Spoilers STAR TREK BEYOND - Grading & Discussion

[Franklin]

"Star Trek" is a commercial enterprise that must appeal to a wide audience to stay viable. To that end, it's always seemed to play it safe. And, if you're trying to get as many men aged 19 to 35 (or whatever) to watch your show on TV, the "playing it safe" means strong male characters, mini-skirts, and William Theiss costumes. Mostly male casts (at least as main characters) are an unfortunate part of Hollywood on the big screen and on TV. Look at the broo-hah-hah that was created about women being cast in the lead roles in the new "Ghostbusters".
I'd say part of the problem with the reboot of "Star Trek" in 2009 was it was so faithful to TOS, it took some of its negative baggage: Kirk the womanizer, mostly male main characters, and mini-skirts with it. On the fringes, where it could play with the characters, it's tried to put women in important roles. Carol Marcus is a strong character in TWOK. Uhura is finally given something important to do in TSFS. There's a woman starship captain in TVH and Gillian is a strong character who is not played as just a romantic foil for Kirk. Saavik, Valeris, Martia, Azetbur, the Borg queen, Commodore Paris, Jaylah, and a few others have been strong female Trek characters (that could've been cast as men without changing the stories a lot). But when you start with six of the original big seven being men, it's going to be hard to get real equality of number.

 

[BillJ]

Just Wow. Spectacular fun.

Easy 'A'.

 

[BigJake]

Counting the male/female ratio in a movie is discriminating and sexist. Period.

That's a stupid and inaccurate statement, period, it doesn't matter how many times you repeat it, and it's also still not relevant to the post that you were originally replying to, which simply expressed an appreciation for how well the female roles in Beyond were handled. Which apparently send you into enough of a spin that here you are, still digging when you quite plainly cannot defend your remarks, instead of having the basic grace to just chalk it up to one bad moment and move on. So again, who's the "fanatic"?

I know better than to tell you what I think of you ...

I don't give a tinker's toss what you think of me. I just want you to stop acting like an ignorant jerk in this thread.

 

[Alex1939]

SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS UNITE!!!!

[Image removed. - M']



As far as the movie... I enjoyed watching it but it definitely has a few major flaws imo. Did any of you ever think you'd see a federation starship using radio waves playing Beastie Boys to destroy a fleet of a million mining drones? Lol, silly but fun scene, still can't believe it exists at all let alone in a Star Trek movie.

The one plothole that is bothering me is the Franklin being Jaylah's "home" where she hid using deflector/cloaking or whatever. Since that was the big bad guy's ship.. .doesn't it seem strange that they would, you know, never check on it or anything after she escaped? Hidden or not, they would know exactly where that ship is.

But overall it was fun dumb action/sci-fi movie. My favorite parts were the overall look and feel of the Yorktown space station and the ending time lapse of the construction of the Enterprise. I liked when the crew was split, the scenes with Kirk/Chekov, Spock/McCoy, Scotty/Jaylah were all good I thought.

 

[{ Emilia }]

Counting the male/female ratio in a movie is discriminating and sexist. Period.

That makes absolutely not sense at all. As long as some groups are incredibly underrepresented it makes sense to point that out once in a while. That doesn't mean every movie or TV show is going to be perfectly diverse. But it's fair to recognize harmful long-established trends and needless lack of diversity.
Weren't you gonna stop btw? I felt like you had announced that. You're still digging.

 

[Alex1939]

That makes absolutely not sense at all. As long as some groups are incredibly underrepresented it makes sense to point that out once in a while. That doesn't mean every movie or TV show is going to be perfectly diverse. But it's fair to recognize harmful long-established trends and needless lack of diversity.
Weren't you gonna stop btw? I felt like you had announced that. You're still digging.

[Image removed. - M']

 

[Oso Blanco]

I can recall only three admirals in speaking roles in 50 years

You mean female Admirals? I can name four off the top of my head:

Admiral Satie (TNG: The Drumhead)
Admiral Shanti (TNG: Redemption)
Admiral Brackett (TNG: Unification)
Admiral Nechayev (TNG/DS9)

I'm sure there were more, but I'm too lazy to look it up right now.

