"I like the new movie better..."

[JarodRussell]

they can teach students to speak Romulan fluently but can't rely upon universal translators to idnetify & translate the language etc.

Yes.
They chose to use the characters instead of faceless technology. How dare they!?

LOL. Wouldn't have made ANY difference since the characters did not do one single bit. Uhura is never ever actually shown to speak Romulan, nor is it ever needed. In fact, Uhura never does the work of a communications officer. Every time she's in action on the Enterprise she's leaving her post to cuddle the Vulcan.

They chose to use the characters instead of faceless technology. How dare they!?

Everyone knows that you're just supposed to realign the lateral deflector grid to emit a stream of verteron particles. Or shove a torpedo up a starship's tailpipe (wow, how stupid was that?). Or something.

Let's not go reaching with the "tailpipe", Dennis. No explanation was needed as far as Uhura stating "What about that equipment we are carrying to catalog gaseous enomolies?".
It was totally explained just by that one remark.

People in the 23rd century who order Budweiser and listen to the Beastie Boys also know what a tailpipe is, and they crack these kind of lines.

 

[Ghrakh]

Besides, it's fun to come up with the stuff you call "fan wankery" to explain each production's shortcomings.

Yep. It would be nice it was limited to that where XI is concerned, but more often than not it just turns into a bunch of vicous dogpiling, name-calling, and subsequent mutual ass-kissing.

 

[Psion]

Besides, it's fun to come up with the stuff you call "fan wankery" to explain each production's shortcomings.

... and subsequent mutual ass-kissing.

Now hold on there, mate! I'm not certain what you think you're going on about, but I can assure you I'm really not into that sort of thing. I'm a properly married man and such!

 

[kkozoriz1]

they can teach students to speak Romulan fluently but can't rely upon universal translators to idnetify & translate the language etc.

Yes.
They chose to use the characters instead of faceless technology. How dare they!?

LOL. Wouldn't have made ANY difference since the characters did not do one single bit. Uhura is never ever actually shown to speak Romulan, nor is it ever needed. In fact, Uhura never does the work of a communications officer. Every time she's in action on the Enterprise she's leaving her post to cuddle the Vulcan.

"And Lt. Uhura's is unmatched in xenolinguistics.

We would be wise to accept her conclusion.

Scan Vulcan space. Check for any transmissions in Romulan.

Sir, I'm not sure I can distinguish the Romulan language from Vulcan.

What about you?
Do you speak Romulan, cadet?

Uhura. All 3 dialects, sir."

Apparently Vulcan and Romulan are so close linguistically that some trained professionals have trouble telling them apart. Like picking out someone speaking English but with an English, Scottish, Irish or Australian accent.

 

[Psion]

The Red Matter stuff also introduces some slight contradictions in that it seemed to require a hole to be drilled in a planet before it created a black hole, but the Jellyfish caused a collapse within the Narada itself ... so that raises the question of why Nero had to waste time drilling holes. But this I chalk up to silly-science and a poorly-thought out plot device.

There is a reason why they place the red matter into the core of Vulcan: so that the black hole) it creates can gain mass as fas as possible so that Vulcan can collapse into it (an 'empty' black hole has no mass).

The same happened with the Narada.

Let me think about this. I'm not certain I can buy into this since, as I recall, there was a microscopic view of the collapse within the Narada that didn't seem to imply the Red Matter needed the Narada's mass to collapse in the first place. Nor would the Narada have sufficient mass to cause the kind of trouble the Enterprise faced after the black hole formed.

You seem to imply that Red Matter isn't the source of the black hole, but is instead a trigger for regular matter to collapse and overcome the degeneracy pressure of neutrons -- without gravity. That's an interesting take on what Red Matter does and is kind of novel, but I'm still having trouble with the gravitation field created by the Narada when it got pulled into black hole at the end.

Folks, this is the kind of discussion we should be having here. Not a put-down of people that have complaints about the movie, but a dialog. Two Bolian thumbs-ups for ST-One!

 

[Ghrakh]

Besides, it's fun to come up with the stuff you call "fan wankery" to explain each production's shortcomings.

... and subsequent mutual ass-kissing.

Now hold on there, mate! I'm not certain what you think you're going on about, but I can assure you I'm really not into that sort of thing. I'm a properly married man and such!

