Fixing the Films (JJ edition).

I'm not against seeing ships leave dock. But after twelve movies and seven hundred TV episodes, there is a very "been there, done that" feeling to it.

If they had just done another drydock reveal, people would've been complaining about how unimaginative Abrams and his people were.

 

"Appropriate"? Do you actually read the stuff you write?

Calm down a bit Mrs Grundy. Or you might need a new avatar.

 

Of course the starbase has transporters and a receiving pad isn't necessary for successful transport - the logic of the scene is tenuous but the flip side is that the ship isn't ready to leave yet anyway so no harm in a self-indulgent inspection. The scene does drag on (even if you fast forward it, it feels long) but I love the ship almost as much as Kirk so I will let it have a pass.

My objection to the Enterprise underwater scene and the (almost) crash scene later is more that it represents another step towards more magical technology. The massive ship can defy gravity with ease and without any kind of energy backwash. The more magical the technology, the more contrived the peril has to be to put the characters under pressure. The 'humanity' of the characters is what makes it exciting. Modern era action movies are falling into similar traps with their ludicrous CGI stunts. If i see another hero casually walking away from a massive explosion behind them, I may just scream.

 

It gives them a reason to give us a tour of the Enterprise.

 

Perhaps there is a security screen emitted by the drydock that prevents intruders from simply beaming onto the ship. Maybe that's why pads are needed to board the ship by transporter.

 

``I mean, sure starships have always had magical antigravity, and always had the energy needed to blow up a planet, and always had the power available to leap from a standing start to eight thousand times the speed of light, and always had the shields and structural integrity to crash into an asteroid and come out basically okay, but now how am I supposed to buy one holding its own against a rip tide? And in the gulfstream of all currents!''

``That doesn't even mention the problems caused when it's kissed by feral koi.''

 

So Voyager being able to enter and leave atmosphere is fine, coz it's a new ship and new tech and *handwavey motions*

But when the Nu-Enterrpise - which is also a new ship with new tech that we've never seen before - does it, it's a step towards magical technology? Even though Treks always had magical shields that (based on how we've seen them used) should make it a non-issue anyway?

And it's not like the ship was in the crushing depths of the ocean. Not when Kirk and McCoy can swim to it without so much as a helmet.

 

The first Star Trek fan was named Hypocrisy.

 

This is what I used to say, too. People can accept humans instantly evolving or de-evolving, warp speed, sentient androids, aliens that look similar to each other but with different foreheads, transporters, time travel, instant communication between two people thousands of light years apart, "always on" gravity even when the ship has no power, and much, much more, but something like a starship sitting on the ocean floor is too much? It's all about what we're willing to accept. If you accept one pseudo-scientific explanation, you should be willing to accept another as long as it's consistent in-universe, because it's all fantasy, folks.

 

DING DING DING DING DING! FTW!

 

1000% this.

 

Having thought long and hard about it, theres some pretty minor/major but simple changes that would greatly improve my enjoyment of the films.

09: Ditch the brewery/have a goddamned CG Warp core to act as a focal point and distract from the random pipes. This is an addition, but during the warp to Vulcan, I'd have had the other ships visible as blips on the HUD viewscreen that you can see drop out of warp, then go dark. Then you have a shot of everyone looking at each other with unease before the dropout to the debris field.

Into Darkness: Swap the Characters of Kirk and Spock whilst keeping their actions the same. Spock breaking the prime directive to save Kirk is a huge deal - with Kirk, the general perception is that he does it 10 times before lunch. This is Spock going against logic to save his friend. The needs of the one over the many. This adds some dimension to the friendship. Kirk responds to Khan's attack on the meeting at first the same way, but after Pike dies Spock gets emotional (he's been in the head of a dying man ffs) and he's the one who rips the unit out of the wall and hulk chucks it at the flyer. If there was a time for him to go nuts, it's after he's felt a person die in his head. This forces Spock to be the one leading the charge after Khan, and Kirk to calm him down and question everything. After all, Kirk's Captaincy was won after proving Spock to be unfit for the job after emotional distress. This solidifies that dynamic, and shows how Kirk has grown as a Captain whilst Spock kept suppressing his emotion as all good Vulcans do, but has let it rise to the surface again in light of recent events. Kirk calms Spock down, but still promises he's gonna grab the son of a bitch that did this - because he's still Kirk, after all.

