General "Likes" and "Dislikes" Regarding Kelvinverse

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I have few complaints about the Kelvinverse, although one of them is this:

CumberKhan wasn't evil enough.

We know that Khan Noonien Singh was a bloodthirsty dictator, a madman who ruled a quarter of the Earth and wanted to exterminate all non-genetically-enhanced inferiors. Yet they just glossed over this in STID. Now I did enjoy Cumby's performance, but the film made him out to be some sort of misunderstood victim, which I did not agree with.

(And before somebody brings up that TOS line about "no massacres under his rule"? Look what he did to the crew of Regula One. THEN tell me that Khan's not capable of massacres. He did it to them, he probably did it during his reign on Earth too.)

 

[M'Sharak]

(And before somebody brings up that TOS line about "no massacres under his rule"? Look what he did to the crew of Regula One. THEN tell me that Khan's not capable of massacres. He did it to them, he probably did it during his reign on Earth too.)

Why should anyone be asked to tell you that about Khan?

Capable? Sure, he's capable. Many people in such a position would be capable, even without being products of a breeding program or genetic engineering for superiority and world domination.

Massacre(s) committed before he came to power? Possibly, though there's not a lot upon which to hang that supposition.

After his removal from power, yet before he went into exile? Also possible, but as told, the story makes it seems as if the window for that opportunity would have been extremely narrow. (When one means to escape the planet undetected, along with several dozen other supermen who are in similar straits, committing an extra massacre wastes time and has a way of drawing unwanted attention.)

During his rule? At the risk of trampling on your certainty that Khan had to be so evil that he must have carried out at least one massacre (possibly more) while he was in power, the statement in the episode is unambiguous:

Name, Khan Noonien Singh.
SPOCK: From 1992 through 1996, absolute ruler of more than a quarter of your world. From Asia through the Middle East.
MCCOY: The last of the tyrants to be overthrown.
SCOTT: I must confess, gentlemen. I've always held a sneaking admiration for this one.
KIRK: He was the best of the tyrants and the most dangerous. They were supermen, in a sense. Stronger, braver, certainly more ambitious, more daring.
SPOCK: Gentlemen, this romanticism about a ruthless dictator is
KIRK: Mister Spock, we humans have a streak of barbarism in us. Appalling, but there, nevertheless.
SCOTT: There were no massacres under his rule.
SPOCK: And as little freedom.
MCCOY: No wars until he was attacked.
SPOCK: Gentlemen.
KIRK: Mister Spock, you misunderstand us. We can be against him and admire him all at the same time.
SPOCK: Illogical.
KIRK: Totally.

No massacres. None.

I guess Khan is just not as eeeevil as you'd like him to be. (And yes, you do tend to go on ad nauseam about how sure you are concerning the absolute eeeevilness of Khan.)

Khan, a ruthless tyrant? That's beyond question, but when you take it upon yourself to invent acts for the character which are in direct contradiction to what was established about him onscreen, the only thing anyone needs to tell you about it is "No - that's your own invention. It's not really in the story. You can choose to believe whatever you want, no matter that the story says otherwise, but no one else is under any obligation whatsoever to accept or play along with what is essentially your fanfic version."

 

[urbandk]

Khan has been left purposefully ambiguous, whether in Space Seed, or TWOK, or Darkness. His appeal was the ability to empathize with him. I don't fault the Darkness writers for making him appealing. The fact that he's appealing is essential. Sure they could have made him more evil and still appealing, but now we're arguing counterfactuals. I'm not a huge fan of Darkness, but Cumberbach's Khan was spot on.

 

[johnjm22]

Likes:
Conceptually, I like the idea of a new timeline allowing for endless new opportunities/stories/adventures with out being tied down by previous continuity.

Dislikes:
Everything else.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I have few complaints about the Kelvinverse, although one of them is this:

CumberKhan wasn't evil enough.

We know that Khan Noonien Singh was a bloodthirsty dictator, a madman who ruled a quarter of the Earth and wanted to exterminate all non-genetically-enhanced inferiors. Yet they just glossed over this in STID. Now I did enjoy Cumby's performance, but the film made him out to be some sort of misunderstood victim, which I did not agree with.

(And before somebody brings up that TOS line about "no massacres under his rule"? Look what he did to the crew of Regula One. THEN tell me that Khan's not capable of massacres. He did it to them, he probably did it during his reign on Earth too.)

He crashed a starship into a populated city! On purpose!

 

[Trekkin]

One can simultaneously be a sympathetic victim, and a total dickhead.

