Yeah, dark comedy, not slapstick, swolen hands, little jar-jars.
How can you praise this movie and bash VOY, ENT and Nemesis?
- Thread starter neozeks
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Ok, i haven't seen MASH, though i'm meaning to see it.
But even then, it's an exception that proves the rule. You don't see much laughter in Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, Band of Brothers, do you? Or if you want Sci-fi, in nuBSG.
Plus, it's not the same situation. It's about war, a protracted suffering. You live through many horrible things and you have to laugh from time to time just so you don't go insane. I'm talking about essentially a terrorist attack, sudden massive distruction.
And as i pointed out, there was plenty after the distruction of Vulcan.
Yeah, and it wasn't really right there either (could you give me specific examples? i'm a bit rusty on TOS)
Plus, it wasn't the second most important planet of the Federation ( and the race on whose development 40 years of work and love had gone) that was in question.
I see very little difference between the two. Orci & Kurtzman didn't bother to create a flesh and blood adversary. They used a random generator to end up with the idea of a Romulan villian who had no personality and then proceeded to supply him with one of the most cliched motives of having lost his wife and child. As far as his plan he was just going to go around blowing up planets. Reaaal deep.
Then they expected us to buy into this grudge he had with Spock even though they didn't go out of their way to flesh that aspect out in any satisfying manner beyond a thirty second quick flashback.I certainly wasn't happy with how FG was handled but that doesn't give Nero a pass.
Oh please. Talk about splitting hairs. The writers could have easily had her come in and leave her clothes on but they didn't for one reason--titilating the sexually-deprived fanboys.
And I guess porn flicks showing a woman getting undressed or pleasuring herself isn't about the viewer getting aroused but the male actor that is with her.
I would urge you to see MASH. They even have a suicide joke that's skillfully executed by can hardly be reproduced well.
1941 was slapstick comedy, made by Steven Spielberg (if you want to reference Saving Pvt. Ryan and Schinder's List) and it was about Pearl Harbor and the ramifications of the tragedy.
Heck, Life is Beautiful had slapstick and won many international awards and it was a Roberto Benini film set during the Holocaust. Benini himself won a Best Actor Oscar for the film. That's proof right there that tragedy could be used to frame humor. Not to belittle 9/11 or take away from one of the greatest tragedies in modern human history, but for Holocaust survivors, every day in the camps was 9/11 for them.
Was the humor in Trek a bit clunky? Sure, one could argue that, but to argue that tragedy and humor are mutually exclusive in art and entertainment is strangely not human.
Unless you're Douglas Adams, the destruction of any planet is a tragedy. Any planet with life is equally important. Or else our Trek heroes wouldn't go out of their way to save a planet they barely know (for that matter, this board wouldn't have as much discussion had it been another planet aside from Vulcan. Qonos was nearly destroyed in Star Trek VI and the fans never debated it! The destruction of Genesis? Meh. The Borg blowing up Mars? Now we're in trouble).
Personal taste?
Maybe?
Maybe?
But those worlds weren't the home of a main character or a founding member of the Federation. Heck, even ENT got that right with the crew's reaction after returning home to Earth after the destruction in "The Expanse" or Trip/Reed visiting his hometown or when Cardassia lost 800 million people and the somber reactions in its wake. That sort of reaction was noticeably absent in this film.
The difference is that immediately after a disaster of this magnitude levity should not be present. There should be a somber tone. Now levity in the midst of an ongoing war is acceptable because that sort of thing is realistic like we had in DS9's "Rocks and Shoals".
I'd say it was much more satire or black comedy. Humor in ST09 was just plain humor, no relation to the meaning of the movie what so ever.
No, i absolutely do not argue that. I'm saying if you mix humor and tragedy you have to do it skillfuly; there needs to be a corelation, a point to the jokes in the context of the tragedy.
