I'm just trying to articulate something that has been rattling around inside the soggy Pot Noodle that passes for my brain. A friend of mine summed up his feelings about STiD by wondering aloud if it is a little bit too much "in orbit" of the 2009 movie. What he meant by this is that, despite the relatively lengthy time-gap between the production of the two movies, there is precious little to show for it "in universe". It doesn't feel like STiD has progressed much from the end of the previous movie, and indeed we end STiD pretty much where the previous movie ended... Kirk and company, on the bridge, sailing outwards into space... the characters have moved on, but they've moved on to a point that we might have expected them to have reached after the first movie, given where and how the 2009 movie ended. It's like the 2009 movie has a leash... and it keeps pulling STiD back towards it... but given four years passed between production of both movies, we kind of expect the characters to have moved on 'off-screen' in that time... It's kinda like with The Motion Picture. One thing which does disappoint me about TMP is how it came ten years after TOS ended, and everybody anticipated it for that long, the actors all looked ten years older, we might reasonably expect the universe to be substantively further along... but then we're told it's been only 18 months or something like that since the TOS series ended. TWOK feels more satisfying because from the off it works on the assumption that the characters aren't the young officers they were in TOS. It assumes the universe they inhabit has developed, that time has 'moved on' since their glory days as the heroes who came back from the five year mission triumphiant. It's easier to accept this, because it tallies with all the visual evidence of it being "ten years later" production-wise. Of course, we then had the obverse scenario with the rest of the TOS movies, which all seem to take place cocurrently over only a year or two (at most) despite it being more like a decade in 'real time' and the actors all looking inappropriately older. I don't know. Maybe I set myself up for disappointment when I expected, from the final scene in the 2009 movie, to see our heroes 'boldly going' out into space. The opening scene of STiD captured that feeling beautifully, but the main plot just felt like a continuation of 2009 (in fact, in places it sometimes felt like a reset button, particularly the character of Kirk). Or maybe just that the writers heard a few of the criticisms of the 2009 movie, and felt they had an opportunity to address some of those by explicitly setting it not-too-long afterwards. Really, I guess I'm saying, I hope the third movie doesn't tie itself chronologically so close to the first two. It'd be nice to feel that the crew have been 'out there' for a while already when the movie begins...
It wouldn't have worked to make it more than the 1 year, this Trilogy is "The Hero's journey". movie 1 - Hero/Chosen One is thrust into a Destiny/Leadership Role before he's ready, because of his potential Movie 2 - Hero shows his leadership weakness (still too reckless) and completes his transformation to "The Hero" when his Mentor is killed and finally earns his position by the end If it had been 4 years in between, that's far too long for The Hero, not to have gained the Leadership experience to not be so reckless and reactive.
It would make sense for Kirk to still be reckless AND in command of the Enterprise after only a few months. Say he's been in command for over 4 years, and he was still making such stupid mistakes as he did at the beginning of STiD? That would have been a big f***-up for Starfleet Command, to still have such a clearly incompetent man in command. After six months though, enough time has passed for Command to have given Kirk some changes to prove he was really ready for Command and still look competant when they realized he wasn't.
I think the one year gap (from 2258.42 to 2259.55) was good to continue Kirk and Spock's plotlines from the first movie. But it does make for a very cramped schedule on the baddie side - Khan's resurrected by Marcus and put to work designing weapons, including the USS Vengeance which was then built all in the space of 12 months (pretty impressive for Starfleet's biggest ever ship - we know the new Enterprise took at least 3 years to build) Then we skip 2 weeks for Kirk's recovery and THEN a whole year for his memorial speech and the relaunch of the Enterprise. The movie then ends so similarly to the '09 one it almost feels like a little side story taking place between the last shots of that film. So... the timing's a bit crazy. But I forgive it
^Spot on, as usual, King Daniel Into Darkness. Concerning the Vengeance only taking one year to construct - I believe Section 31 would not operate under the same time/resource constraints as regular Starfleet. Or, perhaps additionally or not, starships may be easier to build in space after all.
well if we're going with the Hero's journey then we should look at star wars take at it's timeline The Empire Strikes Back takes place 3 years after Episode IV. and Return of the Jedi takes place a year later where Luke seems to be a more experience jedi and seem to have hone his jedi senses to where he can take on Darth Vader and the emperor. if they do this with James Kirk then the third move will show him at a time where we see him at a time where he is more experienced and more seasoned and not so reckless.
I agree with King daniel on that there should have been a gap between end of 09 and STiD...the weeks recovery for Pike, and then also reconstruction of the Enterprise (wasn't it damaged fairly severely?) Maybe Kirk having some "real" experience as a Lt. Commander on some working vessel, until Enterprise was repaired. I imagine the Enterprise also needed a shakedown cruise...not sure if it needed Kirk to be in Command to make it happen, or if Pike could have commanded a such a low -risk assignment. I think Kirk COULD have had a year or two, and still have some reckless behavior. Didn't PRIME Kirk make similar reckless actions in his 5 year mission? Hopefully in 3, we'll have a more seasoned Kirk. I would love for 4 to be more comical...maybe mix Diane Duane's DC Comics 2 parter with the 2 races "taking over" the enterprise, and/or adventures with Harry Mudd (and perhaps a female partner).
I always figured there was only a one year gap because they wanted to stick close to the kind of person Kirk was rather than show him a few years later where he'd likely gained more experience and matured as a person. Also, a one year gap was enough (for the writers, at least) to have the whole backstory of Khan being discovered and the Vengeance being built and launched.