Khan excels at both.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Likes:

The cast
The music
The modern look (except for the lens flares, but they're not that bad)
The actual normal sense of humor
Good action that's actually exciting
Badass Sulu
Badass Uhura
Star Trek Beyond (Best trek movie in decades)
Krall (Best trek villain since DS9)

Dislikes:

Too much action for action's sake - The snow beast sequence, raising the enterprise out of the ocean, etc; sequences that just feel dumb and serve no real purpose
Slightly too much shaky cam - There are some action sequences where I really wish I could see what's going on a bit better
The over the top humor - I'm a contradiction I know; basically, most of the new humor is great, some of it is way too much, like, for instance, puffy Kirk
The complete lack of professionalism in Starfleet - From Kirk's superpromotion, to his demotion/repromotion in the space of 20 minutes, to main characters bickering during dangerous missions, to Starfleet regulations requiring every captain to come together in a single easily targeted space during a terror threat, etc
Scotty - He's not a bad character, he's pretty fun, but he's not Scotty; he's basically just Simon Pegg in Starfleet
Wasting Leonard Nimoy - his appearance in 09 was possibly the worst role he's ever had in the history of the franchise, absolutely terrible writing; his appearance in ID was tacked on, poorly conceived and kind of non-sensical
World breaking supertechnology - transwarp beaming, magic blood
Just plain stupid ideas - 'cold fusion', 'Khaaaan!'

 

[the vet]

Disappointed there have been no Andorians, Tellarites, Denobulans, Bolians or Edosians, etc in the crowd scenes

 

[wayoung]

Despite disliking pretty much all of the production design I thought the updated TOS style uniforms in the first two movies were great.

I disliked the copious amounts of eyeliner Pine wore in Beyond. I found it really distracting for some reason.

 

[Relayer1]

Dislike :
Ship design.
Most of the main cast.
Poor plotting / plot holes.
Hyper unrealistic hand to hand combat.
Action over substance.
All of the stupidity listed previously.

Like :
Urban
Quinto
Music
That it looks like money has been spent.

 

[Andy Hong]

Ah yes, the "Transwarp Beaming". Leaving aside how you would aim such a thing, the screenwriters should have given it a limitation. I would have gone with "needs an inhabited planet's worth of power". So for Into Darkness, Khan steals this from the Planetary Reserves (mentioned in ST:IV). But where to get the energy for ST:XI ? Retcon that base Scotty was on into an energy storage base (maybe initially for invading/fighting a war with Vulcan, but later when Earth/Starfleet realised Vulcans were friendly, it because a strategically placed energy storage facility to refuel starships should an emergency arise on Vulcan/Vulcan need to be defended (after all, anti-matter has to be created, dilithium crystals maybe need recrystallizing etc.)

 

[fireproof78]

Like:
-Cast are all well done, save for a couple
-Ship designs, all of them
-Bridge design
-Uniforms and other aesthetics
-Captain Pike and Captain Robau. These films were worth it just for those characters
-USS Kelvin
-The opening scenes in each film are absolutely fantastic and could be standalone films on there own.
-Nero and Spock's dealing with the loss of their worlds.
-Lots of psychological elements to unpack in the characters due to the changes
-Yorktown base
-Lots and lots of great comedic moments, especially with Bones

Dislikes
-Lens flares are exhausting for the eyes
-Kirk's promotion could have been done better.
-Khan didn't have to be Khan. Probably would have been better if he was just John Harrison
-One of the few times I wish we had seen more of the Klingons.
-Idris Elba was underused and rather unremarkable

 

[Trekkin]

Ah yes, the "Transwarp Beaming". Leaving aside how you would aim such a thing, the screenwriters should have given it a limitation. I would have gone with "needs an inhabited planet's worth of power". So for Into Darkness, Khan steals this from the Planetary Reserves (mentioned in ST:IV). But where to get the energy for ST:XI ? Retcon that base Scotty was on into an energy storage base (maybe initially for invading/fighting a war with Vulcan, but later when Earth/Starfleet realised Vulcans were friendly, it because a strategically placed energy storage facility to refuel starships should an emergency arise on Vulcan/Vulcan need to be defended (after all, anti-matter has to be created, dilithium crystals maybe need recrystallizing etc.)

They do show some limitations. It's bloody useless for exploring, and it appears to be a one-use device. Spock has to use a pad and gives no indication you can use it to lock onto people for beam-backs, and the device Khan uses outright fries after he beams out,

Since that's something positive, here's my negative: Elba's mask at the beginning of BEY was waaay too heavy. That was some early TNG levels of 'makes it impossible for the actors to damn act.'

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Likes:
The cast is top notch
Production design
The characters are fairly true to what we have seen in the past.

