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the 2009 movie could have solved everything with a Time skip with an optional montage of pine Kirk and his young career on the Farragut and republic and the various encounters and adventures. Alternatively, they should have trim down the cast big time and introduce new characters when they were younger like finny, Finnegan, Ruth, Mitchell, kelso, Dr piper, Carol, Janice, and any of the former commodore's and admirals when they were younger. The Easter eggs would be the original bridge crew, who might be assembled by the end of an early years trilogy.
the 2009 movie could have solved everything with a Time skip with an optional montage of pine Kirk and his young career on the Farragut and republic and the various encounters and adventures. Alternatively, they should have trim down the cast big time and introduce new characters when they were younger like finny, Finnegan, Ruth, Mitchell, kelso, Dr piper, Carol, Janice, and any of the former commodore's and admirals when they were younger. The Easter eggs would be the original bridge crew, who might be assembled by the end of an early years trilogy.
Right. Continuity is not the reason for storytelling. It's pathological to make consistency the only standard for quality. Especially if your definition of consistency is never challenging anyone's cozy expectations and just giving them the exact same stuff they've already seen. The worthwhile stories are the ones that take risks and show people something new. "Canon," despite the religious concept it's named after, is not about rigid, immutable dogma. It's something that's supposed to grow and evolve and change with its audience.
Yeah, I don't have a problem with that (ok, maybe a little bit sometimes with consistency...just a little bit --but I'm not fundamentalist about it). One thing I really liked about Star Trek (2009) is the ingenuity of making it not just a reboot, but also a prequel and a sequel, all at the same time. They found a way to reboot the franchise but still leave a tie to all that came before. It all still happened. It was an element I really enjoyed. And it's the primary reason I don't get hung up on the production design or continuity differences--because it's an alternate universe).
But I do admit, the rapid fire promotion, in Kirk's case from cadet to captain (and not just captain, but captain of the flagship of the Federation) was an issue. It didn't ruin the film or make me not to want to watch it, but it was something that makes me shake my head a bit. Had they put in a few years of separation and adjusted the movie accordingly it would have helped, IMO. But that's not really a continuity/canon issue anyway---that's more of an issue with credibility.
Right. Continuity is not the reason for storytelling. It's pathological to make consistency the only standard for quality. Especially if your definition of consistency is never challenging anyone's cozy expectations and just giving them the exact same stuff they've already seen. The worthwhile stories are the ones that take risks and show people something new. "Canon," despite the religious concept it's named after, is not about rigid, immutable dogma. It's something that's supposed to grow and evolve and change with its audience.
Rather than being a purist, or hard core fan, here are some my thoughts as just an average viewer when I saw the movies.
I remember Sulu in the first movie as being a nervous mid year cadet who couldn't get the ship into warp. By the second movie (one year later) Sulu is the 3rd in command and the acting captain when Kirk and Spock leaves the ship. Same thing with Chekov; a very young officer in the beginning, he was made the chief engineer when Scotty quits.
So this would have to make me believe that all the officers on that ship either under 24 or very inexperienced. It may not be true, it just looks that way. The credibility hit is pretty big.
It didn't destroy the franchise for me, but I think it did subtly affect how I saw it from that point on. By the 3rd movie, a lot of things feel missing. Kirk is bored and disillusioned and wants to apply for admiral. The problem is, all we've seen are 3 or so adventures or off screen mentioning of others.
We never see the McCoy/Spock banter. The Enterprise is destroyed and a new one is being built, but it's hard to feel anything because you never really got used to the first one.
The movies are telling us these are veterans with many adventures and experiences. Our (or my) memories are saying that these were raw cadets only a few years ago that were suddenly plugged into their roles. Too much is missing.
The original "canon" had it that they reached their positions through experience, there were long years of bonding and conflict between the characters, and many, many adventures.
In this case, keeping some aspects of the original cannon/continuity might have been useful. Sometimes small tweaks can make a difference IMO.
Yeah, I don't have a problem with that (ok, maybe a little bit sometimes with consistency...just a little bit --but I'm not fundamentalist about it). One thing I really liked about Star Trek (2009) is the ingenuity of making it not just a reboot, but also a prequel and a sequel, all at the same time. They found a way to reboot the franchise but still leave a tie to all that came before. It all still happened. It was an element I really enjoyed. And it's the primary reason I don't get hung up on the production design or continuity differences--because it's an alternate universe).
