My thoughts on and gripes with Star Trek Into Darkness

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies: Kelvin Universe' started by Ometiklan, Jun 6, 2013.

  1. Ometiklan

    Ometiklan Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Jul 14, 2003
    Location:
    Silver Spring, MD
    I have been a Star Trek fan forever and it is my favorite fictional universe. I really enjoyed Star Trek (2009), still anticipate rewatching it over and over, and have been looking forward to Into Darkness since 2009. As a pure summer actiony movie, Into Darkness is good. As a Star Trek movie (even a rebooted universe movie) it is terrible.

    The 2009 movie, despite its stupid script elements and lack of time for true character development and exploration, still had fun and novelty and good emotional elements. Into Darkness has been distilled down and has lost a lot of that promise.

    I can only applaud this movie for the reason that as long as these new movies are successful it means more quality Star Trek is still on the horizon somewhere - this alternate universe version just isn't it. Someday Star Trek will get back to exploring the human condition, and I look forward to that day.

    As I sat in the theater, my enjoyment of the movie went from “NEW STAR TREK!”, to “this is pretty and fun”, to “wait, these things make no sense or are poor done”, to “maybe they can pull out something redeeming”, to being disappointed and frustrated, to ultimately “this is a total wreck that I don’t really anticipate ever watching again”.

    To get all my frustrations off my chest, I sat down and wrote out all of the issues I had with the movie. And now that I have done that, I figured I would share with others. I know there are like-minded people on this board and figured some of you might enjoy a discussion or might provide alternative thoughts.

    So, thanks for reading and beware the long, long rant below. [Most was assembled without seeing other commenters' stuff, but I have since added a few things.]

    1. In this movie, everything is bigger and the villain is better, (but what wouldn't be better than the valiantly acted, but ultimately lame Nero from the last movie). The actors, score, and classic TOS hat-tips are there, but the movie is ultimately a house of cards. If you even lightly probe the movie, it all collapses.

    This movie is all action, leaving the few character moments that exist to barely a blink of time and have no impact on the plot, and the hat-tips are either minor mentions that just fly by with no real importance or are over-played and clichéd references Star Trek II.

    In the 2009 movie, the character scenes (for example, Spock and his dad Sarek commiserating over the death of Spock's mom, oh and by-the-way their entire planet) go by in about 2 minutes max. After that Spock is better and ready to act as first officer again, after just moments before resigning his position as captain due to his emotional distress; similarly after being told he has to emotionally compromise Spock, Kirk confronts Spock and gets him to leap into a homicidal rage in also about 2 minutes. JJ Abrams and crew just have no time to build up characters or explore the effects of the story on them.

    In "Into Darkness" the pacing is even faster in that the only real character-to-character scenes take place at the beginning of the movie between Kirk and Pike (good scenes both, but with no real conclusions or bookends later); once the action gets started there is no room to really explore any of these characters. Kirk suddenly decides that he cannot make the best decisions for the ship (only those that feel right to him) and leaves the ship/command to Spock - Spock doesn't even respond. Why? Probably because any real character-to-character interaction here would slow the pace of the movie and who really cares what Spock thinks about his friend and captain apparently losing faith in his command ability and giving up the one thing he most cared about - the command itself? Certainly not the screenwriters and director. But I cared.

    2. Kirk in this movie violates orders not because he knows what is right, but because he just does what he feels like doing. The Kirk of the original series went on his gut a lot of times, and while it is perfectly valid to attempt a different take on the character, the question is does it hold up here?

    So by the end of the movie, has Kirk learned anything, has he regained confidence in himself through good decision making or relying on the input from his staff or other Starfleet officers? No, he violates all orders, loses in a fist-fight and is kicked off of an enemy's bridge only to be saved by his first officer. Kirk doesn't learn any lesson from that.

    How about lessons learned from dying in the engine room? Kirk sacrifices himself to save his ship and crew - is this any different from what the Kirk of the early movie would have done? No, he is never portrayed as that selfish or unwilling to do what is necessary. Nor is he different from the Kirk of the original universe who just didn’t believe that death or destruction were the only options – and was always shown to be right. So the only lesson Kirk learned was that Pike was right, he was unfit for command and would make decisions that would get his crew killed - but he never learned how to make the right decisions.

    The one really strong character moment for Kirk is when he apologizes to the crew that he screwed up and they are all going to die - but then they don't, so everything is status quo again.

    3. Zachary Quinto played a great Spock in the last movie, and he plays it differently than Nimoy does/did. Quinto has approached it as though Spock understands emotions but just rejects them as beneath him. Again, like Pine's Kirk, it is a perfectly valid way to approach reimagining the character, if it were consistent. But despite seeming to understand emotions and accept some of them in the first movie, in this one he suddenly doesn't understand the meaning of friendship. Furthermore, if it had been done correctly, the emotional scene of Kirk's death and Spock's understanding of friendship would have been really powerful - but these characters (as opposed to the versions in the 1982 movie) have only known each other for about 1 year at this point (2258 in Star Trek (2009) to 2259 here). With these characters just starting to know each other, the emotional connection between them and with us viewers just isn't there to really invest so much in one person's death (which is reversed 5 minutes later). This is a one year friendship ending, not a 20+ one.

    4. McCoy is underserved in that instead of offering a third perspective or a mediating element between the extremes of Kirk and Spock, he is simply there to comment sarcastically on the situation and provide a little comic relief. Uhura does a little more in the role as the mediator between Kirk and Spock, but her one little heroic act with the Klingons of attempting diplomacy over killing people gets undercut by everyone getting shot.

    None of the secondary cast really gets the added screentime and importance that was expected from a sequel that was supposed to build on the first movie. The writers of these movies claimed they had to spend valuable screen time setting up the universe and bringing our characters together, and that in the sequel we would see them operating as a team, finely honed and interworking. But we don't see this.

    Scotty is gone; Checkov is moved out of his normal station immediately and I think only has 1 scene in the rest of the entire movie where he is in the same room as any of the rest of the main cast, and he doesn't even do his temporary job well. Uhura gets the one scene where she has to remind the Captain that she is there to speak Klingon, but fails to do any good. Sulu doesn't really ever get to pilot the ship except in a straight line to Klingon space and back again (total flight time about 10 minutes), and when he gets to step up and be acting captain for a minute McCoy thinks he won’t be able to do the job. Hardly a smoothly working crew.

    Spock and Kirk are the only ones who work together well and that is only because Spock uses his intellect to deduce the most likely course of action - it isn't portrayed that they have worked together enough that they know the way each other work - Spock is just smart enough to figure out what Kirk is doing when Kirk tells no one of his intentions.

    5. More points on Scotty. He really only serves as comic relief; will he ever do any engineering or display command ability? He refuses to sign for the torpedoes because he is worried that they could upset the engine. This is the first sign of this issue. Flying near blackholes, fighting Borg-enhanced Romulan ships or advanced Federation ships, warping into the atmosphere of Titan, camping under water, and flying by a volcano are all fine and dandy for the engine core, but bring a few new torpedoes onboard and it’s going to risk the ship?