 

[ST-One]

The Red Matter stuff also introduces some slight contradictions in that it seemed to require a hole to be drilled in a planet before it created a black hole, but the Jellyfish caused a collapse within the Narada itself ... so that raises the question of why Nero had to waste time drilling holes. But this I chalk up to silly-science and a poorly-thought out plot device.

There is a reason why they place the red matter into the core of Vulcan: so that the black hole) it creates can gain mass as fas as possible so that Vulcan can collapse into it (an 'empty' black hole has no mass).

The same happened with the Narada.

Let me think about this. I'm not certain I can buy into this since, as I recall, there was a microscopic view of the collapse within the Narada that didn't seem to imply the Red Matter needed the Narada's mass to collapse in the first place. Nor would the Narada have sufficient mass to cause the kind of trouble the Enterprise faced after the black hole formed.

You seem to imply that Red Matter isn't the source of the black hole, but is instead a trigger for regular matter to collapse and overcome the degeneracy pressure of neutrons -- without gravity. That's an interesting take on what Red Matter does and is kind of novel, but I'm still having trouble with the gravitation field created by the Narada when it got pulled into black hole at the end.

Folks, this is the kind of discussion we should be having here. Not a put-down of people that have complaints about the movie, but a dialog. Two Bolian thumbs-ups for ST-One!

Of course the red matter is the source of the black hole(s).

We don't know how the warp-engines of the Yellyfish and then the Narada (the dilithium, the anti-matter) reacted with the black hole when it was created.

 

[Pauln6]

speed of plot varies wildly (speed Earth to Vulcan, Rura Penthe to Vulcan, Vulcan to Earth (including comparative speeds of Enterprise & Narada),

No.
Educate yourself on the concept of 'time cuts'.

they can teach students to speak Romulan fluently but can't rely upon universal translators to idnetify & translate the language etc.

Yes.
They chose to use the characters instead of faceless technology. How dare they!?

Yes I suppose that time cuts might explain it but it is hard to determine that coherently. We know how long it takes Narada to reach Vulcan (about a day) following the battle in Klingon space and we know roughly how long it takes Enterprise to reach Vulcan (a matter of a few hours at most) at maximum warp.

We know that Narada delays its transit to Earth in order to torture information out of Pike and we know that Enterprise spends several hours travelling at warp 3 in the wrong direction (long enough for Kirk to walk to meet Spock, chat, walk to the base, interact with scotty, modify the transporters etc - maybe 4-6 hours altogether?). Then Enterprise has to head to Earth at Warp 4.

I suppose the fact that it takes Narada so long to get to Earth could be explained if it took them EXACTLY that amount of time to torture the information out of Pike, which would make it a coincidence/plot contrivance rather than an inconsistency but it's up there with bumping into Spock in a cave. Arguably similar device was used in TWoK though, when Kirk turns up after Khan has tortured the Regula scientists but before Khan has a chance to explore and search properly for Carol.

I'm all for using characters' skills in the movies anf it's arguable that the universal translator would translate everything including Vulcan but surely it could display Romulan in red and Vulcan in blue on the viewscreen? It was a weak way to involve Uhura at that stage. I'm sure they could have come up with something a bit more credible. "Lieutenant, you're hot - man communications."

Now if, because of her fluency in Romulan, she had been part of the landing party later, THAT would have been an awesome and sensible use for her character's skills. Sadly the Kirk/Spock machismo took over and the girl had to stay behind and pine for her man. I'd much rather have seen Uhura saving Kirk's life instead of Spock - let her get a commendation that justifies promotion to chief communications officer for the next movie.

Still Saldana is lobbying for some action in the sequel so fingers crossed that they won't shoe-horn in some lame excuse and actually use the character skills properly.

 

[ST-One]

Yes I suppose that time cuts might explain it but it is hard to determine that coherently. We know how long it takes Narada to reach Vulcan (about a day) following the battle in Klingon space and we know roughly how long it takes Enterprise to reach Vulcan (a matter of a few hours at most) at maximum warp.

We know nothing about the time anyone needs to travel anywhere in that movie.

 

[Pauln6]

Yes I suppose that time cuts might explain it but it is hard to determine that coherently. We know how long it takes Narada to reach Vulcan (about a day) following the battle in Klingon space and we know roughly how long it takes Enterprise to reach Vulcan (a matter of a few hours at most) at maximum warp.

We know nothing about the time anyone needs to travel anywhere in that movie.