Personally I'd have liked to not betray Khan, but Spock crunching the numbers and still resentful over Pike has a greater punch to it than Kirk - at least to me, Spock breaking the rules is a bigger deal than Kirk doing it. Then we have a straight up recreation of the WoK bit, because Kirk losing it is less silly looking than Spock doing it. He's brooding and angry, and that Khan scream is very...shrill and petty sounding. Spock looking pissed and muttering "Khan" is an understated take on it, as it stands, that whole scene is borderline parody. Then we have the foot chase through San francisco. I'm not entirely sure how Kirk catches up with Khan, but they have flying hovercar shuttle things, a chase on them before the punch up could be cool. Then we have the punch up. To make things fairer for Kirk, after he takes a couple of hits, he rips open a power conduit and leaves a nasty plasma burn or something on Khan which cripples him enough to make it a fair fight. Uhura manages to send a message over the communicator to Kirk in a lull during the fight - "We need Khan alive, it's the only way to save Spock!" As Khan hears this, he gives a speech about how the only way he can have his revenge is by robbing them of a chance to save Spock. Khan leaps off the barge to his death. Kirk jumps off and manages to grab him and hold onto the edge of the barge. Khan tries to fight him off and tells him the futility of the situation, he can't hold him and he can't hold onto the barge. Kirk says he's right, and lets go - the two fall as Kirk frantically screams to beam them up - seconds before hitting the ground, we follow them through the transport as the transporter pad of the Enterprise appears inches below them and they smash into it. The camera pulls up to reveal a gang of security personnel who all shoot at Khan. Then smash to black - 2 weeks later and Spock is waking up. Khan's super blood yadda yadda. Spock asks why - Kirk says - the needs of the one are sometimes greater than the needs of the many. Or at least that was the excuse Spock gave when he saved his ass on Nibiru, personally, you're my friend. And Uhura would not have spoken to me ever again. Cue speech about who we are, These are the Voyages, ship jumps to warp, the End.

 

Don't disrespect the whales.

Although, I've never seen a starship actually blow up a planet! I might have nodded off through that episode of Voyager.

I prefer it when the technology has a whiff of scientific backing and logic. So I can see how gravity generators sufficient to keep humans standing on the deck of a ship is doable. Larger gravitational manipulation would seem to be more difficult - remember Yonada? Tractor beams seem to be a variation on deflector shields rather than gravity based although if Romulans can force singularities into existence then it must be possible to create a source of gravity from scratch. TNG used graviton generators although i don't recall them existing in TOS. Negating gravity might require more thought.

I thought that impulse engines produce plasma in space where the ship is not fighting against planetary gravity and using more power produces more plasma. That sounds pretty destructive for anything nearby on a planet. They don't even like people using impulse engines in spacedock from what I recall (partly due to car park style speeding limits one assumes).

However, for whatever reason, the Enterprise was unable to use either impulse power or thrusters to control or prevent its descent and instead had to engage the warp engines. That in itself is curious. Warping space inside a planet's atmosphere sounds even worse than impulse.

So I suppose what I'm saying is that if a ship engages impulse engines in an atmosphere, I'd like to see the destruction that a plasma exhaust can cause. If a ship engages warp drive in an atmosphere, I'd like to see buildings crumple and thousands of people at the event horizon of the nice, safe bubble getting crushed and ripped to shreds. If the ship is using some kind of anti-gravity generator then I would like to see other stuff, like the ocean fly off into space. I want to see something of the fictional physics that have been created previously in action rather than a VERY heavy ship at terminal velocity performing a handbrake turn.

 

The Enterprise was in the upper atmosphere in 1967 and probably used her impulse engines then and that was fine.

The Bounty did all of that, landed, used its cloaking device and engaged her warp drive in Earth's atmosphere and that was fine.

So, obviously there are some safeguards in place that make these things okay. It's all indistinguishable from magic.

 

Two wrongs don't make a right! Bounty was far smaller and lighter than Enterprise of course, and used hydrogen thrusters to take off and land from what I recall.

We never got to see the saucer section land and take off. That would be interesting.

I come from a background of role-playing games where you have actual magic but you play within a defined set of rules. I suppose writers forgetting, reinventing, and expanding the rules beyond my expectations grates against that background.

 

Is there a specific rule that was violated?

 

None, as there are no rules. People just like to ignore when Prime Trek did something every bit as weird, needless, cinematic and effect laden for the sake of plot.

 

The Enterprise struggling to climb out of Earth's atmosphere in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" was freaking cool.