Two guys arguing over Trek 11, and beer.

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies: Kelvin Universe' started by LancerKind, Jan 5, 2011.

  1. LancerKind

    LancerKind Ensign Red Shirt

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    I and my buddy Hal debate why Trek 11 was good/bad. It was strange. Before Hal, I hadn't met someone so frothingly upset at the new Trek. He attributed to that although I'm a fan of Trek, I wasn't a Trekkie. He in in fact, has 55 points why Trek 11 sucks and I decided we should take this energy "outta the bar" and onto a blog:
    http://www.lancerkind.com/2010/12/29/why-trekkies-hated-the-09-star-trek-movie/

    After our work on the blog, I watched the movie again, and I have to say, I still enjoyed the hell out of 90%+ of it. I've thought about this for some time and decided that I wasn't committed to the old timeline. In fact, the 10ish% that I didn't like was the big info dump that Spock did. I felt like something stale had entered the theater. I feel apologetic about this as I've idolized Spock much of my life and still love TOS, but I'm just ready to leave that world be. Leave it as TOS, and embrace these new conflict driven characters.

    I am a little alarmed (the analytical, or Spock side of me) at some of Hal's 55 points and find myself nodding too. Especially in regards to the portrayal of the Romulan.

    Cheers,
     
  2. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm afraid I zoned out after a few of the points. Many were way too nit-picky and stupid. Here are a few responses:

    Vulcan kids bullying each other goes all the way back to the animated episode "Yesteryear", written by DC Fontana, who came up with many of Vulcan's core concepts.

    Ships not having crews bigger than 430 is utter nonsense. Before STXI, we didn't see 23rd century ships bigger or with more crew than the old Enterprise. That doesn't mean they didn't exist.

    The Earth scenes don't ruin Gene Rodenberry's vision of a "perfect future". People are still gonna be people 300 hence. Was there evidence of illiteracy? Were there homeless people? Was there racism or sexism displayed? No. STXI had the most colourful and diverse background cast of any Trek ever. A truly united Earth.

    An overbuilt megalopolis San Fransisco makes perfect sense for the city that is essentially the capital of the galaxy. A crowded skyline does not a dystopia make.
     
  3. Haytil

    Haytil Captain Captain

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    I agree the exposition was bad for the storytelling and overall quality of the movie. But it was a necessary step to acknowledge the older fans and timeline. To do otherwise would've been to leave us in the cold and left a bad feeling in the mouth of older fandom.

    Whatever their intention in rebooting the series, it was important that they go the extra step and explicitly say "Hey, that old timeline is great and it will still live on, in its own way. Let's go on and explore this new thing together, knowing they can exist side-by-side - not as rivals, but as companions!"

    So it brought the movie down as a standalone, but it was important for the overall tapestry of Star Trek, which is so much more than any given movie.
     
  4. M'Sharak

    M'Sharak Definitely Herbert. Maybe. Moderator

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    I feel like it's November 2008 again. :vulcan:
    Are we still stuck at "no canyons in Iowa"? (Pssst! It's a quarry - it even says so on the big sign at the gate which BoyKirk drives through - and there are plenty of quarries in Iowa even today.)

    Sorry, that right there makes me less inclined to assay the rest of these 55 reasons. I have a feeling I will have seen them all before and found a good half of them faulty by similar simple failures in observation.
     
  5. Haytil

    Haytil Captain Captain

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    I agree most of it is nit-picky. What's worse, most of it is factually wrong. I don't think your friend is as big of a Trekkie as he thinks.

    I'm bored and haven't talked about "Star Trek" in a while, so I'm going to go through some of these factual and logical errors for a bit of fun.

    I'll start with my favorite, which I think tends to prove my point (along with the rest) that your friend doesn't really know as much about Trek as he implies.

    Direct quote from "Wrath of Khan:"

    Spock: "As I recall, you took the test three times yourself. Your final solution was, shall we say, unique?"

    I'm sad to say I dredged that up immediately from memory.



