couple questions about new trek?

[jgalley]

I searched and couldn't find answers..though I admit I didn't spend a TON of time searching....

so my questions are as follows.

1. Ok we aren't told on-screen why the new tech seems so much farther advanced...how is the audience supposed to know this?

and..

2. Kinda a sub to 1 though....if it's the scans of the Narada that make all this "new" more advanced tech..then why does the Kelvin still have the same design of the "more advanced" starships instead of the old ToS (pre ToS actually) look?

EDIT: forgot one

3. Time traveling and the new reality it created. I'm finally finishing up the final season of "Enterprise" and even later on with the "time police" (or whatever they were called.) Where are they at? Why didn't any of them jump in to help stop this from happening? This, imo, is the real problem with time-travel stories in trek...sometimes these "time police" show up (like the temporal cold-war) and sometimes they don't? what sense does that make? So why didn't one, or a group of them, show up to stop the Nerada and whatnot?

again, sorry if this was covered, but like I said I didn't find any real answers...thanks in advance~!

 

[Dukhat]

I searched and couldn't find answers..though I admit I didn't spend a TON of time searching....

so my questions are as follows.

1. Ok we aren't told on-screen why the new tech seems so much farther advanced...how is the audience supposed to know this?

and..

2. Kinda a sub to 1 though....if it's the scans of the Narada that make all this "new" more advanced tech..then why does the Kelvin still have the same design of the "more advanced" starships instead of the old ToS (pre ToS actually) look?

again, sorry if this was covered, but like I said I didn't find any real answers...thanks in advance~!

1. The movie's target audience (i.e. regular people who knew about TOS but weren't fanatical know-it-alls about it) would not care about this. As a matter of fact, bringing it up would probably just confuse the people watching the movie. The "Narada scans" thing was brought up as a plausible reason mainly to quell the fans who would actually know that the tech had changed. Spock's line about the creation of an alternate universe was explanation enough.

2. Who says the Kelvin is more advanced than a TOS ship? And before this movie, how many pre-TOS Federation Starfleet ships did we ever see? Answer: Zero. So you have nothing to compare the Kelvin to anyway.

 

[jgalley]

I searched and couldn't find answers..though I admit I didn't spend a TON of time searching....

so my questions are as follows.

1. Ok we aren't told on-screen why the new tech seems so much farther advanced...how is the audience supposed to know this?

and..

2. Kinda a sub to 1 though....if it's the scans of the Narada that make all this "new" more advanced tech..then why does the Kelvin still have the same design of the "more advanced" starships instead of the old ToS (pre ToS actually) look?

again, sorry if this was covered, but like I said I didn't find any real answers...thanks in advance~!

1. The movie's target audience (i.e. regular people who knew about TOS but weren't fanatical know-it-alls about it) would not care about this. As a matter of fact, bringing it up would probably just confuse the people watching the movie. The "Narada scans" thing was brought up as a plausible reason mainly to quell the fans who would actually know that the tech had changed. Spock's line about the creation of an alternate universe was explanation enough.

2. Who says the Kelvin is more advanced than a TOS ship? And before this movie, how many pre-TOS Federation Starfleet ships did we ever see? Answer: Zero. So you have nothing to compare the Kelvin to anyway.

I never said the Kelvin was more advanced then ToS ships..I said it shared the same DESIGN as the new advanced ships....the differen nacelles for example..

 

[Dukhat]

I searched and couldn't find answers..though I admit I didn't spend a TON of time searching....

so my questions are as follows.

1. Ok we aren't told on-screen why the new tech seems so much farther advanced...how is the audience supposed to know this?

and..

2. Kinda a sub to 1 though....if it's the scans of the Narada that make all this "new" more advanced tech..then why does the Kelvin still have the same design of the "more advanced" starships instead of the old ToS (pre ToS actually) look?

again, sorry if this was covered, but like I said I didn't find any real answers...thanks in advance~!

