Star Trek: Axanar

[Maurice]

There are dozens of different ways to do exposition. Walking and talking is only one. It's not an either-or proposition. Heck you can do exposition through action if you're really clever.

Even in fairly dry spoken exposition it helps immensely if there are multiple levels to the conversation. What people say is often not what they actually mean. The tension between what's being said and what the characters want is where the juicy stuff lives.

 

[Tosk]

Sometimes it feels like exposition has become a dirty word. Not to mention, people often decry it when they are really complaining about a dull conversation rather than exposition.

Trek sometimes gets a lot of shit for being too talky, but most of the finest moments were good actors reciting good dialogue. The bigger moments, the "action", only works when the surrounding material makes you care about what is happening.

...in my opinion, naturally.

 

[Warped9]

Sometimes it feels like exposition has become a dirty word. Not to mention, people often decry it when they are really complaining about a dull conversation rather than exposition.

Trek sometimes gets a lot of shit for being too talky, but most of the finest moments were good actors reciting good dialogue. The bigger moments, the "action", only works when the surrounding material makes you care about what is happening.

...in my opinion, naturally.

Very much agree.

 

[gazomg]

Sometimes it feels like exposition has become a dirty word. Not to mention, people often decry it when they are really complaining about a dull conversation rather than exposition.

Trek sometimes gets a lot of shit for being too talky, but most of the finest moments were good actors reciting good dialogue. The bigger moments, the "action", only works when the surrounding material makes you care about what is happening.

...in my opinion, naturally.

I completely agree.

My favorite episodes of trek be it In the pale moonlight, Duet and a host of others was more about the story, the characters and the actors obviously.

I always maintained a lot of recent movies lacked substance, as for axanar the battle scenes will be grand but for me its more about the interaction, script, plot etc.

If I wanted crash bang wallop flares I would watch a recent movie

 

[fireproof78]

Sometimes it feels like exposition has become a dirty word. Not to mention, people often decry it when they are really complaining about a dull conversation rather than exposition.

Trek sometimes gets a lot of shit for being too talky, but most of the finest moments were good actors reciting good dialogue. The bigger moments, the "action", only works when the surrounding material makes you care about what is happening.

...in my opinion, naturally.

I completely agree.

My favorite episodes of trek be it In the pale moonlight, Duet and a host of others was more about the story, the characters and the actors obviously.

I always maintained a lot of recent movies lacked substance, as for axanar the battle scenes will be grand but for me its more about the interaction, script, plot etc.

If I wanted crash bang wallop flares I would watch a recent movie

I agree as well. I prefer Star Trek VI because of the character's journey and interaction on that journey. Pale Moonlight is up there, though the moral gray area irritates me in the sense that the episode treats itself as clever by introducing moral gray area. I digress.

I've also loved the characters in Abrams Trek and think that they are as compelling as anything else I've seen. I think it reminds me of several TOS episodes.

As for Axanar, the Vulcan clip is obvious the closest thing that we have to more character exposition, for obvious reasons. I like Prelude because of the historical style, but I don't feel a connection with the characters. So, the clip keeps me involved with Soval and his point of view.

Also, speaking from a writing perspective, exposition is probably some of the more difficult dialog to write without it coming across as "as you know" or info dumping. Probably why I struggle with some parts of my own writing.

 

[JarodRussell]

Exposition can be done in many different ways.

Compare expositionary dialogue between two or three people between First Contact, Insurrection, Nemesis and Abramstrek. In First Contact and Abramstrek, exposition is always delivered in motion, there is always SOMETHING going on. In Nemesis, it's just stationary people with stationary cameras in a stationary setting.

That Axanar scene is indeed pretty dull. It has nice visuals, but you kind of need something to break up the dullness of a Vulcan conversation.

 

[JoeZhang]

In Nemesis, it's just stationary people with stationary cameras in a stationary setting.

Stationary itself isn't a problem:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVQPY4LlbJ4[/yt]


One of Sean Connery's best roles The Offense is 'very talky' but never dull.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

The problem with the scene isn't that it's talky. It's just an infodump that's telling and not showing us anything interesting about the situation or those in it. There's no dramatic tension.

Talky scenes don't have to be painful. They can be dramatically interesting, JoeZhang's Glengerry Glen Ross example is a good one. They can be used to show differing points of view, put characters at odds and reveal something of them, even when there's exposition.

Another, more Trekkian example:
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs0J2F3ErMc[/yt]

Some exposition is being dropped in this scene — "how Kirk cheated" — yet the scene isn't about the cheating. It's about setting up Kirk and Spock as having opposing viewpoints and the conflict to come between them. There's tension between the two characters as they volley their arguments, we learn where both men stand philosophically. And they way it's shot is visually interesting, furthering that tension.

And there's also a bit of dramatic irony, as Spock who believes a commander must maintain control in the face of fear and death eventually loses control because of that.

A non-Trek example:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0lg34WeJzM[/yt]

It's just two guys sitting in chairs talking. But there's tension. Bartlett doesn't really want to talk about his feelings. Alan Arkin's character is trying to get him to lower his shields. There's a play for power. It's talky and it's stately in the way its shot, but the dialogue and the situation are interesting.

Hell the classic example, "12 Angry Men," is just a bunch of guys talking in a room. Yet there's something at stake, there are differing perspectives, worldviews that are chaffing against each other.