    Before I go on, I will say that a few of the criticisms have merit. None of the nitpicky, trivia criticisms, but some of the larger, more general criticisms. It's just a shame that they're buried in so much garbage, as all the criticisms without merit or bias really do bring the good ones down.

    Ok, here's the rest - factual and logical errors that immediately jump to mind:

    How does the lack of a subtitle imply arrogance? And even if it did, why does that make it "lazy movie making?"

    TOS had plenty of flawed humans, families, and children. Examples include Harry Mudd and Finnegan.

    Roddenberry's vision wasn't that people are perfect individuals. It's that people are decent and united as a whole - but we still have individual flaws and imperfect relationships with other specific individuals.

    Also, a technicality - what Rodenberry "envisioned" isn't important. What was portrayed on the screen is what's important. That's the essence of canon.

    I never saw a dystopian policeman in the film.

    If you are trying to say "The presence of a policeman itself is dystopian," then I would disagree - both because the imperfect individuals mentioned above would create a need for policemen (TOS also had a clear justice and penal system) and because their existence is necessitated for safety reasons (policemen serve the public safety, and not just as crime-fighters). Accidents happen in the 23rd century.

    A good point, but one never knows how the shape of the land will change in the next 300 years (not from natural geological transformation, but traumatic interference by man, either intentional or accidental).

    Still, my response is more of a devil's advocate response. More seriously, I don't think the presence of a canyon in Iowa really hurts the movie.

    TOS and the films portrayed Kirk as quite rebellious and insubordinate - defying orders, violating the prime directive, and doing things his own way. Examples include stealing the Enterprise, not raising shields when Reliant did not respond to communications, leaving spacedock on impulse power, and saving the Pelosians (the latter being mentioned in Voyager, not portrayed on screen). As Dulmer and Lucsly said in "Trials and Tribble-ations," the man was a menace.

    Also, even if the above were not true, the very point of the movie is that the timeline has been altered. Kirk's early life is radically different, because he grew up without a father. It follows that there may be character differences or changes.

    Are you suggesting that Vulcan children are born perfect?

    The show has consistently portrayed the Vulcans as being naturally very emotional, but disciplined enough to suppress their emotions. The show has stated that this discipline is a learned one, not an innate part of their biology. Thus, Vulcan children must learn their discipline, and it's perfectly reasonable that they would engage in emotional, destructive behavior as children, much as humans do.

    Are you saying Quinto's accent changes throughout the movie? If so, when?

    Are you saying Quinto's accent doesn't match child-Spock's accent, or Nimoy's accent? If so, then it's perfectly normal for people's speech mannerisms and accents to change and evolve over a lifetime (especially one as long as Spock's!)

    Says who?

    It is never stated on screen and thus is not canon and cannot be said to be true.

    Why?

    That would be contrived and unnatural, unless there was a specific plot or story reason to mention it. There wasn't, so it wasn't mentioned.

    Just because you'd like an irrelevant fact to be referenced on screen, it does not follow that it should or that the movie would be better for it or that the movie is worse for its absence.

    By your logic, I could arbitrarily bring up any piece of trivia and say it should have been mentioned - but because it's not, the movie is not as good.

    I'd rather see a natural sounding movie, rather than a verbal dictation of an encyclopedia entry, detailing every miscellaneous, irrelevant fact about the characters.

    Spock and Chapel never had a romance. She had feelings for him, but not vice versa.

    Says who?

    Vulcans remain married and devoted to their mates even outside of Pon Farr. This complaint does not jive with the portrayal of Sarek and Amanda in TOS, who seemed to share physical and emotional intimacy in their own way.

    Yes, and then the timeline was changed, so that Kirk ended up meeting Pike in a bar.

    Says who?

    Says who?

    Yes there is. Iowa has lots of space. You need lots of space to build something big, like a starship.

    But it wouldn't be contrived for Uhura to mention she's from the United States of Africa and speaks Swahili?

    Says who?

    Romulans have always been depicted as being as emotional as humans (in fact, often more so, given the extreme nature of Vulcan/Romulan emotions).

    I refer you to "Patahk" from TNG as an example of a crazed, disturbed, emotional Romulan.

    Says who?

