My Grievances of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies: Kelvin Universe' started by Mycroft Maxwell, Sep 22, 2013.

  1. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    They threw out all believability for Starfleet as a military organization when Spock was able to hijack the Enterprise and head for the planet of death without even a hand slap afterward in season one.

    For me, the reason Enterprise failed was it was boring and constantly covering ground the other shows had in the absolutely least interesting way possible.
     
  2. SeerSGB

    SeerSGB Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    There's never been any believability to Kirk or his crew. If there was he'd been stripped of command a dozen times over before the end of TOS. He's a superhero, in the same vain as pre-crisis Batman or even Hal Jordan; he's a larger than life character, always has been.
     
  3. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    I did say relatively speaking. If Starfleet's behaviour in TOS was often subject to the distortions of script crunches and narrative convenience, it was streaks more credible as an attempt at believability than any televised SF that came before it. NuTrek has no such excuses.
     
  4. SeerSGB

    SeerSGB Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    Except scale: TOS had 79 episodes and it still made sacrifices in believability to serve the story. The movies have two hours, so in terms of scale they need to make more sacrifices to move the story along; they don't get the luxury of world building and a lot of detailed background info.
     
  5. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    Now you're trying to make excuses and moving the goal posts.

    Do you know why I started watching Star Trek? Because it was fun to watch and didn't take itself too seriously. It's the exact same reason I like the Abrams films. The fun and adventure come first. I don't need it to be a training video on military promotion rules and practices. YMMV.
     
  6. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    "Larger-than-life" and "superhero" are different things. Kirk was later inflated into a superhero, but -- for all his improbable seductions and getting-saved-by-the-script-writer -- he is still a heroic character on the actual show, closer to Horatio Hornblower than Superman. He struggles with human issues, he sometimes fails or has to be saved by blind luck, he gets things wrong and muddles through. The Kirk-as-a-superhero business is a retcon that doesn't fit his portrayal on the show.
     
  7. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    I'm not moving any goalposts. The goalposts are firmly situated around believability, more of it being better, less of it being not-better, and writing getting and losing points for moving toward and away from them accordingly.
     
  8. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    Sure it does. Kirk always wins no matter how improbable the odds.
     
  9. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    Then TOS should get 0 points because very little of it was actually believable and I say that as someone who ranks it as their favorite show of all time.
     
  10. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    Actually he doesn't. The mission portrayed in "Metamorphosis," for example, is strictly-speaking a failure. He has to be saved from himself by the aliens-of-the-week in "Errand of Mercy," and winds up embarrassed. He usually wins as befits the protagonist of an action show, but he is simply not the all-conquering demigod later myth inflates him into.
     
  11. SeerSGB

    SeerSGB Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    The Hornblower nonsense is post TOS PR bullshit. TOS is a fucking western in space. Kirk is a gunslinger in a white hat that rides into town, woos the saloon girl with a heart of gold, guns down the bad guy or crooked town mayor, and rides off into the sunset. The Hornblower shit was just an attempt to hide what TOS really was.

    And, yes even in TOS, Kirk was more super-hero than plain hero. Larger than life, heroic, and able to do shit that a common man couldn't. Maybe more western cowboy than crimefighter, but cut from the same cheesy comic-book cloth.
     
  12. Opus

    Opus Commodore Commodore

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    All of Trek suspends belief as a military organization. There's no way these crews would stay together as long as they did. People are moved around often to ensure personnel get the most experience in a wide variety of jobs and with a number of different commands.

    Some seem to be holding nuTrek to a standard that Trek has never held.

    Again.
     
  13. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    Now, Bill, you're the one moving goalposts. I said writing gets points for moving toward believability, which Trek in fact did do. If you are telling me you think TOS Trek was on the same footing in that regard as Lost in Space, then with greatest respect, I would have to question your credibility as a judge of what "believability" actually means.
     
  14. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    Actually it's in the original series writer's bible. Nice try.
     
  15. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    Not so. I've said quite clearly that NuTrek isn't the first to play silly-buggers with believability. Just that Trek at its best has tacked toward it, and at its worst has suffered for tacking away from it. NuTrek most certainly represents, to me, "at its worst;" I find it hard to think of a prior deformation of Starfleet behaviour that compares to miraculously promoting Kirk to the captain's chair from the rank of cadet.
     
  16. Opus

    Opus Commodore Commodore

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    Star Trek - Ludicrous faster-than-light speeds using magic rocks.

    Totally Real!

    Riiiiiiight....
     
  17. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    Very nice that you clipped my comment mid-sentence... :rolleyes:

    You know who else had the opportunity to go from Lieutenant to Captain? Number One from "The Cage", something happens to Pike and as first officer she is the next in the line for command. You also had Lieutenant Commander Spock early in season one who was next in line for command and had never even commanded a survey mission before ("The Galileo Seven").

    So what exactly is so believable about how TOS handled rank and command in comparison to the Abramsverse?
     
  18. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    "There's fantastical things happening, so we don't have to worry about believability" is the lamest possible defense of bad SF writing.
     
  19. BigJake

    BigJake Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    Sorry, were either of your examples actually promoted to the rank of Captain? And were they so from the rank of cadet? Your question answers itself.
     
  20. Opus

    Opus Commodore Commodore

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    Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

    So is holding nuTrek to a standard that the rest of Trek was never held to, like the way military moves around personnel.