I would imagine Spock Prime would start with preserving Vulcan culture first.
Kelvinverse theories and head canon
- Thread starter Laura Cynthia Chambers
- Start date
- Status
That's why it's important to spread knowledge, animals, plants, and artifacts around. If something happens to a world or facility, all is not lost.
Since Vulcans have off world colonies some would be.
And the rebuilding process will be complicated; melding the pre-existing ecosystems on New Vulcan with the needs of old Vulcan's creatures.
Ads are making the site illegible.
Red matter is number 10 and their biggest question is how to deploy it? Ok, I think I'm good.
Red matter is number 10 and their biggest question is how to deploy it? Ok, I think I'm good.
Wow this is a blast from the past. Feels like it's been forever since I've since this kind of cinemasins listicle.
On the plus side: We know what Maurice is up to.
On the other hand: It's a
ing slideshow, and I'm disinclined on principle to go through nine other pages to see what makes up the rest of the list.(Didn't Buzzfeed at least manage to do these all on the same page? Seriously, there's only one reason to do a listicle as a slideshow, and that's to force you to look at [number of pages]X the ad content.)
Yeah. It's frustrating to navigate and I don't see it being worth the scroll.On the other hand: It's a
Yeah, I'm a little surprised to see anyone still using that trick (except maybe Rolling Stone, and they only do it to break their 500-place lists up into more readable groups of 50 per page.) Almost everyone else gave up on slideshows years ago, because no one will read them anymore.
[SIZE=6 said:10 Dumbest Things In Star Trek (2009)[/SIZE]
]
Despite being sold as an action-adventure show, Star Trek’s always had something of a rep for putting story before action, so much so that it’s often and accurately characterized as “talky.” Even as video compositing and CGI saw the cost of visual effects drop, the Trek franchise largely avoided the influence of Star Wars to go big on the action at a cost to character and theme.
That changed when director JJ Abrams rebooted the original as a big-budget blockbuster in 2009 and dialed the action-adventure quotient to Lucasfilm levels. The reaction? Well, no one can hate on a franchise like its own devotees, and many were the fans that decried this new take in a Not My Star Trek fashion and accused it of dumbing down their favorite sci-fi enterprise.
Sure, there's plenty that's silly, convenient, and coincidental. And some will never forgive the lens flares or the brewery. But those nitpicks aside, what's truly dumb in the Kelvin timeline?
Let’s implode some red matter and make a portal back to 2009 and find out.
10. Red Matter Matters
Paramount Pictures
Despite fan complaints, the so-called Red Matter is no more preposterous than a lot of other unobtainium substances postulated and employed in various Treks, be it star-killing trilithium (Star Trek Generations) or the anything-muppet Genesis Wave (Star Trek II and III), to name but two examples. If we’re being honest it’s the dumb name that fans bristle at. If it had been called “quantum-gravitic xyrillium” or some other technobabble words pulled out of someone’s aft, no one would have blinked. But calling it “Red Matter”...somehow that was the bridge too far.
Silly name aside, if the Red Matter can form a black hole capable of Hoovering up a supernova, just how is it supposed to be deployed? Some supernovae leave nothing where the star was, and others leave various types of collapsed stars at their centers. Can Spock Prime set it off in the hollow center of where the star had been? How the hell do you drill into a neutron star? If before the star blows up, was he supposed to get it into the star’s core? If not, why did the Nero have to drill to the center of Vulcan and the Earth to set it off?
Did anyone even think this through?
I think we know the answer to that…
9. Numbskull Nero
Paramount Pictures
Eric Bana’s performance as nutball Nero transcends the paper-thin character seen on screen. One can rationalize any idiocy of Nero’s on the fact he’s not operating on all thrusters on account of his grief. Indeed, unused bits from the shooting script make plain this is the case, but not enough of this is in the finished film for it to land.
Even accepting that Nero is determined to nuke the Federation for failing to save his home planet and family in the fuuuuuture, being that he’s now in the past before this tragedy he really ought to make a beeline for home and use Prime Spock’s Red Matter to prevent the supernova that threatens Romulus… because why even take the risk that his ship might be stopped or damaged whilst imploding Federation planets? There’d be plenty of time for vaguely motivated genocide afterward.
