Why doesn't Spock Prime go back in time to save Vulcan?

What that tells me is that they are using Quantum Mechanics to take an approach that departs from past Time Travel methodology. They are actually not breaking canon, but creating a compatible retcon. They may not have been all that eloquent in what they said, but that's what they did/tried to do.

Again, it is not disingenuous. It was done for a good reason.

I have to conclude that the characters involved did NOT know about the Alternate Realities that were being created each time. Remember the cat in the box.

The theory they used is:
a) A valid, current theory.
b) Provides a framework through which they can do a reboot within continuity.

Without examining each and every time-travel story in detail, which you have not done to prove your point, I'm putting in the same effort as yourself.

You have actually failed to show how MWI contradicts what we have seen in the past. Therefore, a retcon of real science, that solves the reconciliation problem, is acceptable.

There is a difference between a change in presentation, and a contradition.

Leaving out your insults, because they are irrelevent, I submit that they have hinted at, and shown through evidence, even if not conclusively through dialog, that MWI works.

Also, based on the on-screen evidence, I see nothing that disproves their interpretation.

Their explanation, therefore, becomes the deciding factor.

It's about the prioritizing of authority.

1) On Screen presentation (demonstrated to be inadequate in and of itself.
2) Writer's Intent (well established and in line with on-screen presentation)
3) Fan assertion (your statements that it is wrong, with no on-screen evidence to prove otherwise).

Another example: Deckard is a Replicant. On screen evidence hints at this, though there is no dialog directly alluding to this. The Director's preference that he is a Replicant is a clarification to fans that it is the case.

The REAL solution is the fact that there would be no movie if he thought of it.

In-universe, it is not established what/how Spock was thinking beyond what he says and does.

From my perspective, all we can really do is speculate. Spock may have, prior to being thrown back in time, gained a better understanding of what really happens in Time Travel (MWI), an understanding that Kirk and crew previously had no reason to believe.

Indeed, Spock relies on Kirk's assumption of the old model for his act-of-faith, so that their friendship could develop properly.

This has not been demonstrated to me convincingly, and is not relevent to this specific issue.

Thanks for the opportunistic cheap shot at the movie, but consider it disregarded.

 

Given that quantum signatures for determining your correct reality were established in Parallels, and AFAIK at no other time did people, after universe-jumping, actually check their quantum signatures, I'd be curious to hear what proof there is that the time travelers et al. actually did return to their proper timeline instead of a very similar one in an alternate universe.

 

They're linking the new movie to past Trek in order to appeal to existing fans... but simultaneously telling those fans that they have to swallow a retcon of past Trek in the bargain? Sorry, but that's asking fans to take a slap in the face and say thank-you for it.

But a complete reboot wouldn't have retconned anything. It would simply be a new version of Trek, completely separate from what went before, that fans of past Trek could either embrace or ignore as they chose.

(Casino Royale doesn't tell its viewers that they have to forget about the Sean Connery/cold war version of James Bond in order to appreciate the movie. Batman Begins doesn't tell viewers that they have to reinterpret their understanding of the comics or the TV show or any other incarnation of the character in order for the movie to work. So why on earth should the writers of Star Trek make such a demand — insisting that this is an interpretation that takes precedence, rather than simply a distinct and different one?)

A retcon is a change to canon. That's what the word means. What distinction are you seeing here?

And that reason would be?...

(It's certainly not that the retcon is necessary for this film's story to work, since the film itself suggests nothing of the kind, as I've already explained at some length.)

That's a retcon that I categorically reject, since it completely undermines the dramatic impact of the stories in question.

But they didn't do a reboot "within continuity." That's my point. If we take them at their word, then the reboot requires a significant reinterpretation of continuity.

And it's really not necessary to take them at their word... since, as I already explained, the film at face value is completely open to an interpretation that's actually consistent with past Trekian time travel.

I don't think you understand how the burden of proof works in an argument. I'm not making any assertions that require any elaborate explanation or "proof" — all I'm saying is that past Trek time travel stories operated the way we always understood that they did. It's O&K (and you) who are claiming a retcon is necessary... and thus they (and you) who bear the burden of demonstrating how it would work.