But I do admit, the rapid fire promotion, in Kirk's case from cadet to captain (and not just captain, but captain of the flagship of the Federation) was an issue. It didn't ruin the film or make me not to want to watch it, but it was something that makes me shake my head a bit. Had they put in a few years of separation and adjusted the movie accordingly it would have helped, IMO. But that's not really a continuity/canon issue anyway---that's more of an issue with credibility.
True, one of things I like about the 2009 movies is the freedom of expression all the characters had. You got to see Kirk hit on Uhura, the characters curse and be otherwise relatable. Uhura, Checov Scotty and Sulu got screen time.
Starship Troopers had almost the exact same story and did the same instant promotions, but the way they did it seemed more organic. They pulled it off despite it being almost satire.
I also didn't feel anything when the Enterprise was destroyed.
In three movies she had three or four different looks and the only thing she did was getting defeated
I also didn't feel anything when the Enterprise was destroyed.
In three movies she had three or four different looks and the only thing she did was getting defeated
Yeah, now that you guys mentioned that I didn't feel anything either about it one way or the other. My only thought was, 'hmm, they destroyed another Enterprise....I wonder what the next one would look like'. I really didn't care.
I still cringe when I see the original Enterprise destroyed in Star Trek III. And I was sad to see the Enterprise-D destroyed in Generations. And that was a ship that I didn't think I was going to like initially. It really started to grow on me and then I was really bummed when it crashed. I actually thought when Picard and Kirk came out of the Nexus "oh, good, they'll probably have them come out before the Enterprise is destroyed and it won't get destroyed"--of course no such luck.
Even the Enterprise-E in Nemesis. I thought they were going to destroy that ship with it's crash into the Scimitar. I was actually happy to see it in spacedock at the end undergoing repairs.
There's a lot of complaints about the nuTrek/DSC Klingon looks.
Same thing happened when the Next Generation Klingon were revealed.
This is the way I look at Klingons. I vary between my two stands.
1. The DSC Klingons look the way Klingons have always looked. No stupid augment explanation. They only differ because of 21st century improvements/differences in makeup and aesthetics.
2. TOS/TNG Klingons were different Klingon species from the DSC Klingons. species that were captured by the original Klingons species.
And I just totally reject the TNG Romulan look.
This is my canon. I just mostly accept the technology changes but I don't see how my definition of canon affects anybody else. Why can't I pick and choose what I like?
GRs/NBC/Paramount version of canon everyone else a lot more.
I'm probably the weird one here, since most consider the Enterprise to be a character in of itself but I felt more due to the character's reactions for the original Enterprise, as well as the Kelvin Enterprise than because of the destruction itself. Watching Kirk and Kelvin Kirk see their ship be destroyed was heart wrenching for me.
I'm probably the weird one here, since most consider the Enterprise to be a character in of itself but I felt more due to the character's reactions for the original Enterprise, as well as the Kelvin Enterprise than because of the destruction itself. Watching Kirk and Kelvin Kirk see their ship be destroyed was heart wrenching for me.
I both agree and disagree with you, oddly. I agree that it's the characters' reactions to the loss that make the audience care about the loss. That's why the destruction of the ship in ST III is so potent -- because we see the characters' pain and solemnity at making the decision and their sadness as the ship goes down. But I disagree with you that Beyond pulled off the same thing, precisely because I agree with you about the larger principle. I felt nothing at the Enterprise's destruction there, because it wasn't shown to have any emotional impact on the characters. They were just running and fighting and escaping, and as far as I recall, there was no moment during or after the destruction when they showed any sign of shock or grief at what they'd lost. I liked Beyond best of the three in most respects, but it fell short of the first two when it came to emotional weight and intensity.
I'd be more forgiving of the Kelvin films if they were a true reboot and weren't so closely tied to the original timeline. As it is, we know how the Star Trek universe generally operates, so it's really glaring when the movies do something bizarre like promote Kirk to captain right out of the academy.
I felt nothing at the Enterprise's destruction there, because it wasn't shown to have any emotional impact on the characters. They were just running and fighting and escaping, and as far as I recall, there was no moment during or after the destruction when they showed any sign of shock or grief at what they'd lost. I liked Beyond best of the three in most respects, but it fell short of the first two when it came to emotional weight and intensity.