1. The movie's target audience (i.e. regular people who knew about TOS but weren't fanatical know-it-alls about it) would not care about this. As a matter of fact, bringing it up would probably just confuse the people watching the movie. The "Narada scans" thing was brought up as a plausible reason mainly to quell the fans who would actually know that the tech had changed. Spock's line about the creation of an alternate universe was explanation enough.

2. Who says the Kelvin is more advanced than a TOS ship? And before this movie, how many pre-TOS Federation Starfleet ships did we ever see? Answer: Zero. So you have nothing to compare the Kelvin to anyway.

I never said the Kelvin was more advanced then ToS ships..I said it shared the same DESIGN as the new advanced ships....the differen nacelles for example..

OK, I understand you now. You mean that the Kelvin looks like the Mayflower, Armstrong, and Newton. However, how do you know that those ships weren't already on the drawing board or in service before the timeline changed? The movie implies that it's only the Enterprise that's the newest ship in the fleet (and consequently, contains technology reverse-engineered from the 24th century).

 

[number6]

This can be summed up by two lines in the film..

Uhura: "An altered reality?"

Spock: "Precisely."


Asked and answered. Next question?

 

[jgalley]

This can be summed up by two lines in the film..

Uhura: "An altered reality?"

Spock: "Precisely."


Asked and answered. Next question?

but this "an altered reality" is directly caused by the Nerada going back and causing the changes...so that, and your answer (no offense honestly) means nothing and is a cop-out.

 

[number6]

Yes. It is obvious.
My answer isn't a cop-out. It is a legitimate response. The producers of this film created this altered reality so they could have their own sandbox to play in without violating the original continuity. This was pretty much stated time and time again by the creative team that were involved with this film, the fact that every detail of how it's been changed wasn't sufficiently spoonfed to you not withstanding.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Kelvin, Enterprise and all the other ships look more advanced than TOS because it's a modern film from 2009, not 1969. Everything's had a big visual update, much like TMP did in 1979 and Enterprise did in 2001.

The Kelvin is meant to be a TOS-style ship, only seen through modern eyes. As neat as TOS is, it's not believable as a spaceship from 250 years into the future. It wasn't in 1979, which is why they changed it then as well.

If we can pretend Kirstie Alley and Robin Curtis are both Saavik, and that Leonard Nimoy and Zach Quinto are both Spock, why can't the Kelvin-aesthetic be a new version of the look of The Original Series?

 

[Timo]

How is the Kelvin "more advanced" than the ship we saw in TOS? Both ships do the very same things (fly around at warp and impulse, beam people up and down, fight with rayguns, shield themselves with forcefields, launch shuttles). We see no major quantitative difference in the performance of the two ships in these fields, either.

Both ships also look and sound more or less the same. Both have interiors combining 20th century industrial looks with fancy blinking lights and flat-panel monitors. The biggest difference seems to be that the Kelvin viewscreen is actually a HUD projected onto a window, and text-based information is projected there during crisis situations. A minor aesthetic difference at most. A window that isn't really a window, as in TOS, actually sounds more advanced!

How is Pike's new Enterprise more advanced than the Kelvin, then? Well, it's bigger, and painted white in and out. And that seems to be the extent of that. It still does all the same things to the same quantitative degree - it doesn't appear to be faster or more powerful or more heavily armed or anything like that, not explicitly so at least. The biggest difference seems to be that there's a bit less beeping noise on the bridge. And that might be more a question of what systems are active (and on which mode they are set) than of how advanced those systems are.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

EDIT: forgot one

3. Time traveling and the new reality it created. I'm finally finishing up the final season of "Enterprise" and even later on with the "time police" (or whatever they were called.) Where are they at? Why didn't any of them jump in to help stop this from happening? This, imo, is the real problem with time-travel stories in trek...sometimes these "time police" show up (like the temporal cold-war) and sometimes they don't? what sense does that make? So why didn't one, or a group of them, show up to stop the Nerada and whatnot?