Tell me something. If say a terible earthquake (or terrorist attack since we're not talking about natural disasters) happened on the other side of the world you'd probably say it was tragedy, tried to help if you can, but your life wouldn't be teribly affected. But if an eartquake destroyed your own home (or a city close to you where your friends live, if we're talking about humans in relation to Vulcan) how would you feel?
However, you cite Kirk's big hands slapstick as inappropriate, which was before the planet was destroyed. Though the fleet's mission was to render first aid, nobody expected a major disaster either. Kind of unfair to chastise someone's joke as inopportune if it happened well before anyone expected the disaster to happen in the first place. That's criticizing someone for watching Three Stooges before the plane hits.
And frankly, after Vulcan was destroyed, when did our heroes fool around? The instant that the planet was sucked in and Pike was captured, the crew was virtually all business. There was no time for being somber, they lept into action. Scotty perhaps, but he wasn't there when Nero happened. Kirk was snide, but that was to get Spock all pissy and served an actual purpose in advancing the mission. No gags from Chekov, no remarks from Uhura, nothing else really.
Neozeks, do you get upset when a natural disaster wipes out hundreds of people? Do you get upset when random countries (not the one you're from) start killing eachother with lots of casualties? People don't get really, really upset about this sort of stuff unless they have a connection to it. Sure, you could make an arguement that Vulcan is part of the Federation, so they should get upset about it, but the Federation is so large that the character would probably be having to cry themselves to sleep on a pretty frequent basis if that were the case. Only two main characters had any real connection to Vulcan- Spock, the resident half-Vulcan, and Uhura, the Vulcan's lover. And we got reaction out of those two. And we certainly got a lot of reaction, particularly from Spock. The rest of them reacted exactly how I would have expected them to, and how many Americans reacted post 9/11: They wanted to stop those Al-Qaeda- er, Romulan bastards before they could strike again.
We got the hand-wringing from the two characters who it would have been appropriate from. Anyone else wouldn't have made as much sense.
We got the hand-wringing from the two characters who it would have been appropriate from. Anyone else wouldn't have made as much sense.
The Vulcans were the first alien species humanity met. They were there from the beginning. Both races have a long complicated history(just look at ENT). The two overcame great differences and a rocky relationship to form an alliance that would reshape the entire quadrant. So yes I would say this should hit them pretty hard and leave them reeling. And I don't think that a Federation world goes boom! all too often or I would at least hope not.
Did we get acknowledgment? Yes. Was it all that effective or satisfying for me as a viewer? Not really. Orci & Kurtzman did the minimum that they had to without being accused of glossing over reactions. This wasn't thoughtful moving drama. It was video game mindset.
No, no, no. I'm not criticizing Kirk, he's just a fictional character. I'm criticizing the WRITERS for mixing silly jokes with tragedy. If they wanted a light movie, they shouldn't have destroyed Vulcan. If they wanted to destroy Vulcan they should have given it the gravitas it deserved.
Right, and Scotty couldn't see the distruction of Vulcan in the sky though he was on the same planet as Spock Prime. And anyway, i'm talking about the inapropriatness (or however you spell it) of the WRITERS going for simple jokes after a humonguous disaster.
I liked all the tv series though Voyager was my least favorite. The last 2 season of Enterprise were very entertaining. I never gave a crap about violations of canon unless it was something really obvious and destructive to the shows history. This new movie did a nice job of making me not care about the changes to the time line and other such issues.
And I asked where were the silly jokes after the attack? Where did the writers put those? Examples?
The only funny moment I can think of from the writers after the fact was when Kirk and Spock were beamed to the wrong location, which itself wasn't really played for laughs but rather upped the urgency and action (re: set off the movie's endgame).
Besides, the writers said that the destruction of Vulcan from Delta Vega could just been seen as just impressionistic, just Spock Prime giving Kirk the psychic interpretation that he himself saw through a telescope or other device, and isn't literal (if that's the case, Scotty couldn't see it first hand anyway. He didn't seem to be aware of it, either).
http://trekmovie.com/2009/05/22/orci-and-kurtzman-reveal-star-trek-details-in-trekmovie-fan-qa/
Well, after 9/11 there were commemorations and minutes of silence all over the world. There was a lot of compassion shown from outside of the USA.
