Did Kirk's rather *enthusiastic* execution of Nero bug you?

[UFO]

... I get it; just focus on telling the fucking story and let the lesson take care of itself.

I’m fine with that.

…the lesson of "Let that be your last battlefield" doesn't become a whole lot more poignant if you change the black/white guys to some religious fanatic suicide bombers.

Science fiction’s ability to show us our problems in a new and clearer way is indeed a strength.

I would invariably prefer a good episode with a shallow message to a bad episode with a good message. To quote another of my favorite shows "We go to church to learn all that stuff, we go to movies to be entertained."

And if you are lucky, sometimes end up being provoked or challenged. My point is not that STXI has a shallow or non existent message, but that it has a negative message. Surely it should avoid that? Personally I prefer my moral lessons to be fairy tale free, but that’s just me. Besides, if done well (without being patronising), a good movie can do both.

But I am not suggesting ST should go out of its way to contain moral lessons at all.

You're not?

No. As I said, I just what it to be consistent with its own principles. Or if not, there should be natural (in universe) consequences.

Because that's what would be required for Kirk to show mercy to Nero against his own explicit maniacal hatred.

Ah but Kirk supposedly did show mercy to Nero (insincere on the part of the writers though it may have been) so I wouldn’t describe him as having maniacal hatred. In fact he seemed relatively in control at that point. Apart from glee, I didn’t get much emotion from him at all when making those decisions certainly not foaming at the mouth maniacal hatred.

The simple fact is that at this point in the movie there simply isn't enough screen time left to deal with that kind of outcome in a halfway reasonable way …

Why does everyone want to hold me responsible for corners the writers painted themselves into?

Killing him gets him out of the picture, and we can all move on.

Unless you don’t believe the end justifies the means (most of the time). Well, the plot device has done his job and bows out? OK but others have suggested less obnoxious ways of doing that that. TWOK is interesting in that regard. Not quite perfect but at least they don’t actively kill him when he is defenceless, which Nero arguably was.

I don’t agree with that. Moral issues seemed to keep cropping up in TOS. It kind of went with the territory.

Of course it did; reality is that way too, you may have noticed.

Once or twice. Its just that TV episodes tend to clarify and condense such things.

The moment the story stops being about characters and starts being about situations, you run into trouble; the characters become interchangeable, and you stop caring about them.

That seems reasonable. What happens in STXI might be in character for our current society sadly (though that's a bit unfair to us), but not theirs. My argument is STXI should reflect their social conventions. As a writer if you don’t want to do that or can’t handle it well, don’t write a ST story. Such writers might be better suited to purely entertaining movies.

….at the end of the day, a storyteller, not a preacher. His job is to tell a good story, not to moralize his audience. So in Mudd's women we don't get an extra sermon about the evils of drug abuse or about how wrong it is for Harry Mudd to be trafficking women to alien worlds

Once again I am not asking for that. My concern is that Star Fleet is now "trafficking women" and few seemed worried either in movie or out. Much of your post addresses an issue I am not opposing.

Accepted. But I’m suggesting it actually undermined Starfleets moral underpinnings and presented doing so as perfectly OK on more than one occasion (four at least).

I don't know that Starfleet has that much patience with genocidal maniacs. They were perfectly willing to eradicate the Borg, for example.

The Borg were more a decease, though I imagine if they could have extricated individuals safely enough they would have done so.

Yes, I saw that coming! I guess I should have added "if it seriously compromises the brand."

"The brand" is an entertainment product, my friend. It doesn't "compromise" anything at all unless it flops at the box office.

Hmmm, I still haven’t found the right concept. "Compromising its consistent internal values" is probably a bit closer. Although "brand image" is important. Its just few appreciate any damage might have happened.

So Star Trek Insurrection may have be morally pleasing on a number of levels, but it doesn't help the brand much if the numbers flop.

I’ve heard arguments that it wasn’t even morally pleasing (though it tried) but all would probably have been forgiven if it had been fun and exciting.

And yet arresting Nero and his crew is what a Federation officer should do.

And often don't as we've seen in Trek's past.

How many were quite so actively murderous?

 

[ST-One]

Again, this is a problem with the lack of internal consistency in the movie. If the ship is shielded then they can't beam in either (since you have to scan to find a safe place to beam in i.e. one of those painfully thin walkways and not the 90% empty air surrounding them). If you can scan to beam in then you can scan to beam out. Plus later on, they ARE beamed out! Once again, it isn't a point in NuTrek's favour.

