STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Amaris]

If you mean about the other ship having faster warp drive it still doesn't make sense. It's Star Wars, the other side of the galaxy by now, too fast. Now going to the Neutral zone it felt like there was a break to where some time has passed. But but when they go back to earth, the moments come off as only minutes of actual time.

It's called moving at the speed of plot. Star Trek does it all the time. Actually, just about every movie does it to some degree.

Then both ships appear to be in lunar orbit. But some how the explosion pushed them from there and the ship fell to earth. You do realize it took Apollo 2 days to make the trip? This was just a shock wave then the gravity or Earth.

Yes, because these ships are on par with 1960s technology.

 

[Brent]

p.s. and it was 3 days for Apollo, just to be anal

 

[Amaris]

p.s. and it was 3 days for Apollo, just to be anal

Now you're being crazy! It would take a covered wagon years to reach the Moon, if it could reach it at all! Surely you can see that this doesn't make sense!

 

[ConRefit79]

It's called moving at the speed of plot. Star Trek does it all the time. Actually, just about every movie does it to some degree.

Then both ships appear to be in lunar orbit. But some how the explosion pushed them from there and the ship fell to earth. You do realize it took Apollo 2 days to make the trip? This was just a shock wave then the gravity or Earth.

Yes, because these ships are on par with 1960s technology.

All they have to do is film something to show more time has passed.

The ship wasn't moving under its own power from what I saw. It simply started to fall from gravity and the shockwave of the torpedo explosion and moved from the moon to earth in minutes.

 

[Brent]

It's called moving at the speed of plot. Star Trek does it all the time. Actually, just about every movie does it to some degree.

Then both ships appear to be in lunar orbit. But some how the explosion pushed them from there and the ship fell to earth. You do realize it took Apollo 2 days to make the trip? This was just a shock wave then the gravity or Earth.

Yes, because these ships are on par with 1960s technology.

All they have to do is film something to show more time has passed.

The ship wasn't moving under its own power from what I saw. It simply started to fall from gravity and the shockwave of the torpedo explosion and moved from the moon to earth in minutes.

Powerful fictional future technology there, wouldn't wanna mess with it

I just accept that it is that powerful, since it is a made up thing afterall

 

[ConRefit79]

Powerful fictional future technology there, wouldn't wanna mess with it

I just accept that it is that powerful, since it is a made up thing afterall

Well, we're going to have to agree to disagree. For me this ends up like the same stupid Hobus super nova, which travels faster than light, plot device from the last film.

 

[Amaris]

All they have to do is film something to show more time has passed.

Not everything needs spelled out.

The ship wasn't moving under its own power from what I saw. It simply started to fall from gravity and the shockwave of the torpedo explosion and moved from the moon to earth in minutes.

What exactly are you looking for? The movie explains how the Enterprise becomes caught in Earth's gravity, and that they're close enough to be pulled downward.

If you don't like it, blame it on Psi 2000.

 

[Brent]

Powerful fictional future technology there, wouldn't wanna mess with it

I just accept that it is that powerful, since it is a made up thing afterall

Well, we're going to have to agree to disagree. For me this ends up like the same stupid Hobus super nova, which travels faster than light, plot device from the last film.

In Star Trek Online, just as an aside, the Hobus Super Nova explosion is revealed to have traveled through Subspace, hence how it got to where it was. In the game, it's a plot that an advanced alien species instituted to shake up things. They are pulling the strings in the game, won't reveal who it is, spoilers. Anyway, the Hobus thing traveled through Subspace is the answer to that.

 

[ConRefit79]

All they have to do is film something to show more time has passed.

Not everything needs spelled out.

The ship wasn't moving under its own power from what I saw. It simply started to fall from gravity and the shockwave of the torpedo explosion and moved from the moon to earth in minutes.

What exactly are you looking for? The movie explains how the Enterprise becomes caught in Earth's gravity, and that they're close enough to be pulled downward.

If you don't like it, blame it on Psi 2000.

Please be happy you can enjoy it and stop trying to convert those that don't like it for whatever reason. At least I went to see it, despite my better judgment.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

You gotta love how the Veridian star appears to darken from Veridian III, just a few seconds after Soran's missile is launched.

 

[Amaris]

All they have to do is film something to show more time has passed.

Not everything needs spelled out.