If MWI had "always" been the rule for Trek time-travel, then there would be no "prime" timeline. Instead, our characters would have unwittingly shifted among literally dozens of alternate universes. And there are quite a few episodes, including widely recognized classics like "City," that would quite simply be reduced to incoherence by such an assumption. Clear enough?

And I don't have a clue what "reconciliation problem" you're talking about. Sorry.

The writers of this movie have (some) control over the presentation of this movie. They have no business making a "change in presentation" of any past Trek, nor any need to do so.

What "insults"? That O&K aren't particularly clever? I think a look at their cumulative body of work amply supports the charge, so it's hardly ad hominem, but never mind that. You didn't actually answer the question, which was: why defer to them?

First of all: argumentum ad ignorantium.

Second: so what? I've never argued that the MWI approach to this story is impossible. I've just argued that it's unnecessary and undesirable, and moreover that even if we accept it for the sake of argument, it doesn't actually explain Spock's motivations as questioned in this thread.

Argumentum ad verecundiam and the "intentional fallacy," wrapped into one. Or, to put it more bluntly: authors don't get to dictate how their work should be interpreted.

Yeah, that's what I meant when I pointed out that it's an idiot plot. A story that only works if your smartest characters don't think of obvious things is a bad story. The question animating this thread is merely one example; the film's infested with this kind of thing. The story really should have been rethought from the ground up. Saying so is by no means a "cheap shot"; on the contrary it's a logical (indeed almost unavoidable) conclusion from this entire discussion.

At any rate, you still haven't answered the basic question I posed you: what is it that's so important to you about this film — and more specifically, the writers' interpretation of this film — that's you're willing to sacrifice any part of past Trek in order to preserve it?

I see no upside to that trade-off. If you do, then I ask with completely sincerity: please explain why.

 

The "prime timeline" in that case simply being the designation for the last of those alternate universes inhabited by Nimoy-Spock.

 

And if Star Trek were either a book series or a comic series being adapted to the live action medium instead of going from one live action medium to well one it was already in you would make a valid point, but since it isn't you DON'T.

[rant]
Also you can make changes when making a comic story a movie IT'S CALLED ADAPTING. This is the worst argument them people against the movie could have come up with because it operates on the assumption that Batman and James Bond only existed on TV and movies.

Oh, and to changing the nature of the comics DC did that whenever they damned well felt like it seeing as the reboot the whole universe every now and again.
[/rant]

 

Some might say that a reset button for any possible negative outcome is a "bad story".

How do you really know what any character’s thinking? The idea that he simply "didn't think of" anything significant has seen adequate refutation here, and relies wholly on an interpretation which dispenses completely with authorial intent. In other words, there's some degree of circular logic at work there. Furthermore, if we’re talking about time travel, why would the process have to be set within the time covered by the film, as opposed to afterward?

The explosion of the Hobus Star is still in the Abramsverse future. Spock Prime knows what must be done to deal with it. In the long term they are already expecting to have to use a technology which enables time travel.

 

They have done nothing that makes any past Trek stories incorrect. Period.

They could not do a DIRECT reboot because fans did not want a reboot, and never did.

Because without precedence, there is no deciding factor, and thus no resolution.

By ignoring this, you are placing personal preference ahead of the writers' intent.

A Retcon, in this case, is establishing something new that alters the perception of past events, without changing them. Perhaps clarifying change would be more accurate.

The reasons for the Writer's Alternate Reality explanation, and intended/hinted-at time travel model, is obvious and straightforward. It preserves existing continuity while establishing a fresh start, and an easy entry point.

Why? The characters feel the same dilemmas, and observe the same things, and when a character dies, they still die.

Incorect. They actually, DID reboot within continuity.

Then where's the reset button that would allow the original, unaltered timeline to continue? THAT is what would be needed to be truly consistent with linear Time Travel within Star Trek. Your interpretation would also cause both the Grandfather Paradox, and force everything after 2233 to be erased.

THAT is something I and many others REFUSE TO ACCEPT.