What’s especially stupid is that he spares the Enterprise so young Spock can watch Vulcan die, but he could just as well have insisted Spock come over with Pike and let him watch the planet’s destruction from there…or just jump him on Delta Vega with Spock Prime and let them deal with that on top of their misery. Either way, he should have nuked the Enterprise, as it’s the only thing that could warn Starfleet about him.
But, nah, not only is Nero nuts, but he’s dumb as a box of rocks.
8. A Simple Mining Vessel
Paramount Pictures
It’s not unbelievable that the Narada’s future tech makes it nearly invincible to the weapons of a century earlier. I mean, imagine the cannons of an early 19th-century warship trying to punch through the steel hulls of a 20th-century seagoing ship.
But the truly dumb thing is its firepower. The Narada reportedly destroyed 47 Klingon warbirds in a single go. Note that we witness at least six fragmenting torpedoes hit the Kelvin and it doesn’t completely come apart. One assumes decades-newer ships like the task force with the Enterprise must be at least as tough. So how many such torpedo hits does it require to take down 47 warbirds and five starships? 300? 400?
The point: Nero says "In my time, where I come from, this is a simple mining vessel." So why the hell does it possess such incredible firepower (tie-ins aside) and the tactical systems to use it? Is space piracy so bad in 24th-century Romulan space that miners require such weapons?
Perhaps this would have been believable if the fragmenting torpedoes were identified as asteroid-shredding mining tools that Nero employs as weapons against his comparatively antiquated foes … except that these torpedoes go through starship shields as if they weren’t there, which suggests they’re weapon-weapons.
Why is a simple mining vessel armed to the teeth?
Because it’s a summer blockbuster.
Pew pew! Dumb dumb!
7. Starships Annihilated In Seconds
Paramount Pictures
Given that the Narada is demonstrated to have inexplicable weapons, there's still the question of rate-of-fire. How believable is it that it’s capable of targeting and annihilating multiple starships in literally seconds? Because that’s what happens. At least four starships are seen warping off more or less simultaneously for Vulcan (the script says five) while the Enterprise, lagged because new helmsman Sulu forgot to release the parking brake. It takes less than a minute for this hiccup to be resolved, and the hero ship is off like a shot.
This brand-new Enterprise is described as being the “flagship” (that Star Trek doesn’t grok what constitutes a flagship is a gripe for another article), so it’s unlikely to be significantly slower than the rest of the task force. As such, she’s at best a minute or so behind her sister ships, yet she arrives over Vulcan amidst the wreckage of them. So how is this possible? Did Nero manage to open fire the instant those ships came out of warp?
When Nero goes all "fire everything!" at the film's climax, the Narada launches a total of 25 torpedoes, then stops, which suggests this is the most it can fire without reloading. Maybe that's enough to shred a task force of five starships in a minute, but what about those aforementioned 47 warbirds? Or did the Klingons just hang around while Narada reloaded, despite seeing their weapons were useless?
6. Safety Last
Paramount Pictures
What is it with action adventure movies and bottomless pits? In the old days a cliché danger was quicksand. Nowadays it's gigantic plunges into the abyss. Past cinematics Treks guilty of this were Star Trek III and Kruge's drop on the Genesis Planet, and Nemesis with its inexplicable high-dive from the lowermost decks of the Enterprise-E.
But those are nothing compared to the ultra-unsafe workplace that is the Narada, the interior of which takes its safety cues from that galaxy far far away in Star Wars, where the only guardrail seems to be the Force. The Narada's guts are a nightmare of pointy hazards, wet surfaces, pointlessly staggered walkways, and "watch your step" drops, with nary a guardrail to be seen.
One must assume there’s no Romulan Equivalent of the HSE or OSHA (Health and Safety Executive in Britain, Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the US). I guess Romulans and their martial “if we are the stronger” mentality must figure it weeds out weaklings. Darwin Awards to everyone not as nimble as a mountain goat.