I would have similar complaints about too many unearned emotional moments on Discovery where we're supposed to care for deaths of characters who've barely had a line of dialogue in two seasons of the show and due to the breathless pace, fixation on Michael Burnham and serialised format of the show has had no time to properly introduce and define these characters like for instance Airiam.
I both agree and disagree with you, oddly. I agree that it's the characters' reactions to the loss that make the audience care about the loss. That's why the destruction of the ship in ST III is so potent -- because we see the characters' pain and solemnity at making the decision and their sadness as the ship goes down. But I disagree with you that Beyond pulled off the same thing, precisely because I agree with you about the larger principle. I felt nothing at the Enterprise's destruction there, because it wasn't shown to have any emotional impact on the characters. They were just running and fighting and escaping, and as far as I recall, there was no moment during or after the destruction when they showed any sign of shock or grief at what they'd lost. I liked Beyond best of the three in most respects, but it fell short of the first two when it came to emotional weight and intensity.
I liked, conversely, that they didn't get overly misty about losing the Enterprise in STB. It's been lost or nearly lost too many times to really worry about anymore. Yes, it blowed up. Yes they'll make another one, or slap the name Enterprise on one already in the yards. In truth, it seemed like Kirk and the others were really getting tired of being on the ship anyway, and most crews would have rotated off a ship if they were not doing these long five year missions. The prime- universe loss of the Enterprise was of a ship that had a far more storied history going back decades and with a heavy emotional investment, as you say, from those who were there for its last unofficial mission. The Kelvin crew had been there for a few years and some would have dispersed on to other assignments, just as many did between TOS and TMP.
I thought the focus on how to escape a ship being destroyed and survive was more compelling, another reason i like Beyond so much.
I would have similar complaints about too many unearned emotional moments on Discovery where we're supposed to care for deaths of characters who've barely had a line of dialogue in two seasons of the show and due to the breathless pace, fixation on Michael Burnham and serialised format of the show has had no time to properly introduce and define these characters like for instance Airiam.
I both agree and disagree with you, oddly. I agree that it's the characters' reactions to the loss that make the audience care about the loss. That's why the destruction of the ship in ST III is so potent -- because we see the characters' pain and solemnity at making the decision and their sadness as the ship goes down. But I disagree with you that Beyond pulled off the same thing, precisely because I agree with you about the larger principle. I felt nothing at the Enterprise's destruction there, because it wasn't shown to have any emotional impact on the characters. They were just running and fighting and escaping, and as far as I recall, there was no moment during or after the destruction when they showed any sign of shock or grief at what they'd lost. I liked Beyond best of the three in most respects, but it fell short of the first two when it came to emotional weight and intensity.
I perhaps should clarify that I don't think it is identical, so "same thing" is not quite clear. I do think that it has emotional pull for me, but that is largely due to my personal investment in Kelvin Kirk as a character. His face as he ejects from the Enterprise just hits me in the right spot for the emotions.
My larger point is that in both instances it isn't the ship's destruction that gets me-it is the reactions of the crew, which I really don't think was there for the TNG crew. I think I got more for the Defiant's destruction in DS9 than I did the ENT-D.
I'd be more forgiving of the Kelvin films if they were a true reboot and weren't so closely tied to the original timeline. As it is, we know how the Star Trek universe generally operates, so it's really glaring when the movies do something bizarre like promote Kirk to captain right out of the academy.
That's a problem that has nothing whatsoever to do with continuity or timelines, because it doesn't make sense in any reality. Not every problem in fiction is about continuity, not by a long shot. This is simply an issue of quality and credibility.
I would have similar complaints about too many unearned emotional moments on Discovery where we're supposed to care for deaths of characters who've barely had a line of dialogue in two seasons of the show and due to the breathless pace, fixation on Michael Burnham and serialised format of the show has had no time to properly introduce and define these characters like for instance Airiam.
That's not what I'm talking about, though. Earned or not, at least the stories showed the characters feeling something. This is how fiction works a lot of the time -- even if we don't care about the same specific things the characters care about, we can still relate to how they feel about it, and so their caring gives us a way to care about something even if we wouldn't value it on its own. (This is the principle behind Alfred Hitchcock's concept of a MacGuffin, an object or goal irrelevant to the audience but crucial to the characters.) As long as we have basic human empathy for other people's feelings, then we can care about their joy or their sadness even if we don't care about the specific things that make them happy or sad.
