Are we forgetting why Spock is a great character?

I am not confident in your ability to evaluate what actually constitutes "the exact same things" in this context, sorry. (If you can't tell the difference between the perspective of someone like me and that of the author of "Now that I've seen it, and have also had time to mellow, to really think about it, I now find it absolutely, unbearably repulsive in every way except for some of the acting" back in '82, then you are trafficking in false equivalence.)

 

I'm sure. But all of those arguments are not equivalent just because they happened. There were and are good reasons why some of the series and movies have detractors, and why some more detractors than others. Trying to ignore that will not do.

 

Then have a read yourself. You know the links. Step back from your own opinion, and objectively compare and contrast the complaints made against each movie. Mischaracterization, claims that TPTB have no love for or understanding of Trek, that the films are shallow Star Wars shoot-em-ups...

 

Believe it or not, I did this a long time ago. I know this may shock you to learn, but people can in fact arrive at different opinions than yours by perfectly rational processes. That's a thing that can happen.

 

Although there are times when moving units is not a guarantee of future respectability. Adjusted for inflation, the highest-grossing Trek film of all time was actually The Motion Picture (yes, it beats out both NuTrek films); it's largely rated an underwhelming bore today, an opinion that caught hold early on and for some good reasons.

 

But many haven't. AFAICT it remains the most widespread opinion about that film.

This doesn't mean you or I can't like it, of course. It does mean that we can't fob the criticism off as being "just like every other incarnation" -- there is probably something genuinely specific to that film that is producing the kinds of reactions it has, for good and ill.

 

??? No, positing that people may be perceiving something real when they critique a film is not "false equivalence." Whatever are you talking about? The false equivalence I was talking about is the attempt to pretend that all criticisms of Trek product must be irrational and off-base because some of them were.

 

Unfortunately there's a stark limit to how interesting that is as concerns actually evaluating opinions (criticisms, praise or what-have-you). And actually evaluating what people say interests me a lot more than trying to plug it into some meta-narrative of fandom, an exercise which as I said above seems mostly to have the function of avoiding and obscuring specifics.

 

Well, it's a good thing nothing like that ever happened again!

 

You're over-thinking this. The "undewhelming" complaint is really just a gut reaction to STID's paucity of space battles.

Think about that for a minute. Vengeance's shootdown of Enterprise happens with all the ceremony of a brick to the face. No dramatic "daaa da da daaaaa!" battle music, no dazzling return fire from the Enterprise, no exchange of Macross Missile Massacre and Vengeance using beam spam to render Enterprise's attack utterly ineffective. No twisting and barreling or dogfighting or chasing.

IOW, when fans saw Vengeance they were expecting the climax from Nemesis. Instead, they got Training Day.

 

^^

Just more of the same starting from Day One of ST: TNG. Our heroes aren't allowed to shoot their way out of a situation and usually* when they encounter an enemy ship, they will be hopelessly overmatched.

*Usually.

 

^^This!

Originally, I was hoping that ideally we would see 7 movies, keeping in tradition with the 7 seasons of TNG/DS9/VOY. I was hoping we would see a movie arc that, shows the crew as cadets in the first movie (which we got), transitioning to their 5 year mission (1 movie for each year), then a final movie that concludes their stories (IE winding down their term on Enterprise where everyone moves on to something bigger andbetter in the way TUC did for the original cast, but not necessarily the "end of the road" for their careers).

The third movie will really decide for me if I want to see more of the Abramsverse Trek movies. I loved ST 2009, but thought STID was such a stinker. Seriously, I haven't been so let down by a sci fi-fantasy sequel, since The Phantom Menace or Matrix Reloaded\Revolutions. If they can get their mojo back, and actually do something original for the third movie, I am back in for more. If it sucks, or is just as derivative as STID, I am totally out for good.

 

I enjoyed watching an outgunned starship actually being outgunned. The Enterprise was outclassed by the Vengeance and it clearly showed on screen. It took an act of sabotage to give the Enterprise any breathing room at all.

 

Well, I was actually talking about TMP, but I would just like to say:

I would kill to see a character as awesome as Alonzo Harris in a Trek movie.

 

I haven't forgotten why Spock is a great character, he still is one. I don't see anything wrong about turning the tables with nuSpock, mixing it up a little. I've seen emotionless Spock before, I don't need to get another ten years of the character acting like he did before.

Who knows, someday Quintos Spock may be as endearing to everyone for this portrayal as Nimoy is for his portrayal of primeSpock. We haven't seen the character but in two films, give him some time to grow into this and never forget, Quintos Spock SHOULD BE CONSTANTLY SHOUTING.