My Grievances of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

[CorporalCaptain]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

what I'm talking about is a film choosing a set of rules and then playing by them.

Wonderful! Both STXI and STID did this, so what's the problem again?

All I can say is THANK GOD they didn't waste time with spelling out every little tech detail

Pretending that any objection to a trope that happens to be found in nuTrek writing must be some form of crazy Poindexterism really doesn't work either. I know you're a smart guy, Opus, and that in all probability you know perfectly well that there's a difference between simply rejecting "speed of drama" and "wasting time with spelling out every little tech detail." So I don't really understand this kind of dodging.

How do you know they don't have rules?

You should know something is wrong when you have to resort to stuff like "sure, we don't see any rules, but they must have some, how do you know they don't?" If the writers did lots of hypothetical super-secret awesome stuff in the background which would totally blow my objections out of space but just somehow never wound up manifesting on the screen in any way, I don't care. I care about and am talking about what's on the screen.

I would also point out, incidentally, that my original comment was not directed at nuTrek, but at Trek in general. It was Closed Caption who insisted on dragging the discussion around to the pros and cons of nuTrek and whether or not it uses the "speed of drama" convention I was criticizing. If you're feeling aggrieved about being unable to convince me that it doesn't, take it up with him.

^ Quite so, Sindatur. That is exactly the right question.

I certainly can't find any such internal inconsistency, as I already said. But, to that, BigJake said, "Pull the other one."

No one else has been able to find any such internal inconsistency, either, which is why the complaints about internal inconsistency represent attempts to compare nuTrek with TOS or some such.

It seemed to take longer to reach Klingon space than it did to head back for Earth. When the Vengeance threw the Enterprise out of warp, they were close to Earth's moon, which is actually perfect timing. So, they were gonna keep going if it weren't for the Vengeance stopping them?

Were they traveling at the same speed each way?

 

[BigJake]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

So, BigJake, let me ask in all seriousness, which scale would you want to see?

I honestly don't care that much, it would just rock my world to see any version of Trek simply pick one and stick to it. As I said I don't particularly care if it's "realistic" -- "warp" travel probably never will be -- I just think that story opportunities are lost when people refuse to make an internally-consistent call on this kind of thing.

 

[Jerikka Dawn]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

]Can you name a conflict, within ST'09 ad STiD, where at one point, something was declared a certain time distance away

No. We never even get this far. Neither film sets or plays by any perceptible rules at all. Nothing is ever stated or shown to be any particularly set time or distance from anything else, period. In fact I don't believe I can even recollect the use of devices like the "warp factor."

If the intention is to write a consistent narrative, there is absolutely only one rule that needs to be followed regardless of the story -- that you don't contradict what previously happened in the narrative. How did STID or ST'09 do this with regard to travel time/speed?

 

[R. Star]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

Speed has always been nothing more than a plot device. They're there instantly when they need to be, it takes too long when the plot requires it. The NuTrek movies are just ore blatant about it, that's all.

 

[BigJake]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

If the intention is to write a consistent narrative, there is absolutely only one rule that needs to be followed regardless of the story

Yes, but if you want to go a bit beyond that and have a narrative with a consistent setting that can enable certain kinds of stories, merely avoiding setting up any rules for your setting will not do. That simply provides you with a mushy setting, not internal consistency.

I have in fact gone over all of this in detail in the prior several pages of discussion, down to specifying the types of stories I think are undermined by the "speed of drama" conceit. What I'm talking about obviously is slightly more advanced storytelling than just "don't trip over your own narrative feet." (Only slightly, though.)

 

[trevanian]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

Two examples in The Hunt for Red October come to my mind. The most significant is probably that, with a range of 5,000 miles, the missiles of the Red October don't need to be launched close to the American coast at all, to hit American targets.

Actually the scenario the movie is built around, and which everyone is racing to prevent, is a decapitation strike, short-range firing of SLBM's to take out centers with little to no warning before impact (so that the Americans wouldn't even know where to evacuate short of the impossible task of evacuating the entire eastern coast). We are told this in the film, and it is in fact an actual tactical use of SLBM's.

But, my favorite, that took me right out of the movie on first viewing, is that in the middle of its cat-and-mouse game with the Red October, when the two subs are shown running silently side by side, the Dallas surfaces to pick up Ryan from the helicopter, and yet we are supposed to believe that the Red October can't detect any of that.

