Do fans want the prime timeline back? Part 2: Poll edition.

[JarodRussell]

Nothing against the shot, but there was no valid reason, and that makes it bad writing.

Even if you only connect cool images with a script, you can give every cool shot a valid reason.

Put the shot in the last act, for example. The Enterprise is chased by the Vengeance, and there seems to be no escape. So Kirk, being the unconventionally out of the box bad ass he is, comes up with the idea of hiding the ship for repairs where Marcus/Khan will never think about looking for them: on a planet, under water.

When the repairs are done, and Vengeance is in range, rise out of the waters for a surprise attack.

Not only is there a reason now, it also makes the scene important.


That works at least for me because the whole subplot in the first act was pointless imo. Kirk breaks the Prime Directive, gets demoted and five minutes of screentime later gets promoted again. You can cut the whole sequence out without changing a thing about the story.



Similar annoyance that would have been extremely easy to get rid of was the way they incorporated old Spock into the Trek 2009 script. He was just sitting there in a cave waiting for coincidence to happen. That could have been easily rewritten to remove all the contrivances while keeping the same pacing.

 

[BigJake]

Where the problem lies is the way you put forward that viewpoint, as if it's incontrovertible fact that it is indeed bad writing and junk cinema and that anyone who doesn't agree with your incontrovertible fact is wrong

If I think there is a strong case for something, I don't mind saying so. Not that I particularly care whether it's "the minority opinion" or not, but what I'm pointing out is not that the majority of people are wrong to have been entertained by STID (though there are some details that bugged me, I was reasonably so for the time I was in the theatre). It's that the majority of its defenders should recognize that the terms in which they're typically defending it (don't overthink it, I don't care about the details etc.) should tell them that they enjoyed it as junk cinema.

Which, as I explained at some length, is not wrong in itself, it's perfectly okay to enjoy junk cinema and we all have our fixes in that regard. If some such fixes don't last as long for some of us as others, that's okay too. The problem comes when you start demanding that everybody else regard your junk fix as caviar and denouncing them as crazy or dishonest or "elitist" for not doing so. So I do think a bit more realism and forthrightness about what the appeal of these films are is in order.

I believe it was you, yourself, who pointed out there is no "accepted guidelines for what is good or bad writing" and that writers have been debating it for decades

What I said is that there are "rough" standards for good writing which have been chewed over for decades. (Things like "your plot points should be explicable," for instance.) Meaning it is not a simple example of stamping one's feet and declaring that what one says is right, you have to be able to actually make a case. That writing isn't math doesn't mean it has no standards of quality at all that aren't purely personal.

 

[BillJ]

So I do think a bit more realism and forthrightness about what the appeal of these films are is in order.

So now you're going to tell us what the appeal of these films are to us?

You can't be serious?

 

[BigJake]

Also: IMO, @JarodRussell has it exactly right.

 

[BillJ]

Also: IMO, @JarodRussell has it exactly right.

Well, you and JarodRussell are more than welcome to get together and write a big-time summer tent pole movie and see if you can get it produced.

Get back to me when that happens. Remember, I'm 42 and don't have too many more decades left.

 

[David.Blue]

Anyone who is a writer tends to have very strong feelings about what constitutes good and bad writing.

 

[BillJ]

Anyone who is a writer tends to have very strong feelings about what constitutes good and bad writing.

I like to write for my personal enjoyment and don't see the point in going around and tearing down others work. If I like it, I tend to revisit it from time to time. If I don't like it, I tend to move on.

 

[David.Blue]

Well, that is fine. For you. But other writers might feel differently. In fact, seems dead certain others do. And it isn't as if we all don't go off on some subjects now and then. I've already said my piece with STID and frankly don't care to continue (although I might on specific subjects) but others want to do something different.