    6. Also, Section 31 continues to be so inept (as compared to their first portrayals in DS9): why wouldn’t Section 31 just falsify the torpedo schematics (heck, they would probably be able to set up a scan spoofer to fake the contents on top of that). I know this is a minor nitpick, but it really stood out awkwardly to me that Scotty and Kirk should have this conflict and falling out for a transparently poor reason. In any normal (i.e. non-script-required) scene, Scotty would just have lodged a protest in his official log (as senior staff has done on TNG and DS9 for various reasons). If Scotty felt strongly enough to resign, Kirk probably would not have accepted it due to the crisis mission they were about to embark on - Scotty could resign after. Why was this done this way? Because the script says that Scotty has to resign and get kicked off. It just seemed really contrived.

    Dropped plot threads:

    7. I applaud the screenwriters for trying to include some element of Star Trek ideals (or simply human ideals) in the story with the whole “don’t kill Harrison with a drone from deep space without a trial”, but the rest of the movie just reinforces that action and violence are the ways to go. Uhura fails with the Klingons; Khan and Kirk just shoot, punch, or kick things; the whole movie is about killing, fighting, and destroying (even Scotty kills a security guard who is just doing his duty) until the last scene where Kirk suddenly says “we shouldn’t kill, we should just go explore”. Tell that to the previous 2 hours of movie.

    8. McCoy claims Kirk is not well after the attack on Starfleet Headquarters, scans him on the shuttle up to the Enterprise, and he seems to be a lot more winded/injured on "Kronos" than would result from the fight with the Klingons - but this is all forgotten about and never mentioned again.

    9. Maybe I missed them getting killed, but the two security officers that go with Kirk and crew to "Kronos" get on the shuttle and are never heard from again. Did they die? If so, did Kirk not learn anything from that since in an earlier scene he was proud about never having lost a crewman yet?

    10. Just like in Star Trek 2009, there are elements to this universe that shouldn't have been altered by the change in the time line. [The Kelvin looked like no other TOS ship, uniforms were different, weapons were different, etc.] The Klingons here look and act different. And here, Praxis has already been destroyed in orbit of Kronos, and it is apparently not a recent event. As this event originally occurred when Kirk and crew are 65+, what caused it to happen since the time of the Kelvin’s destruction and how are the Klingons still a threat to the Federation if the destruction of Praxis originally spelled the end of the Klingon's way of life without Federation help? I am guessing this will be told in the next movie, hopefully they have a good explanation.

    11. So Spock Prime vowed never to reveal future information? Except when he gave Scotty and all of Starfleet a magical equation for transwarp beaming that allows people to apparently beam anywhere in the galaxy that they would like. And now he violates that oath again by telling NuSpock all about Khan; except that what he tells NuSpock is all about Khan Prime who is not at all the same Khan as this one; this one is 20+ years younger and hasn't gone through all the trials and tribulations as the old one, fermenting his hatred for Kirk. This Khan, while skilled and strong, isn't "the most deadly threat to the Enterprise" they ever encountered and shouldn’t care at all about Kirk.

    Other Issues:

    12. In the opening scene (which along with the moments with Pike and the monologue of Khan’s about his mission/fate, are the best bits of the movie), Spock goes on and on about not violating the Prime Directive to the point where he is willing to die to do so; yet his entire mission in the volcano violates it, it is just the people on the planet don’t know that he is doing it. It is still a violation and logical Spock would know this.

    13. So the whole, small crew of the USS Vengeance is perfectly accepting that they are going to destroy the flagship of the Federation and all her crew because the Enterprise was trying to stop a preemptive war? I know the Star Trek of JJ Abrams is lightyears from the utopia of The Next Generation but I didn't think it was this far from the coherence of TOS. Sure there was a similar situation in Deep Space Nine where one ship was ordered to fire on the Defiant and destroy it, but that ship was told that the Defiant was crewed by changelings bent on destroying the Federation, not simply another crew with differing social-political perspectives. And during his conversation with Admiral Marcus, Kirk has it broadcast throughout the Enterprise. Why? There are no consequences to this. Not a single crewmember reacts to the head of Starfleet baldly stating he is going to murder some 400+ people and start an interstellar war. Not a single decision is changed or thought expressed differently due to this broadcast. What was the point?

    14. So Section 31, the most efficient and most secret intelligence organization in the galaxy, so secret that only one person from 4 starships and a space station (The Enterprise, Enterprise-D, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise (NX-01)) knew about it (Malcolm Tucker, having worked for Starfleet Intelligence) even had heard about it - this organization managed to build a giant complex underground in the heart of London with no one knowing, but then their giant ship construction yard out in space is so totally unprotected that a lone officer with no information but a set of coordinates wanders into it, gets onboard their megastarship and sabotages it. The one security guard to confront this person, instead of stunning them and taking them to the brig stands around like a doofus listening to a communicator chattering on the floor and does nothing for about 5 whole minutes. Great intelligence agency.

    15. What kind of galactic coordinate system uses four two-digit numbers? Three sets of coordinates could provide position (either via an X-Y-Z orthogonal grid, or a radial system (xxx mark xxx, distance xxx)) but for a whole galaxy you would need more than two digits per set. Since our sun, Jupiter and the space station are all moving, you would also need some information to determine time, cause if you don't you could show up in the orbit of Jupiter just way ahead or way behind it. So maybe the fourth set of digits convey this info, but again I don't see how using just two digits. Maybe Khan plotted the orbital mechanics of the station, Jupiter, and our sun and was able to determine on the fly the current location of the station when he gave the numbers to Kirk. [why the current location? because at the last time he would have had access to a computer where he would be able to access the data, he wouldn't have had a cause to know the specific location of the station at that particular point in the future. He had to have calculated it.] Wouldn't it make more sense just to say "check in the orbit of Jupiter just past Europa" or something like that? But that wouldn't be as mysterious as JJ's mystery box approach requires.

    16. John Harrison was Kahn. When I first heard the rumors that Khan was in this movie, I was disappointed. I held on to the hope that it wasn't true. What is the point of rebooting an entire universe so that you won't be held to the limitations of the old continuity if all you are going to do is rehash the same villains and stories? I had hoped for something new. The director, writers, and cast all said that he wasn't Khan. It was all a big lie, a not very well kept one, and totally counter to the whole premise of the reboot. [With the evidence of superhuman abilities, I was hoping for the rumored Gary Mitchell even though it was an original series element, as it would be a wonderful breath of fresh air and something that could really be taken in new directions.]

    The one element that would have redeemed Khan’s reuse would have been some innovation, some alternative approach to the character, and for a moment I really thought that it might happen. When Khan is telling his story of woe in the brig he is pretty convincing that he is only seeking vengeance against someone who wronged him, Admiral Marcus. All thanks to Benedict Cumberbatch, this monologue comes off as perhaps the strongest single moment in the film; as it is presented, Khan seems like the lesser threat to the Federation, Marcus the greater. I was totally hoping that Khan would convince Kirk that he was fighting the good fight, that they would join forces, defeat Marcus, save Khan's crew, and Khan would then accept punishment for his crimes.

    That would be the best way to use the established characters and plot - Kirk could learn to go against his own emotional reactions, his quest for vengeance to instead pursue the logical, correct, and greater good; Khan would best serve his people as he claimed to want; Kirk and co. would get the eventual trial and prosecution that was due for the events at the beginning of the movie. Kirk could even reject Khan's offer, then suffer his regret moment on the bridge with Admiral Marcus, and then realize that putting aside his vengeance with Khan is the only way. The plot of the movie remains intact and Kirk learns his lesson.