Proven false. No reset button means changes are permanent, and cause-and-effect prevents this from being the case.

This has been demonstrated time and again, by countless people, and you still ignore it.

Prime Timeline is a simplified term for previously established continuity.

Correct. Each trip back creates an Alternate Reality.

Not within the internal viewpoint of the characters. It's not incomprehensible.

They did not change the presentation of Time Travel in past Trek. They portrayed Time Travel in a new way for the movie, that is compatible with past trek.

Actually, I will repeat, in different terms, my basic reason:
- On Screen evidence does not provide the untimate answer.
- The Writers have provided one in clarifying their thinking.
- Their answer makes sense with what was on screen for both the movie and past Trek.

It goes some way toward a possible explanation. If he realized tha MWI was indeed the case, then he would have reasoned that he could not change things by going back in time.

That is up to those interpreting their work. I add more weight to their POV, because they know what they intended.

If a law is not clear, then a Judge has to go to the origins of the law to establish the Spirit or Intent of said law.

I liked the general story, and the time-travel aspect was a good solution to the problem, IMHO.

I am not sacrificing anything of past trek. With linear time, I see cause-and-effect issues, as explained countless times, which is completely illogical.

Also, as I explained countless times, Star Trek history established after 2233.04 would be completely erased, so I would be sacrificing ALL Star Trek continuity after that point.

To be frank, the Time Travel element was made so that there is no part of past trek that is irrelevent or disgarded. It maintains, and inherits, all that has gone before, while at the same time providing a new starting point.

 

*Sigh*

No, it doesn't. As you yourself acknowledged just a few posts ago, and as the Orci quote confirms if one honors "authorial intent," it maintains and inherits some of what has gone before, while discarding or radically reinterpreting other parts. What it giveth with one hand (a connection to past continuity), it taketh away with the other (the integrity of that continuity).

We're obviously not going to see eye-to-eye on this, since your whole concept of temporal logic seems to be at odds with mine, but I maintain that the interpretation I outlined in post #86 is the best way to make everybody happy — an understanding of this film's temporal mechanics that let the movie work as-is without altering anything from past Trek.

After all... honestly, personally, I can't imagine anything from past Trek that I'd be willing to sacrifice for the sake of this godawful movie. (Well, I exaggerate slightly. I could give up "Thresholds" from VOY. And maybe ST: Insurrection. But I'd chuck those for free even without this film. And other than that? No...)

 

You exaggerate A LOT.

 

lawman, it broke nothing. Show me what was broken by the Alternate Reality.

What, in TOS, was portrayed on screen that could not have happened with the Alternate Reality explanation, and the events of the movie?

If you violate cause and effect, it is the end of everything after 2233.04, and the Trek universe literally looses all logical cohesion. That's the truth.

 

C'mon. Think back to before O&K got interviewed about their reboot rationalizations last year. Are you seriously suggesting that for your entire history as a fan, watching and reading the 40-odd years of Trek material out there (or for that matter any other SF that took a similar approach), that whenever a time-travel story came up you found yourself angsting about it, upset that the writers just didn't understand the importance of the Multiple Worlds Interpretation and the way changing timelines were inextricably bound up with parallel universes? That whenever history got "rescued" from a divergence or a predestination paradox was revealed, you gave up on the story because it violated causality and undermined the very integrity of the fictional setting?

I seriously doubt it.

The MWI can be a valid vehicle for interesting stories. I've never denied that. (Larry Niven's "All The Myriad Ways" springs to mind, although it obviously wouldn't be fodder for an ongoing franchise.) But it's not the only one, and it's never been the one used in Star Trek, nor is it logically necessary for it to be used even for this Star Trek story. (No matter how much enthusiasm a particular pair of writers may express for it in background interviews.)

Fair enough?

 

I would say that I never assumed that the crew really did return to exactly the same timeline they'd departed from, especially in cases like First Contact where the changes seem more potentially significant.

Certainly not after Parallels, which blatantly illustrated that there are multiple timelines.

I feel some concern that in using the term 'Prime', TPTB may have inadvertently suggested to some people that previously there really was only one standard timeline, when we have no particular reason to assume that.

