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

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

I think the worst thing that could ever happen to Star Trek is them refusing to do stories because they aren't "realistic" enough. Star Trek is suppose to be fun action-adventure with a sci-fi flavor not a manual on military promotion regulations and practices.

 

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

And it's not forbidden from doing so now, as long as it does so in a manner that seems at least remotely consistent with the way the Federation has always worked before.

Kirk could just as easily have been a young hotshot lt. cmdr. with experience, instead of a young hotshot cadet on academic suspension. Or the story could have been altered to show a threat far more devastating than ever shown before in Star Trek. Or it could have made even the slightest effort to show that Kirk had a brilliant Captain's mind and clearly was destined for greatness, rather than just telling us how special he is and then spending an hour showing him being very not special. In short, they could have actually earned it.

The Enterprise was a means to an end, the end being distributing their mind control things all over the Federation. And even then - if this sort of thing is normal for the Federation, then saving the flagship of the fleet - entirely on their own, which is much more than Kirk did - should be worth at least a promotion to Lt. JG, yet Wesley is just expected to go straight back to the academy like nothing happened.

 

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

And no matter how many times people repeat this rebuttal, it still has nothing to do with my argument. I'm not talking about realism.

 

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

Totally and utterly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. This only matters to a subset of original Trek fans (subset because there are many like me, fan since 1973, that couldn't care less about such things) and Paramount was not aiming at that subset.

 

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

Paramount was aiming for relatively mindless fun in the form of a popular action movie. And they got that. Yay for them. That's not relevant to any discussion of how good the movie actually is.

 

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

Seems I deliberately preempted that objection here. Of course that was a couple of days ago ...

Re your first point: I am not willing to say that because some relatively minor issues are compromised to make a show work, everything is fair game. Re your second point: Then don't show the boring bits, but make sure we know it happened. You are just excusing bad story telling.

I am not being a party pooper. It in no way reduces your FUN if the story is written in such a way that the aftermath is believable. Of course it may be a little harder to write.

"Unorthodox" sounds like another euphemism to me.

I can't remember a decision that compromises Starfleet's basic structure that much. Command of the Enterprise in not a bunch of flowers.

I guess they just need to realise when a particular "storytelling device" is appropriate and when it isn't or figure out a way to using it more rationally.

I wouldn't give up on "realism" quite so quickly. Putting someone in jail after they saved the planet the jail is on, is politically unpalatable to say the least! In my view the bar may have been lowered a bit for fiction but not removed completely.

Exactly.

I would. If they are going to call it Trek, it should make some sort of sense. Doing what they did wouldn't work in any universe unless it was a childerns show (assuming the makers had no respect for children).

You mean it should be allowed to tell a story whose culmination is completely irrational? I have to disagree.

And yes, we shouldn't forget that the writers made an effort to correct it. Well done for that.

 

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

We've seen seven-hundred hours out of two centuries of Earth/Federation history spread across a few ships. So, honestly, we have no real idea of how the Federation or Starfleet works.

 

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

Irrational to who exactly? The guy saved the planet and Spock Prime likely let someone in on the fact that he was going to be legendary.

 

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

Of course there are always limits, though they change depending on what kind of story you're telling. The reason I don't approach this from a standpoint of realism is twofold: 1) it is possible to tell good stories in highly unrealistic universes, and 2) there is no realistic yardstick which is actually comparable to starfleet.

If nuTrek had been a full reboot in which this sort of thing is fully acceptable, then that's just the way things work in that fictional universe. I would have no problem with that - as long as the stories themselves were also actually good stories, of course.

As for Starfleet's realism, it's fairly well established that Starfleet has some very basic philosophical differences from any modern military or paramilitary organization. Leniency in punishment is one of the most obvious consequences of that, and it's a significant pattern seen, I believe in every series - Kirk's demotion is far from the only example. Making Starfleet suddenly start throwing the book at every officer who broke the rules would be very 'realistic', but still completely out of character for this organization.

I would give them more credit for if they had said more than:

"Maybe you're not ready for command after all. Oh, wait, Pike's dead. Please, take my flagship now."

 

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

Of course, believability for an audience does depend on fitting some plausible precedent within the universe (both ours and the fictional one analoguing it) whether we know everything about it or not. That's what UFO is trying to explain to you. What you're providing here is really just another version of the lame "it's fantasy, so believability isn't relevant" bad writing defense.

 

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

We've seen several hundred hours of indications of what the Federation is probably like. If you want to undo that in a 2 hour film, you have to do something to earn it. Not just drop it in and hope no one notices.

 

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

No, you really don't. You may have to earn it within the context of the film itself, but you certainly do not have to "earn it" in reference to the rest of Trek--the alternate timeline makes that moot.

 

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

Once again, you clip off what I'm saying mid-sentence.

And what I'm saying is maybe we don't know everything we think we know about the Federation and Starfleet. It's a big universe and too hold all subsequent productions to those seven-hundred hours of material cuts future creators off at the knees.

No Cardassian can ever like BBQ Pork because no episode/movie has ever referenced it happening before.

Spock: To stop Nero, you alone must take command of your ship.

Spock was already stacking the deck for Kirk to be in command of the Enterprise.

 

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

That's like saying you wouldn't have to earn it if you wanted to make a DS9 episode where Dukat goes back in time and gets the Bajorans to elect him Kai, because it's an alternate timeline, so the basic character of the Bajoran/Cardassian relationship becomes entirely irrelevant.

 

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

No. It can happen because the dynamics of the relationship could have changed.

 

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

We're not talking about food preferences of random individuals. Kirk's promotion only makes sense inside a larger culture of promoting officers who make miraculous saves. And despite many miraculous saves in all those hundreds of hours, we have never before seen even the slightest hint of such a loose culture of promotions.

Maybe Kirk and Picard and Sisko and Janeway all refused whatever rewards they were offered for saving earth or various other planets, without it being referenced onscreen. But why did all the junior officers who single handedly saved starships still have to wait years, if ever, to be promoted at all, let alone leapfrogging ranks? Did Wesley say 'No, I don't want to be a lieutenant.'? Did O'Brien say 'I'd rather stay non-commissioned, thanks.'?

Which is itself very un-Spock-like. Even within purely nuTrek continuity, he's supposed to be incapable of undermining the rules in any way. It was a big part of the STID storyline.

 

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

Not when the Occupation is already historical fact. Much like the Federation has already taken full form before the Narada's arrival.

 

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

Star Trek and Starfleet very unrealistic when it comes to promotion (and the lack there of). Guys like Sulu, Riker, Chekov and LaForge should have had their own ships in a few years, not decades. Instead they hung around the Enterprise. Then we have Wes Crusher who goes from civilian to honorary Ensign to real Ensign to Cadet. I'm sure more than few guys who went to the Academy were going WTF when they heard Wes got to be an Ensign with out going. And why exactly did he lose his commission and have to go to the Academy after being an Ensign for a full year? Oh yeah, the actor was leaving the show.

Realism

 

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

But if he's already a commissioned officer why even go to the Academy? And why start as a first year cadet?