In the case of Airiam, yes, it would've been nice if she'd been more developed in earlier episodes, but the episode where she died did a superb job of fleshing her out as a character and showing how much her loss meant to her crewmates, so that she wasn't just a disposable redshirt. We may not have known her well, but the pain the other characters felt at her loss was very thoroughly and sensitively explored.
What I'm saying is that in Beyond, by contrast, there was no effort made to show that the characters cared about losing the Enterprise, so there was no emotional loss for us to empathize with. If they'd shown that the characters cared about the Enterprise, that would make up for the fact that we'd had so little exposure to that version of it. That's something Discovery did, in fact, do -- to excess, if anything -- and that Beyond didn't bother with.
I liked, conversely, that they didn't get overly misty about losing the Enterprise in STB. It's been lost or nearly lost too many times to really worry about anymore.
The characters don't know that. In their reality, this is the first and only time they've lost an Enterprise. It's the ship they've spent nearly four years serving on and taking care of, it's been their home for all that time, and it's kept them alive through all that time. Forgetting about the larger history of Trek or your own experiences as a viewer, just looking at it strictly in terms of this story and these characters, doesn't it seem they should have more of a reaction to the ship's loss? And just in general, doesn't it follow that a scene in a movie is more compelling if the characters actually feel something in response to it rather than just going through a bunch of emotionally detached action beats?
Really, I think that's a problem with a lot of action filmmaking today. Filmmakers and audiences alike have become so inured and desensitized to massive violence and destruction that we forget how traumatic and terrifying it would be to the characters involved, and so it just becomes a mechanical exercise in action and spectacle. The best action movies are the ones that remember the emotional impact on the characters.
In truth, it seemed like Kirk and the others were really getting tired of being on the ship anyway, and most crews would have rotated off a ship if they were not doing these long five year missions.
Even if that's so in-story, it seems an odd direction to take it -- another way of taking away the emotional depth and impact of the story. If that's taken away, what's left? Is it really a faithful adaptation of Star Trek if the ship is irrelevant and casually interchangeable?
Really, I think that's a problem with a lot of action filmmaking today. Filmmakers and audiences alike have become so inured and desensitized to massive violence and destruction that we forget how traumatic and terrifying it would be to the characters involved, and so it just becomes a mechanical exercise in action and spectacle. The best action movies are the ones that remember the emotional impact on the characters.
Yeah, I don't have a problem with that (ok, maybe a little bit sometimes with consistency...just a little bit --but I'm not fundamentalist about it). One thing I really liked about Star Trek (2009) is the ingenuity of making it not just a reboot, but also a prequel and a sequel, all at the same time. They found a way to reboot the franchise but still leave a tie to all that came before. It all still happened. It was an element I really enjoyed. And it's the primary reason I don't get hung up on the production design or continuity differences--because it's an alternate universe).
But I do admit, the rapid fire promotion, in Kirk's case from cadet to captain (and not just captain, but captain of the flagship of the Federation) was an issue. It didn't ruin the film or make me not to want to watch it, but it was something that makes me shake my head a bit. Had they put in a few years of separation and adjusted the movie accordingly it would have helped, IMO. But that's not really a continuity/canon issue anyway---that's more of an issue with credibility.
Kirk's Enterprise was never the flagship of Starfleet, that concept came along with Picard's Enterprise in TNG but I also found the rapid promotions a roll my eyes moment in the films. Kirk applying to be an Admiral after 5 years experience as a captain, Chekov being Head of Engineering at 18 one year later after graduation, had me wondering who was writing this stuff, is the rest of the ship run by children in secondary school or something, have the noncoms just left nursery?
I'd be more forgiving of the Kelvin films if they were a true reboot and weren't so closely tied to the original timeline. As it is, we know how the Star Trek universe generally operates, so it's really glaring when the movies do something bizarre like promote Kirk to captain right out of the academy.
--but I'm not fundamentalist about it). One thing I really liked about Star Trek (2009) is the ingenuity of making it not just a reboot, but also a prequel and a sequel, all at the same time. They found a way to reboot the franchise but still leave a tie to all that came before. It all still happened. It was an element I really enjoyed. And it's the primary reason I don't get hung up on the production design or continuity differences--because it's an alternate universe).