Dislikes:
That the movies are set in a deviation of the prime timeline, when it's difficult to reconcile the two. I would have preferred if it had been a completely new universe unrelated to the trek that had come before. That way there would be no need to explain why the technology is clearly more advanced, why young kirk and spock clearly look nothing like their prime timeline counterparts etc...

The plots/storylines have been fairly average. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the films for what they are but the plots have been wafer thin and lacking in gravitas. Having said that, the destruction of vulcan was a ballsy move.

 

[KyleRaynous]

As for what I liked, more or less I agree with the majority: the cast (particularly Karl Urban as McCoy), the score, the sense of entertainment, the visual effects, etc.

Apart from the sacrifice of a certain substance in favor of entertainment and the lack of "cerebral" plots (out of TMP and Insurrection, it's not like the plots were so "deep", not to mention the execution of those two wasn't exactly good), I never liked that they didn't put the movies in context, since it was a reboot with the intention of attracting new audiences. Was it so hard to throw a couple of lines explaining bassicaly what a Warp engine is? Was it so hard to briefly mention the events that occurred from our present to the future that "begins" (the phrase with which they promoted ST09)?

Also, although I liked the external appearance of the ship, they could have been more consistent with the size of it when making the scenes and sets of interiors and attempt to give a plausible internal scheme (with that huge Shuttle Bay and the joints to the nacelles so far back, where the hell do the warp plasma conduits extend into the nacelles?)

As for travel times to Kronos (sorry, Qo'noS) and Vulcan, in First Contact, the Enterprise-E has a fairly short journey between the edge of the Neutral Zone to Earth ...

 

[Tenacity]

Khan Noonien Singh ... and wanted to exterminate all non-genetically-enhanced inferiors

Where does this last come from?

And before somebody brings up that TOS line about "no massacres under his rule"? Look what he did to the crew of Regula One.

Being willing to use violence does not equate to performing massacres.

in First Contact, the Enterprise-E has a fairly short journey between the edge of the Neutral Zone to Earth ...

It's hard to say how long the journey from the RNZ to Earth was. It could easily have been multiple days or weeks.

There are a few different reasos that Riker could have called for a red alert prior to the ship going to warp..

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Where does this last come from?

It was obvious.

And you'll notice that when Spock accuses Khan of genocide, Khan doesn't deny it...

 

[Nyotarules]

Like
Star Trek back on the scene
Bruce Greenwood as a sexy older man (I met him in person, he is wonderful to fans )
Production values, glad it did not look like a 1960's set
Uhura is the love interest for a main character
Love the music , combines old and new, worked great
Action movies, fast plot but I still enjoyed it
Actors - great job, even when it got a bit campy
Seeing a diverse crew -at last Starfleet does not look like a homo sapians only club
Keenser, Jaylah and Gaila

DISLIKE
The main plots of ST09 & STID & STB - male seeks revenge again, and again and again to destroy the Federation. OOOKKKKK
Five minute trip to Vulcan and Kronos, Kirk's promotion - there is only so much suspension of disbelief I can manage
That scene in STID - KHAAAANNNN (no. just no)
Lens flares- they have lighting issues in the 24th century or something
Transwarp beaming - the less said about that rubbish the better

 

[KyleRaynous]

It's hard to say how long the journey from the RNZ to Earth was. It could easily have been multiple days or weeks.

There are a few different reasos that Riker could have called for a red alert prior to the ship going to warp..

As far as I know, the Enterprise-E was conducting a sweep of sensors in the RNZ, then receives the word of the fleet that they have engaged the Borg, to which Picard immediately goes to the bridge to hear the Starfleet frequency and then orders to set a course to Earth.

If I'm not mistaken, the closest point to Earth in the Neutral Zone involves at least a four-day trip over Warp 9. Even if the battle switched locations (the initial confrontation not taking place in Earth), I don't think those ships could have lasted so long against the Borg cube (given the previous confrontation and the reduced progress of the Federation that was still undergoing a cold war against the Dominion, the Enterprise-E being their most advanced ship and the Defiant, a ship builded with the sole purpose of fighting the Borg, not up to the challenge). There is always room for speculation, but I think the description of the circumstances was as vague as it was in ST09 and Into Darkness (perhaps in STID there's more evidence of how short the journey was). In several ocations these rules of duration and distance of space travel have been violated to favor the plot. They should have restarted this in the reboot (my complaint) with clearer rules of the game after so many years of the franchise manipulating them at pleasure...

 

[Nyotarules]

^StarTrek suffers from small universe syndrome, Janeway should have taken 7 days to get to Earth instead of 7 years...