If you actually watch the two Voyager episodes that the "time police" were featured in, you'd see that in both instances, it was the time police themselves who created the problem in the timelines in the first place. Not the most reliable group of people then, eh? And in ENT, Daniels wasn't a memeber of the time police; he was an agent involved in the Temporal Cold War, which Nero's incursion had nothing to do with.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

3. Time traveling and the new reality it created. I'm finally finishing up the final season of "Enterprise" and even later on with the "time police" (or whatever they were called.) Where are they at? Why didn't any of them jump in to help stop this from happening? This, imo, is the real problem with time-travel stories in trek...sometimes these "time police" show up (like the temporal cold-war) and sometimes they don't? what sense does that make? So why didn't one, or a group of them, show up to stop the Nerada and whatnot?

Nobody travelled within their own timeline. They travelled between realities (it's like regular universe vs Mirror Universe). They exited reality A at a certain time in reality A's timeline and entered reality B at a different time in reality B's timeline, but what law says that you need to go from reality A to B on the same date in both cases? That happens when you go from Prime U to Mirror U, but maybe Abrams U has an "offset" timeline or whatnot. We've never been here before, so how do we know what the rules are?

Anyway, no time travel occurred within a single timeline, so Temporal Investigations - of either reality A or B - does not have jurisdiction here. You're not supposed to mess with your own timeline, but apparently messing with other people's timelines is okay because you're not "native" to this reality, and you can't kill your own grandfather so what's the problem?

This can be summed up by two lines in the film..

Uhura: "An altered reality?"

Spock: "Precisely."

Asked and answered. Next question?

And of course neither was in the position to know what the frak they were talking about. They're inside the reality/timeline, so they have no way of judging whether the issue is timeline or reality. But they're both bright people, so if they decided to suddenly spout nonsense, it's because Orci and Kurtzmann decided to just frakkin tell the audience what was going on, in as blatant a fashion as they could get away with. Many people missed that nuance, but the writers couldn't have been any more direct without breaking the fourth wall entirely.

but this "an altered reality" is directly caused by the Nerada going back and causing the changes...so that, and your answer (no offense honestly) means nothing and is a cop-out.

I think altered reality was a poor choice of words on Orci and Kurtzmann's fault. They should have said alternate reality. Altered reality implies that the timeline was changed and now we're right back to the usual problems of time travel within a single timeline. If you envision two completely separate timelines in two completely separate realities, it becomes a lot easier to come to grips with.

And altered vs alternate is a moot point anyway - one implies the Abrams Universe didn't exist before the Nerada, and the other implies it was always there. But who cares how it came into being? It will never affect the story one way or the other.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^Except in the movie they never mention hopping timelines and universes at all. They say Nero and Spock went back in time, and that by altering events in the past they created an alternate reality. The one and only reason TOS/TNG etc weren't "erased" is because the writers retconned how Star Trek time travel works to the multiverse model (which it has used before, just not as frequently as the single-changable-timeline one).

Anyway, about Daniels - he's not even from the future of ENT/TOS/TNG and the rest. His timeline still has the colony destroyed in "Shockwave", the Xindi attack never happened and there was a big war with the Sphere Builders in the Expanse (that's still there) in the 26th century. I think his mission was to ensure the 2150's turned out something like the version from his history.

Braxton and the time cops from Voyager were fairly useless. There's every chance they tried to stop Nero, and their corpses are lying somewhere in the basement of Narada

 

[FlapJoy]

3. Time traveling and the new reality it created. I'm finally finishing up the final season of "Enterprise" and even later on with the "time police" (or whatever they were called.) Where are they at? Why didn't any of them jump in to help stop this from happening? This, imo, is the real problem with time-travel stories in trek...sometimes these "time police" show up (like the temporal cold-war) and sometimes they don't? what sense does that make? So why didn't one, or a group of them, show up to stop the Nerada and whatnot?

Really? It's a real "problem", in your opinion, that they don't show up, these time police? That they don't try to stop the Narada? Really?... "What sense does that make" you ask? REALLY? It doesn't make sense to you? REALLY??... c'mon, REALLY??

again, sorry if this was covered, but like I said I didn't find any real answers...thanks in advance~!