    Instead, the movie went the clichéd route and had not one but both of the villains swear destruction on the Enterprise because hey, why not, they are both just evil guys after all. How about imagining instead of Khan frozen in a cryo-tube at the end, he is stewing in a max security jail cell having been sentenced for his crimes and knowing that his crew is somewhere out there awaiting reawakening.

    17. So much for the vaunted utopia of the future. Even back on the Enterprise NX-01, we learned that Earth is a very nice place: war, poverty, hunger, all wiped out in a couple of generations after first contact with the Vulcans. Now let's look at the earth of Into Darkness: the best scene for this is the dumb chase scene at the end. Khan runs across a pedestrian crosswalk nearly being hit by (hover?) cars. In a world where you have antigravity hospital gurneys, transporters, hoverbikes, shuttlecraft, and super-mega-advanced engineering, you still have pedestrians sharing the same road space as apparently manually driven cars (since the cars Khan runs past have to break and dodge to avoid him it doesn't seem like there is any computer controls in this situation detecting jaywalking pedestrians or managing car timing and breaking - no shielding preventing pedestrians from jaywalking or crossing against the light)?

    Then after running along street level San Francisco, Khan leaps onto a ship lifting off from some heavy industrial pit. It’s all pipes and steam and metal everywhere, like some kind of foundry or chemical plant in the middle of downtown SanFran. And there isn't just one of these ugly, industrial transports but two in close proximity, so they must be shipping a lot of ore around the city center.

    It's just like in Star Trek Nemesis: when the Reman falls down a very deep pit starting from the lowest deck of the ship. The writers just didn't care enough there - they needed the fight scene and fall for their action and they got it. In Into Darkness, they needed a fight over a gritty, industrial landscape so they made it up, screw logic. That is how the rest of the movie goes, the script calls for something illogical because they need an action set piece, so it just happens even though it makes no sense.

    18. A further item, I know it’s just a nitpick but why does the Enterprise has a waste disposal port? (And wouldn’t an airlock have worked just as well for the space jump?) The Federation is into recycling right? They may not yet have replicators, but surely dumping material into space is both a waste of valuable material on long voyages and is an environmentally poor decision.

    19. So the Flagship and the Vengeance have a firefight in space, basically in orbit of earth. Two issues with this, first they were traveling at warp to get from the edge of Klingon space to earth, but they only were at warp for about 5 minutes before they got home. How do I know? Because right after they jump to warp, Kirk is warned that it won't work because Marcus has advanced warp drive and weapons and almost before the warning can be given, the Vengeance attacks and knocks the Enterprise out of warp. So the Enterprise comes crashing out of warp, totally out of control and totally unexpectedly, but despite making no plans or there being any indication that they were nearing earth, they end up only 200,000+ miles from earth. If they had stayed at warp for another second they would have either crashed into earth or blown right past it and had to circle back. Was Sulu flying the ship with his eyes closed?

    So, back to the firefight - the flagship and some other ship are duking it out in orbit of earth and no one comes to the rescue, no other Federation ships attempt to check out the situation. No one even calls up to see what is going on. Sure maybe the Vengeance and Admiral Marcus somehow blocked communications before they left earth (about 10 minutes earlier), but all you have to do is look up in the sky to see the fireworks. What about all the ships that are normally used for Academy training as in the last movie? What about the bulk of the Fleet? After Nero's attack, wouldn't you station some more ships near earth? Additionally, we know that there were at least 5 or 6 or more starships at earth at the start of the movie - all the captains and first officers of the key ships in the sector were at earth for the emergency meeting at Starfleet HQ. Additionally, seeing as how some of those key officers were killed in Khan's attack, it is more than likely they were still hanging around for memorials, getting new command officers, investigating other leads on Khan and the attack, etc. But, I guess not, because they held a space battle and no one showed up.

    20. Where is everyone else? Everywhere is deserted throughout the whole movie. There just isn't anyone anywhere. No one shows up in time to stop Khan's attack on Starfleet HQ except a couple of security redshirts. No one shows up at the Klingon border. Only a couple of small, random patrol craft show up on Kronos - the capital of the entire Klingon Empire. No one shows up to stop Scotty outside the shipyard at Jupiter. Only 1 security officer shows up to stop Scotty in the hanger bay.

    No one communicates to anyone else what is going on, no one asks for help anywhere (unless they need to make a very long distance telephone call to have a chat with Spock on New Vulcan or Scotty in a bar at earth, then there is no problem). Where are the Vulcans, the Andorians, or any of the other species of the Federation? Where is the starbase in orbit of earth? What about the shipyards on Mars, the colony on the Moon? Where is everyone?

    21. What was Marcus's plan exactly? Start a war with the Klingons by getting them to destroy the Flagship of the fleet - yeah, he has one advanced warship that wasn't even done being constructed by the time Scotty showed up, and do you really want to lose your best regular ship before the war has even started?. So does he accept Kirk's offer to fly directly the Kronos to kill Khan and get the war started? No, he has a super complicated plan to get Kirk near Klingon space, have him attack from long range, get stranded and then get destroyed. And how does that work out with sending the guy who never follows orders? First the Enterprise is disabled before they complete their mission, but luckily Kirk manages to violate Klingon space in another manner.

    Why disable the Enterprise before their mission succeeds? Kirk has no incentive at that time to fire the torpedoes - Khan doesn't know he is coming until Sulu sends his asinine message. Why wouldn't he just fix the engine, then fire the torpedoes and not get killed by the Klingons at all?

    So Kirk flys in, destroys three or so D4 patrol ships and crews, and gets out; no Klingon ships follow up on this attack, no one tracks him? The Enterprise is hanging there is space, immobile for a long time and nothing happens. If Kirk had fired the secret, special long range torpedoes, no one would have apparently come then either (they have to be faster and more secret than an old trading ship). Doesn’t this argue that the Klingons aren’t much of a threat when you can fly to their homeworld, destoy multiple patrol aircraft, take people up from the surface, and leave – all at a leisurely pace with a trading ship and with your major starship disabled.

    And why would Kirk fire 72 torpedoes? Wouldn't 1 do it, or 5, or 10, or 25, or 50, or 70? Who in their right mind would fire 72 torpedoes at Kronos to kill one guy? Can Khan survive a multimegaton explosion thus requiring multiple attacks? Wouldn’t one torpedo be less offensive to the Klingons and less dangerous to the Enterprise than 72?

    22. How can you possibly detect and track one man on a planet lightyears away? I guess with new transwarp beaming you can do anything. Why, once Kirk decides to capture Khan do they not use the transwarp equation to grab him from Kronos? (Also, why even fly to Kronos, just beam there from Earth, or heck just beam Khan from Kronos straight to earth using the transporter. Apparently they know where he is the whole time and know that he is alone.) And clearly any regular transporter system can be quickly and easily modified to do the job (as seen in Star Trek 2009). And apparently the equation is simple once you know the trick. It takes Scotty about 2 seconds to understand where previous formulation had been incorrect, so he should know the equation by heart.

    If only they had Scotty on board to help. Oh, right, Scotty isn't on the ship; if only Kirk could call him up and get the equation from him. Oh, that's right, he can. A simple call from the edge of Klingon space to a bar on earth is easily doable. Also, I am sure super genius Chekhov and Spock can make the modifications to the transporter.

