Urban outs the villain. Maybe.

[Jackson_Roykirk]

UFO wrote:

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Doubtless you only watched the movie once (), but even so it would be impossible to ignore how everything needed to fall precisely into place with "split second" timing to make things "work". Even that ignores all the amazing entropy decreases that would have had to take place to get most people ready to crew an Enterprise that itself had its history change enormously and was only just readly in time.

Things like Kirk meeting Scotty on a planet he was sent to for punishment are barnstorming examples of coincidence and implausibility but you can't have overlooked the fact that a disruptive force, instead of casting everyone to the winds, somehow herded them all closer together 10 years before most, if not all of them meet originally!

It would be easier to ask "Which part of all that wasn't a coincidence?".

Yeah. Just like TNG: Parallels.

All those Enterprises/Worfs with different histories, but being in the same place at the same time.

[BillJ]

Jackson_Roykirk wrote:

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I'm not so sure. I suppose they could have the character of Gary Mitchell be a friend of Kirk's, and then give Mitchell a plot that has nothing at all to do with the events surrounding WNMHGB.

You're right of course. But if Cumberbatch is playing Mitchell, then there has to be an explanation of why a human is seemingly giving the much stronger Spock a run for his money.

While there are many possible explanations, the simplest one is that they're using Where No Man... as a template for the new film.

[UFO]

Jackson_Roykirk wrote:

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Yeah. Just like TNG: Parallels.

All those Enterprises/Worfs with different histories, but being in the same place at the same time.

Thanks for the support. That ST09 is packed to the gunwales with coincidences is something everyone agrees on, I would have thought.

As for Parallels, well you may be over selling that a little. I mean there are an infinite number of Worfs so a few thousand in the same place is no big deal really. However even if it is, that's still only one coincidence, since its all the same problem. ST09 on the other hand had succession of different coincidences.

[Drago-Kazov]

I honestly don't care by this point.

[UFO]

Drago-Kazov wrote:

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I honestly don't care by this point.

Fair enough, I guess a lot of people agree with you that the movie redeems itself in other ways. I was simply opposing (perhaps a little too vigorously) the assertion that: "Its not a coincidence that so many of the crew met ...".

[Therin of Andor]

BillJ wrote:

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While there are many possible explanations, the simplest one is that they're using Where No Man... as a template for the new film.

In which case Orci would not have given IDW Comics a green light to remake "Where No Man..." in its very first two issues of "ST Ongoing."

[ChristopherPike]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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In which case Orci would not have given IDW Comics a green light to remake "Where No Man..." in its very first two issues of "ST Ongoing."

Unless that's precisely what we're supposed to think!

A death that seemed a little more open ended to me. His body left a whole lot easier to retrieve.

So maybe a double bluff? That version of WNMHGB could be recapped as Bond movie style pre-title sequence, which feeds into the TOS remake expectation... before going off on some alternate universe tangent.

[BillJ]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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In which case Orci would not have given IDW Comics a green light to remake "Where No Man..." in its very first two issues of "ST Ongoing."

Why?

Did they even have a story locked in for the film eighteen months ago when the comic was written? And would they let a comic read by, maybe 10,000 people, stop them from doing a story for a $185 million dollar movie?

[The Keeper]

^ I agree, ChristopherPike. My first reading of that story ending did not have the same sense of finality to it as WNMHGB.

[BillJ]

Honestly, I've had that Cumberbatch is playing Finnegan in the back of my mind for a while now. A canon character that we know next to nothing about, that is of Irish decent.

Especially if we're getting a take on Heart of Darkness.

[Therin of Andor]

BillJ wrote:

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Did they even have a story locked in for the film eighteen months ago when the comic was written?

AFAIK, the basic story of the sequel film had already been decided before IDW got the go ahead to do an ongoing series of comics based on the first movie. Orci tells them which episodes they can remake, and he approves each one. He is seeding easter eggs into each issue. We won't realise bits of trivia are easter eggs (eg Dr Dehner once had a relationship with McCoy) and which are red herrings until the new movie comes out.

And would they let a comic read by, maybe 10,000 people, stop them from doing a story for a $185 million dollar movie?

They wouldn't, but the comics had 77 other adventures to choose from, and yet Orci approved them using "Where No Man..." first up, thus reintroducing Mitchell and Kelso (and killing them off), and remaking the encounter with the Great Barrier. Orci is on record as wanting the comics (and the new computer game) to tie-in to the new movie, generate positive word-of-mouth and create one, big, new tapestry, which already includes the popular "Countdown", "Nero" and "Spock Reflections" mini-series from IDW.

Orci and the Bad Robot team also asked Pocket Books to shelve four tie-in original novels set in the same time period. No official reason has been given, but it's easier to vet twelve or so comic two-parters over several years than four novels that were going to come out in a short timeframe.

To satisfy that 10,000 comic buyers, who are spreading that positive word of mouth, it's highly unlikely Orci would approve a story that duplicates "Where No Man".

Now if Cumberbatch turns up and Kirk says something like, "Gary, my old Academy friend - it's you! But how? We all thought you were dead?" maaaaaybe it would work, because the unseen, offscreen, mysterious past event he is referring to isn't needed for this brand new story about a resurrected friend who suddenly has enough superstrength to battle a Vulcan on the rim of a volcano.

But the film is not going to be a color-by-numbers remake of "Where No Man..."

BillJ wrote:

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Honestly, I've had that Cumberbatch is playing Finnegan in the back of my mind for a while now.

Yep. Or a shape-changing Captain Garth. I can even imagine Garth taking on Gary's appearance, and Kirk knowing its a fake because "the real Gary died months ago".

[BillJ]

I think there are two reasons you don't rule Mitchell out, regardless of the comics...

1. No one has yet to refute Urban's statement that the character is Mitchell.

2. All of us being Trek fans, have seen how radically some of the films have changed from story to scripting to final product. Maybe it wasn't Mitchell when they first started working on the comic, but as the process progressed things changed and Mitchell did become the antagonist. I refuse to believe they would nix using Mitchell because of the comic.

[CorporalCaptain]

I think the reason we can't rule out Mitchell, or Khan, or Garth, or Q is because we don't know who's in the film yet. Once we know who's in the film, then we'll be able to rule people out.

[Therin of Andor]

BillJ wrote:

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I refuse to believe they would nix using Mitchell because of the comic.

That's not the bit I'm refuting. I'm refuting your statement that

"the simplest one is that they're using Where No Man... as a template for the new film."

[BillJ]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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That's not the bit I'm refuting. I'm refuting your statement that

A template doesn't equal a "color-by-numbers" remake.