On the subject of the Enterprise going underwater--well it looked great, even if I personally couldn't see any reason for the starship to be underwater. Were the rest of the film better--if for example I ended up caring about the characters--I'd give that a nitpick. As it is, I see it as a smaller problem among bigger ones. Not the the flick wasn't a lot of fun to watch! It was! Or that it didn't have some really nice things in it! It did! But it fell short on the drama, on the building tension, on allowing me a moment to feel anything on behalf of anybody in the film. I could go blow-by-blow why I have that reaction, but don't see a reason to.

Bottom line, I'm not going to obsess over it. But I'm not going to get all hot and bothered because someone else does. At the same time, I wish those most upset about this one detail would calm down a bit.

 

[BigJake]

Yeah, in all honesty, the ship-underwater business isn't the biggest of deals in the grander scheme of the film and certainly isn't a matter of "upset." It's just the specific example that argument happened to focus around.

 

[shapeshifter]

Nothing against the shot, but there was no valid reason, and that makes it bad writing.

Even if you only connect cool images with a script, you can give every cool shot a valid reason.

Put the shot in the last act, for example. The Enterprise is chased by the Vengeance, and there seems to be no escape. So Kirk, being the unconventionally out of the box bad ass he is, comes up with the idea of hiding the ship for repairs where Marcus/Khan will never think about looking for them: on a planet, under water.

When the repairs are done, and Vengeance is in range, rise out of the waters for a surprise attack.

Not only is there a reason now, it also makes the scene important.


That works at least for me because the whole subplot in the first act was pointless imo. Kirk breaks the Prime Directive, gets demoted and five minutes of screentime later gets promoted again. You can cut the whole sequence out without changing a thing about the story.


...

Also: IMO, @JarodRussell has it exactly right.

Nope, and nope. While I appreciate that it "works for you" JarodRussell, it opens a different can of worms which require other script revisions and/or contrivance additions.

Remember the Vengeance can easily outrun the Enterprise, so how would you suggest She gets out of the cross-hairs long enough to get into the ocean? (without requiring changes to other areas of the script, pre-title card sequence excepted, of course)

 

[BillJ]

Well, that is fine. For you. But other writers might feel differently.

There's being critical of something and then there's beating a horse to death trying to sway the opinion of others.

Whatever issues some have with the movie, it's done and there's no changing it and saying that nine out of ten people are wrong for not seeing issues with the writing just reeks of sour grapes. Especially when no one can really define what "good writing" is. We get vague allusions to people who are having "conversations".

 

[David.Blue]

Thinking about the specific subject of the thread (!)...

I'm wondering what the "prime timeline" means in real terms? Other than the relative number of Vulcans? If by PT you mean a continuation of the Berman-style Trek methinks the answer would be "No." My own impression (and this is just my own) remains that fans and audience en masse want a new direction.

But this does not preclude accepting the events of TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT as canon. Just that we want a new storytelling style.

 

[BigJake]

While I appreciate that it "works for you" JarodRussell, it opens a different can of worms which require other script revisions

Oh, any large change to a script will require other revisions, I didn't think Jarod was claiming you could just cut the sequence out of one place and drop it in another. The idea is moving in the right direction because the problems it raises are soluble.

No matter how fast the Vengeance is, for example (and this problem is particularly easy to solve if, as Abrams has clearly done and many an SF production before him has done, you've decided that the ships will move at the Speed of Drama), there's still a lag -- apparently long enough to cover most of the distance between Kronos and Earth -- between embarking on the chase and catching-up that could be used to hide the ship. The Enterprise wings around the corner of a moon in the outer system and the pursuing Vengeance find she's "disappeared."

(This of course can only happen if Kirk and company already know about the Vengeance's "trans-warp" technology... which provides a way to solve the other small problem of why Khan doesn't think to tell anyone about that until the Enterprise has been caught and very nearly blown out of space and Khan along with it. On this version of things, Khan mentions it upfront... potentially another improvement depending on how it's handled.)

If by PT you mean a continuation of the Berman-style Trek methinks the answer would be "No." My own impression (and this is just my own) remains that fans and audience en masse want a new direction.

Certainly true for me. The concept behind the Trek reboot is solid.

 

[BillJ]

But this does not preclude accepting the events of TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT as canon. Just that we want a new storytelling style.