    23. So what was Khan's plan? This is the trickiest part. Based on his dialogue with Kirk, he tries to smuggle his crew away from Section 31 by hiding them in the torpedoes. With that amount of access, he could have woken them up or simply taken them away, but instead he goes to all the time and effort of swapping out the internals of 72 super torpedoes and replacing them with cryo-tubes. This has to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard of! When he is discovered, he believes the crew was killed and he is forced to escape. He blows up Section 31 in London (apparently to get the transwarp transporter, and maybe the attack ship from Section 31), then attacks Admiral Marcus and escapes to Kronos (it's Qo'nos, dammit). But he didn't even manage to kill Admiral Marcus! His overriding goal in life. He could have transported into the building and walked right up to him at any time earlier and shot him and them beamed out with his backpack sized transporter, but he didn't. He failed in his mission to kill the one person he most wanted to kill, then he just runs away without a second thought?

    Why does he run to Kronos? Because the Federation cannot go there is the stated answer. How convenient, the one place Admiral Marcus wants to attack. Why didn't he go to Romulus or hundreds of other worlds outside of the Federation that Starfleet can't get to? Why not simply transport to the farthest place reachable so no one comes for you? This all makes it seem like Admiral Marcus was still controlling his actions - that the Admiral wanted the attack on Section 31 and then wanted the attack on himself. But the attack on Section 31 would do damage to his own ability to defeat the Klingons, as would the attack killing himself and the senior commanders for the key ships in earth's sector, so that doesn't make sense either. So either Marcus is a terrible war planner or Khan is a terrible assassin and doesn't care that he failed.

    24. More on Khan. So Kirk orders Khan moved to sickbay? Why? No reason. He tells Marcus that Khan is in engineering. Why? No reason. Khan just sits around in sickbay for a while. What is his goal? Nothing, he just sits there. What is his long term goal? Apparently to sit around until Kirk decides that they need to go on an away mission to the Vengeance which he can take over as it is the only ship that can be manned by a small crew compliment (i.e. Khan). Furthermore, if Khan knew about the Vengeance and that he could crew it, why didn’t he just beam there after the failed assassination, or before the assassination attempt?

    Does Khan have any goal once he gives up to Kirk on Kronos? No, beyond not wanting his crew to be killed via detonated torpedoes, he has no plan. At least not until he gets on a ship he can take over, then he just wants to kill everyone. [It's been a long time since I've seen Space Seed, but Khan's motivation there was to get his people and leave the Federation, to find someplace else for them to live. Only once he knows he and the others will be tried for their past crimes does he try to take over the Enterprise. This Khan should have similar motivation once he has killed Marcus as he doesn't need to seek vengeance against Kirk.] So ultimately the bad guy just sat around with no motivation between his first couple of actions and the end of the movie where his motivation was try to kill everyone – awesome characterization.

    25. Carol Marcus does nothing. She shows up and tells Kirk only things that he gets also from Khan. She doesn't even know as much info as Khan does about the torpedoes, nor are her skills needed to open the torp. McCoy does that; she doesn't know the first thing about them until she scans them. Also, she claims she knows everything about her father's technology developments. This would apparently include Khan and his backstory, because that is the source of the new weapons tech (of course, who doesn’t want a guy who hasn’t seen technology in 300 years to design your new supestarship?). Except if that is true, then she doesn't care about any of that stuff - none of the coercion or hostage holding, none of the secret military ship building, or plotting against the Klingons. She either knows all of this, but doesn't care or she doesn't know anything about anything - I think that is it. So what is she here for again? Oh yeah, to take off her clothes for no reason.

    26. Kirk warns Khan that he is coming. Maybe. Kinda. He apparently has Sulu broadcast some random message directed at a random person in some random province of Kronos. Does Khan have a communications device? Unknown. Will Khan receive the message? Unknown. Will Khan care about the message? Unknown. Isn't giving the fugitive very advanced notice that you are coming to arrest him really stupid? Wouldn't he be able to then hide, get on a ship, transport away, block your sensors, or any of a dozen different things?

    Well, how about why does Kirk order the warning transmission? Does he think Khan will give up? I guess so. Someone who bombed a major Earth city, attacked a Starfleet HQ session killing many people, who then beamed to Kronos to apparently live a life on the run amongst bloodthirsty Klingons - I am sure that person is just going to give up when you say you can possibly, maybe kill him with torpedoes sometime in the future, if he doesn't run away, if he hears you. And what about broadcasting to the whole planet of Klingons that you are about to invade their planet? Is that not a worry?

    And coincidentally, they haven't gotten to Khan yet when they are attacked and forced to land by some Klingons, and somehow despite how large the province should be given that it is agricultural, Khan shows up on foot within about 3 minutes of them landing. I got over Kirk, Spock Prime, and Scotty running into each other on Delta Vega in Star Trek (2009) because it was fate bringing them back together, but fate also decided that Kirk and Khan needed to meet on Kronos?

    Technology in JJ's Star Trek universe.

    27. Kicking the warp core is the way to fix the most complex technology on the whole ship [I loved the look of the new core]. So much for a torpedo somewhere far away in the ship risking the core.

    28. So now the Federation can beam to any location in the galaxy. A single Iconian gateway (which allows the equivalent of transwarp beaming) was cause for the Federation and Romulans to nearly get into a war in Next Gen; similarly hunting down a sect of rogue Jem'Hadar with access to a gateway was so important that the Federation and Dominion teamed up as allies. Now everyone and their brother can do it with a transport unit that fits into a backpack. Also, so now you can beam torpedoes anywhere in the universe that you want. You don’t even need soldiers, just beam the bombs to Kronos and Romulus and take care of all your enemies at no risk.

    This is similar to but worse than Voyager where the writers would come up with a neat technology, but one that would be too powerful in the hands of our heroes because it would get them home too soon. Instead of revising the technology before it is initially presented to reduce its power or coming up with strong story-based reasons why the technology wouldn't or couldn't work, the writers just waived their hands at the last minute and said "oh, but then it broke/got stolen/stopped working". That was the way the crappy writers chose to avoid the whole premise of the series, the reality of the situation, and so that the implications of the technology wouldn't collide and come crashing down around their heads. JJ takes the opposite approach. He doesn't even care that these technologies wreck any continuity or sense of danger and reality - they are cool, so they are used and all consequences are ignored.

    29. The special torpedoes. If Section 31/Admiral Marcus realized Khan was attempting to smuggle the rest of the augments in the torpedoes, why do the torpedoes still work? They are man-sized (and pretty much always have been), yet they can take out 75+% of the internals and they can still fire, fly through space, target people, and explode. So either 75% of the space on a torpedo is wasted space or the torpedoes don’t work and Admiral Marcus knows it.

