Re: Come on people - am I the only fan who can't drink Abrams' Cool Ai
I have to disagree. As a cultural rule of thumb, this concept might be a good one, but when it comes to dramatic entertainment, whether it be film, prose or even music, I think we
Trek fans greatly overuse these 4 letters. A diversity of
ideas perhaps, but we're talking about a diversity of
skills here. Infinitely combining poor storytelling skills do not produce a stronger final product - they only reinforce chaos. There is one distinction that one must constantly remember when writing, reading or consuming fiction: it is not chaotic or random, unlike reality. A story hinges upon a skilled mix of plot, characters and action, and nothing is left to chance. If a gun is mentioned to be in a drawer, then it had better be there for a reason that is relevant to the plot. If a character is a villain, then there needs to be a sound reason for his villainy and not just "he is mad" or "he is insane" (those can be two very different motivators); if the villain
is completely irrational, then it is because his motivation is not important, but that of the protagonist
is, and it's
driven by the villain's irrationality (Batman and the Joker, for instance). Fiction is a
very rational construct, almost mathematical in that all of the elements must add up to a positive in the end. Even a purposely-negative outcome is still a positive sum of the story elements. You can't simply throw elements into a story for their own existence and say that because they are there, they are justified because the story is fiction; such random things are only present in reality. Even when writing
about reality, only the relevant facts are necessary - you wouldn't write about a plane crash, for instance, and mention that an unrelated student aced a math quiz in another state at the same time, unless it were relevant
to the crash, yet such randomness is clearly an example of "infinite diversity"; it doesn't, however, contribute to the reality of the experience because it has no connection to it. In fiction, IDIC is no more a goal than writing one's dreams exactly - all of the randomness of a dream is not, itself, a story, although it may all be part of a
greater story, and provide insight into the dreamer.
This movie gave us the heart wrenching death of a beloved planet. The reaction of Spock losing his mother, and the conversation he had with his father afterward was very touching and one of my favorite scenes. Kirk going from a trouble making hot shot to growing up and taking the first steps to coming the legendary Captain James T. Kirk we know and love. There's a lot to enjoy in this movie, plot failings aside. I'm not surprised it's doing as well as it has. I can definitely understand why some wouldn't like it, but I'm glad to not count myself among them.
Which planet's death was heart-wrenching? Which planet was beloved? Think about this as someone who is new to
Star Trek, or not even to
Trek, but only to this movie. Was Vulcan beloved? Why? Because we were
told it was? We saw almost nothing of its people or its culture - all we saw was a handful of characters whose most distinguishing characteristic was an arrogant sham of emotionlessness (arrogance is certainly emotional, after all), whose goal was to accept the destruction of their homeworld without a tear. How is that heart-wrenching? The only emotions that either Spock or Sarek displayed related to Amanda, not to the destruction of Vulcan - only Spock Prime seemed at all moved by the destruction of his homeworld, and even he mentioned it in very analytical terms when trying to give Kirk a trigger to pull on young Spock, for whom it was the mention
of his mother that pushed him over the edge.
For a non-fan, I see the destruction of Vulcan as just another cool effect - it was shown very coldly and clinically. Frankly, they did a better job on ENT with the death of Trip's sister, and even then, we never knew her enough to really care about her death. It's a sad truth that even though all death should affect us, when it comes to drama, abstract death such as the destruction of a planet is just that: abstract. We cared about the destruction of Alderaan because we felt Leia's anguish, and we cared about the destruction of the
U.S.S. Intrepid because we cared about Spock, but I don't feel that a non-fan knew enough about Vulcan
or Spock for the planet's death to be an emotional knife; as fans, we felt more
outrage at the stripping of one of our 'comfort zones' because
we 'knew' that Vulcan still existed in the future, and this negated our own knowledge. We were being told we were
wrong.
I agree that the connection between Spock and Sarek was well-done and satisfying; I
don't think that Kirk really demonstrated any growth, because his accomplishments were largely manufactured - his entire character arc was one large
Kobayashi Maru, with him cheating death, cheating rank, cheating even plausibility to always come out the winner, only because he "was" James T. Kirk. The story was rigged in his favor from beginning to end, and I feel personally cheated as a result; the audience was played, and expected to either not notice or not care because they were given so many entertaining moments, regardless of whether they derived from the story itself or not.
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