5. Burning To The Center Of The Earth
Paramount Pictures
With apologies to Jules Verne, who penned his Voyages extraordinaire long before we had technologies to peek through solid rock and glean an understanding of the Earth’s guts, the Narada’s drilling platform makes no sense. Why the need to lower it down into the breathable atmosphere? Does anyone realize how far that is from even low orbit? Is the Narada's ginormous size simply so that it can hold the preposterous cable necessary to bridge such a distance?
That aside, you can’t drill a stable hole to the center because the Earth isn’t made of solid rock, as any active volcano demonstrates. Hell even familiar materials behave differently under the intense pressures found deep inside a planet like Earth. Molten iron-nickel, anyone? That hole is going to constantly cave in and fill any gap made by fricking lasers or phasers or whatever this silly drill beam is. This pressure problem would exist on Vulcan as well, even if it’s older and cold to its core.
The only way this works is if — in addition to its flaming drill beam — the Narada is constantly projecting an immensely powerful cylindrical forcefield down the thousands of kilometers deep hole to hold it open and allow the Red Matter to hit bottom. But since the hole remains gaping even after Kirk and Sulu decommission the drill, this clearly ain’t the case.
4. Moronic Marooning
Paramount Pictures
Nothing about or that happens on Delta Vega makes sense. It's habitable but apparently uninhabited, despite being within Mark I eyeball viewing distance of Vulcan. There's a Starfleet outpost there, but the communications-damaged Enterprise doesn't pull up and try calling via communicators to determine if the outpost has any capability to contact, well, anyone who could get a warning to Starfleet. Kirk's marooned to the outpost via a pod that can't land anywhere near it. Kirk has a communicator but is never shown trying to call for assistance. And Scotty and Keenser both are clueless that the planet next door has vanished.
Just why doesn't the outpost have subspace radio? Or did it get its phone service from formerly nearby Vulcan? Guess it's time to switch carriers.
And did Nero drop Prime Spock within walking distance of the outpost so he could live with the memory of Vulcan's destruction rather than freezing to death or being eaten by the local fauna, as Kirk nearly was? And how on Hoth did Spock get that wooden torch?
Finally, is Lt. Spock, a pirate captain? Marooning was usually punishment for mutineers, and effectively a death sentence. Back in the OG series, Kirk marooned Gary Mitchell because Mitchell was a growing and uncontrollable threat to the ship and there was no way to contain him. But cadet Kirk? Spock hangs a lantern on his decision to maroon Kirk by saying he would probably escape a brig cell. So, how about sending someone to the surface via shuttlecraft with Kirk in tow while the Enterprise warps away?
Delta Vega is the delta of dumb.
3. The Bogus Supernova
Paramount Pictures
First things first. Many websites and wikis describe the star that destroyed Romulus as the “Hobus Supernova,” but that stems from a four-issue comic book tie-in titled "Countdown," and is neither in the shooting script nor the finished film. In short: Hobus is bogus.
All Spock Prime tells Kirk is that in the future “a star will explode, and threaten to destroy the galaxy.”
Yeah … about that…
Supernovae are a big deal — emphasis on B I G — but even the biggest supergiant stars only have so much mass and energy to throw around when they go kaboom, all of which becomes more diffuse the farther it gets from the source. Such an explosion could affect planets within a few hundred light years at most, many years or centuries later, since what a supernova flings out is limited by the speed of light. And, since our galaxy is estimated to be 100 thousand light-years across, no way, no how, does a single supernova threaten the entirety. Even if this event threatened the civilizations of the known galaxy, precision-minded Spock Prime would never characterize it as a threat to the galaxy: he’d calculate the number of endangered worlds to three decimal places. Hyperbole is illogical... and dumb.
Anyway, while Spock Prime used the "Red Matter" to successfully create a black hole to Hoover up the supernova, the reality is you can't put smoke back in a bottle. Even a black hole can't claw back the radiation released, which has zoomed off at light speed and ain't making a U-turn. No undo there.
