Star Trek Beyond In Prime Universe

pity it wasn't - might've made it more interesting had the Ent been flung into another galaxy billions of light years from Federation space and finds Edison on the planet and has to go up against him while trying to figure out how to get home Voyager style (was half expecting something like that with the title)

 

Burnham will argue that Krall shouldn't be stopped and has the right to exist and continue his vampire ways.

Then she'll launch back into her "we are Starfleet" dribble.

 

If they were in TOS we wouldn't have had to wait for the shuttlebay to recompress.

 

Maybe the Constitution class was just too old to install a functional forcefield system.

 

The real reason of course is that they hadn't thought of it yet, and 50 years later Disco retconned the technology into the past of the Trekverse.

 

I know, and we'll probably see the Enterprise's hanger bay open with one when they exchange support craft.

 

I guess it's the same problem as to what happens to NOMAD, the Doosmday Machine, V'Ger and the Whale Probe in the Kelvin timeline. Or why nothing on DIS looks like the same continuity as the USS Kelvin.

Really, it's best to think of them as two completely seperated continuities with no connection whatsoever. (Which would make Nero, red matter, the destruction of Romulus and Old-Spock simply the alternate future of the Kelvin-timeline - a parrallel one to the prime one, but not the prime one)

 

Too bad the movie material and tv material are tied up in separate rights issues, otherwise I wouldn't mind the Discovery facing down the Prime version of Krall, or have Mirror Empress Georgiou report to Prime Admiral Marcus in her new position as a Section 31 operative.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

While the visuals are COMPLETELY off the mark - the whole DIS continuity only works with TOS as a backdrop. Of course that isn't mutual - in fact TOS on it's own works a LOT better without Spock having a human sister in Starfleet or a klingon war gone horrible wrong just 10 years earlier. But between the two, there is a very clear story connection.

The Kelvin timeline doesn't have that, though. The Narada and Kelvin are clearly not prime-universe ships, and there are the instances where OldSpock immediately recognizes PineKirk and PeggScotty, - but also the direct contrast in Beyond where they showed a promo picture for Star Trek VI.

It's... really muddy at this point. And not a good testament to the work of the people currently in charge of the franchise.

 

They're as much Primeverse ships as the Klingon fleet in Discovery.

 

That is.... not at all.
But again - so far, on DIS it's the VISUALS that are completely off - not the narrative or universe mechanics behind it. Visually, those klingons and their ships are incompatible with the prime universe, as is their Disco-Enterprise for that matter. But, with them telling us all the time it's "100% complete prime" - it's still closer to the prime universe, if only so on a narrative level.

 

I can see that working quite well. In fact, it's almost evocative in my mind as having actually happened

 

The picture is from V.
I say this, because I love making sure V cannot be stricken from canon by people who keep the KT in there. XD

 

I kinda' like Star Trek V.
It's complete, utter schlock. But the character scenes (especially Kirk, Spock and McCoy singing "row, row, row your boat") are IMO worth the existence of the movie, and there are a lot of great memorable lines and images in this movie (what does god need a starship for?). I mean, yeah, it's not good in any way. But I like it, like the more campy TOS episodes. I prefer schlock-y fun over dour "seriousness" in Star Trek any day.

 

Clearly?

 

Yeah. While the Narada is an absolutely cool and unique design - it's pretty obvious it doesn't work as a simple "Romulan Mining vessel" from the TNG movies era. The "Countdown" comic explained the difference as it being a "Borgified" vessel - which, honestly, is a bit fanwank-y even for a non-canon comic. Also it was heavily involving Picard and the Enterprise of the time, I'm pretty sure the upcoming Picard show is pretty much destined to directly contradict these events.

Don't get me wrong - out of all the big, dumb, black evil starships in Star Trek movies (Borg cube, Shinzon's Scimitar, the Narada, Admiral Marcus' "Vengeance"), the Narada (and the Borg cube) are actually genuine great designs, and I really wouldn't want to change the Narada's design for a "pime-universe-fitting" design - so much of ST09's visual appeal would be lost. But still - in my opinion the Kelvin timeline really work best in a completely seperated continuity from the prime universe, standing on their own feet and being their own thing.

 

Yeah, there were a lot of inconsistencies in details. The movie expects us to accept that young Kirk looked like Chris Pine to the point of NimoySpock not seeing a difference, and that he will grow old into the body of TOSmovie ShatnerKirk (two different actors playing the same role at different ages - pretty usual stuff for Hollywood). But at the same time, this nuKirk was a completely different human being, born under different circumstances, and having completely different life experiences and being essentially a different character. That coincidentally re-aligns with the "traditional" charactersiation by the time of "Beyond", even though he took a completely different path getting there.

In retrospect, I would have prefered it if the movie was either a strict prequel (ignoring all visual differences), ar a complete, honest reboot. The sort of middle-of-the-road apporach really muddies the waters, and makes it hard to sort the trilogy into the pre-existing continuity in a meaningfull way.

That being said, I'm glad that they tried to tell an interesting story first and foremost, and really didn't focus too much time on the reboot/sequel&prequel classification, and instead handwaved it away to focus on creating compelling characters and adventures first. They did that. And even if I want to "excise" these movies from the prime Trek continuity (only those few tidbits that are supposed to be "prime") for general worldbuilding reasons, I'm still glad the movies overall exist in the real world and to have watched them.

 

The Narada is a question mark in terms of design, but since we've never seen a Romulan mining vessel I gave it a pass. I don't care about the Borg explanation.

The Kelvin itself fits well in the ship design of the Prime Universe.

That is a conceit of every parallel universe story though.