    It is a test designed to teach a lesson. Did you not understand that?

    Says who?

    Also, Kirk was never punished.

    A hearing (not a trial) was convened, because he did cheat. Academic disciplinary hearings are pretty standard in institutions like "Starfleet Academy" when cheating is discovered, especially in a place where integrity and honor are considered paramount (as they are in Starfleet).

    Says who?

    You should spend some time in the military. It is often as dysfunctional as any other institution.

    You might think it's ugly, and that's a subjective viewpoint, but I don't believe the intention was to portray it as dystopian. I think the majority of audiences would disagree with you.

    Says who?

    There's no reason to believe that Earth and Vulcan are not at at similar levels of development by the 23rd century (as equal, founding members of the Federation).

    Says who?

    Yes, but the Earth-Romulan war was a bloody, and well-known, one. The Romulans themselves may have been mysterious, but there was nothing mysterious about the explicitly defined borders and Neutral Zone.

    Why? I think most viewers picked up whatever they needed - more information would have been irrelevant and thus overwhelming and confusing.

    They didn't really realize it until a few seconds before walking into it.

    Ask Nick Meyer, director of "The Wrath of Khan."

    Says who?

    "Always" is a very narrowly-defined word.

    We usually see Romulans in formal situations, so they're talking formally - not because they're Romulans, but because they're in formal situations.

    But that doesn't mean there aren't non-formal Romulans. Even if we never saw any, there's no reason to assume they don't exist (since we just don't see Romulans that often).

    But as it turns out, there does exist non-formal Romulan dialogue. "It's a fake!"

    The Vulcans seem to speak quite formally in this movie when appropriate. Spock's discussion with the Vulcan Elders is one example.

    We don't know how high they were dropped from the shuttle, and they didn't fall far enough to reach the ground - so it's perfectly plausible they didn't fall far enough to gain enough speed to burn up.

    Star Trek isn't restricted to Gene Rodenberry's creation. Otherwise, anything post-TNG cannot be considered Star Trek.

    Star Trek is the creative product of many artists, of which Rodenberry is only one. Please don't denigrate their contributions to the tapestry.

    Why is it any more contrived than any other dramatic event in any movie? If everything worked perfectly in movies, they would be boring, uneventful, and pointless to watch.

    They would if an imperfect lock was acquired (as implied, by the difficulty the transporter tech and Chekov had in locking on to them).

    The original movies showed that people do retain movement and momentum in a transporter beam. I suspect TOS would've done the same, had the special effects been good enough to allow it.

    I've found solace in a girlfriend's touch and intimacy when I'm upset about something. Why would they not be motivated to seek the same?

    Not true. Spock doesn't "usually" show emotion, but sometimes he slips or shows it in his own, awkward way. Examples include his anger with Valeris during her interrogation on the bridge in "The Undiscovered Country."

    Certainly such a traumatic event as the death of his world would serve as just cause for him to let his emotions slip.

    He lost his wife, his child, his home, his people, and his way of life. Senselessly, because it all could have been prevented.

    That'd drive me to rage and perhaps monstrosity, so I don't think there isn't "proper explanation."

    Nor is it really relevant - Nero's a villain, shaking up lives and tearing through the film. But the movie's not about him or his conflict. It's about Kirk, Kirk's destiny, and these characters meeting each other.

    Nero is the setup, not the purpose of the movie.

    Nero didn't torture Pike to get information - it has been proven, time and again, that torture doesn't work for the purposes of gathering information.

    Nero tortured Pike as an outlet for his anger and rage. "Information" is always the excuse a captor gives himself, to let him do whatever he wants and indulge in his sadistic urges to dominate another person. Nero was no exception.

    Perhaps for the movie, to some degree, it's unnecessary. But as I discussed in my previous post, on a meta-level, it's important for "Star Trek" that this discussion take place.

    First, they aren't "science-fiction characters," they're just "characters." The fact that the setting is a science-fiction one doesn't affect their humanity.

    And I know that I often think about the future - how my life or my choices would be different, if things had occurred differently or different choices had been made in the past. So for me, it seems perfectly natural that they'd think about these things. They're as human as I am.