    30. Getting Khan’s blood. There wasn’t a real need to keep Khan alive. Just capture him or his body and take the blood to Kirk. Or take the blood from one of the 72 other frozen augments. Some people claim there isn’t time for this because Kirk is dying and Bones doesn’t understand the cryo technology well enough to assure a safe thaw of an augment before Kirk dies, but Bones takes at least one augment out of storage and puts that guy in a medical coma so that he can put Kirk in instead, to preserve Kirk’s brain. This should give Bones all the time he needs to figure out how to get blood from another augment. (Plus as a long term gripe about Star Trek medical technology: it has been long established that the Federation has stasis tubes, yet they never use them to “freeze” dying people. Memory Alpha says because the technology requires time to prep/thaw the person, it is unsuitable for saving dying people, but I have never seen any story element that supports this claim. Stasis tubes just aren’t used this way because it would remove the dramatic threat of character death – except via vaporization or total system failure, etc. Yet, 300 year old cryo-tubes are superior in this way and can be used to store dead/dying people for later revival. It seems like the governing condition is the underlying medical cause of death and whether or not we can fix it, not the stasis technology itself.)

    31. Problems with beaming. Conveniently, whenever needed, and inconsistently, people cannot be beamed up or down. Either break the transporters or have them work, but none of this ‘I can’t beam Khan up because he is running but I can bean Uhura onto a fast moving transport ship.’ Also, does no one planet-side have any transporters to grab up Khan? Other ships, starbases? Anyone? Just call them, dammit.

    32. Why the space-jump? You can’t take a shuttle over? Oh, I forgot, you can only use shuttles to unnecessarily drop someone into a volcano using a wire (so they can drop a “cold fusion” device in it) or to do a glory pass on the ship (why not just beam up to the ship?).
     
  2. Belz...

    Belz... Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    That's way too long. I'd address your points but, seriously, I read the first few paragraphs and I'm out of breath already. I'll just answer 32 for now:

    A shuttle would have been detected, presumably.
     
  3. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
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    Im afraid I tuned out 1/4 of the way through that. But I will say, when Kirk makes the ultimate sacrifice to save his crew and fans are going "Not good enough! He hasn't learnt anything!" that the fault is with them and not the movie.
     
  4. CaptainDave1701

    CaptainDave1701 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2008
    "8. McCoy claims Kirk is not well after the attack on Starfleet Headquarters, scans him on the shuttle up to the Enterprise, and he seems to be a lot more winded/injured on "Kronos" than would result from the fight with the Klingons - but this is all forgotten about and never mentioned again."

    I must agree on this point. I whole hardheartedly expected for Kirk to be under some kind of control and when section 31 became involved in the story I thought that a plot would emerge from that. It did not.

    That being said can't we all get just back on the Carol Marcus underwear scene again? :drool:
     
  5. Belz...

    Belz... Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    31. Not new. How many times does that happen in the series ?

    30. Not sure that would work with a dead person, and there's no way to know how much blood they'll need. Seriously, is this a real objection ?

    29-28. Minor.

    27. How do you know it's complex ? It's just the emitter for one part of the plasma, presumably. The damn thing was out of alignment. Didn't you ever have to bend something on your presumably-sophisticated, Quantum Mechanic-operated computer in order to make something work ?

    26. Unaddressed but unimportant.

    25. Untrue. She does plenty.

    24. He didn't want Marcus to find Khan in the brig.

    23. Addressed in the movie.

    22. Unknown. Transwarp beaming isn't exactly the most solid element of these movies. I mean, how did they know where the Enterprise was in '09 to beam back onto it ?

    21. Addressed in the movie.

    20. Standard fare for movies.

    More later.
     
  6. Alex1939

    Alex1939 Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Dec 11, 2008
    Copying this from a comment on RLM review.

    "You totally misunderstood the plot that was all exposed by Cumberbatch.


    Section 31 finds Bottany Bay, wakes Khan and threaten to kill his crew if he doesn't help them design weapons and shit.


    Khan tries to escape with his crew by smuggling them in torpedoes.


    He's discovered and has to flee by himself.


    He assumes that his crew is killed by Marcus as retaliation.


    Goes on a terrorist rampage for revenge and steals a transwarp
    transporter device from Section 31 programmed to beam to
    Kronos because that's how they spy on the Klingons.


    Marcus, totally aware of the torpedioes content sends Kirk to Kill Khan with his own crew and sabotage the Enterprise to start a war with the Klingons.


    Kirk grows a conscience and threatens Khan with the torpedoes to make him surrender instead.


    Khan Realizes that Marcus sent Kirk to kill him with his own
    crew. It's easy to deduce, Marcus would never want him alive, and
    Starfleet would never threaten to fire torpedoes on Kronos and provoke a
    war unless they were untraceable. The only untraceable torpedoes
    Starfleet has have 72 augments in them.


    Khan realises the ship is not moving because Marcus sabotaged it. If he hadn't, Kirk could have killed Khan and is old crew, but would not have started a war with the Klingons because the Enterprise would have left and torpedoes were untraceable.


    Khan surrendered because he had no choice to save his crew and he spills all his beans to Kirk because it's his only chance to survive.


    Khan didn't plan shit in advance he reacted to every situation.


    The only issue is the transporters who only work when it suits the plot.


    Also the movie is a clear criticism of Obama's drone assassination program and Khan is an analogy for the CIA using Jihadist as operatives and it getting blown in their face.


    It's not very profound but at least it's current."


    http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag-star-trek-into-darkness/#disqus_thread



    I'll also add that even if Kirk had fired one torpedo to kill Khan while on Kronos, Admiral Marcus would be there to destroy the Enterprise and all the other torpedos. It was just a convenient way to get rid of all the augments.
     
  7. KittyDuran

    KittyDuran Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Same here I didn't finish ... and my head still hurts. But I'll give the OP props that's some "dissertation"... :eek:
     
  8. gabby_j

    gabby_j Ensign Newbie

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2013
    Let me address some points:

    2. Kirk has learned a lot. He now understands that all of his actions have consequences. Remember he stated that he hadn't lost any of his crew, that definitely changes in the film. He also makes the mistake of working with Khan, which led to other difficulties (ie: his death). He now knows what it means to take responsibility.

    5. Scotty actually has an integral role. He is the one that snuck onto the Vengence and disrupted its weaponry, and he helped Kirk and Khan actually get on the ship.

    Something I agree with you on:

    Carol Marcus

    No matter what anyone says, her most memorable scene was stripping. Everything else probably could have been handled by others. If you think about it, Spock could have probably disarmed the torpedo.
     
  9. Solariabsg25

    Solariabsg25 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jan 23, 2007
    Location:
    Bristol, UK
    Ok here we go:-

    1 There was a lot of character stuff,Spock/Uhura argument, Kirk losing his mentor and father figure and having to grow from that.

    2 Kirk was a rulebreaker in TOS, but in this timeline though, he's been promoted too fast and is too arrogant. Yes in TOS he was almost always proven right, but at this point in the new timeline he hasn't earned that, he's just a hothead who ignores rules that do not apply to him. By the end of the movie, he's more tempered.

    3 Basically, you're saying Spock shouldn't care because he's only had Kirk as his Commanding Officer and friend for a year?

    4 Scotty got more to do this movie rather than being "just gone", Sulu had a period in the spotlight last time, Chekov was still used this time, McCoy has never been the "referee" between Kirk and Spock, so not sure what you were expecting his role to be here.

    5 Scotty is responsible for the safety of the ship, and therefore responsible for the ordnance. he doesn't think it's safe, he doesn't have to accept them, period. Arguing that "Romulan ships" or "being underwater" is the same as "72 great big explosive devices stored inside the ship" are the same is, well, odd.