 

[RAMA]

Groaning...I just saw someone complain about the soundtrack to Beyond...something that so far has been universally praised. You just can't make everyone happy.

 

[Franklin]

SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS UNITE!!!!
The one plothole that is bothering me is the Franklin being Jaylah's "home" where she hid using deflector/cloaking or whatever. Since that was the big bad guy's ship.. .doesn't it seem strange that they would, you know, never check on it or anything after she escaped? Hidden or not, they would know exactly where that ship is.

I don't know if I'd call it a plot hole (since an explanation may exist), but that bothered me, too. That and she'd have to be using a tremendous amount of energy to keep that ship cloaked. Where did that constant source of energy come from and why wouldn't it be detected?
The other thing I mentioned regarding the Franklin that bothered me a bit is how easily our heroes got it into space again after it had spent one hundred years in one place on the ground. Given that, didn't Edison and his crew ever try to get space-borne again? If so, they must not have tried very hard. He called the ship "old friend" when he saw it at Yorktown, so he still harbored feelings for it.

 

[Pauln6]

You mean female Admirals? I can name four off the top of my head:

Admiral Satie (TNG: The Drumhead)
Admiral Shanti (TNG: Redemption)
Admiral Brackett (TNG: Unification)
Admiral Nechayev (TNG/DS9)

I'm sure there were more, but I'm too lazy to look it up right now.

You forgot Janeway but i think that's probably it.

 

[{ Emilia }]

[Image removed. - M']

So cute.
I'm slacking on my couch, watching a Trek episode while having a coffee and you think I'm raging.

Wait, lemme take a selfie.

There we go:

Spoiler: raging Emilia

*purrs quietly*

It's sooo scary and unsettling when women have an opinion, huh?

 

[Amaris]

While there were many good chuckle moments, I think everyone laughed the hardest when Kirk said they needed a VHF frequency with a signal capable of overloading the communication system with heavy distortion, and Scotty looks up and says "I have just the thing!" It was flawless timing on Simon Pegg's part.

Also, I keep having this overwhelming urge to put the movie in and watch it, only to realize I don't own it yet and won't for months, because it's still in theaters.

So cute.
I'm slacking on my couch, watching a Trek episode while having a coffee and you think I'm raging.

Wait, lemme take a selfie.

There we go:

Spoiler: raging Emilia

*purrs quietly*

It's sooo scary and unsettling when women have an opinion, huh?

You've become somewhat more catlike since your last pictures, but this works.

 

[Oso Blanco]

While there were many good chuckle moments, I think everyone laughed the hardest when Kirk said they needed a VHF frequency with a signal capable of overloading the communication system with heavy distortion, and Scotty looks up and says "I have just the thing!" It was flawless timing on Simon Pegg's part.

I knew what was coming whe he said those words, and it was just hilarious ... beating the enemy with an old Beastie Boys song ...

 

[{ Emilia }]

You've become somewhat more catlike since your last pictures, but this works.

I've actually done a home shoot recently (photog coming to my place) and he did suggest taking a pic with my kitties. But I told him he can't afford them.
(I did start giggling when one of the kitties kept jumping into the reflector )
Now I want to never work in a photo studio again. I prefer on-location shoots anyway.

Oh, and uhh... about the movie... I loved when Kirk complained about yet another ripped shirt.

 

[HaventGotALife]

You have easily the most representation in this and all other Trek movies, and you're claiming victim status? C'mon now. When you think equality is more about removing your benefits instead of granting and sharing them with another group, that's privilege.

I sincerely wonder about the proportion of white male posters on this thread who called you out on this, too, of which I'm going to bet is pretty sizeable given the demographics of the fanbase. It doesn't mean they hate or apologize for being themselves, but rather recognizing where they stand at the top of the heap in representation and want to see others join them. But to do so is to challenge and call out discrimination openly.