Yeah, there was reaction from Spock and Uhura but it looked like it was mostly about his mother. And I wanted to see at least some compassion and acknowlegment from Kirk as well.
Well, maybe we have a different sense of humor but that seemed like something pretty much taken from Galaxy Quest.
Oh, and i read somewhere on these boards that most people in the theatre laughed at the point so i'm pretty sure it was aiming for humor.
Likewise: 'i like this ship' (practically all of Scotty's lines), his Jar-jar...
Now, thats just writers trying to backpeddal. I'm sure they didn't mean it that way when they wrote it. Like when they tried to explain the impossible coincidences with 'the universe wanted it, it was destiny' - hm, now what does that remind me? God did it!
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We might get that in the next movie for Vulcan, who knows? Commemorations and moments of silence for 9/11 didn't come until hours and a day after the attack.
Well, we should have gotten it in THIS movie. The ceremony at the end of the movie was a pretty good chance to do it.
Aiming for humor is one thing, but it's not like the script dwelled upon it. Right after that little joke, it was back to action and seriousness and derring-do.
I'm reminded of Saving Pvt. Ryan, a film you referenced earlier. In the middle of the climactic and deadly-serious end battle, Tom Sizemore's character runs out of bullets. Rather than do a rather masculine punch or a classically-trained military martial arts technique, he repeatedly smacks a German with his helmet the way a little old lady would with a purse. Everyone in the theater when I went had at least giggled, at the most guffawed and laughed, but this was well after most of Sizemore's platoon had been killed both before and during the battle. That moment in no way removed the immediacy of the action or took the audience away from the sadness of the excruciating deaths of Adam Goldberg or Tom Hanks.
Back pedal or such, it's still there. When have any visual interpretations of the mind meld ever been literal in Trek? Even Tuvok's would turn into surreal territory at times (ie the mind disease with Janeway and Sulu).Now, thats just writers trying to backpeddal. I'm sure they didn't mean it that way when they wrote it. Like when they tried to explain the impossible coincidences with 'the universe wanted it, it was destiny' - hm, now what does that remind me? God did it!
There was no such scene in Star Wars after Alderaan blew up (a movie that's still held in higher regard than the best of Trek films by the public), but then again, its two sequels never touched upon it either. I hope the next Trek movie does speak to something of that effect (and one-ups Star Wars in that regard), esp. since modern Trek did a very good job of bringing up consequences of huge events. The writers said they took notes from the TOS movies too, and the consequences of TWOK and TSFS lasted into TUC, so I hope they noted that as well.
Okay, here's the thing:
JJ's Trek avoided two things that turned me off some modern Trek (though I still watch ENT and VOY accasionally, mind you):
1) Reset button (and by extension deus ex machina)
2) Info dump. Trust me, that is something that kills excitement and leaves the audiences feeling stupid.
It's as simple as that.
JJ's Trek avoided two things that turned me off some modern Trek (though I still watch ENT and VOY accasionally, mind you):
1) Reset button (and by extension deus ex machina)
2) Info dump. Trust me, that is something that kills excitement and leaves the audiences feeling stupid.
It's as simple as that.
You mean this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPSmL70VzoQ&feature=related? That hardly seems comparable... And of course it didn't take away from the deaths - they REALLY were sad and excruciating, they were executed well. In this movie, I just felt somewhat sorry for Spock (because he lost his mother), but for Vulcans, Vulcan culture and civilization (remember, it's not just in ruins, it's literaly sucked into a black hole, gone forever) - nothing.
Watching just the movie, you couldn't tell. I don't like to rely on outside information from writers to know such thing.
Well, i say it says more about the public than about SW or ST.
Plus, again, what exactly did we know about Alderaan? It surely wasn't Vulcan.Of course, the next movie could remedy this somewhat, but again, I don't like to rely on promises for the future.
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