This one, maybe, except I always had the impression that Dallas hung back and pulled away to pick up Ryan. (Hence Captain Scott Glenn's annoyance, which wouldn't have made sense if the Dallas had just surfaced right behind their target and dived again.)

Neither of these examples is at any rate relevant to my point, since neither of them is a problem that remotely affects the geographic framing of the action or constitutes "speed of drama" nonsense, which is what I was talking about. Moreover I don't require "fidelity to reality" so much as internal consistency: what I'm talking about is a film choosing a set of rules, indicating what they are and then playing by them. Red October delivers the drama that it does by doing this. "Speed of drama" conventions rob a film of the opportunity to do this, and squander story possibilities in so doing.

Haven't been in this thread for weeks, but this stuff is really nice to read. The whole business of setting rules and sticking with them is something that seems to have disappeared this century, with the exception of GRAVITY, where they made a major point to pick their situation and let it play out (sort of like a dynamic simulation in CG.)

RED OCTOBER even plays honest with the time delay required to get them to where the climax has to play out, spelling out the elapsed time on screen. As to how the other Russian boat found them, well, I don't even remember how Clancy justified that in the novel. On first viewing, I really disliked the film, but it has definitely grown on me, even if Connery's Ramius is a little off in his timing for my taste (something that only happens on the rarest of occasions, as Connery can do little wrong in most films.)

ID's superbeaming and megatranswarps make a hash of conventional cinematic timeframes, but I think you can say the same about 09. Both the KELVIN battle and the final battle with E and the big Romulan thing play for me like montages in how they are edited and sound mixed, where time is very elastic, rather than in real-time, and it is just one more big disconnect in each instance for me in a film that was full of WTFs to go with these disconnects.

 

[Set Harth]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

In fact I don't believe I can even recollect the use of devices like the "warp factor."

ST09, when they're planning the trip to Titan.

 

[Mycroft Maxwell]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

Ummm...anyone realize at that uber uber uber fast warp, that if the Vengeance didn't blast it out of warp, the Enterprise would have passed Earth up...by lightyears...

 

[ChowdaHead]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

ladies and gentlemen, BigJake.

 

[BigJake]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

ladies and gentlemen, BigJake.

Awww, does somebody need a hug?

The whole business of setting rules and sticking with them is something that seems to have disappeared this century, with the exception of GRAVITY, where they made a major point to pick their situation and let it play out (sort of like a dynamic simulation in CG.)

I'm very excited to see GRAVITY for this very reason!

(And yeah, I totally get the caveats about Hunt, which is fun and awesome and gets points for realistically tackling its premise but wasn't necessarily flawless. Actually the film about those events that I really prefer is K-19: The Widowmaker, which really points up the ramshackle nature of the Soviet navy -- not to mention the awful management of its Politburo masters -- and brings home the ungodly courage it took to go to sea on a Soviet nuclear submarine. The scene where they discover their "radiation suits" are actually anti-chemical hazmat suits is heartbreaking.)

[EDIT:

. . . where time is very elastic, rather than in real-time, and it is just one more big disconnect in each instance for me in a film that was full of WTFs to go with these disconnects.

Honestly, you know what I realized today that this reminds me of? And I really, honestly don't mean this as flamebait, because I'm a SW as much as I'm as Trek fan (albeit for different reasons)? It really does remind me of Star Wars.

In fact, the more I reflect on the Abrams films, the more striking it is. The elastic approach to time, the pulpy swashbuckling feel (complete with Sulu's swordfight on the drilling platform in ST09), the Lucas-style themes of Destiny and instant friendship, the feeling that the galaxy is ruled by feudal-style organizations (which is what Abrams Starfleet feels like, an organization of lords bestowing privileges despite the dressing of ranks), the culminating medals-and-honours scenes and malleability of ranks (in which context "Captain Kirk" sounds no more implausible than "General Solo"), the way warp is treated (thanks to those who pointed out the smattering of "warp factor" usages, but it still feels to me overall like "let's make the jump to lightspeed"), the random alien buddy assigned to Scotty in both films... it all feels familiar.]

 

[M'Sharak]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

ladies and gentlemen, BigJake.

Please don't do that. It's quite possible to address the content of a post without taking a crack at the person who made it. If all that's there is the personal swipe, then that's a post which didn't need to be made in the first place.

ladies and gentlemen, BigJake.

Awww, does somebody need a hug?

