Into Darkness and the novelverse [SPOILERS]

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by F. King Daniel, May 16, 2013.

  1. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    ^I tend to imagine Bruce Greenwood when I read Pike stories these days, but otherwise I still envision the TOS cast. Still, when I look at Pine and Quinto, I have no trouble seeing them as Kirk and Spock.
     
  2. bullethead

    bullethead Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Feb 24, 2008
    It says a lot for that happen, considering Bruce Greenwood's limited time in the role. I really wish we could get some Greenwood!Pike novels or a game, but we'll be lucky if we get a oneshot comic.
     
  3. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Well, as of now, he's played Pike in twice as many productions as Jeffrey Hunter did. Though his combined screentime in the role is probably somewhat less.
     
  4. DS9forever

    DS9forever Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2007
    Location:
    United Kingdom
    Did anybody notice the similarities of the film with the DS9 novel Abyss?. In Abyss, Section 31 recruit Locken (who is genetically engineered) but he turns against them.
     
  5. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    ^Seems like a natural thing for S31 to do in either timeline, since they're out for any advantage and don't care too much about laws and ethics. It's a better resonance between timelines than some of the, err, more familiar moments in the film's third act.
     
  6. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2011
    Location:
    The Black Country, England
    There were similarities with the novel Dreadnought as well, but all coincidental I'm sure...
     
  7. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    At this point, so many different Star Trek stories have been told that just about any story is likely to bear some similarity to a previous Trek story.
     
  8. Jolaris

    Jolaris Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2003
    Location:
    Umea, Vasterbotten, Sweden
    This talk about it being a novelty to use transwarp transporters, isn't there already an in-universe precedent set for that in the Prime universe with Iconian Gateways?
     
  9. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    ^The issue isn't whether the technology exists at all, it's whether the Federation has it in a usable form.
     
  10. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    AI Generated Madness
    Since he's from India (and played by a Spanish-Mexican) didn't Khan always have a Caucasian appearance?:p
     
  11. tomswift2002

    tomswift2002 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Dec 19, 2011
    How about the TMP "Dick Tracy" communicators. There was that one scene where Uhura and Chekov are on Kirk's wall screen, but I seem to remember Kirk and Decker using their communicators to talk to the bridge and other officers.

    But I also found that the movie really drew heavily on Diane Carey's "Dreadnought!" Novel.

    Plus with Admiral Marcus, because he was played by the same actor who played the Terra Prime leader, I wonder if the two characters are related (imagine, David Marcus' great-great-grandfather was the leader of Terra Prime).
     
  12. DarKush

    DarKush Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 18, 2005
    I definitely got that vibe as well. I wonder if one or more of the writers have read the novel?
     
  13. DarKush

    DarKush Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 18, 2005
    Cute, but I still would have preferred a person of color or at least a person with darker skin. I thought Cumberbatch did solid in the acting department, but he wasn't Khan to me, in appearance or attitude.

    All that being said, this debate about Khan is just one example of how I feel Into Darkness falls short as a film. It's relies too much on fans to fill in the blanks. Granted it's something many of us love to do, but it's a sign that the film has problems standing on its own without that assist.

    There are debates raging about Khan's blood or why they couldn't use another person in one of the canisters to save Kirk, why was Admiral Marcus so open about Section 31, was it or was it not Praxis, Carol Marcus's British accent, etc. I wish some of this stuff had been explained or explained more thoroughly in the film and not left up for people to speculate. Believe me even if it had been explained I'm sure we would've come up with something to nitpick. But the things I listed above I don't think are nitpicks, I think they are things that distract from the film and the story they are trying to tell. And many of them could've been solved with a bit of dialogue.
     
  14. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2004
    Location:
    New Therin Park, Andor (via Australia)
    Right on the tail of the Boston Marathon bombing? Nah, that would have been box office suicide.

    You wanna take away fannish speculation?

    That's our whole reason for going to "Star Trek" movies!
     
  15. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2011
    Location:
    The Black Country, England
    True, but JJ's stuff all seems to be like that - the first film at first seemed full of plot holes to me but with the exception of a couple of very large coincidences, it does hang together with a bit of thought.

    As long as it doesn't ruin the flow of the movie, I just don't think that it matters to the vast majority of the cinema going public...
     
  16. Dave Scarpa

    Dave Scarpa Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Feb 11, 2004
    The Novels should ignore the whole thing. That's what I'm doing
     
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Roberto Orci's explanation over on TrekMovie is the same one I pretty much intuited: that McCoy only knew for sure that Khan's blood had the regenerative power, and had no basis to assume that the others' would as well. I mean, since they are genetically engineered, it's possible that they could have various different genetic enhancements rather than all being the same. McCoy would've been a pretty inept scientist to speculate beyond the evidence like that.


    He intended to sacrifice Kirk to the Klingons to start a war, so he probably didn't expect Kirk to survive to pass on the information anyway.


    Easy enough to surmise that the Klingons accelerated their fleet building and energy production in response to the Narada's attack (one or both), leading Praxis to blow up sooner.


    The easiest of all to explain: She was just raised in England in this timeline. Orci has confirmed that as well (specifically, she was raised in London).


    But to new viewers, these details wouldn't have meant anything. New or casual viewers wouldn't have had any reason to be puzzled about Section 31 not being more secret or a Klingon moon being shattered in 2259. It would've been a distraction from the story to stop and say "Hey, Trek fans, here's why this is different from what it was before."

    Sure, a daughter having a different accent from her father could seem like something in need of an explanation, but it's pretty easy to deduce just from what we know: the father worked with a secret branch of his organization that had a facility in London, so that probably means he spent much of his career there and raised his daughter there. Children having different accents from their parents because of where they were raised is a common enough phenomenon in real life that it doesn't really require dialogue to explain. (In fact, they actually filmed a scene where Carol explained she was raised in London, but cut it because it was nonessential and got in the way of the pacing.)


    Ohh, they're definitely nitpicks. Heck, even I almost missed the glimpse of Praxis, since it was so insignificant to the story, just a bit of space scenery. The only one of the above questions that's more than a trivial detail is the one about Khan's blood. That could've used another line to make it clearer.



    Huh? First off, they didn't know that bombing would happen when they cast the role last year. And second, the suspected bombers were of Chechen and Avar parentage -- Caucasians in the most literal geographical sense, from the region of the Caucasus Mountains. They're as light-skinned as you or I am. Also they're Muslims, and though some people mistakenly think that Sikhism is an offshoot of Islam, it's actually a distinct faith.
     
  18. iarann

    iarann Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Feb 24, 2009
    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
     
  19. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    ^Honestly I'm not sure. I'd have to see the movie again.
     
  20. Corran Horn

    Corran Horn Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2001
    Location:
    I-L