    6 I guess you missed the whole reason that Carol Marcus was around was that the Section 31 doctored info on the torpedoes did not pass muster? Also, are you assuming that Starfleet Regs means that Scotty is not allowed to resign?

    7 Uhura TRIES and fails, that's the point. They didn't go in all-guns blazing, it was the last resort. I guess it would have been a better sequence if she'd succeeded then Khan just turned up and surrendered.

    8 And the battering that characters have taken in past shows and movies are effectively ignored - nothing new there.

    9 They may have lived or died it isn't clear - but why would the fact that he claimed earlier in the film he hadn't lost a crewmember make a difference to him losing them now? Is he infallible, or did he just not run a memorial service while he was busy with all the other life-threatening events going on? Remember all those end moments when the bridge crew are laughing and joking at the end of TOS? Yeah, a shame the M5 just killed 430 people, but yeah still the joke was funny.

    10 Already been done to death that an exact replica or design of a TOS ship/sets/uniforms would look dated now - it was also never stated anywhere on screen that the wrecked moon was Praxis. Even if it is, has been a new timeline since Kirk's birth, so the Klingons may have overmined the moon earlier.

    11 If McGivers hadn't changed her mind, Kirk and probably most of the bridge crew would be dead, and Khan would have been running around the galaxy in the Federations most powerful ship. Nope, he don't sound dangerous at all!

    12 Prime Directive has never been consistent. I think in this case Spock was ok as long as they weren't actually seen, being able to save the planet without leaving a "footprint".

    13 So, Marcus crewed his ship with loyal members of Section 31, and you're concerned they were going to follow his orders? They wouldn't be on his ship if they weren't going to. As to Kirk transmitting through his ship, he wanted his crew to know the truth of what was going on, if they survived it would be his word against Marcus - having a few hundred witnesses to the conversation would always help!

    14 You can't really argue that Section 31 is incompetent because of one security guard who doesn't do his job. By that token, because the security guards were overwhelmed by some miners on Janus IV, therefore the Enterprise crew are all incompetent.

    15 We don't know what kind of co-ordinate system the Federation uses, it could be sector, grid, subgrid for all we know.

    16 And had Khan acted any other way then in his character (i.e. genetically-engineered superior superman), then this board will be equally filled with rants that they changed Khan.

    17 Wait, you have an issue with traffic management in the future? We have almost never seen ANYTHING about the future transport system, except for the fact that when Kirk was a kid you could still drive internal-combustion cars and when he was an adult he rode a motorcycle. Who's the say the swerving and breaking cars were NOT computer avoidance programs?

    18 Why not? This isn't TNG with the replicators, there may be waste they cannot recycle at this time.

    19 Oh, the old "Why is there no other ship?" argument, that has been done time, and time, and time again. "Only ship in the sector" "You're the only ship in range". Boring, but been the same since forever, will never change. As to the coming out of warp thing, we don't know what kind of effect could have occurred by the Vengeance and Enterprise being in such close proximity, or perhaps Sulu got distracted by all those phaser shots tearing into the ship.

    20 Khan waited for the right moment to attack, the Klingons may be busy with wars/conflict elsewhere, the Vengeance only had a small crew, that was stated onscreen. A small crew means no security patrols on every single deck.

    21 Kirk has no incentive to fire the torpedoes? Those were his orders from Marcus! He wasn't supposed to try to get Khan back, he was supposed to launch all the torps. Why 72? Because THOSE WERE HIS ORDERS. Marcus expected him to carry the orders out, then be stranded by the sabotaged engines to be destroyed by the Klingons. As to why have the Enterprise destroyed, it was precisely BECAUSE it was the Federation flagshhip, to cause more outrage at home.

    22 It could be just as possible that transport beaming TO a location is fine, but transwarp beaming FROM a location isn't. As to contacting Scotty, well I can phone someone on the other side of the world with my mobile phone, and I don't have a 23rd-Centruy starship to boost the signal.

    23 We don't know exactly what Khan's plan was, but at the meeting he wasn't planning on killing just Marcus, he was planning on killing every single high-ranking starfleet officer that could have been used to pursue him. He may have had some plan on Kronos, but that was changed when he was informed that the Enterprise was about to fire 72 torpedoes at him.

    24 Marcus would assume that Khan was in the brig, so if he decided to try and get him that's where he would be. Kirk then lied saying Khan was in engineering, to give Marcus two places to look. Misdirection, plain and simple, what's the problem? As to Space Seed, Khan had absolutely every intention of taking over the Enterprise the moment he gained consciousness - he was already studying everything he could about the ship before he knew his identity was discovered.

    25 And exactly what would have happened had Carol Marcus been off the ship? Oh yeah, they would not have opened the torpedoes, and Admiral Marcus would have trashed the Enterprise without a 2nd thought. I'm glad she wasn't important.

    26 Distraction AGAIN (or did you miss the Captain Chekov sequence in Star Trek V?). Kirk knew that Khan would assume someone was after them, so tried to indicate the Enterprise was just going to wait for him to surrender before attacking.

    27 It wasn't fixing, it was re-aligning something that had become loose, something that may have required engineering crews with heavy tools to move.

    28 We've only seen transwarp beaming send two people at once. Bit difficult to launch an invasion like that. As said earlier, we also don't know if beaming back via transwarp beaming works, so if things go wrong, you can't get your troops home.

    29 They'll fly and target, but the warhead isn't very powerful. As he's only intending to killl the occupents anyway, that doesn't matter much.

    30 And McCoy knows the blood of just any augment will work exactly the same as Khan's blood how???

    31 Can't lock onto a constantly moving and weaving Khan, but can onto a transport that's moving in a straight line at a steady speed. Can't see a problem with that. And then if you got planetside transporters trying to lock onto Khan you got the same problem (weaving, running) except of course the added line-of-sight issue. As to calling someone, a big freaking starship just crashed into San Francisco, I'm pretty sure there'd be a few busy lines.
     
  10. DaleC76

    DaleC76 Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2003
    Location:
    The State of Alabama
    You make some valid points, but are also nitpicking things. Of course, I would have preferred some issues to have been addressed differently or a couple of changes in dialogue, but those are pretty minor flaws.

    I hate it when people dismiss flaws in a film by saying "the other films/series had them too", but sadly, it's the truth. "Hollywood" is not going to get everything right, and there will always be things we as fans have to, if not accept, then overlook.

    I loved the movie despite its flaws, although I agree they were there.
     
  11. Ometiklan

    Ometiklan Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Jul 14, 2003
    Location:
    Silver Spring, MD
    Thanks for all the feedback. I appreciate the thoughts. Since I asked people to read and respond to a massive bit of text, I will do my best to respond to everyone.

    Belz: for #32, I was under the impression that the Vengeance was totally powered down and rebooting. I don't think they could detect anything at that moment.

    For your other comments, mostly the ones that say "addressed in the movie" I don't see it. When I ask what is Marcus' plan or what is Khan's plan, I am not asking "what is it stated as in the movie?" but "given what is shown on screen, does the stated plan make any sense?" and I tried to include arguments based on on-screen evidence that they don't.

    30: on stasis tubes: no, it is not a real objection. I understand they want to avoid overuse of stasis because it removes tension and stakes, but I still do object to not even attempting to use one of the other augment's blood. They are just sitting there, ready to donate blood.

