STID realistic?

Which isn't a bad thing. I think some Star Trek fans have forgotten that Trek is suppose to be fun.

 

What is this "fun" you speak of? How can a movie be "fun"?

 

To amplify on the Rule of Cool, in what episode is the situation depicted on the cover of Star Trek 5? Who gives a fuck; the Enterprise landing on an alien planet is cool. One reason it is cool is precisely because it is unusual. Staying in orbit be damned. That's not a new cover, either. This has been cool since 1972.

 

Are the dune buggies in NEM excused by the Rule of Cool?

 

I've never had an issue with the dune buggies.

 

Only if they had been hover dune buggies

 

Partially. If the buggies had actually BEEN cool, it would have gone over a lot better.

OTOH, there's something to be said for timing. Thinking back, I believe the dune buggy scene would have fit into movie a lot better as an opening scene: it's the first thing we see Picard and company doing in the movie, so you don't START the scene already rolling your eyes at the contrived technobabble excuse that was used to set it up.

 

^ Not to mention that it wasn't a surprise to anybody, seeing as they used that in practically all the trailers. By the time we actually saw the movie, the buggies weren't cool anymore.

 

Agreed - one of the things I HATED about TNG era Trek (in TV or Film) was the 2 minute dissertation of:

"If we fire a stream of <insert magic particle's name> at <time x>; we can drop their shields..."

and after Picard (or whoever) says; "Yes, that'll work"

We go through a scene of them essentially repeating the exact same dialogue:

"It's <time x>!"

"Firing stream of <insert magic particle's name>!"

"Their shields are dropping..."

Ugh! (And they did it time and time again in 24th century era TV shows and films.)

TOS did that on a few very rare occasions, but overall, didn't worry about laying out EVERY LITTLE DETAIL (and then repeating that detail again) during it's era, and I never had a problem with that.

 

The Dune Buggies in NEM were dumb because it was clearly purposeless action fodder. Action is fine, but action with some kind of purpose is better. Stewart wanted to drive, so they contrived a driving scene into a Star Trek movie. That's the worst basis for an action scene ever. Especially when, against the prime directive that Picard was such a huge defender of in TNG was suddenly having worf blast indigenous aliens with a plasma cannon just for lulz. Honestly, I would have cut all that nonsense entirely, and just had them go down there, find the head, realize it's another Data duplicate, and then cut back to the ship. That's all the relevant information in that scene anyway. Cuts the films run time down, doesn't indulge in dumb action, and keeps things moving.

The design itself, is lazy, and silly, and aside from what drives it, seems to be entirely a modern design, providing almost no protection from the harsh elements of alien worlds. You wanna do a Star Trek car chase with a futuristic Dune Buggy for our heroes? Then make the Dune Buggy actually futuristic in some fashion. How about some forcefields, holographic displays(like a fighter cockpit), or some visual effect to show some incredible speed?

Honestly, just thinking about it for just one second you realize they would have been better off using the shuttle to do the recovery.

I think the same can be said of the STID intro to a lesser extend. I love pretty much everything about it, it's the most Star Trek thing they've done up to this point in all the movies. A new alien species, strange planet, a dilemma for the crew to deal with that is both plot and character driven. The only thing that bugs me is the nonsensical "Enterprise is underwater" not because I don't think starships have the capability to handle it, but because it really does not make sense. You want to conceal the huge starship? Then don't take it underwater. Keep it in high orbit, or by the planets moon if it has one.

And if you want to have some starship porn shot of the Enterprise doing some kind of penetrative maneuver, easy, have her bank down out of orbit, down through the atmosphere, and head towards the volcano. The need to be in close range because of the volcanic eruptions would still work as a legit excuse.

 

This is one of the biggest reasons I find Modern Trek so tedious. It feels like filler.

 

I hated it when the changed the lyrics of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" to "Their Shields Are Down to XX Percent."

 

Heh, that was one of my major problems with Generations. THAT was the big tactic to end the ship battle. Rather than, y'know, shooting back constantly. Even worse for Trekkies who know that the Enterprise-D greatly outclasses a Bird of Prey, and even for the layman, the dialogue outright stated that BoP was no match for her (hence the Geordi spy).

The old adage in fiction: show, don't tell. Except for plot resolutions like above, modern Trek was full of telling before showing.

 

The Enterpise under/rising from the water was also used excessively in the adverts, so shouldn't it have stopped being cool before the film came out too?

 

I've said this on these boards before, but I came to the conclusion that the underwater scene was supposed to be stupid. We're over-thinking it. No explanation makes sense, nor should one. Technologically, it obviously worked. That can't be debated. Realistically? It's a dumb and dumber move.
According to Pike, Kirk has been a pain in the ass to the admiral ever since becoming a captain. Part of the reason is probably because he does such irresponsible, immature, and incomprehensible things. (And where's Spock to put a check on all this? Caught up in his own life crisis.) Only someone with a lot to learn about what taking a real risk is would hide his starship in an ocean and send his first officer into a volcano to begin with. To that end, it realistically portrays where these characters are in their lives at that moment. Far from seasoned veterans, that's for sure.

 

Shields are down to seventy percent! Shields are down to seventy...
Incoming fire! Brace for impact! Shields are down to sixty percent!
Shields are down to sixty percent! Shields are down to sixty...
Divert auxiliary power to shields! Shields are down to fifty percent!
Shields are down to fifty percent! Shields are down to fifty...
Try remodulating the emitter arrays! Shields are down to forty percent!
Shields are down to forty percent! Shields are down to forty...
Recalibrate shield nutations! Shields are down to thirty percent!
Shields are down to thirty percent! Shields are down to thirty...
Try to match polarity with their weapon's phase modulation signature! Shields are down to twenty percent!
Shields are down to twenty percent! Shields are down to twenty...
Reconfigure the main deflector to emit a tachyon pulse that should force their emitter crystals to reverse polarity! Shields are down to ten percent!
Shields are down to ten percent! Shields are down to ten...
Hail them, tell them we mean them no harm... Shields are down to one percent!
Shields are down to one percent! Shields are down to one...
Let's reconfigure the tractor beam emitters to generate a coherent graviton pu--BOOOOOOMMMMM!!!
Shields are down to zero percent.

 

^

 

Love it!

Ahhhhh, Modern Trek...

 

Prime Universe Star Trek had ships that dwarf anything in STID. When Archer goes to the future, he's aboard the Enterprise J - probably the biggest Enterprise and maybe biggest Federation ship ever seen. Thing is two miles long!

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Enterprise_J

 

"Shields at minus fifteen percent."

"Oh come on, that's not even a th*BOOM*...