 

(Aren't we seeing MWI in LOST?)

My In-Universe explanation for Spock seemingly forgetting the past has to do with the Black Hole, it is wild card in this equation. I believe Spock, knowing Time Travel has never occurred before in this way, somehow deduced he is in a separate Universe and concluded the obvious, using some prior method of TT to reset this universes past would be wrong, this universe DTI would be all over anyone trying to change history.

In other words, it cannot be changed because it was supposed to happen.

 

When I said "death to the big red reset button", I didn't mean to delve into a philosophical discussion about what it is, what it means, what its implications are and how it makes better humans out of us....

....I just think that "resetting" something as huge as the destruction of Vulcan at the end of the film would have been totally stupid and would have thrown all credibility out of the window. Plus it would have ruined the experience for me.

Actions have consequences. Applying The Big Reset for fear of causing an uproar is a bad, bad, bad solution and totally sucks. The Big Reset and Deus Ex Machina take all the fun, excitement and thrill out of a film/episode/book/what have you.

 

I see where you're going here, and I did not get upset. Those stories were, for the most part, great stories, and even with the Alternate Reality/MWI explanation, I still enjoy them.

The reason is the fun and the characters.

With any linear/overwriting model, all that is erased. All of those great stories, would effectively be gone, never to have happened in-universe.

And Spock Prime? Never born. And for all of the actual bad science this film does have (black holes and supernova), the writers are not given the credit they are due for using GOOD science as a story device.

Rather than lamenting a dramatic tension which, after first seeing an episode, is not as strong as the first viewing anyway, I'm enjoying the possibilities of a future unwritten.

I've demonstrated, via the cause-and-effect problem, precisely the opposit in terms of it working in the movie.

Obviously it was never the one used for Time Travel in past Star Trek stories, or we would not be debating this.

We'll simply have to agree to disagree, but logically, cause-and-effect simply cannot be ignored. At least from my perspective.

The other possibility is that the method of time travel affects whether or not the Alternate Reality is created.

However, the drawback to that is simply this:

- No logic as to why this would ever be the case.

In the end, one cannot have a Chicken without the Egg it hatched from.

 

The entire argument boils down to Paramount, Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman trying to fix something that wasn't broken to begin with. Both with the way time travel stories are told within the Trek universe and the Trek franchise itself.

The reason City on the Edge of Forever, Star Trek IV and Star Trek: First Contact are all very popular is because the stakes. That if our characters don't fix things, then everything they know is lost. These stories are dramatically satisfying because of the stakes. The night I saw Star Trek 2009 I didn't care about Vulcan or Amanda because I knew these were just clones of the original designed to make me think something epic happened when nothing really had.

And let's all remember that it wasn't Star Trek that was broken. Those characters and stories are part of modern mythology for a reason. It was Modern Trek that was broken. The story telling had become stagnant and the general population had moved on.

So I do congratulate 'The Powers That Be' for coming in and fixing exactly nothing except turning Trek into 'lowest common denominator' fair.

 

Given you paid to see it anyway, I doubt TPTB are going to be particularly upset by your feelings.

Now, if your concerns are echoed by enough of those who saw the film to impact the success of a sequel, we can revisit them.

 

So my feelings don't count since I paid to see it. And if I hadn't paid to see it you would have come in and told me 'my feelings' didn't count because I didn't pay to see it.

The logic of this board is definitely... unique.

 

Thank you for telling me what I would have said. Guess that saves us both time and effort.

"Money talks." No matter how much you might have disliked the movie, you gave the people you disdain money, which is all the reason they need to think the movie was successful.

Next time you disapprove of something, I suggest -not- endorsing it with your wallet. I might be going out on a limb here, but I have this wild notion that that would make more of an impression.

 

Given that Enterprise failed, and Nemesis failed, Star Trek as a property was not "broken", but clearly needed an upgrade.

THAT is WHY this was done. To preserve past Canon (for us fans) while making changes necessary for a wider, more modern audience.

To say the fixed nothing is to ignore that a fix and a necessary upgrade are two separate things.

This is called a straw man.