The movie doesn't identify the star that went supernova as Romulus' sun (Star Trek Picard did, but that's another matter), but it seems likely given the visuals. If so, then the only way Spock could have saved the planet is to Red Matter the star before it could 'splode and cook Romulus with radiation. That would leave the planet with no sun and no heat, but time to rescue the population, assuming the Romulans have lots of power to stay warm, keep the lights on, and sufficient food in reserves or being delivered.
(Math fun! A fleet of a thousand ships, each one capable of moving ten thousand people per trip, and each round trip taking one week, would require 11 and half years to evacuate six billion people.)
2. Hitting A Bullet With A Smaller Bullet
Paramount Pictures
Transporters have always been magic passed off as science so the concept of transwarp beaming is really no more preposterous than beaming at all. What’s dumb about the transwarp beaming in this movie is exactly what Scotty describes but Spock waves away: trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse.
Consider that they’re aiming at a moving target that they have zilch data about, other than where it’s heading (the Laurentian system), and the warp three velocity Spock ordered before throwing Kirk overboard. There’s zero indication they know exactly when the Enterprise went to warp, whether it has changed velocity, or if young Spock changed his mind about his destination. If the Delta Vega outpost sensors could detect the ship in warp then you might buy it, but Swiss Army Knife Spock Prime just pulls some numbers out of his Vulcan arse and it works.
Can this get any dumber? Of course it can! If you have transwarp beaming, why send Kirk and Scotty to the Enterprise instead of to another Federation member planet or right to Starfleet Command ahead of the Narada’s arrival? Or, hey, send Kirk to the Enterprise and Scotty to Starfleet Command, thus covering both bases!
The real-world reason is to contrive to get the OG crew all on the Enterprise, and that’d be all fine and good if the script did it in a way that was sensible … not stupid.
1. Captaining Kirk
Paramount Pictures
The role of the ship’s captain confuses a lot of people on Trek and in fandom who don’t all realize that “captain” can mean two things: it’s a rank — like commander or admiral — and it separately refers to the job being the commanding officer on a ship. This is why McCoy could accurately say Commander Spock was the captain in “The Tholian Web,” because Kirk had been declared dead. Spock doesn’t have to hold the rank of captain to be THE captain of the ship.
But that doesn’t mean just anyone can command a ship (emergency situations aside). Being the captain requires knowing everything about how the ship works, and there’s no way even a Brainiac Kirk who can whiz through Starfleet Academy in three years is going to have both the knowledge and practical experience to command a top-of-the-line state-of-the-art starship, no matter that he’s the hero. Starfleet might leave him in provisional command for PR purposes, wait for the public eye to shift, then shuffle him off to a less prestigious command to really earn his stripes.
But the movie is bound and determined to leave Kirk in that chair by the closing credits, no matter how nonsensical that decision is.
Thanks for saving everyone time by putting that together.
I can't help feeling, though, like it's a retread of all the mostly-interchangeable "10 Things I Didn't Like" critiques many of us remember reading 15 years ago, when this was still the most recent Star Trek film. Or of the repeated Peevish Checklist Recitations by a certain poster who shall here remain nameless.
There just wasn't anything new to be gleaned from it.
Yup.Thanks for saving everyone time by putting that together.
I can't help feeling, though, like it's a retread of all the mostly-interchangeable "10 Things I Didn't Like" critiques many of us remember reading 15 years ago, when this was still the most recent Star Trek film. Or of the repeated Peevish Checklist Recitations by a certain poster who shall here remain nameless.
There just wasn't anything new to be gleaned from it.
Very unoriginal.
Other Trek movie listicles on the site list 14 dumbest things compared to 10 for this one, therefore I can only assume that Star Trek (2009) is less dumb than Wrath of Khan.
Well, kudos to GFR for this piece saying what I long held to be the strengths of Into Darkness.
The original title of TWOK: The Vengeance of Khan.
The Vengeance of Khan.
Christ.
The Vengeance of Khan.
Christ.
I approve.The original title of TWOK: The Vengeance of Khan.
The Vengeance of Khan.
Christ.
- Status
Similar threads
