So why doesn't Spock save Vulcan?

Orci is claiming that he wishes to leave behind the past for a more realistic fiction in which there are no GRANDFATHER PARADOXES. He wants a more realistic Trek. Connecting old Trek to new via the overlap of universes and the causal connection of people hopping from one universe to another undermines this avowed intention.

A hard reboot does not necessarily mean a more realistic universe. A soft reboot, however, involves swirling an unrealistic old universe into your new universe.

 

He just wants to use a different piece of science.

 

And that avowed intention would be better served by a hard reboot. Instead, he's mixed his peanut butter with his chocolate and we now have a Trek universe with closed-loop and branching time travel. Since closed-loop time travel is still available, so remains the problem of causal paradoxes, and so is the option fixing the past (as Old Spock has done in his past). And with that option comes the question, which I have asked.

It is just a question. It is not a gotcha which undoes nu-Trek. It does not amount to a claim that nu-Trek is an "epic fail." It is simply a coherentist test of the narrative with which we've been presented. Is this an odd detail or isn't it?

 

I think you are reading too much into what Orci, Kurtzman, or Abrams say in an attempt to catch them at some sort of inconsistency of thought, rather than simply watching the product as presented on the screen.

 

In the context of Star Trek? No.

 

1. Then the general context of Star Trek should be noted to be curious in this aspect. We should admit that Trek is generally flawed in how it deploys these lopsided narrative devices. And it is, therefore, unfortunate that Orci in wishing to improve Trek by leaving behind causal paradoxes left the back door open with his reboot.

2. We have seen, as I have noted, that even though Spock has NOT cheated to save various colonies and alien worlds, he has been MORE than willing to cheat time to save Earth. Since Vulcan (and his mother) are at least as salient/proximate to Spock as Earth. And since Spock has been willing to correct incursions/alterations to timelines in the past, he should have more than enough justification and motivation to save Vulcan.

 

1) I like that Star Trek used to strive to tell the best story possible, despite what came before.

2) That's not Spock Prime's mother. His mother and father lived and died in another timeline.

 

Nu-trek can still be "more realistic" without being "real-world realistic". It is simply a more realistic slant on THE FAMILIAR STAR TREK UNIVERSE.

For example, Casino Royale (2006) was certainly more realistic in tone than, say, A View to Kill, but it was still far from being a realistic representation of the actual world. Casino Royale was 'realistic' only within the framework of the James Bond world.

 

What Abrahms, Kurtzman, and Orci are too polite to say is, "Jesus H. Christ, shut the fuck up about the minutiae of temporal physics and just enjoy the movie. Or DON'T enjoy it; your choice. We liked the Original Series, too, but our primary purpose here, and the studio's, is to make money and get as much mileage out of the franchise as we can. If you think you can do it better, sell the powers-that-be a script and maybe they'll make YOUR movie."

 

What is the best story? If it is the one which is the most realistic, then Trek has always been in trouble (which is why quoting Orci doing his best to justify Trek in terms of quantum physics is preposterous). If it is to tell a story which is most coherent, then Orci would have been better served by a hard reboot. Just start over and perhaps never even raise the prospect of backward time travel.

If you're going to boldly go in a new direction, then just boldly go, and leave old Trek behind without a passing of the torch narrative.

And yet Old Spock still reported that he was emotionally compromised. And this means he still had motivation as well as justification.

 

1) The best story is the most entertaining story. Period.

2) Spock Prime was showing Kirk the avenue to take in order to gain command of the Enterprise. Yes, he was upset as well. But the whole point was to get Kirk into the captains chair.

 

Curious. Why then in the extended quotation which was presented in this thread did Orci go on at length about the minutiae of temporal physics? If you wanted to direct attention away from physics and coherence, why then would you stand on them as justification for your story?

Can't we ask these questions and still enjoy our stories?

Why do we have to chose between asking narrative questions and enjoyment?

Why should I respect the mere motivation to make money? I am sure that if one of the Harry Potter kids made a porn movie, it would make money, but I am unaware why I, for that reason, would be obligated to respect that purpose.

I am sure that these people want to exploit the Trek franchise to milk it for every dime. I do not blame them for wanting to make money, but I do not - for that reason - feel any duty to praise their choices.

In that case, every film critic in the world should be out of business. Every professor who ever analyzed a poem or short story or play should cease and desist. Any woman or man who never did or could play professional sports should stand mute and never again comment upon a sporting event.

I don't own a factory. Do I need to own one to be able to note a defect in a product? I can't produce cars in my garage. Should I not, for that reason, criticize a Ford for having defective brakes.

The list of informal fallacies in this thread is staggering.

 

What is staggering is the amount of energy you are devoting to parsing out the flaws (real or otherwise) in a fluffy piece of popcorn entertainment. (Well, it's not really staggering, given some other stuff I've read around here over the years, but the degree of pomposity you are employing is rather excessive, even within these parts.)

Feel free to point out whatever flaws you perceive. Feel free to offer up explanations for the flaws. Feel free to offer alternative suggestions to the flaws. Feel free to be exasperated that others don't have the same views as you.

DO NOT feel free to presume you are somehow superior to those who disagree with you (a strong undercurrent of many of your posts--as is usually the case when pomposity rears its head).

Besides, it not as if everyone disagrees with everything you've said. It's that many of us simply don't care enough to get in a tizzy over whatever flaws you've identified that we might also have seen.