    29: minor, agreed, but just a question.

    28: maybe a minor quibble, but a logical extension of the technology JJ/Orci/et all have included. They don't carefully consider the implications of the technologies they introduce.

    27: maybe you are being sarcastic, but this isn't a door he is realigning.

    26: I think it is sloppy plotting, and significantly messes with their ability to capture Khan or avoid Klingons.

    25: name one thing that wouldn't have been accomplished without her there? Khan had all the same torpedo info, and more info about the Vengeance and Section 31. She didn't even stop Marcus from attacking the ship, for more than 5 seconds anyway.

    24: yeah, but did Marcus make any attempt to find Khan? Didn't he just want to blow up the whole ship killing everyone on board anyway?

    22: yeah, not too important overall. I just wonder when they invent all this very capable technology, they then do not use it at all when it could be used.

    20: sure its standard fare. They do it in Best of Both Worlds when the Borg cube and the Enterprise are in orbit of earth, but at least then 39 starships died trying to prevent the Borg from getting there. In this movie, no one even tries to talk to or from Starfleet or any other installation anywhere in the solar system.


    King Daniel: Yeah, Kirk made the ultimate sacrifice. But did something he experienced in the movie change him so that he would do this now, but he wouldn't have before? That is what I am trying to get at. Did Kirk learn? I think the movie, says "yes, he did. Look, he is now willing to possibly die if needed." I just don't see the evidence in his experiences that he did something or learned something that made him change his mind. Maybe you see more in the actions in the movie than I do.


    Alex: as above, in reply to Belz, I am not asking what his plan was, but rather does it make any sense given what is then portrayed on screen?


    Gabby J: good point on Kirk learning actions have consequences. I can see that he could learn that in the situation. I don't think he learns not to work with Khan as he already seemed to know that going in (given his dialogue with Scotty). As for Scotty's role in the movie, did he do anything that was Scotty like? Was anything he did based on his skills or experience or personality? My position is no, that his actions could have been carried out by anyone. I guess you can argue that maybe only Scotty would have enough knowledge to disable the Vengeance in that way...that could be a good point.


    solariabsg25: I appreciate the big, thoughtful reply.

    1: Yeah, I agree, those moments were there, but they were so quick. There was no time to savor them, there was no call back to any of those moments, no resolution for them beyond the moment. I just have a problem with the pacing being so fast and action being so primary, that everything else only gets lip service.

    2: as above, I can agree that Kirk is tempered. I just don't think his experiences in this movie show him being tempered. Stuff happens, he makes bad decisions, but in the end he has supposedly reformed. I just don't see it as much as others do apparently. I think it is probably a little bit that I just don't like the rest of the movie so just don't see Kirk's moments as very teachable ones.

    3. No, I am saying the big, heroic sacrifice between major friends doesn't pull the heartstrings as much if one realizes these guys only knew each other for 1 year as opposed to a lifetime of friendship. Yeah, I thought it was a touching moment, but it just comes too soon in the lives of these versions of these characters; it just doesn't mean much as it did with the old ones. I think this kind of sacrifice plays better with more history and age. It just means more.

    4. Chekov did nothing in this one except not find the engine trouble for a long time, not fix it for a long time, and push a button at the end only to find it didn't work.

    5. agreed, being underwater, and flying near volcanos are minor compared to major combat with Romulan ships and flying near blackholes. But my point is that it strains credulity that these other events are fine, but some new torpedoes are not.

    6. I still think Carol effectively did nothing. Scotty can resign, and Kirk can choose to accept or not accept it. I just didn't think that they reasoning for the resignation and acceptance was very plausible or justified by the situation. From the very moment it started, I found it completely ridiculous. I agree that this is just my opinion on it, but it was awkwardly shoehorned in.

    7. Yeah, she makes the attempt, which is good. I guess it seems a little hollow for Star Trek that she was making no headway. More to the point, I just don' t think Uhura got much to do.

    9. But if the point is that Kirk is reckless and will get people killed, but Kirk sees himself as infallible (not that I am claiming he is), then the first time that he (maybe) loses crewmen under his command should be important. Isn't that why Kirk felt remorse at the end, cause he realized that people were going to die because of him?

    10. I agree that TOS-style ships would look dated, but isn't that the point of making this alternate universe offshoot? Make the only pre-change ship we see in the old style (but make it with a more modern production value, etc.) and therefore further emphasize the effect that Nero's incursion makes in the timeline.

    11. He was dangerous, just like a lot of TOS adversaries. He just wasn't THE threat until Star Trek II.

    12. Yeah, the Prime Directive is not consistent. Not between TOS and TNG or even within TOS. I guess I would need to see the movie again to determine if Spock was really arguing against effect or appearance. I currently think he was arguing against being seen but for the purpose of preventing changes to a foreign culture - but saving them is still a change. I would personally argue that saving a culture from destruction is more important that not influencing them in any way; but then you get into the issue of which/how many cultures do you save, what constitutes savings, etc., which is why the Prime Directive becomes more rigid in TNG.

    13. Good point about Kirk's broadcast to the crew. I forgot that he hadn't yet determined that they were all going to die. As for the Vengeance crew, I can see staffing it with loyal Section 31 members, but none of them balk at murdering 400+ people for no real reason?

    14. Got to include the total lack of security at the Jupiter shipyard and everywhere on board leading up to the confrontation with Scotty in the bay.

    16. I am not arguing for him to act unlike Khan, just not like a boring, maniacal madman. Give a little nuance to the character. He wants to save his crew, that is a good motivation for cooperating with Kirk for a little while. Then again, I guess you could say that he was going to do that, until Kirk has Scotty stun him on the bridge. Maybe at that point Khan decided Kirk and crew should be killed instead. I guess I would have to see the movie again to determine if there was any hint that Khan meant to keep up his end of the bargain before Kirk betrayed him.

    17. I am saying that JJ and crew didn't give a lot of thought to what San Fran would look like in the future Federation. They just threw in cars, industrial landscapes, etc. whatever they wanted to fill the space. I know it is a minor nitpick. (I almost included the fact that has bugged me ever since Star Trek IV that there is easily breakable glass everywhere - shouldn't they be using something transparent and durable like transparent aluminum? But that is always an issue even into Next Gen. So Khan shouldn't have been able to plow through that glass pane.)

    18. I pointed out they may not have replicators, but dumping valuable processes material into space isn't energy conservative or environmentally friendly.

    21. Kirk had no incentive to fire the torpedoes while his engine was broken. He would have fixed it, then fired the missiles. And, unless I missed it, at no point did Marcus order Kirk to fire 72 missiles at Kronos. Kirk was ordered to kill Khan with the missiles, not that all should be used. Plus it would be stupid to fire them all in one go. What if you missed or Khan got away? I just don't see any plausible scenario where Kirk would fire all 72.

    22. Fine, we don't know the details of transwarp beaming, but they don't ever indicate that it acts differently than other transporters except in terms of range. I was just taking the technology as it was presented in the movie. And I wasn't arguing about whether or not Kirk can make the call, just that since it was possible, Kirk should have been able to call Scotty and get the equation if he wanted.