It may be that parts of the ship are shielded but that's significant enough to warrant a mention rather than just saying I'll beam you into this big open space where you are less likely to spotted. If they can scan the area for a safe place to beam, they can scan to confirm the presence of life forms too.

As I said earlier, if they decide that you need a communicator to get beamed it makes things a lot less contradictory, avoids you coming up with excuses as to why people can't be beamed, and would have removed the stupidity of not being able to get a lock when someone is moving.

When has Trek ever been consistent or not contradictory?
Warp is defined as the speed of plot, the transporters work or don't work (shields, anyone?) based on the requirements of the story or the drama (that's why we've got the scene with Chekov at the transporter controls - so that the character gets to show his abilities and not some piece of equipment).

 

[Photoman15]

Excuse me.... excuse me....
Why didn't Kirk "capture" Chang and his Cloak-firing Bird-of-Prey in STVI?
Kirk and Sulu just locked on and fired and fired....and fired...

Unredeemable bad guys must always die.

 

[Pauln6]

When has Trek ever been consistent or not contradictory?
Warp is defined as the speed of plot, the transporters work or don't work (shields, anyone?) based on the requirements of the story or the drama (that's why we've got the scene with Chekov at the transporter controls - so that the character gets to show his abilities and not some piece of equipment).

Lol - yeah but you're not supporting your own point here. Trek has always been conradictory and we've always complained.

Personally, I wasn't a fan of the scene with Chekov. I find it ludicrous that nobody closer than the bridge was qualified to work the transporter - I mean why have specifically trained transporter operators if they can't even use the flaming thing properly in an emergency? It was a flimsy excuse to give the character something to do and it wasn't one of his 'canon' skills either. A short scene where he explains in excruciating details how orbital mining ships work and how such techniques were designed by Russians would have pleased me more.

If they'd wanted to use a supporting character for the transporter scene, I'd have preferred Rand - at least she was an engineer, she wasn't tied to the bridge, she could have been close to the transporter room during the crisis, and she was canonically trained as a transporter operator.

My views are slightly coloured by the fact that I would have preferred Rand to appear instead of Chekov and save him for the sequel. I understand why they wanted to include Chekov but as a result the movie lacks female participants of note.

EDIT: Chang was still a threat at the time he was destroyed. They wanted to take him down as fast as possible.

 

[ST-One]

Personally, I wasn't a fan of the scene with Chekov. I find it ludicrous that nobody closer than the bridge was qualified to work the transporter - I mean why have specifically trained transporter operators if they can't even use the flaming thing properly in an emergency? It was a flimsy excuse to give the character something to do and it wasn't one of his 'canon' skills either.

So, it's like Spock repairing the 'engine imbalance' in TMP?

But what does a navigator know about moving objects, gravitational pull and all that? Right?

Oh, and you find it 'ludicrous' that one of the main characters of this film gets something to do?
Really?
I mean, it must have been equally 'ludicrous' to you when both, Kirk and Scotty, ran to the transporter room in TMP (even though it was manned by a 'specially trained operator').
For god's sake, Kirk (who doesn't even know how the energy distribution system on 'his' ship works anymore) took over from Rand (and 'as a result' made that 'female participant' look totally incompetent).

 

[ST-One]

EDIT: Chang was still a threat at the time he was destroyed. They wanted to take him down as fast as possible.

No, he wasn't.
That first torpedo hit the 'head' of that BoP and destroyed the bridge.

 

[Pauln6]

So, it's like Spock repairing the 'engine imbalance' in TMP?

But what does a navigator know about moving objects, gravitational pull and all that? Right?

Oh, and you find it 'ludicrous' that one of the main characters of this film gets something to do?
Really?
I mean, it must have been equally 'ludicrous' to you when both, Kirk and Scotty, ran to the transporter room in TMP (even though it was manned by a 'specially trained operator').
For god's sake, Kirk (who doesn't even know how the energy distribution system on 'his' ship works anymore) took over from Rand (and 'as a result' made that 'female participant' look totally incompetent).

Well, no offence, but I've already confirmed that two wrongs don't make a right! I've never been a fan of Spock doing linguistic translations instead of Uhura, of Nurse Chapel never being assigned to a landing party as medical support, of every senior officer beaming down as one landing party, or of Spock fixing absolutely anything on the ship with huge expertise. The characters should be used in ways that fit them if only to make room for the others to do stuff that fits them. So if NuChekov is a transporter expert - fine - assign him to the transporter room and get NuIlia on the bridge!

However, I think the scenes in TMP weren't quite so silly. It's not quite the same dynamic as NuTrek because the operator failed and so did Kirk and Scotty - it had nothing to do with Rand's skill. In NuTrek the operator couldn't do the job and somebody else could.