Critics and professors can of course continue of analyze and critique things to their hearts' content (as can you). But most of those I've known (in each category) also know well enough to categorize various forms of art and entertainment and apply standards accordingly. Star Trek simply isn't that high up the scale.

 

LOL, it's a Trek forum. It's where we come to talk at ridiculous lengths about unimportant details.

Because I asked the question? Because I've discussed my side of the question?

OK.

But I am not exasperated. Indeed, how could I (allegedly) exude pompous superiority in the face of opposition if I were?

OK, I am not superior. But it is kinda curious that Spock doesn't save Vulcan, ain't it?

And I do not disagree with many things they have said.

It is just a movie. It is certainly no worse a flaw (if that is what it is) than many Trek tale has exhibited. The makers were trying to appease the old while creating the new, a difficult challenge.

So we're back to genre pleading? Strange then, that so many critics asked what the odds were that Kirk would just happen to stumble into the same cave as Old Spock.
Someone should have told them that they only get to criticize high art.

The standard I am applying is coherence, which is about as minimal as standards get.

I think the healthiest thing to do would be to shrug, even admit that it is an open question, rather than respond as if the very question were a sign of an infection which needed to be purged.

 

I feel as if this thread is picking at the nits that could be found in all of Star Trek -- if not almost all movies in general.

Star Trek fans have a long history of shaping "Star Trek logical reality" based on what is presented on the screen -- and what is presented often required some creative shaping to fit what we thought we previously knew about Star Trek (and what was previously presented).

Back on Saturday afternoons in the 1970s watching Star Trek reruns, my friends and I would sit around making up explanations for what we saw on TV that day, trying to make it fit into the "greater Star Trek Universe" that existed in our minds -- and quite a bit of rationalizing needed to be done to make it fit. I'd say the same thing happened with trying to fit TNG into the TOS universe.

It seems we are abandoning that long-standing tradition with this thread.

 

I'd rather not repeat answers and analysis that are already freely available in this thread. If you really did not catch the response, ask the question again, and I'll cut-and-paste the response.

Worship as we may at the altar of authorial intention, authors must still be held to account for what they accomplish, not just what they intended to accomplish. Indeed, we are nearing the old Intentional Fallacy (Wimsatt and Beardsley) if we presume that the author is the God with regard to the meaning and value of a work.

Again, I have already detailed how both universes are intermingled and how we cannot suppose tout court that slingshotting is not an option. All the evidence present to us in the text indicates that it is.

Star Trek is not reality, it is fantasy. There is no "physics of red matter," there is no actual "warp mechanics" which underwrites the function of the engines of starships. If Star Trek shows us in a film that there is red matter which magically creates black holes from nail polish, then in that universe, this is the case. If Star Trek shows us Spock slingshotting around the sun to go back in the same timeline, then this is simply the case.

In short, what fiction posits has greater standing, in term of internal consistency, than what the real-world allows. Our test in this case is coherence. If you want to get all real-world on Star Trek, then the whole universe falls apart. We cannot preferentially defend Star Trek as being real world in some aspects, but then arbitrarily beg off that standard when Trek is not real world. Real world physics has nothing to do with it.

In which case,

The City on the Edge of Forever never existed, Assignment: Earth never existed,
The Naked Time never existed,
Tomorrow is Yesterday never existed,
All our Yesterdays never existed, and
Star Trek IV never existed.

And it isn't just this. What else never existed? Let's see...

Star Trek: First Contact
We'll Always Have Paris
Time Squared
Yesterday's Enterprise
Captain's Holiday
A Matter of Time
Cause and Effect
Time's Arrow
Time's Arrow, Part II
Tapestry
Timescape
Firstborn
All Good Things...
Past Tense, Part I
Past Tense, Part II
Visionary
The Visitor
Little Green Men
Accession
Trials and Tribble-ations
Children of Time
Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night
Time's Orphan
Parallax
Time and Again
Eye of the Needle
Death Wish
Future's End
Future's End, Part II
Before and After
Timeless
Relativity
Fury
Shattered
Endgame
Cold Front
Shockwave
Shockwave, Part II
Future Tense
Carpenter Street
Azati Prime
E²
Zero Hour
Storm Front
Storm Front, Part II

Indeed, it appears that the Prime Universe never existed! And I thought I was assured that it was still "there" and still "real." Now I find that Old Spock's history and Prime Trek history does not exist anymore. Perhaps it wasn't Old Spock who came through that black hole after all? It is rather, Old Spock lite, with only those historical details that uncomplicate the reality of nu-Trek. So much for the soft-reboot, this is more like getting the boot.

What matters more than the confabulations and apologias of the guys who write the story are the details of the stories they actually tell.

There is nothing about the topic which serves as a trap forcing my opponents to use fallacious arguments.

It's not playing "Gotcha" when Sarah Palin cannot answer obvious straightforward questions about national policy. Likewise, it's not playing gotcha, when the opposition hastily reaches for bad reasons in response to questions.

Of course not. Rather it is the fallacious nature of the arguments themselves which makes them fallacious.

It's not that I object to an Ad Hominem because I'd rather hear agreement, but because an Ad Hominem is so often a weak argument.

 

I've given you reasons why Spock can't just slingshot and save Vulcan, in-universe, and you chose to ignore them.

If he goes back pre-Narada, he changes the course of the universe for billions of beings. He eliminates twenty-five years of existence.

If he goes back to just before the destruction of Vulcan, Jim Kirk never makes it to the captains chair.

 

So if it turns out warp speed and beaming is impossible...