The ship wasn't moving under its own power from what I saw. It simply started to fall from gravity and the shockwave of the torpedo explosion and moved from the moon to earth in minutes.

What exactly are you looking for? The movie explains how the Enterprise becomes caught in Earth's gravity, and that they're close enough to be pulled downward.

If you don't like it, blame it on Psi 2000.

Please be happy you can enjoy it and stop trying to convert those that don't like it for whatever reason. At least I went to see it, despite my better judgment.

I'm not trying to convert anyone, I just get curious when people find phantom reasons to dislike something that has done them no harm.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

It had a consistent theme to pull it together, but it lacks an essential element of the best Trek which is an idea at its center. You can't fault it too much for that though, because very few of the movies have managed to do that - really only TMP had a philosophical concept which drove the story action.

Both of Bad Robot's movies have focused squared on the "Nature vs Nurture" conundrum. And it continues to support, if not drive, the story action. How very different is Kirk in the two timelines?

And we have one Spock who was bonded to a Vulcan girl, played no-speaks with his father for 18(?) years, and embraced his human half in later years, versus a Spock who is in a romantic relationship with a human woman, loses his mother and his homeworld but maintains a positive relationship with his father, and embraces his human half at a much earlier age.

How don't those scenarios provoke philosophical conversations in the grand Star Trek tradition?

Because the characters within the stories don't engage with them. They are not in-story concerns, but fan concerns in terms of comparing one set of stories and the character interpretation presented in them, and another set of stories and the character interpretation offered as alternative. Yes, the two interpretations are thinly linked by some time travel hokum, but Kirk isn't making decisions within the story because he's thinking about who he might have been had the Kelvin not been destroyed and how his fate was changed by the different set of circumstances he grew up in versus the set of circumstances Kirk Prime grew up in - thus Nature vs. Nurture might make an interesting fan debate but it in no way affects what happens in STiD.

On the other hand in TMP, the climax of the movie hinges on Deckard realizing that he can achieve a new level of consciousness by allowing V'Ger to merge with his "creator" (i.e. a feeling human being). The philosophical questions of machine intelligence, the nature of sentient maturity, and the pivotal role of emotion in consciousness drive the story action.

Abrams' Trek is fun, entertaining and looks good - but it's not in the same ballpark. I think one review said it best when it dubbed the film "a Star Trek flavored action movie".

That doesn't make it "not Star Trek", since most of the movies more or less have the same issue. It doesn't make it bad Star Trek. But it definitely doesn't make it as good of Star Trek as it could be. One of the primary things that makes Star Trek, Star Trek, as opposed to any other space opera or SF, simply isn't there. But since Star Trek can exist as more generic space opera, and often has, this movie qualifies.

Doesn't mean I can't still hope for and miss that other thing, because it's the thing that always put Star Trek on top of the heap when it comes to filmed SF, at least in my book.

 

[ConRefit79]

You gotta love how the Veridian star appears to darken from Veridian III, just a few seconds after Soran's missile is launched.

Yeah, that was stupid and I caught it to. Not to mention the missile travels from the planet in < a minute under chemical propulsion. I know Trek is full of goofs like that. This is just one scene in this film that irked me.

 

[ConRefit79]

Not everything needs spelled out.

What exactly are you looking for? The movie explains how the Enterprise becomes caught in Earth's gravity, and that they're close enough to be pulled downward.

If you don't like it, blame it on Psi 2000.

Please be happy you can enjoy it and stop trying to convert those that don't like it for whatever reason. At least I went to see it, despite my better judgment.

I'm not trying to convert anyone, I just get curious when people find phantom reasons to dislike something that has done them no harm.

They're not phantom reasons. And it's difficult to explain. It's too fast and childish for me. And it tries too hard to win us over with quick references to past Trek They've made these characters more like 21st century people. Kirk is an immature cocky fly boy. And his death is as meaningless to me as it should be to Spock. Spock seems to have suffered from a Trellium addiction cause he cannot keep his emotions in check. And he is in a relationship with a subordinate and a one time a cadet. He has the gall to bring Kirk up for cheating? Bones is being made a caricature of the original. Scotty reminds me nothing of the original. He seems like a running gag. The ship is ugly as..... The effects are too much like Star Wars for me. And I'm talking new Star Wars. It's all flash and no substance to me.