Kirk wasn't on duty at the time and was in engineering with Scotty (who has long been established to be a transporter expert bar none) and they both ran to the transporter room together. It is a bit silly if the transporter rooms are in the primary hull as they would have to go quite some way to get there, but there is one transporter in the secondary hull and it may be that this was the only one in use because of the problems they'd been having.

Rand had pretty much done all she could but Kirk doesn't agree with a no win scenario so he elbowed her out of the way to try himself. It's also symbolic of Kirk's desire to be in control the whole time, which we see again later when he butts heads with Decker.

EDIT: Weapons systems aren't controlled exclusively from the bridge. There are weapons control rooms and auxilary control rooms.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Chang was still a threat at the time he was destroyed. They wanted to take him down as fast as possible.

Saying that doesn't make it so.

 

[ST-One]

So, it's like Spock repairing the 'engine imbalance' in TMP?

But what does a navigator know about moving objects, gravitational pull and all that? Right?

Oh, and you find it 'ludicrous' that one of the main characters of this film gets something to do?
Really?
I mean, it must have been equally 'ludicrous' to you when both, Kirk and Scotty, ran to the transporter room in TMP (even though it was manned by a 'specially trained operator').
For god's sake, Kirk (who doesn't even know how the energy distribution system on 'his' ship works anymore) took over from Rand (and 'as a result' made that 'female participant' look totally incompetent).

Well, no offence, but I've already confirmed that two wrongs don't make a right! I've never been a fan of Spock doing linguistic translations instead of Uhura, of Nurse Chapel never being assigned to a landing party as medical support, of every senior officer beaming down as one landing party, or of Spock fixing absolutely anything on the ship with huge expertise. The characters should be used in ways that fit them if only to make room for the others to do stuff that fits them. So if NuChekov is a transporter expert - fine - assign him to the transporter room and get NuIlia on the bridge!

However, I think the scenes in TMP weren't quite so silly. It's not quite the same dynamic as NuTrek because the operator failed and so did Kirk and Scotty - it had nothing to do with Rand's skill. In NuTrek the operator couldn't do the job and somebody else could.

Kirk wasn't on duty at the time and was in engineering with Scotty (who has long been established to be a transporter expert bar none) and they both ran to the transporter room together. It is a bit silly if the transporter rooms are in the primary hull as they would have to go quite some way to get there, but there is one transporter in the secondary hull and it may be that this was the only one in use because of the problems they'd been having.

Rand had pretty much done all she could but Kirk doesn't agree with a no win scenario so he elbowed her out of the way to try himself. It's also symbolic of Kirk's desire to be in control the whole time, which we see again later when he butts heads with Decker.

EDIT: Weapons systems aren't controlled exclusively from the bridge. There are weapons control rooms and auxilary control rooms.

Yeah, that's why Decker countermanded Kirk's phaser order.

 

[Pauln6]

Yeah, that's why Decker countermanded Kirk's phaser order.

Lol - I think it's sweet when people can't admit that anybody else might have a point when they produce evidence in support of their comments.

However, you'll have to be more specific with your criticism in this case. This comment could apply to Kirk being a control freak in TMP or the nature of weapon systems but either way I don't understand the point you're trying to make!

During a battle, General Quarters means that all crew man their posts. This means the bridge is manned, the weapons control rooms, and the auxillary bridge are fully manned. The weapons officer on the bridge can but isn't required in order to fire the weapons. If that was the case everybody would always target the bridge instead of the weapons deployment systems themselves and the bridge wouldn't be built sticking out like a sore thumb at the front or on top of the ship. Now BoP have few crew so they may not have that many auxillary systems but if a Klingon ship is going to have a back-up, weapons would be it! I think that Khan suffers a similar problem in TWoK - he doesn't have enough crew to man all the systems and nor does Kirk in STIII.

and Dennis - can I have a pot to go with that kettle?

 

[ST-One]

Lol - I think it's sweet when people can't admit that anybody else might have a point when they produce evidence in support of their comments.

Evidence?
For god's sake! Kirk in TMP and Chekov in Star Trek ran both to the transporter room so that a main character can be in the scene.

However, you'll have to be more specific with your criticism in this case. This comment could apply to Kirk being a control freak in TMP or the nature of weapon systems but either way I don't understand the point you're trying to make!

Kirk didn't know shit about the new Enterprise (couldn't find his way around, doesn't know how the energy distribution affects the weapons systems), yet he took over the transporter controls. Pretty damn stupid, wouldn't you say?
If he had at least given the controls to Scotty...