Can't find any "real" answers... that's just terrible.

 

[JJAdams]

This can be summed up by two lines in the film..

Uhura: "An altered reality?"

Spock: "Precisely."


Asked and answered. Next question?

She actually said "an alternate reality".

Technically speaking, there was nothing in this movie aside from that throwaway line from Uhura that made any suggestion whatsoever that the TOS/TNG timeline still exists. As far as Trek time travel is concerned, Nero and OldSpock went back in time, changed history, and now we have the abramsverse. It's that simple. As far as OldTrek still existing, nothing in the movie suggests this, so we simply have to take the writers' word for it. Which I have a hard time doing.

 

[JJAdams]

I searched and couldn't find answers..though I admit I didn't spend a TON of time searching....

so my questions are as follows.

1. Ok we aren't told on-screen why the new tech seems so much farther advanced...how is the audience supposed to know this?

The general, short attention span, "we love stuff go boom" audience that this movie was aimed at would have fallen asleep in their seats or simply gotten up and walked out of the theater had there been any type of pesky explanations that may have slowed the pace of the film. Thus, according to the movie, the technology was just exactly like it was in TOS, as far as the general audiecne is concerned.

and..

2. Kinda a sub to 1 though....if it's the scans of the Narada that make all this "new" more advanced tech..then why does the Kelvin still have the same design of the "more advanced" starships instead of the old ToS (pre ToS actually) look?

Because Nero and OldSpock didn't actually time travel along their own timeline. They emerged from the black/wormhole thingy into an alternate universe that was similar to, but not exactly like the one they left. That's why the Kelvin looks more like the TMP refit design than the TOS era design. Technology in the Abramsverse must have advanced a little faster than it did in the original universe. Hence the communicators on the Kelvin that looked like TOS comms that would have been over 30 years more advanced. As well as a few other nuances that were quite out of place. Either that or the writers/designers didn't give a flying frak about keeping any simblance of continuity with the original universe (which the abramsverse supposedly branched from), which sounds more likely to me.

EDIT: forgot one

3. Time traveling and the new reality it created. I'm finally finishing up the final season of "Enterprise" and even later on with the "time police" (or whatever they were called.) Where are they at? Why didn't any of them jump in to help stop this from happening? This, imo, is the real problem with time-travel stories in trek...sometimes these "time police" show up (like the temporal cold-war) and sometimes they don't? what sense does that make? So why didn't one, or a group of them, show up to stop the Nerada and whatnot?

again, sorry if this was covered, but like I said I didn't find any real answers...thanks in advance~!

If the "Time Police" had showed up, the movie wouldn't have lasted long. This is a new alternate universe. Maybe the time police don't even exist in the abramsverse. As far as we know, they don't jump realities. They repair damage to their own timeline. So the original universe time police would have no knowledge of the abramsverse. That's why they're not in the movie.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^You contradict yourself. In the same way the technology is "just like it always was", so is the USS Kelvin. I say again, the original series design is not believable anymore, which is why they modernized it. The Kelvin looks the way it does not because of temporal fluctuations of an alternate universe, but becuase JJ Abrams wanted his spaceships to appear realistic - something TOS hasn't been for decades.

Thus the "new" TOS look of the Kelvin is just as much a TOS-era Federation starship as the original series Enterprise was, in the same way that Kirstie Alley and Robin Curtis are both Saavik.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Is the NuEnerprise bridge that much more believable that the TOS bridge? The bridge from TOS worked great on Enterprise. A few tweaks to color and making the displays more modern by using computer graphics that weren't available during TOS and the bridge would have worked just fine. It's interesting that so many people say the TOS bridge looked so 60's due to the bright colors yet love the NuBridge that's bright white and flashy. If I had to actually work on one of them, I know which one I'd choose.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^Yes, it "worked great" in that deliberately campy and cartoonish Enterprise two-parter aimed squarely at the show's few remaining fanboy viewers, just as it did in the comedy DS9/TOS crossover tribute episode about the tribbles. It also works well in the 1969 period piece Phase II fan films. A big budget Hollywood blockbuster from 2009 (just like it was in 1979) is a totally different kettle of fish.