    Secondly, the details of the future are only discussed as they pertain to Kirk's destiny as well as to Nero.

    The former is discussed by Kirk and old Spock - and for old Spock, it's no the future, it's his past. So that makes sense.

    The latter is discussed in the context of Nero's technology and capabilities, since Nero is from the future. So it is relevant to the conflict at hand.

    Direct quote from "Wrath of Khan:"

    Spock: "Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny; anything else is a waste of material."

    Damn. Also direct from memory. I guess I really love that movie.

    As stated, Spock had reasons to be extra emotional. This is actually a plot point, which old Spock talks to Kirk about. How did you miss that?

    There is no inconsistency. Nero's ship is in tip-top shape when it faces Starfleet's fleet at Vulcan. But when it faces the Kelvin, it has just emerged from a black hole and survived a supernova. Presumably the damage left it at less than full strength.

    This is consistent with the fact that the Klingons soon take over the ship.

    Afterwards, they may have had up years or decades to fix their ship in time for the battle at Vulcan.

    Spock did not know the extent to which the timeline had been altered. It would be reasonable to presume that most things were the same, until something specifically suggests otherwise.

    When he says this, it's clear that Spock believes at Kirk's age, in the original timeline, Kirk was the Captain. Also, Spock is presumably estimating Kirk's age (i.e., all he knows is that he looks young, but he doesn't know how young), since it's unlikely he knows the exact year he's found himself in (remember, Nero didn't know the current year either).

    Don't act like what? Nero was angry throughout the film. It makes sense he wants to get a little physical. It feels good to release you aggression.

    By the time old Spock reached his level of maturity, he realized there was more to life than logic, as he had reconciled his human and vulcan halves.

    From "The Undiscovered Country:"

    Spock: "Logic the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end"

    It's a lesson he's learned over a lifetime of living - and now he's trying to impart that wisdom to young Spock, so hopefully he won't have to struggle as long or hard with it.

    Also a good thing for us - it means the character can go in new directions in the upcoming films, and not retread the same old character arc.

    He's on the bridge in TOS a lot, too.

    Says who? If he's called a commander, then he's obviously not a lieutenant at this time of the new timeline!

    Incidentally, Lieutenant Commanders are referred to "commander" as well (see the numerous times Data was referred to as a commander). So it's likely Spock was a Lt. Cmdr.
     
  6. Haytil

    Haytil Captain Captain

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    UGH. Never hit the post character limit before.

    As a physicist, I can tell you that black holes do indeed connect different (often distant) points of space and time. This is not string theory, it's General Relativity, which is held in the highest regard and levels of acceptance by scientists.

    It's not relevant to us, because we can't use warp drive - but if you could, you could use black holes to travel through space and time.

    Like in "The Motion Picture?" When the Voyager probe is said to have fallen into a black hole and emerged on the far side of the galaxy?

    If that much is good enough for the first Star Trek film, then why not this one?
     
  7. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    tl;dr

    Some I skimmed through were actually insulting. "Romulans should speak formally" is like saying "all black Americans should talk like Will Smith in Fresh Prince of Bel Air". Same for the way "Romulans should act" - it's bollocks.
     
  8. Robert D. Robot

    Robert D. Robot Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Haytil did an excellent job in that post (those posts....). I agree strongly with what was said there.

    I am afraid that your buddy Hal seems to be one of the more annoying of the flavors of "Trekkies":
    one who thinks he owns Trek and is full of strong opinions, but actually is not clear on the facts of the Universe that he claims to have dominion over.

    Simply owning a bunch of books & manuals apparently doesn't make someone well-informed on a subject.

