Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...
People call me a hater. Probably being a life long Trek fan from the time i was able to talk has made me a person who expects certain things from my beloved Star Trek. So I thought, what is it that I don't like about JJ Abrams new star trek movies. What is it that bothers me but doesn't bother other people. So I thought I'd go out on the limb and make a list of things I do not like. In doing this I thought "Well people are gonna see some of these as ridiculous because it doesn't bother them as much as it does me". It very well might come down to my OCD. So you NuTrek lovers, please don't get mad at me. This is a list of things that just bothers ME. And I will trashtalk the movie makers a bit, I do that to people who aggravate my OCD lol. Now as Khan put it....Shall We Begin....
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5. Spock and Uhura.... Yes Uhura was flirtacious with spock in TOS, but WTF? Actually I said that out loud in the theatre before I caught my self. I have problems with a lot of characters acting out of character.
6. Chekov - Yeah that is not Chekov...well he's Chekov, but he's not Pavel. He's Pavel's older brother...
... But where it seems to me the producers were so careless, and turned star trek into something that almost makes it something differnt than Star Trek, It makes me hate it. I try hard to explain my point of view, and I cant find the words I need.
I'm relieved to see I'm not the only one who disliked the 2009 movie, and for some of the same reasons.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK3Fc14xOu8[/yt]
The history of Spock flirting with Uhura.
The only part of that that's remotely flirtatious is the music/singing. And I attribute that more to Nimoy having a hard time keeping a straight face, than anything else. In the scene where Uhura talks about Vulcan's moon, Spock just seems confused as to what she's actually getting at, so he latches on to the part of it he can counter with plain fact: Vulcan has no moon. The rest is just so much nonsense. Of course we've seen art that seems to refute that, but another explanation was put forth that it's actually a twin planet, which is different from a moon. And Spock helping Uhura up off the floor when she has fallen down is the logical thing to do. No romantic motive is either present or necessary.
It'd be interesting to see how many of the built-it-on-the-ground-is-fine-because-it-is-the-future-and-energy-is-free folks grew up as much on STAR WARS as TREK. Seems the generation that saw SW before 2001 (if they saw the latter at all) is much more inclined to give more credence to the fantasy aspect than anything even vaguely science-based (and they were, I suppose, rewarded with the starship SEAVIEW earlier this year.)
I don't think the chronological age of a fan is the determinant of whether he/she prefers to believe in pseudoscience or technobabble over sensible extrapolations based on real science. Some people are just scientifically-literate enough to realize when other people who write/produce science fiction either have no real grounding in science, or else they assume the audience doesn't (or both). That said, I read 2001 (the book) before seeing the movie, and both happened on the same weekend in late 1975. Less than two years later, I was part of a massive lineup of mostly young people waiting to see Star Wars. So it was basically at the same stage of my life, but my reading habits were still firmly in the "hard science fiction" subgenre (with Asimov's nonfiction essays included in my recreational reading), while my TV habits included a lot of science documentaries.
^That's some pretty foolish stuff. Building the shuttle on the ground has NOTHING to do with building a starship there.
Why not? A starship is just a spaceship the size of an aircraft carrier. We build aircraft carriers on the ground too.
I don't remember hearing about any aircraft carriers in orbit. And unless you can afford to squander a hell of a lot of resources (can't really say "money" unless the nuTrek universe actually uses it?), a gravity well is still a gravity well and escape velocity doesn't change.
Not the same Egg, not the same Sperm. Basically this Pavel is as much Pavel, as Pavel's older brother would be. So in essence, this Chekov is Pavel's older brother that ended up being named Pavel.
Pavel never had a brother. So if nuChekov is really TOSChekov's older brother, he doesn't exist - which would have been preferable to the Russian-accented version of Wesley that showed up instead of an earnestly-dignified young officer of the right age group.
Why would we need it, exactly? Why would the question even come up? No great fuss is made of Kirk as being Awesomely Special in the actual series, there's no reason to assume he wouldn't have come to his post via a reasonably "normal" chain of command.
Because at the age of 32 ("The Deadly Years") he was already in command of a Constitution-class starship and was obviously much younger than every other captain we saw in the series.
Kirk was 34 in The Deadly Years.
Maybe Kirk and Picard and Sisko and Janeway all refused whatever rewards they were offered for saving earth or various other planets, without it being referenced onscreen. But why did all the junior officers who single handedly saved starships still have to wait years, if ever, to be promoted at all, let alone leapfrogging ranks? Did Wesley say 'No, I don't want to be a lieutenant.'? Did O'Brien say 'I'd rather stay non-commissioned, thanks.'?
Actually, Picard did refuse a promotion (to take over running the Academy). And it's obvious that Janeway didn't refuse her promotion to the admiralty. I seem to recall an occasion when O'Brien indeed expressed a preference to not be an officer. And Wesley, by quitting and going off with the Traveler basically did say he didn't want to be a lieutenant.
At what point does what's happened in past productions cease to matter? What does it take to make it not matter?
One might just as well ask at what point will self-proclaimed wardens of True Trek™ cease pronouncing new movie X or new series Y to be "not Real Star Trek™"? If that ever transpires, my guess would be that what happened in past productions will begin mattering a great deal less right about then. If one would draw comparisons, though, it helps to bear in mind that the traffic on that street runs both ways.
If the new stuff that calls itself Star Trek were actually like Star Trek and wasn't so dumbed-down, I'd consider it more real. When they improve sufficiently, I'll cease to consider it "not-real".
I would say that as part of that change in Star Trek, we are now subject to the ideas of a universe that has an active agent of fate...
But we've had that since "Pen Pals". People fated to die by a mystical "cosmic plan". That's the whole cornerstone of the 24th century Prime Directive.
Yep, Picard's self-righteous magic Ouija board that trumps plain compassion and humanity. It's ridiculous to say that the aliens in that episode were "fated" to die. The only reason Picard said that is because he initially
chose not to help them.
...and that our characters are now superheroes. Part of that means more unrealistic and fantastical elements making their way in than before, and one of those things is a person going from a cadet on probation to captain of the flagship.
Kirk and Spock were always super-heroes.
I mean, Kirk was literally out there fighting for truth, justice and the American way. Spock was super-strong with cool mind powers. Both had cool duds that separated them from the bad guys.
Superheroes wear magic longjohns and capes and have some kind of "power" that normal people don't have. They're also supposed to have some sort of Achilles heel (ie. kryptonite) that will stop them in their tracks. Neither Kirk nor Spock qualify for superhero-hood... at least in TOS. TOS Kirk and Spock sometimes do heroic things, but that doesn't make them superheroes. Maybe nuKirk and nuSpock get magic longjohns in STID? I haven't seen it yet, so I can't be sure about that.
When TNG introduced a 14 year old Alpha-shift hemsmen, did the TNG fans go crazy? Wesley was the son of Picard's two best friends so there must have been the hint of nepotism there.
Did GRs fantasy of himself as a boy destroy Star Trek as we knew it? Nope we sucked it up and moved on.
I still have my "SHUT UP WESLEY in an airtight box" button. I have another button that says, "Wesley's not so bad - at least he didn't try to write and direct a major motion picture" (a dig at William Shatner for the mess that was Star Trek V). And one of the panelists at the local SF conventions around that time was a guy who had the misfortune to be almost a dead ringer for Wil Wheaton (slightly older, but the resemblance was positively eerie). Nobody was openly rude to him in a malicious way, but he did endure a lot of "Wesley" jokes those weekends.
