plot.

[pookha]

DFScott wrote:

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A lot of the feedback I'm hearing from folks who have apparently seen the film and liked it thoroughly, directed toward long-time Trek fans who have raised some complaints,

and why cant some accept that a lot of us who love this film are old line trek fas ourselves.

As someone who has been a Trek fan since the Original Series first entered syndication in the early '70s, I can say that I'm very pleased that this film is fulfilling its primary mission of introducing a new audience to this long-running work of global folklore.

really that is its primary mission.
yeah expanding trek outward is one thing it did.
but it mightly pleased many like myself who watched trek on nbc.

So let me see if I have this straight (again, folks, SPOILERS): We learn that Uhura has been listening to some transmissions and, golly gee, Sgt. Carter, that Vulcan discussion channel sure sounds like Romulan to her. Never mind that this cadet is listening in on private conversations anyway (I guess Federation intelligence is pretty bad off these days, it's outsourcing its operations to cadets). And like the guy stationed in Hawaii who thought he heard Japanese voice traffic that December day, Uhura rushes to tell...her Orion roommate during a gratuitous clothes-changing scene.

[/QUOTE]


uh did you really watch the film because you confused two different things here.

what uhura picked up while doing normal monitoring duty (and if you have indeed watched tos and the other series you should know the federation indeed has monitoring stations ect)
and picked up a transmission about klingon ships being destroyed.

that she is able to tell the difference between vulcan and romulan dialect is several scenes later in orbit above vulcan.

so is it the fault of the film or maybe just pay attention a little more.



yeah there are few things that could be smooted out within the script but as someone who grew up reading not just science fiction but the classics a plot convience like when kirk met old spock dosnt phase me.
read dickens sometimes .


now if you do it all through a movie then yeah but once or twice.. shrug..
difference between fiction and reality.