It isn't true to say we know 'nothing' since you can extrapolate from some of the dialogue. We know roughly when the Klingon attack was compared to the trip to Vulcan from Uhura and Kirk's dialogue, we know that the trip to Vulcan can't take all that long (unless I suppose it takes a very long time to drill into the core of Vulcan) and however long it takes to get back to Earth it must be significantly longer than from Earth to Vulcan because of the lower warp factor. I agree that it's very woolly and always has been.

 

[ST-One]

... you can extrapolate ...

No, you can't.

 

[Pauln6]

... you can extrapolate ...

No, you can't.

I can, maybe you can't? Two dimensional thinking isn't a crime but it is what killed Khan.

 

[ST-One]

... you can extrapolate ...

No, you can't.

I can, maybe you can't? Two dimensional thinking isn't a crime but it is what killed Khan.

You can't extrapolate anything from a lack of information.

 

[Pauln6]

No, you can't.

I can, maybe you can't? Two dimensional thinking isn't a crime but it is what killed Khan.

You can't extrapolate anything from a lack of information.

If you are trying to extrapolate from the information you don't have obviously you will struggle. You need to extrapolate from the information you DO have silly. We aren't doing algebra though so you'll never have ALL the information you need to work out precise details.

From dictionary.com
ex·trap·o·late
–verb (used with object)
to infer (an unknown) from something that is known; conjecture.
Statistics . to estimate (the value of a variable) outside the tabulated or observed range.
Mathematics . to estimate (a function that is known over a range of values of its independent variable) to values outside the known range.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

We don't know how the warp-engines of the Yellyfish and then the Narada (the dilithium, the anti-matter) reacted with the black hole when it was created.

Exactly. It's all pooh-bah. One day a writer needs for there to be a way to "recrystalize dilithium" and suddenly there's a way where there never has been before - and it works flawlessly the first time.

Welcome to the World of Star Trek!

We know nothing about the time anyone needs to travel anywhere in that movie.

Everything always travels as fast as the plot requires in Star Trek. Even the speed of subspace communication varies from real-time to whenever.

You can't extrapolate anything from a lack of information.

Well, more precisely you can "extrapolate" anything that pleases you from a lack of information - although the more accurate term for this kind of extrapolation is "making up whatever I like."

One can fairly call that kind of reasoning "evidence-lite."

 

[ST-One]

I can, maybe you can't? Two dimensional thinking isn't a crime but it is what killed Khan.

You can't extrapolate anything from a lack of information.

If you are trying to extrapolate from the information you don't have obviously you will struggle. You need to extrapolate from the information you DO have silly. We aren't doing algebra though so you'll never have ALL the information you need to work out precise details.

From dictionary.com
ex·trap·o·late
–verb (used with object)
to infer (an unknown) from something that is known; conjecture.
Statistics . to estimate (the value of a variable) outside the tabulated or observed range.
Mathematics . to estimate (a function that is known over a range of values of its independent variable) to values outside the known range.

And we do know next to nothing.

 

[ST-One]

Everything always travels as fast as the plot requires in Star Trek. Even the speed of subspace communication varies from real-time to whenever.

Exactly.

 

[Pauln6]

Obviously we all know about speed of plot. That's why I initially categorised it as an inconsistency. I'm not someone who compares NuTrek to TOS Trek and holds TOS (or anything later) to a higher standard. I'm simply criticising NuTrek for what I perceive as its own mistakes on its own merits. Even without precise information it's still really odd that Narada turns up at Earth after Enterprise when she is travelling at far below her maximum speed.

What's wierd is that they didn't have to restrict Enterprise's speed at all - they made a choice to do so in dialogue and opened up the question. This is why I think that most of the movie's flaws could be removed with tiny tweaks. Either confirm that Narada (like Khan) has suffered damage to its cloak or engines in the fight or don't make the Enterprise travel so slow.

 

[ST-One]

Even without precise information it's still really odd that Narada turns up at Earth after Enterprise when she is travelling at far below her maximum speed.

The Enterprise does arrive after the Narada in the Sol system.

What's wierd is that they didn't have to restrict Enterprise's speed at all - they made a choice to do so in dialogue and opened up the question. This is why I think that most of the movie's flaws could be removed with tiny tweaks. Either confirm that Narada (like Khan) has suffered damage to its cloak or engines in the fight or don't make the Enterprise travel so slow.

This doesn't make any sense.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

This doesn't make any sense.

Beyond which it's trivia aimed at satisfying a couple of dozen people at the most. Not worthwhile.