Talky isn't necessarily bad. Same with action. It's just how it's done that matters.

 

[BillJ]

Some exposition is being dropped in this scene — "how Kirk cheated" — yet the scene isn't about the cheating. It's about setting up Kirk and Spock as having opposing viewpoints and the conflict to come between them. There's tension between the two characters as they volley their arguments, we learn where both men stand philosophically. And they way it's shot is visually interesting, furthering that tension.

I think the scene also demonstrates the difference in resources as well. We get to see the reactions on the faces of NPC's (for a lack of a better term) who are all there watching. The buildings in the Axanar scene are nice, but there isn't a whole lot going on. So we have two characters who lack emotion trying to emotionally engage the audience with nothing going on around it.

I'd axe this scene entirely and build it into something that is happening at the Federation Council or a meeting at Babel or something. So there are emotional elements that can play in the background.

All in my, amateur (definitely amateur) opinion. Everyone's mileage may vary.

 

[Kemaiku]

Or, have a Federation diplotmat arrive at Vulcan to talk to Soval on the issue, hears the bad news, a heated debate (well on the Humans side) begins and Soval tried to calm him and say he will do all he can.

Better than two Vulcans just casually discussing the end of the Federation like they're discussing what they had for lunch.

 

[BillJ]

Or, have a Federation diplotmat arrive at Vulcan to talk to Soval on the issue, hears the bad news, a heated debate (well on the Humans side) begins and Soval tried to calm him and say he will do all he can.

Better than two Vulcans just casually discussing the end of the Federation like they're discussing what they had for lunch.

Would definitely be more engaging to me than what they have now. But I'm just an outsider looking in.

If they did it the way you suggest, I'd try to snare Bakula for a five minute cameo. He had some chemistry with Gary Graham that is sorely lacking in the clip.

 

[JoeZhang]

Or, have a Federation diplotmat arrive at Vulcan to talk to Soval on the issue, hears the bad news, a heated debate (well on the Humans side) begins and Soval tried to calm him and say he will do all he can.

Better than two Vulcans just casually discussing the end of the Federation like they're discussing what they had for lunch.

Which in itself is too abstract to give a shit about because it's a) made-up, b) we know the outcome - it's the same reason why the Death Star blowing up Alderaan doesn't phase people. Even when dealing with real world event historical events, the way most modern films do it is by having drama around a smaller scale - the fate of a few - generally the main characters. Sophie's choice is more not less horrific because it centres around the decision of which of two children will die.

Given all of the main characters live through the war, I wonder in the film what either the character arcs are or if there is another character we don't know about who is actually in 'mild peril' of death.

 

[TerryMcIntosh]

Or, have a Federation diplotmat arrive at Vulcan to talk to Soval on the issue, hears the bad news, a heated debate (well on the Humans side) begins and Soval tried to calm him and say he will do all he can.

Better than two Vulcans just casually discussing the end of the Federation like they're discussing what they had for lunch.

Who says that Soval isn't going to go Chuck Norris on the council and save the say? =P

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Folks can think of Axanar being like this -- more TNG's Yesterday's Enterprise and less TNG's The Child.

hopefully that analogy lands and sets expectations on what we're going for.

 

[urbandefault]

Judging an unfinished product by a "teaser" short film and one released scene is not logical.

 

[BillJ]

Judging an unfinished product by a "teaser" short film and one released scene is not logical.

I don't think anyone is judging the film, they're judging the scene. But, it would be no different than people thinking Axanar is going to be great because they liked Prelude.

 

[urbandefault]

Judging an unfinished product by a "teaser" short film and one released scene is not logical.

I don't think anyone is judging the film, they're judging the scene. But, it would be no different than people thinking Axanar is going to be great because they liked Prelude.

Maybe we're not reading the same posts, or interpreting them the same way.

That said, there is a lot of prejudice both for and against Axanar and the next sanctioned film.

Not judging, just observing.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Better than two Vulcans just casually discussing the end of the Federation like they're discussing what they had for lunch.

While I'd agree that formal Vulcan-on-Vulcan convos have the potential to be dull as ditchwater and perhaps would be better avoided in a theatrical film or TV show aimed at Joe Public, surely a fan film aimed at the ultra hardcore Trekkies is the one place where you can get away with it?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Judging an unfinished product by a "teaser" short film and one released scene is not logical.

I don't think anyone is judging the film, they're judging the scene. But, it would be no different than people thinking Axanar is going to be great because they liked Prelude.

Maybe we're not reading the same posts, or interpreting them the same way.

That said, there is a lot of prejudice both for and against Axanar and the next sanctioned film.

Not judging, just observing.

We're Star Trek nerds, that's just what we do.

I felt the same way when Trektoday did a frame-by-frame analysis of the STID trailers. I remember thinking "Isn't this a bit silly? You'll never know if the movie's any good until you actually SEE it." But I'll be damned if I didn't watch that analysis like fifty times myself.

 

[gazomg]

Better than two Vulcans just casually discussing the end of the Federation like they're discussing what they had for lunch.

While I'd agree that formal Vulcan-on-Vulcan convos have the potential to be dull as ditchwater and perhaps would be better avoided in a theatrical film or TV show aimed at Joe Public, surely a fan film aimed at the ultra hardcore Trekkies is the one place where you can get away with it?

very true