I think that you have to simply let all that go. I want the next show-runner to have total freedom to place the show in the 28th century with the Eugenics Wars happening in the 23rd and the first warp flight happening in the 25th, if he/she so desires.

Carrying over continuity from the old series would just shackle the new creative team to something that has nothing more to offer creatively.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Perhaps they were underwater, and flying shuttles around beneath ash clouds, to keep Starfleet and their long-range satellites from seeing Kirk break the prime directive?

Finally we start explaining plot holes by making the characters look bad.

Breaking a dumb rule and saving a planet makes them look bad?

Perhaps they were underwater, and flying shuttles around beneath ash clouds, to keep Starfleet and their long-range satellites from seeing Kirk break the prime directive?

Yeah, you see, when you have no way to explain something our supposed-heroes have done except to speculate that maybe they're hiding their chicanery from their own command, do you see how maybe that should tell you something?

That they WERE keeping it from their own command? That's part of the movie, and what I said logically follows from that.

Now, can someone explain why the Federation Holoship was underwater in Insurrection when it had a cloaking device as well??

And when you have to resort to saying "Insurrection [not exactly the most highly-regarded of Trek films] sort of did it too, so it must be okay," shouldn't that also tell you something?

That there is a precedent.

 

[shapeshifter]

While I appreciate that it "works for you" JarodRussell, it opens a different can of worms which require other script revisions

The Enterprise wings around the corner of a moon in the outer system and the pursuing Vengeance find she's "disappeared."

Not very original, First Contact used a moon to hide the Enterprise from the Vulcans. Besides that, they didn't know the Vengeance was coming until it was already too late.

I hope you have something better than that, JerodRussell...

 

[BillJ]

While I appreciate that it "works for you" JarodRussell, it opens a different can of worms which require other script revisions

The Enterprise wings around the corner of a moon in the outer system and the pursuing Vengeance find she's "disappeared."

Not very original, First Contact used a moon to hide the Enterprise from the Vulcans. Besides that, they didn't know the Vengeance was coming until it was already too late.

I hope you have something better than that, JerodRussell...

Sounds like something lifted straight from The Wrath of Khan.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Well, that is fine. For you. But other writers might feel differently.

There's being critical of something and then there's beating a horse to death trying to sway the opinion of others.

Whatever issues some have with the movie, it's done and there's no changing it and saying that nine out of ten people are wrong for not seeing issues with the writing just reeks of sour grapes. Especially when no one can really define what "good writing" is. We get vague allusions to people who are having "conversations".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that *from the moment* any one here ever saw any piece of Star Trek, it was already done and beyond changing?

Why is there some sort of statute of limitations on criticism of a film that only came out this year, but people who want to keep discussing what the 'best' episode was of a series that's been off the air for decades are just A-OK?

Everyone who is here is a Star Trek fan, interested in discussing Star Trek. That doesn't come with any kind of obligation to always be positive or to just never discuss the things you didn't like. This 'beating a dead horse' argument (which I've seen used several times now) mainly comes across to me as saying 'I think you're wrong, so shut up'. If those who disagree with the film's critics are tired of defending the film from the same arguments, the obvious solution is to just stop participating in that discussion. Not to go on and on about beating dead horses, while still participating in a discussion which you apparently don't want to be in.

 

[BigJake]

Not very original, First Contact used a moon to hide the Enterprise from the Vulcans.

Actually the "hiding behind / in a moon" device dates back to The Wrath of Khan. (Extra TWOK reference points!)

Besides that, they didn't know the Vengeance was coming until it was already too late.

In point of fact I did mention and address that, you may want to re-read.

 

[DonIago]

That we're not spoon-fed a good reason for the ship being underwater doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. If you believe Our Heroes have any idea what they're doing then it seems reasonable to assume that they had a good reason for doing what they did.

If you don't believe Our Heroes had any idea what they were doing, then Pike was right to call Kirk out on his recklessness in any case, but since we don't know what led up to the E being underwater in the first place, we're not exactly in a position to critique the decision.