Why "Star Trek" is not right...
- Thread starter Captain Mike
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The moral of Star Trek:
"We changed stuff and we got away with it. Up yours, nerds."
"We changed stuff and we got away with it. Up yours, nerds."
Please don't accuse me of wrapping somebody else's Scripture around a Star Trek episode. Turn! Turn! Turn! was a #1 Billboard hit almost contemporaneously with City. It was "in the air" at the time the episode was written, and its lyrics therefore hardly some obscure or otherwise arbitrary passage.
There is a direct connection between the passage and the episode, which is that there is a time for war and a time for peace, and the two are distinct. Spock says explicitly that the 1930's was not the time for peace.
By essentially characterizing Edith as naive, and indeed tragically so, Spock is passing judgment on Edith. But he is not delivering a diatribe. So instead of saying he was "preaching", I should have said he was "lecturing".
number6
Vice Admiral
"We got the gig and we'll do it our way."
Nice mental gymnastics. I think the French judge screwed ya, though.
If I wanted to put some thought into it, though, I could probably tell you why Britney Spears' "Oops, I did it again" fits neatly and thematically with City, too...
"We pulled a Lucas on you" is another way to put it as well.
No, that's you putting your opinion in their mouths. Doesn't work.
potablog has a blog on Sci-Fi Channel Star Trek Special Editions. The one for The City on the Edge of Forever has an interview with Harlan Ellison.
In that interview Harlan says that he was inspired by reading a biography of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who is clearly the model for Sister Edith. Harlan says that City is a love story in which she, a good innocent person, has to die to set history right.
I recommend that TOS fans check out these interviews.
In that interview Harlan says that he was inspired by reading a biography of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who is clearly the model for Sister Edith. Harlan says that City is a love story in which she, a good innocent person, has to die to set history right.
I recommend that TOS fans check out these interviews.
Its the one before the one with the Whales.
It was in the TV series.
People keep wanting aspects of Star Trek to be shoehorned into a summer popcorn flick when the reason Star Trek had those elements to begin with, was because it was a TV series that had the luxury of character development, thought provoking themes and a breather from all action, all the time.
Summer popcorn movies have demands placed on them that will prevent them from ever having all the stuff we're used to getting from a TV series. Paramount is not going to slow down or smart up a summer popcorn movie just because CBS won't get off their butts and greenlight a TV series.
We don't know anything but that. Abrams' Kirk could have started out like a positively grim stack of book with legs, but he would have overlapped too much with Spock and besides, isn't an out of control jackass a lot more fun to watch? Either way, he's on a character arc, and I have a hunch that the destination is the same. Either we see the studious nerd loosen up, or the jackass get smacked around, learn a thing or two, and settle into a more mature leadership role. Second option sounds more fun to me.
"Stack of books with legs" was a throwaway line in the second pilot episode that gave Kirk the middle initial "R" and put Spock in a yellow shirt. In other words, is it really worth any more than Smiling Spock in "The Cage", or Troi's OTT empathy and telepathic broadcasting skills in "Encounter at Farpoint"? Characters and characterizations change, and early ideas are often dropped and swept under the big Space Rug.
Well, to graduate the Academy in three years it's quite possible that nuKirk hits the books pretty hard too - we just don't see it.
And to the inevitable "he cheats" remarks...the writers made it crystal clear in this movie that he's flaunting what he does in the Kobayashi Maru rather than trying to get by with it (you're welcome to speculate on whether or not oldKirk cheated in earnest, of course). If this were his general approach to his studies he'd have been kicked out in his first semester.
And to the inevitable "he cheats" remarks...the writers made it crystal clear in this movie that he's flaunting what he does in the Kobayashi Maru rather than trying to get by with it (you're welcome to speculate on whether or not oldKirk cheated in earnest, of course). If this were his general approach to his studies he'd have been kicked out in his first semester.
number6
Vice Admiral
Well, to graduate the Academy in three years it's quite possible that nuKirk hits the books pretty hard too - we just don't see it.
And to the inevitable "he cheats" remarks...the writers made it crystal clear in this movie that he's flaunting what he does in the Kobayashi Maru rather than trying to get by with it (you're welcome to speculate on whether or not oldKirk cheated in earnest, of course). If this were his general approach to his studies he'd have been kicked out in his first semester.
This.
If this were his general approach to his studies he'd have been kicked out in his first semester.
Which is why it was sort of annoying to never see his supposed studious side -- yeah, they told us he had it, at least when Pike referred to him as a "genius-level" intellect, but I had a hard time buying it when all we saw were his jerkass tendencies. Informed attribute, anyone?
If you think that people with genius IQ can't have jerkass tendencies, you haven't met enough of them.
ST-One
Vice Admiral
And that is quite enough.
Or is the character of Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park not a mathematician simply because the only told us he is?
But if they showed him actually working at something it may have made the character, at least, moderately likable.
That was probably one of those things that was too much to ask for.
Sure is, since most people who saw the movie liked him fine.
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