 

[kkozoriz1]

Kirk was operating the transporter alongside Scotty. Yes, it made Rand look incompetent but it's not like Kirk was doing it all by himself. And yes, Kirk was shown as stupid a number of times in the early part of the movie. "Jim, you're pushing. Your people know their jobs." That's why McCoy was there. That's why Kirk needed him back. It wasn't because he needed a doctor, he needed his friend and conscience.


When the transporter went out in TMP Kirk wasn't on the bridge. There wasn't a hostile vessel off the port bow. Chekov had an assigned station and he left it without permission to have his little moment. If you're going to have him be the one to save Kirk & Sulu have him in or near the transporter for some reason, not AWOL from his assigned station.


In TMP Spock was assisting Scotty with the repairs.
Captain's Log. Stardate 7413.4.
Thanks to Mr. Spock's timely arrival - and assistance we have the engines rebalanced into full warp capacity. Repair time less than three hours...

Spock is a pretty smart guy. He knows a thing or two about startships.

In TWOK, I don't recall Kirk smiling, popping a shot or two into the Reliant before he tried to get away from a dangerous situation.

 

[JarodRussell]

EDIT: Chang was still a threat at the time he was destroyed. They wanted to take him down as fast as possible.

No, he wasn't.
That first torpedo hit the 'head' of that BoP and destroyed the bridge.

They did not see that. Sulu says "Target that explosion and fire." What the audience saw is not what the characters saw.

Chang was still a threat at the time he was destroyed. They wanted to take him down as fast as possible.

Saying that doesn't make it so.

Just like all the fan-claims that Nero was still a threat and that Kirk had to destroy the ship.

When has Trek ever been consistent or not contradictory?

LOL. And that's the excuse for lazy writers and directors to not give a damn? "They made errors before, so why should we care?"

 

[Photoman15]

When the transporter went out in TMP Kirk wasn't on the bridge. There wasn't a hostile vessel off the port bow. Chekov had an assigned station and he left it without permission to have his little moment.

Chekov did NOT leave the bridge without permission, iirc. I believe he had been given command when Spock left the bridge to prepare to beam down to Vulcan. He was in command so he couldn't have left without permission, he gave himself permission to go.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Oh, that's much better. He's in command but nobody else is capable of ding the job they were trained for so the cadet has to do it?

I'd have to rewatch the scene but leaving the bridge and running through the ship yelling "I can do that, I can do that" was stupid.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Oh, that's much better. He's in command but nobody else is capable of ding the job they were trained for so the cadet has to do it?

I'd have to rewatch the scene but leaving the bridge and running through the ship yelling "I can do that, I can do that" was stupid.

It would save everyone a lot of time if you'd just go through the old threads and re-read the ones from the last time you complained about that.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Oh, that's much better. He's in command but nobody else is capable of ding the job they were trained for so the cadet has to do it?

I'd have to rewatch the scene but leaving the bridge and running through the ship yelling "I can do that, I can do that" was stupid.

It would save everyone a lot of time if you'd just go through the old threads and re-read the ones from the last time you complained about that.

I assume you know where the Ignore button is. Feel free to use it.

 

[Pauln6]

Oh, that's much better. He's in command but nobody else is capable of ding the job they were trained for so the cadet has to do it?

I'd have to rewatch the scene but leaving the bridge and running through the ship yelling "I can do that, I can do that" was stupid.

Lol - so the 17-year old with about an hour's experience as an officer is the only man who can command the bridge AND the only man who can work the transporter properly It makes you wonder what the other 400+ officers and crewmen are for...

I realise that they wanted to give the character something to do but it was a hamfisted way of involving him. Now, if his superior officer, Uhura, had been placed in charge of the bridge and he had been closer to a transporter at the time of the transport I might have been more charitable...

Maybe if Number One had been badly injured in the initial fight and Chekov was asked to accompany her to sick bay - at least then he'd be on the correct deck!

 

[JarodRussell]

Oh, that's much better. He's in command but nobody else is capable of ding the job they were trained for so the cadet has to do it?

I'd have to rewatch the scene but leaving the bridge and running through the ship yelling "I can do that, I can do that" was stupid.

Even more funny about that was that Spock had started to walk to exactly the same transporter room like a minute before Chekov left his post, and arrived only after Chekov beamed Kirk and Sulu aboard. You'd think Spock was in a hurry trying to save very important people, but no.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Shhhhh, don't use logic where XI is concerned. You'll make them cry.