And if the post didn't need to be made, then neither did it warrant a response. Don't do that, please.

 

[Set Harth]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

the feeling that the galaxy is ruled by feudal-style organizations (which is what Abrams Starfleet feels like, an organization of lords bestowing privileges despite the dressing of ranks), the culminating medals-and-honours scenes and malleability of ranks (in which context "Captain Kirk" sounds no more implausible than "General Solo")

On the other hand, Anakin never made Jedi Master, so there's that.

ID's superbeaming and megatranswarps make a hash of conventional cinematic timeframes, but I think you can say the same about 09.

STID is noticeably worse in this respect IMO.

 

[Opus]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

All I can say is THANK GOD they didn't waste time with spelling out every little tech detail

Pretending that any objection to a trope that happens to be found in nuTrek writing must be some form of crazy Poindexterism really doesn't work either.

ANY objection? Nope. I've had my criticisms of nuTrek. It's just that my overall experience with the movies happens to be positive. And when I have had negative things to say about an incarnation of Trek, I've 1.) kept to the point, 2.) not held an expectation that because I believe it that others must believe it and that is bad likewise or 3.) those people holding contrary views are somehow lesser lifeforms.

Just sayin'...

I know you're a smart guy, Opus

Nope. Not even close. Dumber than a box of rocks, actually. Just lived enough life to know when to give a fuck and when not to.

and that in all probability you know perfectly well that there's a difference between simply rejecting "speed of drama" and "wasting time with spelling out every little tech detail."

And will you pat me on the head and give me a cookie if I do?

TBH, I don't know that some Trekfans can discern the difference. Or that, in reality, it doesn't make a lick of difference.

So I don't really understand this kind of dodging.

Dodging? Nope. Not at all. Pointing out with some humor what IMHO may be the parsing of very tiny nits being picked? Probably.

 

[BigJake]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

I've 1.) kept to the point, 2.) not held an expectation that because I believe it that others must believe it and that is bad likewise or 3.) those people holding contrary views are somehow lesser lifeforms.

Good. Then we should get along just fine. (I mean, assuming you've also "lived enough life" not to read shrill, defensive fantasy-narratives into the fact of someone not particularly liking a thing you like.)

Big fan of your electric tuba work on the "Billy and the Boingers" EP, by the way.

 

[M'Sharak]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

...

(I mean, assuming you've also "lived enough life" not to read shrill, defensive fantasy-narratives into the fact of someone not particularly liking a thing you like.)

There's plenty of room here for anyone to express an opinion about the movies, whether that opinion be favorable, unfavorable, or anywhere in between. Needling those with whom you might not agree by using verbiage such as the above is completely unnecessary and not especially friendly. Be friendly instead, and avoid taking the personal line.

 

[BigJake]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

Needling those with whom you might not agree by using verbiage such as the above is completely unnecessary and not especially friendly.

I am making every effort to answer friendliness with friendliness and generally to ignore OTT hostility and attempts to invent supposed attitudes on my behalf. My apologies for the above lapse(s) in this policy, I'll avoid responding to any such provocations again.

 

[Balrog]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

You know, Big, they've got a forum right up your alley on this site called The Neutral Zone. I think you'd find it's much more... liberating... than what you find here in the Trek XI+ thread. And we're having a whole big 'ole discussion about STiD and Abrams Trek there.

You should check it out!

 

[SeerSGB]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

You know, Big, they've got a forum right up your alley on this site called The Neutral Zone. I think you'd find it's much more... liberating... than what you find here in the Trek XI+ thread. And we're having a whole big 'ole discussion about STiD and Abrams Trek there.

You should check it out!

Yeppers. Neat zero rules, and you can respond nearly anyway you want to a post.

Otherwise, the only advice I can give: If you think it's a personal dig, walk on by and respond to the topic of the post.

 

[BigJake]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

By no means did I mean to imply I'm not enjoying this forum, mind you. The bulk of my experience here has been positive and educational, and I certainly have no problem with fairly-applied rules, so I'm definitely not going anywhere. (Balrog, the Neutral Zone you describe is on this site? Do you mind linking to it? I can't seem to see it in the forum listing.)

 

[Balrog]

Re: My Greivences of Nutrek. What makes me a hater...

Sure, buddy!

Go to your "User CP" at the top of the page and click on it. Go down the list there on the left hand side to "Group Memberships". Click on that, then click to join "The Neutral Zone" on that page.

And you're in!