 

[JJAdams]

^You contradict yourself. In the same way the technology is "just like it always was", so is the USS Kelvin. I say again, the original series design is not believable anymore, which is why they modernized it. The Kelvin looks the way it does not because of temporal fluctuations of an alternate universe, but becuase JJ Abrams wanted his spaceships to appear realistic - something TOS hasn't been for decades.

Thus the "new" TOS look of the Kelvin is just as much a TOS-era Federation starship as the original series Enterprise was, in the same way that Kirstie Alley and Robin Curtis are both Saavik.

I have to disagree with this. Star Trek ships have always looked realistic as far as I'm concerned. Especially from TMP on. There's no reason that JJA couldn't have used a more TOS-like design with updated surface details and updated interior designs. Deg3d and Vektor among other talented CGI artists have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that a TOS-style design could have worked wonderfully on the big screen. The power plant/factory style engineering section looked far less technologically advanced than anything we've seen from ENT to TNG. So if a high tech modern look was what JJA was going for, he failed miserably.

Is the NuEnerprise bridge that much more believable that the TOS bridge? The bridge from TOS worked great on Enterprise. A few tweaks to color and making the displays more modern by using computer graphics that weren't available during TOS and the bridge would have worked just fine. It's interesting that so many people say the TOS bridge looked so 60's due to the bright colors yet love the NuBridge that's bright white and flashy. If I had to actually work on one of them, I know which one I'd choose.

I completely agree with this. There's no reason an updated version of the TOS bridge wouldn't have worked just fine. I loved it in "In A Mirror, Darkly" and "Trials and Tribble-Ations". It was fantastic and it had the added benefit of tying the TOS universe in with ENT and TNG to show that they were all essentially from the same continuity. It is true that the TOS bridge would not have worked on the big screen if it were presented "exactly" as it appeared in TOS. Nobody has ever said they wanted that. But an updated version would have worked just fine.

^Yes, it "worked great" in that deliberately campy and cartoonish Enterprise two-parter aimed squarely at the show's few remaining fanboy viewers, just as it did in the comedy DS9/TOS crossover tribute episode about the tribbles. It also works well in the 1969 period piece Phase II fan films. A big budget Hollywood blockbuster from 2009 (just like it was in 1979) is a totally different kettle of fish.

There was nothing "campy" or "Cartoonish" about "In A Mirror Darkly". It was a very serious and dark episode of ENT. And "Trials And Tribble-Ations" was indeed meant to be a bit funny. And it did a great job. But it was still a serious episode that was part of the DS9 continuity, effectively connecting TOS and DS9 as existing in the same continuity. The TOS design would have worked just as well in a blockbuster 2009 film just as it did in those extremely popular episodes. All it needed was a little modernizing and moderate tweaking to make it contemporary. It wouldn't have taken much effort.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Robin Curtis is no look-alike for Kirstie Alley. They didn't even give them the same hair, jewellery or uniform yet people accept them both as the same Saavik. This is simply a new CG or sets "playing" the Enterprise or Kelvin. It's the same thing. Do you insist STII and III are alternate realities because of Saavik? What about the NX-01? It looks a lot more like TMP than TOS to me, yet it's set 100 years earlier. You just suspend disbelief and pretend it fits together.

As far as I'm concerned, what we got in STXI was an updated TOS design. Everything was in the right place, had the same functions. It just looked modern.

Also film designers don't want to replicate what came before, nor should they. They want to put their own spin on whatever they're making - just like the actors all put their own spins on Kirk, Spock and co instead of replicating Shatner, Nimoy and co's mannerisms.

You really think "In a Mirror, Darkly" was serious? I really don't know what to say to that .