 

[Amaris]

Please be happy you can enjoy it and stop trying to convert those that don't like it for whatever reason. At least I went to see it, despite my better judgment.

I'm not trying to convert anyone, I just get curious when people find phantom reasons to dislike something that has done them no harm.

They're not phantom reasons. And it's difficult to explain. It's too fast and childish for me. And it tries too hard to win us over with quick references to past Trek They've made these characters more like 21st century people. Kirk is an immature cocky fly boy. And his death is as meaningless to me as it should be to Spock. Spock seems to have suffered from a Trellium addiction cause he cannot keep his emotions in check. And he is in a relationship with a subordinate and a one time a cadet. He has the gall to bring Kirk up for cheating? Bones is being made a caricature of the original. Scotty reminds me nothing of the original. He seems like a running gag. The ship is ugly as..... The effects are too much like Star Wars for me. And I'm talking new Star Wars. It's all flash and no substance to me.

Sounds like you don't like the way your chicken tastes. Granted, it's a steak, but that's your right.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Because the characters within the stories don't engage with them. They are not in-story concerns, but fan concerns in terms of comparing one set of stories and the character interpretation presented in them, and another set of stories and the character interpretation offered as alternative.

Huh?

thus Nature vs. Nurture might make an interesting fan debate but it in no way affects what happens in STiD.

So it can only be true Star Trek if the characters realise something and not the audience?

On the other hand in TMP, the climax of the movie hinges on Deckard

Decker.

And one of the biggest criticisms about the story of ST:TMP is that it should have been Kirk or Spock making guest-star Decker's climactic sacrifice to save the Earth from V'ger.

Abrams' Trek is fun, entertaining and looks good - but it's not in the same ballpark. I think one review said it best when it dubbed the film "a Star Trek flavored action movie".

Well, I hate action movies, but I love JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" movies.

What's so terrible about "Star Trek flavored action movies"? They create new fans of the ongoing franchise, just as ST IV (a "Star Trek flavored" comedic movie) did. CBS already reported that the 2009 film caused huge spikes in sales of all "Star Trek" DVD boxed sets: all of the movies and all of the TV series, as new fans explored what had come before.

 

[Amaris]

^ Yep. First thing I wanted to do after seeing ST09 and STiD, was to watch the TOS episodes on Netflix, because I closely associate them due to the similar methods of story telling.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Well I just saw it and it was good.

 

[ConRefit79]

Sounds like you don't like the way your chicken tastes. Granted, it's a steak, but that's your right.

Actually a steak, medium well, would be great. This was as half baked turkey.

 

[davejames]

I'm not sure that's true - we know Khan in TWOK was marooned on a planet by Kirk, and that he considers himself a superior being to Kirk - so we know he was humiliated by his imprisonment. We know that this humiliation was compounded once the planet became a wasteland where he and his people had to struggle to survive for decades because no one bothered to check on him. When he tells that story, you cannot help but imagine him, day after day, year after year, ruminating on his humiliation, the injustice of it all, especially to a being born to rule. We know his beloved wife was killed and he considers Kirk personally responsible. Also, having the same actor reprising the role means that if you know Space Seed you can believe that it is that character's history, so the possibility is there to bring that knowledge to the movie.

This Khan wasn't the Khan I knew. I don't know if he was involved in the Eugenics War, no Eugenics war was mentioned. I don't know why he was outlawed, put in cryogenic sleep and launched into space. I don't really know how he feels about regular people other than that he considers himself superior to them - but that seems a rather objective assesment on his part. That is, it doesn't have any emotional color. He never mentions despising regular humans, wanting to destroy or rule them, in fact he never mentions wanting anything except to be with his people - so he seems a ... smaller character. Cumberbatch's choice to play him so cold also means he's a bit of a cypher. I don't know how he feels about anything except that he loves his people and will do anything to save them, which is a fairly generic motivation. Montalban's Khan had very specific motivations, even if all you know is what you learn in the movie itself.

Completely agreed. Montalban's Khan laid it all out and explained everything you needed to know in his speech to Terrell and Checkov early on, and you instantly understood why he was so bitter and angry at Kirk.

Cumberbatch certainly came across as dark and sinister, but his desire to free his fellow supermen just didn't pack the same punch as the death of McGivers. And without that history with Kirk, their conflict didn't have the same weight at all.