    I have been watching Trek since the original Enterprise first warped across our television screens. Although I did not care for some aspects of Trek '09 (I, too, could have done without Scotty in the Willy Wonka tubes), I did enjoy the movie a lot and I am anxious to see what the next film brings us.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2011
  9. UFO

    UFO Captain Captain

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    Some of Hal's points certainly appear to be wrong and others don't seem to add up to much so I agree with Haytil generally but a couple did resinate with me:

    If Vulcans are unemotional and logical they should be much better at child raising than humans (as we can see from the way Kirk turned out early on). It seems reasonable to suppose that Vulcan children are indoctrinated with emotion suppressing techniques virtually from birth. You wouldn’t leave it till they start school of course. This seems in line with the fact the bullies had to make numerous attempts at insulting young Spock before they finally got to him. Clearly Spock was already being taught anti-emotion techniques. Why didn’t such training work on his tormentors? It just makes no sense that Vulcans are racists and apparently it infests their whole culture. Like most things, not a concept original to this movie, but enthusiastically perpetuated by it. I guess that’s the sort of biased silliness you get when you hire humans to write about Vulcans! ;)

    Less than full strength? You mean most of its missile launchers were out of commission?

    No, I don’t buy it. The first salvo almost destroyed the Kelvin and that was just a softening up exercise! What happened to "Fire everything!"? :)

    It might be if they did, but of course they didn't! Besides, colliding with the Kelvin would have been a better explanation I think.

    Actually the Narada’s threat level varied wildly depending on what scene of the movie you were watching at any given moment so there was enormous inconsistency.
     
  10. LancerKind

    LancerKind Ensign Red Shirt

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    :-)
     
  11. TiberiusMaximus

    TiberiusMaximus Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Most of those points are pointless nitpicks. And why does Hal have the right to tell people they 'shouldn't have enjoyed a movie'? If they enjoyed it, they enjoyed it. Explaining why HE DIDN'T LIKE IT is one thing, but that's quite another.

    Still, I respected most of his points right up to #37. To paraphrase, 'Everyone knows that Spock doesn't show emotion." That's not true. Like Robert D. Robot said, Hal doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. Sure, maybe he can recite lines of dialogue from memory or speak Klingon or what have you...but Spock's character has always been about his struggle to balance emotion and logic, struggling to control himself quite often. That involves showing emotion.
     
  12. Cyke101

    Cyke101 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Haytil, I think you should post your counterpoints on their website :)
     
  13. Set Harth

    Set Harth Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Then watch Journey to Babel (TOS) and believe.

    :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

    And this is what you're calling "more intelligent than Star Wars"?:lol:

    I suspected Klingon prison rations were somewhat severe but DAMN.

    Except for the fact that it's only the second time he ever used transwarp beaming, which was also not 100% accurate the first time it was used.
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2011
  14. Set Harth

    Set Harth Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Exactly.

    O RLY?
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2011
  15. Nerd unRage

    Nerd unRage Commander Red Shirt

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    That...was tedious to put it lightly. I don't like it when people nitpick anything to death and base a lot of their rationale on irrational things and proclaim 'That's not the way X character, race, whatever would ever do it!' even though it's clearly a fictional work so we don't know for certain.
     
  16. TiberiusMaximus

    TiberiusMaximus Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    <Teal'c>Indeed.</Teal'c>
     
  17. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    FWIW, the bit where the crew were "worrying that their future had been changed" was actually about how Nero's knowledge of the future would affect their attempt to stop him. Spock pointed out that Nero changed history and thus the future he knew would no longer be theirs.

    I could just put on First Contact and start whining and crying that WWIII moved from the 1990's to the 2060's, that Zefram Cochrane had totally changed from "Metamorphosis", that the Borg look different, that Picard submitting to baldness has turned Gene Rodenberry's bright vision of the future into a dystopia...
     
  18. Aragorn

    Aragorn Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Does your friend Hal already post here under a few certain screen names such as ------- ----- -----? :lol:
     
  19. LancerKind

    LancerKind Ensign Red Shirt

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    Possibly.... :mallory:
     
  20. LancerKind

    LancerKind Ensign Red Shirt

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    I'd love that! I wanted to bring our disagreement into a broader venue than just guys arguing over beers. It's what the Internet is great at, bringing discussion to a broader audience.
    OK, sometimes the discussion isn't constructive, but Haytil wrote some well thought out points that people will appreciate just as some people appreciated Hal's well thought out points.

    ==>Lancer---