STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Before J.J. Trek, Kirk always thought his way out of problems, and Spock never showed a hint of emotion.

 

Oh for fuck's sake, that's not what I was saying at all. Trek has had its crass moments long before Abrams came along, hence my reference to the decon scenes in ENTERPRISE. I simply don't find the Alice Eve underwear scene sexy, that doesn't mean I think Trek lacked sensuality throughout its 50 year history.

 

No? Well, I'm here already, so I might as well do my thing.

Obviously the bikini scene is no big deal in terms of Trek's history with female skin. OTOH it is also true that it's not the Sixties. You'll notice that even back in the post-TNG days, as Trek shows progressed and as some of them resorted to certain forms of hijinks to prop up sagging ratings, this occasioned a lot more hostility than it would have done back in the days when you could get away with stories like "Turnabout Intruder" or "Mudd's Women." Because it seemed sleazy and retrograde.

Strictly speaking I don't think Alice Eve in a bikini is anywhere near as sleazeball as T'Pol in the decontamination chamber, or Seven-of-Nine's original catsuit that might as well have been body paint. But I'll note that no matter to what degree old Trek shows made rather sexist use of scantily-clad ladies, Alice Eve's Carol Marcus is almost uniquely useless to the plot of the film she shows up in. She contributes absolutely nothing at any point that any other character couldn't have done; even her chance to be a "weapons expert" comes down to pulling random wires (or chips). In other words, people could be forgiven for thinking that the character really didn't wind up there for any other purpose than to name-check Carol Marcus from Wrath... and for Alice Eve to provide a slice of pinup cheesecake.

That aspect of things, the larger context of what would otherwise have been an unobjectionable thing, is arguably pretty depressingly retrograde. And a good reason to dislike the bikini scene.

 

Actually, being Admiral Marcus' daughter made her a part of the storyline itself.

 

Only formally so. She still had basically no impact on the actual events in the movie.

I mean, break it down:

She sneaks aboard pretending to be a "weapons expert." Spock deems her redundant and later figures out her deception. The first beat sets up an opportunity for her to show weapons expertise which will never materialize; the second to reveal her as Carol Marcus, which will change nothing in the story and serves mostly as a shout-out to Wrath.

She is then recruited to take Spock's place in reprising the "surgery on a torpedo" scene with Bones. She then resolves a crisis with the torpedo, but with a random act of desperation that requires no particular expertise. IOW Bones could have been sent out with Sulu, Chekov, Spock or basically almost anyone else and achieved the same result.

She comes back aboard and gets some desultory by-play with Kirk, plus a nice bikini shot. (Or does the bikini happen earlier? Can't quite remember.)

The Vengeance confronts the Enterprise, and this is Carol Marcus' moment. She goes head to head with her corrupt father and tells him that he makes her ashamed. Impact? None; he simply has her beamed to his ship and continues his assault. (I sometimes wonder if they didn't originally have a very different plan for this little sequence, which as it is feels totally superfluous.)

She's in the middle of the fighting on the Vengeance, in which she plays no role apart from having her leg broken by Khan.

And... that's pretty much it, right? That's Carol Marcus in STID. A series of superfluous story beats apart from one scene in which she could be easily replaced by any number of other characters, and the one scene that everyone really remembers which consists of her stripping off for no particular reason. That's not really what I call being "part of the storyline."

 

You don't have to call it that, but she's still a part of the storyline.

 

Yes, a decorative part of it.

 

To say nothing of the way Deanna was filmed at times, more than once you can see in TNG episodes an inappropriate tightness of her catsuit in the nether regions, and of course, there was that gratuitous scene of Beverly and Deanna exercising. IMHO, those two instances are far more demeaning of women than the underwear scene in STiD

 

I don't understand how you all can't see Abrams for the demented pervert he is!!! How dare he desecrate our beloved Star Trek that has always been appropriate for men, women and children!!! Won't someone please think of the CHILDREN!!!

 

Huh? I don't remember either of these things.

Yeah, joke was stale even before the guy you were talking to clarified that he wasn't saying this. Just FYI.

 

Lighten up. This is a movie franchise we're discussing.

 

I'm lighter than Chancellor Gorkon floating in zero gravity over here, brother.

 

Come to think of it, are the underwear scenes with Uhura and Marcus the only attempts that Abrams tried to titillate audiences? I can't remember anything of M:I-3, but I have to assume Maggie Q played the honeypot. SUPER 8 obviously couldn't have had any...

When I think of Trek having its sexy moments, I'm thinking of Lt. Noel in "Dagger of the Mind". You can even tell Spock was titillated.


http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x09/daggerofthemind094.jpg

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x09/daggerofthemind095.jpg

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x09/daggerofthemind097.jpg
"Whoa."

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x09/daggerofthemind098.jpg
"Dayum."

[Images converted to links. Pics posted as embedded images should be hosted on web space or an image-sharing account registered to you. - M']


Maybe it's just my preference for women with curves. There were certainly plenty on TOS.

 

There absolutely is more than one instance of Troi Camel Toe

Here are a few pics from the Troi and Beverly exercise scene (there are worse snaps that aren't appearing in the first few), you can google videos " TNG Beverly and Troi Exercising" to watch the scene, I believe. (and according to these pics, it appears beverly sports a camel toe in that scene)

https://www.google.com/search?q=sta...DQBQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg&biw=1143&bih=709&dpr=0.9

 

Well, okay then, thank you. How strange that I don't recollect that...

 

Oh, ye gods, I forgot about the exercising. "Hey Beverly, let's push ourselves as close as we can to one another, and do short, meaningless stretches that accomplish nothing at all except to make it look like we might have sex."

I mean, look how practical they are! They don't enhance certain portions of the body at all!

 

I'm sure TrekCore's blu-ray screencaps has a whole page of that "exercise".

 

I don't remember what they were talking about, though. Was it just girls, being girls, and not talking about men? If so, would that make it pass the letter of the law of The Bechdel Test, despite the gratuitousness of it?

 

I think that scene is from "The Host" and they were talking about Beverly wanting to get banged by Odan. IIRC.