    23. But I think we can all agree that his primary goals would have been (in this order), kill Marcus, harm Section 31, harm Starfleet. He may have achieved the Section 31 goal in the bombing, and harming Starfleet in the assassination attack, but he certainly didn't kill Marcus. A man he was so intent on killing later that he crushed his head, even after he knew that his crew wasn't dead. I was never concerned about Khan's plans on Kronos, just that he didn't seem to have coherent plans either on Earth or on the Enterprise.

    24. I guess you are right in that Kirk was operating under the assumption that Marcus just wanted to take Khan away and kill him. Giving him misdirection at that point was still reasonable. Good point. And like I said, I haven't seen Space Seed in a while, but I thought that his motivation was once he found out the power of the ship to try to take it over not the other way around.

    25. They still would have opened the torpedoes because of what Khan told them about it, or would easily have. And Carol only stopped the attack for about 5 seconds. My point was that if she was removed from the movie, other than having something pretty to look at, no other plot points would have to have changed.

    26. I just don't see it. How does telling Khan the Enterprise is coming help in any way?. Yeah, Khan may have assumed someone was coming, but you are now confirming when and how. Also, Sulu tells Khan to surrender to the landing party or he will fire, so much for distracting Khan from Kirk's secret landing party capture maneuver.

    27. Still don't buy it. Realigning this massive piece of complex equipment by kicking it, just wacky. It just goes back to the "if you can't figure it out, just have a character punch something" approach. Not totally out of character for Kirk, sometimes, but I found it totally ridiculous in fixing the warp core.

    28. "so just beam the bombs to Kronos"

    29. Yeah, it's a minor quibble, but you had to have taken something out of the torpedo. I guess Khan just replaced the normal warheads with less powerful ones or Marcus did after he found out what Khan did. Or they have less fuel than they used to, or something. Maybe. I just think it is silly that torpedoes with people inside was both Khan's plan for the smuggling, and Marcus' plan for getting rid of the bodies. There have to be dozens of better, more logical, more plausible ways to achieve either goal.

    30. I don't know how McCoy knows that Khan's human blood will have any effect on a dead Tribble, but he tries it. I guess I am just thinking that McCoy might think to look toward the 72 potential sources of superblood sitting in his ship at the same time at least that they go after Khan. Not a big point, but a point none-the-less.

    31. Yeah, I guess you can argue that the fast moving transport is an easier target than a running man if the transport moves straight and doesn't accelerate, but the transporter troubles were just conveniently and inconsistently applied. Targeting the transport is ok, Khan running is not, Kirk and Sulu falling is ok, Amanda starting to fall is not, Carol starting to run is fine, transporting to the surface of Kronos 10's of lightyears away is fine, transporting to the Enterprise moving at warp is fine...


    Thanks again everyone for the discussion.
     
  12. Belz...

    Belz... Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    May 19, 2013
    Location:
    In a finely-crafted cosmos... of my own making.
    Well, they do have big windows, and it would presumably be much harder to sneak a shuttle onboard.

    Well, sorry, but if it's stated in the movie, you don't need to look anywhere else.

    We can't be sure any of the Augments except Khan has that feature.

    Fiction rarely does, unfortunately.

    I'm perfectly serious. Physical things get bent all the time. How would you have realigned it ?

    Name one thing that wouldn't have been accomplished without ANY of the characters, save Spock, Kirk, Scotty and Marcus ? You could literally have three people on the Enterprise and everything would have happened the same way.

    Maybe despite what he claimed, he might have just taken Khan back if Kirk was clueless as to his real identity.

    He didn't have a third option, and he realised that.
     
  13. T'Ryl

    T'Ryl Ensign Newbie

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2013
    Agreed...that entire strip scene did nothing for me but to upset me, and not because of the stripping.

    I get Christine Chapel was not a very well liked character, heck, Majel didn't even like her. But one thing the Chapel I watched for years never would have done was jump ship because things went south with her love life or plans. She confessed to Spock she loved him, even while engaged to Roger Korby. Spent the next 3 years clearly hung up on the Vulcan. So I find it hard to believe that she would have left, just like that. Now, Carol assumes Kirk has no clue who she is talking about but the look on his face, when she is not looking says otherwise. I like to think, perhaps, Roger as out in that frontier and for once the girl walked away from Kirk.
     
  14. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 2, 2009
    Wow, I don't even have the time to read all of this. Let alone write it.

    The plot sounds pretty convoluted to me. They wanted to make something dark and dense and special, but it turned out to be just contrived and unneccessary.
     
  15. Solariabsg25

    Solariabsg25 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jan 23, 2007
    Location:
    Bristol, UK
    Hey, it's great to have discussions - I'm sorry you were disappointed with the movie, but if we all liked the same things be a boring world wouldn't it?

    Going back to point 16 - I think Khan really had no plan at all to keep any bargain with Kirk, he was simply going along with my "oh, woe is me" sob story until it was time to act. I suspect his superior intellect allowed him to realise he hadn't completely swayed Kirk to his side, so he was ready for Kirk's move.

    The fact that, thanks to Admiral Marcus, Khan was actually the aggrieved party helped his story along, but as to his turning at the end, I think that Khan really couldn't be anything else. He was conditioned during the Eugenics War, whether by his own desires or by design, to rule.

    Khan in this movie is one of the best villains in Trek as he isn't a maniacal madman, he is at all points, up until he believes his comrades have actually been killed, in complete and total control. His manipulation of Kirk from the moment they have their discussion in the brig is testimony to this. And this harks back to his appearance in Space Seed, rather than TWOK when his brilliance is clouded by the losses he suffered over the years and his rage and thirst for vengeance.
     
  16. KittyDuran

    KittyDuran Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2009
    Location:
    Hungry (like the wolf)
    Nero changed all of that... :)
     
  17. Cinema Geekly

    Cinema Geekly Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2012
    I didn't find the movie the least bit complicated or convoluted. I mean I followed it as it was happening and it all made sense on the surface. That is what a good story does. Real life stories are usually flawlessly told, but they are also boring 99% of the time, that is why we enjoy the fake stuff.

    Take any good or even great movie or TV show and look at it with a critical eye and you are going to poke giant holes in any story.

    Star Trek itself is absolutely riddled with plot holes, inconsistent history, and bad science. I mean I guess its fun to discuss them from time to time because there is literally nothing else do with such big gaps between productions but I'd rather see someone not complain about a Star Trek movie for doing things done in other incarnations of Star Trek on a regular basis while still talking about how great those movies are.

    I would say a criticism of acting and pace, and cgi is fine. But more often than not I am seeing a ton of complaints about things other Trek's have been doing for 50 years.
     
  18. Flake

    Flake Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Dec 23, 2001
    Location:
    Manchester, UK
    Jesus H Christ!

    I had my issues with this movie and I have posted about them however I will get over it when my TNG-era brain wiring self-destructs....

    But I do wonder how you have watched Star Trek all these years and not noticed that 97% of episodes have similar plot holes and inconsistencies. I do admit that STID is one of the worst offenders but there is a good movie buried in there - you just need to brush aside some Trekkie junk in your brain to see it.
     
  19. Belz...

    Belz... Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    May 19, 2013
    Location:
    In a finely-crafted cosmos... of my own making.
    Wait, you didn't even watch it ?
     
  20. Hober Mallow

    Hober Mallow Commodore Commodore

    But the thing is... we don't have to overlook or accept them.