This white male called him out. I am also a pansexual, feminist, liberal, atheist. So, when President Obama refused to sign an Executive Order making so I couldn't get evicted by some bigot, or fired by some bigot, for being gay, I learned EXACTLY what marginalization, and the anger that comes with it, feels like. The frustration that those in power, will not help you. Now, since that time, President Obama has done GREAT things for my community, and history will remember him as the best President to-date for my community. But I saw it. I felt it. "Now is not the time" is not a sentence I ever wanted to hear. I was pissed because I was hurt. I felt betrayed.

As a man who is white, I enjoy privilege of being treated as "normal" simply because I am the standard of society. I have to do something crazy, before someone looks at me funny, in my community. I am assumed to be an upstanding citizen (yes, I am), and up to nothing other than walking down the street, when I walk down the street. I don't fear for my safety (I'm 6-4) when I walk down the street, people leave me alone. They don't leer at me. They don't assume I am a criminal. I pass for straight, and am assumed to be so, until I open my mouth and tell them. The same thing with being Christian. I am assumed to believe in God, unless I share my view that I don't. And on both counts, I am treated differently. So, don't tell me it doesn't exist, privilege, and I love your definition. Very articulate.

That said, short of hijacking the thread, the points made about Captain Janeway, she is a generic character. She's androgynous. Troi and Tasha are overly-emotional in "Encounter at Farpoint," Riker has rescued Troi about 3 times by the time Troi is crying on the bridge, telling the Bridge crew what is going on, on the viewer.Tasha is frozen, in the midst of the trial scene, after an emotional display, to which Troi cries "You barbarian!" as Data and Picard get Q to defrost her. Then there's Nurse Chapel, and her obsession with Mr. Spock, there's Jadzia stripping down for our entertainment, and Worf's, in DS9's 6th season. There's the love interest, playing footsie with Picard, of Anij in "Star Trek: Insurrection." There's Ilia and her sexuality and everyone's, including Sulu's, admiration of her because she's sexy and a tremendous lover. There's Carol Marcus's bra and panties scene in Into Darkness, there's Uhura's bra and panties scene in '09, there's the cut-away of the uniforms of the Duras sisters to reveal cleavage (and leave them vulnerable to any knives or bat'leths in the armor, there's the story Ira Steven Behr tells about why he left Next Gen after the third season (Get the Captain laid). There's the redesign of the makeup of Trills to not "ruin Terry Farrell's looks." There's the fact the only sexism storylines are done as comic relief in DS9. I think I did go on.

Jayla is awesome, and the character we have always wanted.

 

[BigJake]

didn't Edison and his crew ever try to get space-borne again?

Once they got stuck into the alien technology and the badass swarm ships, it's probable that the Franklin ceased to have much interest for them. Even sentimental interest, maybe, depending on how far they had "lost themselves" at any given time. Scotty did say that it's the functional equivalent of a horse and buggy by comparison.

 

[MarsWeeps]

My only complaint was we saw it in 3D and the dark scenes inside the ship were really dark as in I had to take my glasses off to see what was going on.

I don't know why I keep seeing movies in 3D. I usually sit towards the front and it probably diminishes the 3D effect. As the movie goes on, I forget about it being in 3D and sometimes it hurts my eyes.

 

[{ Emilia }]

I don't know why I keep seeing movies in 3D. I usually sit towards the front and it probably diminishes the 3D effect. As the movie goes on, I forget about it being in 3D and sometimes it hurts my eyes.

I'm not a fan of 3D, really. And in science fiction movies in particular I think it has a detrimental effect on the depiction of starships. I feel like it makes them look less epic and impressive. In 2D you can imagine their size but in 3D you see the ships whooshing by right in front of you, bird-sized. Annoyed me a little in Star Wars, too.

 

[Oso Blanco]

You forgot Janeway but i think that's probably it.

Right, I forgot Janeway ... here are two more female Admirals:

Admiral Hayes (TNG: Realm Of Fear)
Admiral T'Lara (DS9: Rules Of Engagement)

 

[M'Sharak]

SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS UNITE!!!!

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Warning for trolling. Comments to PM.